Genesis 1-11
Genesis 1-11
[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome to God's Whole Story. This year, we are doing a journey through scripture book by book. Each week, you will get a deeper dive into one of the books of scripture so that you can see God's whole story. If you like the content you're receiving, we would love to have you partner with us.
Look in the show notes for a way that you can support us financially so we can continue to provide this content for you. Hope you enjoy this episode. Hey everyone! Welcome to God's Whole Story. My name is Chelsea, and I'm here with Chris and Ryan, and we are starting off our overview of the books of the Bible where most people start the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis.
It's probably a good place. Yeah. I mean, why not? Uh, we actually were planning to do one episode per book, but because Genesis is so comprehensive and long and full of different Uh, themes throughout scripture that just begin right here. We're going to split up into three different [00:01:00] episodes and we're starting off of course with the creation story and I think going in through Tower of Babel, right?
That's right. And yeah, let's start off with what did you guys think? What did you think of these first few chapters of Genesis? I mean, I think one of the things that's really interesting is the, when you talk to the average Christian, a lot of the things that they think about Genesis are usually not the main reasons why.
This made it into scripture. God didn't put it in here so that we could debate creation versus evolution. He didn't shoot. That's what I've been doing. I know you didn't put it in here so we could know, is it literally seven days or were there periods of time or, or even if science fits with the Bible, uh, but, If we really want to get into the heart of this, we need to think about why would God have recorded this for all of time, but specifically for Israel as they're in the wilderness.
After they came out of slavery in Egypt, they were going into the wilderness. That's when Moses [00:02:00] wrote down all five books of the Pentateuch. Uh, they weren't asking questions about science or creation and evolution. They. They're so advanced. I'm pretty sure they weren't asking this. I mean, maybe the really smart guy was, but the Einstein of the Israelites.
But, uh, they, they were wondering like, where did things start? What's our story? What's the beginning? What is, what is going on? This God value. They're probably even asking some of the same questions. We are like, why are we here? Well, why would their story even be important to them? Like why would they even be asking that question?
Yeah, and I think We can get caught up on some of those minor details, but there's so much depth in Just some of the basics here. That's if we start to think about why Why did God do what he did? Why did he? Put people here. Why did he show them what he values? What, what is he trying to communicate? Uh, that's one of the things that, that kind of struck me as I was thinking about this book.
What, what are some of the other things that stuck out to you guys? It's pretty [00:03:00] interesting. I mean, obviously we've talked about this a little bit before we decided to sit down and record it, but actually just for some reason, just you saying like. Yeah, they didn't think this was about evolution. They didn't know about evolution at all.
Like that's pretty profound to me, actually. Like the original audience was not obviously not concerned about the things we're concerned about. And it makes a lot of sense to try to one, understand what the original audience was concerned about. And two, like what message was being conveyed to them so that we can learn from the book, what we're meant to learn from the book, because with all scripture, it's really easy to.
Put on top of it, whatever you want to be there. Um, and it seems like Genesis, one of those repeat offenders of looking at it and being like, I want it to mean this and that's what it means. And those things are interesting. They're fun to discuss. Uh, but to truly be good students of the Bible, we have to ask, what did it mean to the first audience?
Uh, and if it. [00:04:00] means something it can't mean to us what it didn't mean to them is something that that you've heard us if you listen to Our daily pockets you've heard us say that a number of times Uh, so I think that is that was something that stood out to me Like why just really trying to get in the head of what what was god revealing about himself and about?
Uh what he valued to his people Uh that what did they need to know about their history to be able to become the people that god wanted them to become Do you think i have a question? Do you think that? You This story of creation and everything that follows up until the time of Moses recording this Were these stories that are passed down?
Or is this the very first time that Moses is hearing anything about creation? Like that, and it's the Holy Spirit and God revealing, um, what do you think? Well, I, I did, I did have this thought of, we know that this is actually not even on my topic. I have lots of questions. [00:05:00] Um, we know that the Holy Spirit inspired scripture and we know that, um, the authors were guided to write scripture.
Um, however, heavily influenced in the Holy Spirit you ascribe to whatever theory, but Moses was personally meeting with God. So I want, like, I had the thought of, is God like meeting with Moses and like, Moses is just like taking notes on what God himself is telling him. That like blew my mind. It's interesting.
I think so much like, again, not putting our experience on top of the text, right? So our experience is we read books. And we understand what the books teach and that's how we preserve our history. That's actually a very, very recent way of preserving history. So oftentimes for me, even like even the, uh, even the gospels, my wife and I are reading through the book of John right now and it's like, Oh yeah.
Like they, their primary way of. Teaching was not the written word. It was the spoken word. So I would guess that these are stories that [00:06:00] people are aware of because we are or what like at the time of the Exodus, we're like 400 years away from Joseph essentially like we'll we'll get to we'll dig into Joseph what in the in two episodes for an hour something beyond Joseph Which is like, that's not ancient, ancient, ancient history.
400 years. Like we hear stories about George Washington. What is that? That's like two, 300 years at this point, like 200 or something. I'm not a math expert, but it's actually not a huge gap of time. Now, obviously like the dawn of creation is way before that, but I think. Like certainly Joseph's family would have had stories of their history that they would have carried with them And I think those stories probably existed throughout the families that were handed down all that kind of stuff So I think there's a there's a clearly verbal transmission of information, right?
Is that fair? I think it is and I mean we most ancient cultures were [00:07:00] oral cultures. So I think it is definitely safe to assume Much of the information was passed on orally. I mean, even if I think about some of my experiences working in Africa, there's still cultures today that they don't have written histories, but they have stories.
They have oral histories that have been passed down. Now, could God have filled in a few gaps as he's revealing it to Moses, filled in a few details? Yeah, I think that would definitely be my assumption. No, he's not allowed. But one of the things that, that I do think is like. If you think about that these things were passed down, it does help that, that I think there were certain truths that every single generation of humanity would have had some understanding of.
I think there were every single generation of humanity probably had some of the creation story. I, I think that they probably had the story of the fall and maybe even the first promise of redemption. That there was a chance to believe there is this future promise that there will be someone who fixes what we have broken.
Which if you [00:08:00] look at it that way, I every single generation has had an opportunity to put faith in the promise. And I, that seems consistent with scripture to me. That's interesting because sometimes Um, like, it's, it's fairly well known in academia, I guess, that there are several creation accounts, and they are very similar.
There's several flood accounts, and they're very similar. You mean cross cult, cross ancient civilization. Like, if you really want to get nerdy, like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the, the flood in the story. Oh boy. That's a spin off podcast. There's similar stories and sometimes people Hear about that and like it's easy to be drawn into thinking that there's like some huge scandal and somebody's been hiding something from you And what's interesting to me is like usually it takes people a while to realize like well Yeah, like we we all come from the same story So it's not surprising to me that there's multiple accounts that sound the same Because there would have been multiple people that would have experienced some of these things.
And those stories would have carried across cultures. And so it's not a scandal when we find out that there's [00:09:00] other accounts that tell a similar story that actually reinforces the fact that what we believe to be as true is probably true. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is, um, that's pretty fascinating. And then when you think about some of these things that were, as they were passed on orally, um, obviously, It's a reflection of who God is because he's creating and doing these things.
But it's also, then you see a lot of things about what he values. And probably, I mean, one of my favorite things that always jumps out at me in the early chapters of Genesis is that as God creates everything, we see the repeated phrase that everything is created. That's good. Everything is value. Uh, but then when human beings are added, it goes from good to very good.
And the unique aspects that God brings into the creation story with human beings is the fact that they're created in his image, uh, that to me, it seems like if you're going to pass down certain elements of the [00:10:00] creation story, that would probably be one that there is a God who created in some ways his temple.
If you, if we want to kind of refer to some of the ways John Walton books at some of these things, maybe we'll put his book in the show notes. Um, but, uh, He puts, he creates the world, his temple, and then he puts a reflection of himself in that temple. You could call it an idol even, uh, but there is a reflection of himself in that temple and that shows what is the most valuable thing in all of creation.
That human beings are the only thing that has the image of God. They're the only thing that has the breath of God. That's talked about in Genesis chapter two. And that's what takes creation from good to very good. That I think that's probably part of the oral story that would have been passed down. Like, Hey, where did we come from?
We're A reflection of God there, there is, there's the breath of God that, that brought us to life. Like that's pretty mind blowing when you think about that. One of the things that's exciting about this new format that we're doing, where we're going to like, [00:11:00] basically like overview, I see you made a note in the show, like the notes that we're working off of.
We actually did not talk about that much in the actual, uh, daily episodes, which you can still go check out. The daily episodes are still there. If you want to refer to them for like a deeper dive into these. Chapters, but it is actually, it actually shows the weakness of trying to capture the Bible in podcast format, because like we covered Genesis and didn't even talk about the image of God.
It's a while. We probably spent more time in a later episode of Melchizedek than we did about the image of God. Cause Melchizedek is so interesting. It is interesting, but the image of God is pretty crucial. Yeah. It's kind of a big deal. We know where our priorities lie. Oh man. Image of God. I mean, that is such a.
It's such a unique doctrine for Christianity and so incredibly formative for the rest of scripture too. I mean, we need to get the doctrine of image of God down if you're going to understand the incarnation and [00:12:00] church and everything. And if you want scripture to start impacting your life, there is endless applications for us to Live out a life that respects the image of God on other people, people that we disagree with people that we don't like people that have different economic statuses or social statuses.
Like there is so much application on that, that we will endlessly be challenged to treat people, others as image bearers of God. Uh, that this isn't just academia. This isn't just, you know, a history book. This is life transforming. It's so practical. I did in. In seminary, I did this class and wrote a paper on why the image of God is important to us.
With a focus on people with disabilities. It was like so it was so mind blowing for me and just Transformative like you said, I mean it changes the way you think which think about how many cultures around the world [00:13:00] that don't hold that ethic That people with disabilities are valuable and created in the image of God and they leave them out to the elements to be killed as in infanticide they they Take them away from society without that basic truth that Christianity provides those, those cultures treat them totally differently.
We also have that in our own culture, very true, very true. And it's, it's really important to capture that and not be shy about that. Like this image of God thing is a really big deal. It. Um, a hundred percent impacts how you treat other people. Um, and it should actually inform your decisions. Like if you are following Jesus, you should be able to readily recognize the image of God in everyone around you, especially your enemies.
Um, that, I think that's a thing that we easily trip up on. Um, but we are called to like respect, uphold and protect and defend the image of God in all human life. Uh, in all stages of human life. And it's, it's [00:14:00] easy for different groups to like hyper focus on one set or another set or another phase. But all of life is in the image of all human life is in the image of God.
And we should uphold that and protect that. It's a big deal. It'd be pretty easy to talk about that for quite a while. Yes. But we are actually trying to overview, which is how are we going to do this? That's why I broke up the three episodes. It is true. It's going to be okay. Can you imagine that? Our original draft is like, well, we'll talk about Genesis for about 20 minutes.
Then we got to three episodes and now we're in chapter two. Uh, but moving us along a little bit, we do in God's good and very good world. We've got people being created in the image of God. Image of God. We see some of the things that God desires on his good and very good planet. He wants people to have relationship with God 'cause he's in proximity with them in Eden.
He creates them to have relationship with each other. Uh, God actually tells Adam it's not good for you to be alone. And that's why Eve comes. Uh, they work. They [00:15:00] have different things they can choose, and all of these things are things that God values, but even in the midst of God's good and very good world.
Uh, that one choice that Adam and Eve were given that was not a good choice to make, to eat from the tree that they were forbidden to eat from. They ate from it, sin entered the world, uh, and, uh, The image of God remained on people, but it was now sin was added to it. They're still valuable, uh, but we have brokenness.
Then, in fact, brokenness affects relationship with God, with others, work. Every area that God valued is now tainted by sin. We did I did mention something about the promise of redemption in these early chapters, too, and I do think we would miss a great opportunity if we didn't realize just how fast God acted in bringing about a promise of redemption.
Right after people sinned. Um, I mean it is pretty amazing. It's like they broke his planet [00:16:00] and Immediately his plan of redemption went into effect Just just so every if if you're curious where that is i'm referring to genesis chapter 3 verse 15 the second half of that verse there's there's a promise that says that Uh, he will come and crush the head of the serpent The serpent will then bruise his, his heel, and it kind of goes from talking about some of the consequences of sin to a very specific prophecy of a he, uh, of a masculine, singular, personal Hebrew pronoun there that is going to be Someone who comes and crushes the head of the serpent.
Who is that? He Chris, who is that? Well, if we're thinking about the Israelites, they don't know, right? Like we immediately jump in because we know the end of the story. We know this is talking about Jesus. This is the first prediction of Jesus. They wouldn't have known all those details, but they had the concept that there was going to be a [00:17:00] Messiah type figure who would come and reverse The effects of sin and death and the enemy that happened in Genesis.
Okay. If we're thinking through the lens of like first audience and like what their perception was, it would have been so easy to believe that that was Moses. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Moses is a great Christ figure, but he's not Christ. Right. And then David, later on. Yeah, that's the thing, like there's just one after another after another.
Um, and they would've, I think, at some point Rez, okay no, this isn't the one. But there, what is created then, there is a sense of hope. There is a sense of hope that one day, what has been made wrong here in Genesis 3 will be made right. And that gave every single person that heard that account the opportunity to put faith in the hope of a coming Messiah.
From Genesis on, not just once the actual Messiah was revealed, there was the ability to have faith that he will come the first time. Uh, which is pretty amazing that sin enters the world and God enters it. Instantly gives us an opportunity. It gives people an opportunity for grace. That's not [00:18:00] just a New Testament idea That's actually a God idea throughout all the scripture the first of many redemptive acts that God does Throughout scripture, so it's pretty cool.
Even in the New Testament There are a couple references to Jesus being slain before the foundation of the world which can kind of really make smoke come out your ears when you think about it that way that first peter talks about that in chapter one revelation talks about that in chapter 13 so like god's plan of redemption wasn't just oh look what they did now we got to fix it there was also the side that he knew what was coming and yet he was willing to create it anyway and willing to have that brokenness anyway So that people could have relationship with him, which is, that's pretty mind blowing.
People always ask, why are we here? Why did God create it in the first place? And it's, you can get some of it, but it's like, there's such a mystery in it too, that it's kind of like, wow. Okay. Even with everything that was going to happen, he knew, [00:19:00] um, and he wanted to do it. You look like you're thinking something over there, Ryan.
If this was a video podcast, you would see the look on Ryan's face. I'm glad it's not a thought bubble coming out of his head. We'll come with that eventually, but we are, if you could see the space we're in right now, you'd be, you'd be glad to. It's not a video podcast. Um, no, I, I think, I think it's incredible.
I think there are many compelling thoughts that come out of this first section of Genesis. It is, you have to read these chapter. For chapter, uh, that would actually be like a strong encouragement that I have for you. If you're listening to this, take the time, um, before you hit the next episode coming out next week, um, read Genesis one to 12.
It's not going to take you a ton of time. Uh, but it is amazing how much gets covered in these chapters. And it's like, it's, it's so difficult to do like a sweeping overview of everything that's happening because we We're going to cover so much. I've heard some people say something to the effect of for almost [00:20:00] every major issue, you're trying to figure out God's perspective on, or what God would say about certain things you, you need to have a portion of that thinking be in Genesis one to three, because that sets up what God intended and what sin did.
And without that proper foundation, you'd, you can, it's more theory than it is actual starting from what. Is in fact, truth in our reality. I do know that Jesus likes to do that, that like, seriously, I know that's kind of, it's kind of a cheesy cliche, but, um, Jesus, when he is arguing with Pharisees often will appeal all the way back to God's, um, ideal in Genesis one to three, uh, rather than, you know, this prophet or that prophet, not to, it doesn't, it doesn't mean those prophets aren't important.
It's just like, Jesus is often like, well, Let's go back to the way things were, what do you think? So, it does seem like a good way to do things. And he would know because he was there. Indeed. Good point, good point. [00:21:00] Obviously from Genesis 3 on we see that, that the sin and death keep spreading. We have the Cain and Abel account, we have Noah and the flood, we have the Tower of Babel, um, All those very important and, uh, we did actually talk a fair bit about those different stories on our daily podcast that if you're just going, what is it with the Tower of Babel?
Um, we, you can go back to some of the daily podcasts and get a little bit of a deeper dive, but as far as the 30, 000 foot view of what is really important in Genesis 1 to 11, um, obviously No shade on Genesis four through 11, but Genesis one to three is so foundational. Um, it's hard to really break away from that in a short period of time.
Do you guys have any other, any other thoughts you want to throw in here?
I don't think so. Uh, what you said just kind of brought to mind that, I mean, I think for, um, a brand [00:22:00] new Christian, someone new to faith, um, maybe Genesis isn't the great, greatest place to start because it's like, you want to start with the gospels probably. But for. The person who's learning about their faith.
Um, you're right. One, two, three is so foundational to that because it sets up the problem and provides the solution, um, looking ahead. And so if you have not, if you've like just dabbled in the gospels or Psalms or Paul's letters, and that's where you've stuck for most of your Bible reading, uh, branch out, go to Genesis.
Um, it's an incredible story. Just showing how, first of all, that God loves us. loves us so much. Yeah. I, I think the only thing I agree with you on that, Chelsea, I think the only thing I would add to it as well is not only does it set up the problem, but it actually gives us God's vision of what he wanted and what he desired.
And that's what's in Genesis one and two. And when you [00:23:00] finally get to the end and you read Revelation 21 and 22 of where things are heading, Putting those two together, there are so many similarities and so it's, it's the, the perfect covers on the book. That's here's when God created things and what he wanted life to be like.
That's Genesis 1 and 2. And when it is all said and done with and life is brought back again to that place, free from sin, death, and the enemy, we have a picture of Revelation 21 and 22. So God's, God lays out his mission statement, uh, here and then, We break it, we mess it up. And that's the majority of the book.
Oh man. Over and over and over again. Yeah, it's good. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on this first installment of Genesis. And we'll be back next week with The Call of Abram. See you then. Bye.