Eight Days a Week
Eight days a week.
The Beetles were well known for their “Eight Days a Week.” But eight days is also a strategic number when it comes to the redemptive story of the Bible. Don’t get me wrong. This is not about “numerology.” Let me explain. The Bible is sewn together into one redemptive story with a number of unifying threads[1] (a canonical approach). All of these unifying threads (themes) are contained in Genesis 1-11. Thus, Genesis 1-11 constitutes the foundation for understanding all of Genesis, all of the Torah (the Pentateuch), and all of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament). By careful observation of the biblical text, we can track these unifying themes all through the Scripture.
And that’s not all. Those very same unifying threads (from Genesis 1-11) are also used by the writers of the New Testament to weave God’s redemptive story into a glorious conclusion. If you’ve taken Inductive Bible Study, you can more readily spot these cohesive threads.
How about one example. I’ve counted at least ten (10) of those same unifying threads in Luke’s version of the so called “transfiguration of Jesus” (Luke 9:28-36). It’s a mother lode of threads all coming together. Luke skillfully weaved at least ten major unifying themes from Genesis 1-11 into one of the most dramatic and encouraging messages in the entirety of the New Testament. It’s nothing but explosive and socked with hope.
The first unifying thread of the story is placed right at the front door: “Now it happened that about EIGHT DAYS after Jesus said these words…” (Luke 9:28). That’s a major clue, a unifying thread from Genesis 1-11, that something huge in God’s redemptive plan is fast approaching.
Thank you for reading.
[1] Some of those unifying threads which are repeated again and again are trees and variations of the same, water barriers, seed, hostility, serpent, mountains and variations of the same, curse, bless, priest, rule, dominion, king and queen, precious stones, light, numbers (1,2,3…), marriage, seeing, good, temple, eating and variations of the same, etc. The problem in tracking these themes sometimes is that our English Bibles hide these words with more modern terms.