Happenstance or Divine Plan?

In the begining God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, let there be light:
and there was light.

These are the first three verses from the KJV (1769).
Select any of the 10 words in the first verse: "In the begining God created the heaven and the earth".

Count the number of letters in the chosen word.

Starting with your word, jump ahead the number of letters in the word.

Count the letters in the word you landed upon. Jump ahead the nember of letters in that word. Keep dong this until you reach the third verse.

What word do you land on?

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue](For example) [/COLOR]
Pick the word "earth" (5 letters).
Jump ahead five words and count the number of letters in the word, "without" (7 letters).
Jump ahead seven words to the next word, "upon".
Count the letters, (4), jump ahead to the next word, "the".
Continue until you reach verse three.
[SIZE=4][COLOR=Black]
Is this by Happenstance or Divine Plan?[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[COLOR=Black]Rob[/COLOR]

 

Happenstance or Divine Plan - Answer

The right answer is always "God" ... even a three year old knows that!

It works with the KJV and the NAS,
(can we therefore presume they are inspired?)

It fails in the NKJV and the NIV...need I say more!

So...
Happenstance or Divine plan?

A little of both.

God in his infinite wisdom created the imutable laws of mathematics.

This trick follows a principle known as Kruskal's Count.
"When the total number of letters in a text is significantly greater than the number of letters in the longest word, it is likely that any two arbitrarily started word chains will intersect at a key word."
....divine plan!

But happenstance, that it happens to be the word, "God".

Some rather amazing card tricks are based upon this mathematical principle.

http://oldweb.cecm.sfu.ca/cgi-bin/organics/carddemo.pl

Rob

 

Happenstance...

Ranson poor one :flower:, let me walk you through this. :tongue3:

You picked "In" (two letters).
Starting with "In" move two words, reaching the word "the" (three letters).

From "the" move three words, reaching the word "created" (seven letters).

From "created" move seven words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "without" (seven letters).

Move seven letters to the word "upon" (four letters).

Move four words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "God" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "GOD" raise:
This is word you land on in verse three of Genesis 1, so by the rules we stop here.:thumbs:

Should work with any word in the first verse.

Rob

 

Happenstance...

My point?

In this evenings Bible study group we were going over a passage in 1 Chronicles 21 and comparing it to the parallel passage in 2 Samuel 24.

Of interest was the phrase, 'the LORD was sorry or He repented' (vs15).
I thought (correctly) that it might lead into a discussion on free will vs. predestination.

So, before we started... as an ice breaker, I introduced this simple game/trick.

You see, no matter how we think we can change God or alter circumstances, God always is in control and knows the outcome. :thumbs:

Rob

 

I disagree but am willing to concede the point.
Let's follow it through.

You picked "In" (two letters).
Starting with "In" move two words, reaching the word "begining" (eight letters).

From "begining" move eight words, reaching the word "And" (three letters).

From "And" move three words to the word "was" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "and" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "darkness" (seven letters).

Move seven words to the word "deep" (four letters).

Move four words to the word "of" (two letters).

Move two words to the word "moved" (five letters).

Move five words to the word "the" (three letters).

Move three words to the word "GOD" raise:raise:
And... this again is the first word you land on in verse three of Genesis 1, so by the rules we stop here.:thumbsup:

Love your quote, "Though this is madness, yet there is method in't."

Rob