Genesis 1–2: The Relational Character of God

The second principle of Bible study is this, we need to appreciate the Bible's original context. A mistake that many well meaning Bible readers make is that they start by stating, well, here's what this passage means to me. Now don't get me wrong. That's a a really good practice. It just shouldn't be our first reaction. Our first response should be, I wonder what the original speakers and the first hearers of this passage took it to mean. [00:53:57] (36 seconds)  #ContextFirst

See, when somebody asks me about my home, what they're really asking is, where do you dwell? Who lives with you? Who are your neighbors? How did you get there? And how would I recognize it if I drove past? In the same way, god, like a good mapmaker, wanted to tell us about the world through Genesis, and so he started by centering the most important information. He answered the most essential questions that we ought to ask. [01:03:35] (33 seconds)  #GenesisAsMap

Some of these stories depicted human beings as just the leftovers in the process or even as slaves. See, people like you and me, many ancient religions said, we're just the scenery. We're just props in these violent cosmic clashes. And they said that destruction and subjugation of your adversaries, well, these are the primary tools of creation. [01:06:27] (27 seconds)  #WeAreNotProps

Now think about how this view of human origins shapes modern worldviews. It would mean that everything, like everything everything about who you are and who we are kinda comes into question. We're here without a purpose. We have no reason for ethics or kindness. We're all just atoms crashing into atoms with just enough ferocity and selfishness built in. That is what we have heard it said in our society about creation. [01:08:31] (38 seconds)  #MeaningNotAccident

I know my mind is starting to melt too, but here's why this is super important. The only thing that can act before or outside of time is a person, is a spirit. Because without a person making a decision to create, the universe would either never have existed or it would have always existed, and and we know neither of those is the case. God made a decision to build the world, and then he created the world by his words. [01:09:26] (37 seconds)  #CreatorByChoice

One of the first words that God used of his creation is the word good. Genesis says, all that God had made was good. That word keeps popping up in the first chapter of the Bible. You know, ancient people, actually, and modern people alike, wanna believe that this world was a mess until we showed up. But the bible says that the world became a mess only after we showed up. Kind of a bitter pill to swallow, isn't it? [01:10:31] (31 seconds)  #CreationIsGood

Life with Adam and Eve wouldn't be the same as the life of the father and the son and the spirit. The relationship within that trinity was balanced and whole with each partner giving and receiving love in perfect harmony. Adding human beings brought imperfection to the mix, unpredictability, moodiness, vulnerability. But in creating Adam and Eve, God thought that that kind of relationship was better. God wanted the complexity of interpersonal communion more than he wanted the simplicity of living alone. [01:13:51] (42 seconds)  #RelationalTrinity

If Genesis is our map of the world, then this is the point of origin in our journey. So to summarize Genesis one and two, we aren't here randomly. We've been given a significant purpose. We have received a good and beautiful world, and we are called to sacrifice as God did, to surrender our priorities for the sake of connecting with others. [01:15:01] (24 seconds)  #CreatedForConnection