You may be uncomfortable with the idea that God uses a section of the firmament as a movable platform like a giant cosmic surfboard. We get it, this is a deep end and we went off it. It's what we do.
A Pavement of Sapphire Stone
Riding the Heavens
The idea that God or his agents may physically visit the Earth by riding on a piece of heaven may seem ridiculous. However it appears that a section of firmament is used like an elevator to travel between heaven and Earth.
Foundations of Sapphires
The firmament was originally composed of many more layers than it is now. One layer in the midst transformed into something like obsidian, completely black, and melted causing the inner layers to separate.
The Brightness of the Firmament
The creation of gravity and formation of the firmament was to establish a place, heaven, where God would dwell in perpetual light because the firmament is bright like the sun, as we see from Daniel.
The Three Heavens
Given that the apostle Paul specifically refers to something called the third heaven it's not a stretch to conclude that there must also be a first and a second heaven. We need to know what they are.
The Star of Bethlehem
As far-fetched as it may seem that the angelic host visited Bethlehem on the night of Jesus birth riding on a section of the brightly shining crystalline firmament, we shouldn't be surprised.
September 24th
The last physical phenomena of world-wide, or at least region-wide, significance in the recent epoch is the most famous one of all, the star of Bethlehem. It has a direct connection to our doctrine of the firmament.
Matty's Paradigm 