In The Beginning: A Walk Through the First Chapter

Reading the Old Testament after pursuing a relationship with the Lord and wishing for better understanding is much more powerful than it ever was before. I wanted to share some of what I've gotten out of it, in hopes that you may be inspired to read it and ponder on it yourself, if you haven't already, or perhaps to revisit it, in a new light. I thought that Genesis 1 may be a good place to start, as it is the beginning, and full of rich content! I won't be going through every SINGLE verse, as much of it is pretty straight forward, but I will be highlighting certain points that stand out to me.

Genesis 1 (ESV)

1- In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. 2- The earth was without form and void, and the darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

-- These first verses describe the emptiness of existence before God spoke into it. Many interpret verse 2 to be describing the state of the earth as a chaotic mass of water and earth together, not separated; without form, surrounded/cloaked by a thick darkness. (Psalm 104:6)

-- The Hebrew translation of the term "hovering over the waters" suggests it as a metaphor to represent the nature of God as a mother bird, over her eggs, before life is sprung from them. For more on this concept, there are several in depth explanations of it in various commentaries; one being Ellicott's and another being John Gill's (whose theology I certainly wouldn't agree with all of the time, but he has in interesting insight here.)

3 - And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

-- In my Bible, I have the word "said" underlined, as it really impacts me. His voice has so much power! The sound of it echoes through the spiritual and the physical, creating and restoring, from the very beginning of time to this day. It is the very foundation of all that exists.

-- As children of God, filled by the Spirit, our words have supernatural authority as well, when working in the will of God.

4 - And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 - God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 - And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. 7 - And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 - And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

-- 6-8 describes the creation of the atmosphere and the sea. This atmosphere was likely quite different than that of the earth after the flood, as that was the first time people had even seen rain. Genesis 2:6 describes a mist, coming up from the land, watering the face of the earth.

-- The word "Heaven" here translates into "Sky."

*verses 9-25 go over creation from the third to the fifth day, in which the Lord created vegetation, the sun, moon, stars, and sea/flying creatures. The verses are pretty straight forward, so I will skip ahead some.

26 - Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

*This verse has a lot. You could probably spend hours talking about it.

-- "Us" is a big word here, as it points to the trinity.

-- You could do an entire study on the concept of man created after God's image, but I will try and refrain from writing a novel. SOME of the main points here, in this context that stood out to me are:

1) Man is the only creation made in God's image: he considers us the most precious of his creations.

2) Man is the only creation that speaks, which I believe to be a huge aspect of who God is (looking back at verse 3)

3) Man was designed to be in unity with the Lord, as the three parts of the trinity are in unity with each other.

4) Man was designed to have special authority on earth, as we were children of God, which leads me to my next point:

-- We were given a job: to be stewards of the earth that the Lord created. A huge part of this is to actually take care of the planet. Conservation is an issue that is often tragically ignored by the church, and I've never really understood why. Often, if it is brought up, it is met with a "well I'm going to donate to help starving children before the whales." Of course, those starving children have priority, as the whales were not made in God's image and do not have an eternal spirit. However, some effort needs to be put into the environment and into the rest of creation; even just in basic things we do. It should be on our minds. And I do believe that God calls certain people to specifically care for animals and the environment. It is important. It matters to God.

27 - So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28 - And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 - And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 - And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 - And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

- This whole section simultaneously warms my heart and breaks it, because here at the beginning, it shows the love of the creator. I remember, growing up, I had read through this several times: "yeah yeah whatever, God gave man stuff to survive, okay."However, in the more recent season of my life, growing closer to the Lord, personally, and having a better understanding of who he is, it means so much more to me. When I went back and read this, with a different attitude and perspective, I heard emotion in the voice of God; emotions of adoration and of excitement. It brought him joy to bless man! It was "very good." This was really special to him, and he was ready to be in relationship with us. In all of his power, he wanted to share this earth with those that he could connect with; who he could spiritually bond with, and he wished to bless them.

So there you have it! The whole book of Genesis is long and can be intimidating, but it is so worth reading, in it's entirety.

Hopefully this was helpful or at least interesting to you! I love discussing the Bible with people so please feel free to comment below!

#bible #word #spiritual