This Sunday we honored our teacher, Dr. Wellum on the occasion of his Birthday. The following poem was composed and recited by our very own Travis Abraham to the beat of “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus.

You can see the candles, the eighty billion candles
And you can feel the heat from far away
And you can see the hair, that slighty graying hair
He might be headin’ towards a new toupee
 
Now we could ask Ms. Karen to tell us all his age
I’m sure that it would give her quite the thrill
But we can’t count that high, no one can count that high
All we know is that he’s over the hill
 
So don’t tell the class, the Wellum’s Couples Class
How old Dr. Wellum really is
Cuz if you tell the class, the Wellum’s Couples Class
We might laugh like a bunch of little kids.
 
Allright, he’s not that old, he’s really not that old
But of course we had to razz him just a tad
The truth is that he’s awesome, its in the Word he blossoms
And he’s top-notch as a husband and a dad
 
His family is crazy, sons run track and aren’t lazy
The daughters draw nice pictures on the board
His wife, she is a hostess, a hostess with the mostest
Dr. Wellum leads his family in the Lord
 
An example to class, the Wellum’s Couples Class
Is the life of Dr. Wellum, wife and kids
We’d all do well to follow the example of this fam,
Enjoy life, love God, and pass on the Gift.

“See What A Morning” (Resurrection Hymn) by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, “Christ is risen!”

See God’s salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

See Mary weeping, “Where is He laid?”
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It’s the Master, the Lord raised to life again!

The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow’r and authority!

And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s exposition of Genesis 12 from Sunday March 16, 2008.

In Noah, God preserved the human race; however, the idolatry of Babel would lead to the confusion of languages and the creation of many nations.  In Abraham, God plucks out one man from the now dispersed human race and purposes through him a means of blessing to all the nations.  Abraham is called by God to leave his idolatrous kindred and his homeland and go to the land which God would reveal to him (12:1).  It is here in the context of this calling that God first reveals his covenant with Abraham and assures him of his plans to make him a great nation, bless him, and make his name great that he might be a blessing to all the nations (12:2). 

This Abrahamic Covenant, initiated here in chapter 12, is picked up three more times throughout the course of Genesis.  Chapter 15 speaks of the inauguration of this covenant between God and Abraham where Abraham envisions a fiery torch passing through the pieces of the animals, signifying that it is God alone who will sustain the covenant.   In chapter 17, circumcision is established as the sign of the covenant between God and his people.  And finally, in chapter 22, Abraham is tested and found faithful, resulting in God’s recollection of the covenant, “‘And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.’”   

There is clear tension between the unconditional nature of the covenant’s inauguration in chapter 15 and its depiction as being based on Abraham’s obedience in chapter 22.  Is the covenant carried out on the basis of God’s faithfulness alone, or is the covenant’s future subject to the level of obedience of those who find themselves within it?  Abraham, together with the rest of Israel’s most faithful, though they will have much success within the covenant, ultimately will fall short of God’s standard for obedience.  Clearly, then, the only hope for God’s promise to Abraham is that it is sustained and upheld by God alone.   However, the need for obedience still remains.  How then will God justly keep his word? 

The pattern of disobedience will remain unbroken until the arrival of the one man, Jesus Christ, who will obey on behalf of all those who find their faith in him.   In Jesus Christ, God passes through the animal pieces and upholds his covenant with Abraham.  Only those who find themselves united with this perfectly obedient son will receive the blessings promised to Abraham.
 
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (1 Cor 1:20).

Audio from this week’s lesson: Genesis 12.

~TDG

Abby Basore and Aaron Wilson got hitched this past Saturday evening. After months of planning and much blood, sweat and tears, their big day finally came. The ceremony was held at Melbourne Heights Baptist church on Taylorsville Blvd. Aaron looked like a stud in his rented tux and Abby was gorgeous in her dress on their big day. Blake Ring was the pastor that presided over the ceremony, and he did a wonderful job. Following the ceremony, the reception was held at the Nunnlea House on Hurstbourne Rd. Here we had some supper, drank some punch, had some cake, and danced a little (but do not tell anyone).

In all seriousness, the whole event was very beautiful. A few hundred people got to witness the joining of these two lives at a very elegant ceremony. A ceremony that perfectly illustrates and paints us a live picture of the joining of Jesus and the church.

I wish all of the best for Abby and Aaron as they finish up their honeymoon in Boston. We should all pray for them as they start this life together. They have been visiting Dr. Wellum’s class for several weeks. Please welcome them into the class.

~Kevin Yates

This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s exposition of Genesis 9:9-9:29 from Sunday March 2, 2008.

This passage tells the story of a righteous man—Noah—who walked with God (6:9) in a perverse generation (6:1-7); who was delivered from divine judgment (7:1-8:12); and who was then commissioned, like Adam before him, to take dominion over the now fallen creation (8:13-9:7).

The first episode of the story reveals the extent and intensity with which the sin of Adam had become the sin of the majority of mankind: “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5, emphasis added). God’s pre-Fall, good and structured universe had become so distorted that even the “sons of God” (probably angels) had exceeded the boundaries of God’s structure, taking wives for themselves from “the daughters of men” (v. 2). Because of the state of His creation, the Lord determined to judge His creatures: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals” (v. 7).

But, as is the case throughout the storyline of the Bible, God remembers mercy when He judges, and devises a plan in which a remnant of mankind and other of God’s creatures will be saved and in which man will be commissioned once again to rule creation as Adam was intended to do. In this instance, God’s judgment included devastating amounts of water (from both “the fountains of the deep” and “the floodgates of the sky” [7:11]), and God’s plan included the building of a large ark that served to preserve the remnant.

After the flood subsides, God covenants with Noah, stating, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man…and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done” (8:21). The Lord then commissions Noah, in a way reminiscent of Genesis 1:28-30, to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (9:1); also stating that all animals and plants are given “into your hand” (v. 2). By the end of chapter nine, however, one finds that Noah has not ruled well. In fact, he has allowed the fruit of the vine—one of the plants over which he was to have dominion—to rule over him instead (i.e., he got drunk).

As righteous as Noah might have been, he was definitely not the promised seed of Eve (Gen. 3:15) who would crush the head of the serpent, reverse the curse of sin, and rule properly over God’s created order. But while this particular story does not end well, it does serve—through God’s preservation of Noah’s family—to keep the larger story of God’s redemptive purposes going. In addition to this, a pattern is established in these chapters that will appear later on in the larger story of the Bible—a pattern in which people will once again be saved through a baptism of water; “not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).

Audio from this week’s lesson: Genesis 6:9-9:29.

~DGG