Everything You Need to Know About…GENESIS
"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…."
"Call Me Ishmael."
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursely, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."
The way a great story begins matters. It sets the tone; it creates anticipation. The first words of Genesis are as famous as those of any book.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
One sentence in, and we know we're about to hear the story of the one who made all things. A power we can't imagine. A being with no peers. It will be set on a grand stage, nothing less than "all that is." It will be a story immense in proportion and significance. As you continue to read, it indeed is grand: stars ignite, mountains rise, and life springs from the ground. Whole nations form and fill the earth, corrupt it, and are washed away. But the book ends much differently than it begins. In the final pages, Genesis tells the story of just one family, with some intense family drama.
This exponential narrowing of focus, like chasing a raindrop out of a hurricane, is a core message of Genesis. It is the audacious claim that the creator of all things cares deeply about the lives of families and individuals. He is gladdened by our flourishing, saddened by our struggles, and determined to work His purposes through human beings.
The working out of His purpose is the reason for the shift in scope. God selects Abraham, a nobody, from nowhere and tells him: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great." God's blessing on Abraham is not to lift him out of other people's turmoil but to heal it. Everyone on earth will be blessed by what God is doing in Abraham.
It's easy to get lost in the titanic scope of the opening chapters of Genesis. Many people go to Genesis wanting to understand the past. How old is the earth? What about dinosaurs? But Genesis doesn't want to answer those questions. It has its own question: God made the world to be good and humanity to be very good, and yet, we make things worse repeatedly. What will solve it?
Genesis is the first book of the Torah, or "the teaching," the five books that form the Hebrew Bible's core. Attributed to Moses, the Torah described their purpose as a free nation to a people released from bondage. To be chosen. Not because they are powerful, wise, or pure, but because it is part of God's plan to choose people you would not expect to bless the entire world. In the Torah, the young Israelite nation is taught to be devoted to God and His mission and to carry His Name and His promise.
Genesis ends with a dramatic example of God's promise in action. A demonstration that the string of regrettable human decisions and selfish behavior meant for evil, God intended for good, to preserve the lives of many people.
When you read Genesis, read it, realizing it's not a book about the past. It's about a promise and therefore a book about the future. It is the planting of a seed that will one day be the tree of life, growing in the middle of a city where God and humanity live in peace, and it will be very, very good.