We learn almost everything in two ways. Our senses tell us about the world around us and we think about what our senses tell us. Now we can extend our senses with technology, sensing things we cannot see or hear, and we can extend our thinking using computers. But the harder we look, and the better we get at analyzing and thinking, the questions grow faster than the answers.

For example, we can look into a night sky and see far too many stars to count. We can see more in the winter, when there is less humidity. We can see more when there is no light pollution. We can see even more from a high mountain out west, where it is really dry and clear. The stronger the telescope, the more stars we see. The best telescopes are in space. They have no atmosphere, no light pollution.

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This past week, our landscaper, Kevin, and his crew began to restore the plants that had been killed by our recent freezes, and trim back the burned portions of the ones that survived. Kevin does beautiful work. I wonder if he realizes how biblical it is! Adam and Eve’s initial job description is to till the land in the garden of Eden and keep it, just like Kevin.

Being created in the image of God means Adam and Eve are capable of seeing things as they are, imagine how they ought to be and then bring that vision into reality. A garden isn’t just nature. It’s nature tended with purpose, shaping nature, improving upon it.

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In the Bible, most often we see God’s Word shared through patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or prophets like Elijah and Isaiah, or through the authors of the Psalms, Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. We note their authority in our service when we say, “The word of the Lord...Thanks be to God.” The witness is usually brought to us through divine inspiration: inspired human witness, inspired human writing, inspired choice of which writings to include, and inspired human translation.

Along with divine inspiration, we recognize its truth because it has also stood the test of time. God’s Word holds up. It applies today, to our own times and circumstances, thousands of years later, as it did for the writers in their own time.

But the way God spoke to Moses and Israel in this morning’s passage from Exodus is not that. Everything about this witness and the larger story from which we’ve nipped out these seven verses, is a whole other thing.

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