Before Humans, the Universe, or anything else we know, God existed.
Before math, physics, or biology, there was theology.
Do your best to imagine :
- that nothing had been created yet (no earth, stars, space, or even light)
- that it had been this way forever.
2 important facts for our story :
1. Everything is dependent on God.
You have to start here; thinking about the beginning will often give clues about the ending.
2. God is beyond our understanding.
God is completely unlike anything we are familiar with
- eternity is beyond our understanding
How long was there before creation?
What did God DO for all that time?
- creation is beyond of our understanding
organization we understand, but true creative ex nihilo creation we don't
- diety is beyond of our understanding
what does it mean to be 'God'?
it is fundamentally beyond us.
God is the only truly self-sufficient being.
What can we say?
- God was with himself
- God is utterly unlike anything we can relate to (conceive of?)
For some reason, God decided to change this perfect state.
God ends his singular existence and creates the universe.
1. God decides to take 6 days.
no arguing about creation / evolution
note : six days? literal, day age, metaphor...not the topic. just be sure
the motive isn't to avoid the bible. i think that the whole
thing happened in 6 days for a number of reasons which won't be
discussed here.
- day one : God creates light
- day two : God creates heaven by 'separating the waters'
- day three : God creates dry land, vegetation, and trees
- day four : God creates the sun, moon, and stars
- day five : God creates birds and fish
- day six : God creates animals and...man
- day seven : rest
2. Especially, God creates Man.
(this story is repeated with different details in Gen 2)
a. man is created to rule over all the animals (Gen 1:28)
man even gets to name the animals
b. man is created to be in god's image (Gen 1:27)
nothing else created is like this...
Creation starts what turns out to be the story of mankind - the Bible
If this was written by dolphins, you'd expect to see a whole lot more
dolphins factoring into the story.
If this was a story about angels, the protagonists would be angels every time.
Instead, the rest of the Bible (and history) is about man and God's
revelation and relationship to man.
3. Man is placed in the garden of Eden.
There are two notable trees in this garden, mentioned in 2:9.
The tree of life.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God says, "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Gen 2:18)
the solution : "i will make him a helper/companion suitable for him"
God puts man to sleep (the first use of anesthesia)
God 'borrows' one of man's ribs and makes a woman
interesting point here! God could have just created the woman, but he
uses a rib to do so rather than going 'from scratch'.
is this to emphasize our dependence and connectedness?
God presents the woman to the man...and they are joined
Genesis 2:23
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man."
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
the result : "for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave to his wife"
God creates marriage; the first act outside of the creation of matter...