tSoGS - Genesis 1:26- 31 Reflection

TSoGS? The Story of God's Story - a fifteen week whirlwind tour of the Bible. If you missed Sunday, here's a link to week one's guide which has a five day reading plan. Why five days? If you are faithful, you can use the weekend to explore other readings or if you slip behind, you can use the weekend to catch up. Our readings are truly just skimming the surface of God's Story.

O Lord, may my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.

Genesis 1:26-31

We've really been focusing on world-view here - not science or history. Genesis 1 sets the tone for how we should view the world and this text on what to make of humans. I hope you understand how critical this is.

If you have a evolutionary understanding of the universe, you will see humans as just a higher reasoning animal on a planet of animals that arrived here quite by chance. This impacts everything including your ethics on how to treat others and the role of sexuality (hey - we're just animals).

If you have a pagan understanding of the world - that divine is behind and in everything, your ethic is about appeasing the gods and dividing your world into spheres for each god. This requires you to walk gently, especially in areas where two god-spheres overlap. It means you have to choose allegiance and in doing so, you will probably offend the god you didn't vote for. It means, since divine is in everything, you can carve a piece of wood into an image of anything and worship it, because you brought the divine essence to the surface. It will also include magic - if you do just the right thing, you can manipulate or make the god do what you want. Later on you'll see this play out in the biblical text. This was the prevailing world view that the Hebrew people were up against and what makes monotheism so unique. Hope all this makes sense.

Can you imagine how hard it is to shift your world view? It would rock your world - everything changes - you see the world differently. Everything you held dear is now a lie. To get to this, requires a paradigm shift of epic proportions. If you do believe in God, think how your world would shift if you didn't. Just as a new way of looking at God (angry to loving to holy and loving God) will shift your relationship with Him.

Okay deep breath. can we look at the text? What does this small set of verses teach us about God and ourselves? (This is the first God-story intersecting with our story.)

1. "Let US make humans in OUR image . . ." Oh my. I thought there was only one God? Well if this was the only text I had, I could conclude that there are multiple gods like the Greek/Roman pantheon of gods. But I will cheat (a little) - when we look at the whole canon, we can see this as an introduction to mind-blowing understanding of the Trinity - God in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Okay that's a big rabbit trail . . .

2. Human beings have authority - free reign/dominion over the earth/created animals. We are stewards of creation. Sadly we've abused this power and/or used this verse to justify the manipulation of our world for our own benefit and the detriment of other species. (Realize, we are still vegetarians (vegans actually) at this point.) And compare this with the pagan notion that we are not the king of the hill on this planet.

3. Humans are created in the image of God (imago Dei). Okay, how to unpack this in three sentences or less? Let's just start with an understanding that we have a spiritual nature - a soul - unique from every other creature. And there's that word - "understanding." We have reasoning abilities that mirror God's though on a finite level. And we have the moral image of God stamped on us. We were created good. Body type? Doubtful that the image of God meant looking physically like God (though we do anthropomorphize God and God doesn't seem to mind (unless we carve images). I'm editorializing a lot here - the text simply says "the image of God" - "beTzellum Elohim." But the Judeo-Christian understanding of humanity is informed by more than this text.

4. God is not sexist - both male and female are created in the image of God. This is very important as we learn how God intended for men and women to relate to one another. Is hierarchical marriage biblical? Not in God's pre-Fall world. Okay getting ahead of myself - we haven't gotten to "The Fall" yet.

5. There's a blessing and this blessing is connected to multiplication. And that's a big subject. So sex is a gift from God? Later . . .

6. Remember the vegetarian part? It's here. Would God want us to go back to this to honor the world he made? It's also very clear in light of this that "govern" does not mean "hunt to extinction." (and I like to hunt.)

7. And now drum roll please . . . with the addition of humans to the creation scene, the world goes from being good to VERY GOOD (my emphasis). Think about that. God is pleased with humans and delighted in this world He has made.

So is your world view changing? This passage is so rich and speaks to the unique and special place we humans have on this planet and with God. we are not random accidents of evolution. We are stamped with the image of God - like an artist who signs his painting or a potter who initials her jar - God enjoys and holds special what He has made. The psalmist - "I will praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made!" I will live as a being that honors God - a spiritual, moral and rational being that is also (and more than) hormones and digestive systems . . . My life is more than sexual and hunger urges though God created me with both. And these things - under the domain of God - are good because God created everything good.

Can I stop now?

tSoGS - John 1:1-15 Reflection

TSoGS? The Story of God's Story - a fifteen week whirlwind tour of the Bible. If you missed Sunday, here's a link to week one's guide which has a five day reading plan. Why five days? If you are faithful, you can use the weekend to explore other readings or if you slip behind, you can use the weekend to catch up. Our readings are truly just skimming the surface of God's Story.

O Lord, may my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.

John 1:1-15

John does a remarkable thing. Right at the beginning of his book, with no explanation or apology, he connects Jesus to the creation of the universe. Jesus was with God and was God at the beginning. Wrap your brain around that.

Just a couple of thoughts.

First for you apologists. Skeptics would say the belief that Jesus was divine is a later, more refined concept that early believers did not hold. But a small fragment of papyrus (P52 Ryland papyrus) with a portion of John's Gospel was discovered in Egypt. Most scholars suggest the date of the fragment as early in the second century (125 AD). Marry this fragment with how far it traveled and you end up with a quite early date for John's Gospel to have been written. You can read about it here. Even the most conservative (later) datings are impressive and the portion of Scripture it contains shows Jesus intentionally heading to the cross.

Second, in light of yesterdays conversation on the transcendent (wholly other) and immanent (very present) nature of God, Jesus is the intersection of Creator and created. The material and the divine are found only in/on/through him. I'm guarding my words here because I'm not sure what mere words could convey Jesus as very God and very man. Paul wrote, ". . . have the same attitude as Christ Jesus, who being IN VERY NATURE GOD . . ." Time for three and a half pounds of gray matter to explode.

And yet this Jesus spent thirty years in the neighborhood with no one noticing. (Thanks Alan Hirsch) What does that tell us about the nature of God? When we desire a Big God with Big Stick and a Loud Voice, God shows up on the planet He created in a whisper (so as not to frighten us out of our begeebees?), to make sure we would bend our knee out of love and not out of fear.

Fall on your knees. I've got to stop and worship now.

tSoGS - Genesis 1:1-25 Reflection

Today is the first of our reflections on our new series, The Story of God's Story - a fifteen week whirlwind tour of the Bible. If you missed Sunday, here's a link to week one's guide which has a five day reading plan. Why five days? If you are faithful, you can use the weekend to explore other readings or if you slip behind, you can use the weekend to catch up. Our readings are truly just skimming the surface of God's Story.

O Lord, may my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.

Genesis 1:1-25

I could spend days unpacking this one little patch of Scripture. It is the cause of great debate in our country - evolution v intelligent design v creation science. I DO NOT want to unpack that debate here and get bogged down in trying to reconcile or defend any position.

If we hold close to the Confession of Faith (in the guide), there are more important issues to address than whether God created in six literal days (by definition God is big enough to do this) or took a slow approach as endorsed by the science record. So please, no debates here. It's not why I write and beyond the scope of this blog. The Bible is the story of God's story and our connection to God's story and thus the story of connection and reconciliation.

What Genesis 1 -3 does establish is a world view that when introduced (revealed) was radically different than any surrounding culture and even today shared only by Muslims, Jews, and Christians (and a few other sects).

Let me highlight a few.

1. God is personal. God speaks. God is not just a force.

2. Creation was intentional and not random. Christians believe God created the universe with a plan which ultimately gives human beings meaning and purpose.

3. Creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). When God said, "Let there be" and there was, we acknowledge that everything material was created by God from nothing. The implications of this are profound. First it makes a clear distinction between God and everything He created. The stuff around us is NOT DIVINE. Many creation epics have the universe created out of a god's blood or given birth to - which makes the universe part of the divine (which is why folk could carve up idols and worship the material - because "divine stuff" was in the metal or wood). Okay deep breath - long sentence. In essence, Christians believe God is not in trees, rocks, mountains, rivers, the sun, the moon or the stars . . . (or even in people in the sense that we are divine). [side note - could we have much of modern science if humans continued to believe the divine was in all this stuff? - this is worth reflecting on]. A world view of creatio ex nihilo is critical to our understanding of our world and the story of God's story. Go impress your friends with your Latin.

4. The subtle little phrase "And God saw that it was good." also speaks to the nature of the universe. In the midst of tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters (that people want to attribute to God), the biblical text makes clear that, originally, creation was not filled with this pain and suffering. Creation was good and not evil. Which begs the question, "what happened?" which is a later reflection.

So is your head swimming? The verses you read are a beautiful poetic text and I have mixed emotions about turning this into a theological exercise. So to ease my conscience, why don't you go back and read and reflect and marvel at what God can do simply by speaking. And here's a video if you are a visual type like me. (and I have NO IDEA why the video maker added a satyr to the images! - (one of these things is not like the others . . .) and barbed wire, couldn't find a bird perched on a branch? . . .)