What does math have to do with scripture?

On this first day of the new year, I went to www.biblegateway.com, chose the Old/New Testament reading plan (as I have for the last few years) and read through Genesis 1-3 and Matthew 1.  I have been asking the Lord recently to let my daily Bible readings this year be the inspiration for my new blog, Math in Scripture.  You see, I love teaching math, and I find myself this spring not returning to the classroom.  Since I feel the "need" to impart mathematical knowledge and/or insight to others, I have come upon this idea of a blog allowing me to do just that.

There actually were three other events contributing to the development of this idea.  Within two days of my resignation, a colleague suggested I consider writing Christian math curriculum materials integrating scripturally based math problems into examples and assignments and the following weekend, a relative on Facebook told me she didn't know what I did for a living, but I should be a writer. (Please take that with a grain of salt.) The third factor actually happened several years ago when another colleague attended a chapel service at our school the day I made a presentation.  He asked if I had the presentation videotaped so that he, and other homeschooling parents, could use it.

So, what is the purpose of this blog?  What is my mission?  I desire to read the Bible through this year letting God speak to me through His Word, but to see more mathematically than I have seen before.  I want to see if what God gives me can be used by other believers, and if so, hear their questions, comments, insight, and suggestions.

So, I will finally get to my mathematical thoughts for today. 

Genesis 1-3 is the account of creation.  We are told in Colossians 1:16-17, "for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."  This means that when God created "all things," that included the mathematical laws that exist.

At Christmas each year, we watch "The Star of Bethlehem" by Frederick A. Larson. (www.bethlehemstar.net)  We are amazed, over and over again.  An excerpt from Isaiah 46:9-10 says, "for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done."  There is a simple phrase in Genesis 1:16 saying that while God was performing His creative acts on the fourth day, "he made the stars also."  Just think, while God was making "the stars also," He already knew exactly when His Son, the Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world, would be born in Bethlehem.  And He knew, He PLANNED, exactly how to mathematically arrange the heavens, so that the magi would see His star in the east and come to see the King.  We find in Galatians 4:5, "But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law."  Marking the stars was NOT just an afterthought.

This adds a whole new meaning to one very familiar passage in Jeremiah 29:11.  "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  Just ponder a few moments about His plan to give us a future and a hope; now consider what Jeremiah 18:12 says about our plans.  " We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart."  Quite a difference, huh?  

When a student of mathematics, whether through love of the subject or the necessity of schooling, approaches the subject, it would profit that student to also realize that EVERYTHING God created is designed to declare the glory of God - even mathematics!!!  (The next time you read through Psalm 19, you might consider reading and contemplating the psalm in light of this post.)

Galileo Galilei is credited with saying, "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe."  So, as I take this journey this year, and I examine the world we live in, the one God planned and created, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." Psalm 19:14