In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis 1-14Sample

Are People Created by God or Evolved by Nature?

When parents know they have a child coming into the world, their focus becomes getting the home environment set up just right. Since the Bible says that God loves us and leads us like a father, and considers us His children, it is not surprising to see the same thing happening in Genesis 1. 

In Genesis 1:1 we discovered that God made everything from nothing. In Genesis 1:2 we are then told that creation was not yet ready for human habitation. In Genesis 1:3-25 we see God’s careful and loving preparation of our planet for human life in five literal days which explains the seven day week when the Sabbath is included. 

Then, in Genesis 1:26-2:3 the sixth day of creation occurs as God makes the first man and woman, our first parents Adam and Eve. In Genesis 1:26 we read, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…’”. This plural language is a reference to the Trinity (one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We then see that humanity is made in the binary categories of male and female, both created distinct though equal by virtue of the fact that they both bear God’s image and likeness. 

This image of God that mankind bears places human life lower than God in creation, but higher than animals who do not bear the image of God. Psalm 8:5-8 comments on this section of Genesis saying, “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

Genesis 1:27 summarizes the creation of the man and woman with the first poetry in the Bible to remind us that God is Creator and creative. In Genesis 1:28-30 God then gave to the man and woman the cultural mandate to fill the earth with offspring that build culture glorifying to God and rule over the earth as God’s Kingdom representatives. God then speaks in Genesis 1:31, declaring the creation of the man and woman as “very good” as opposed to the other days of His work which God simply called “good”. 

In Genesis 2:1-4a God then rested on the seventh day from His six days of work to enjoy His handiwork. This pattern of six days of work and one day of worshipful rest becomes the pattern for the seven-day week and the Sabbath day as one of the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20:8-11, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Question:

How are you doing at pursuing healthy lifestyle choices to preserve and protect the life God intends for you?