Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (3/50) – And God...

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the third of the fifty emails…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 1:1 and 2:4

Our first steps in Genesis begin not with creation, nor with ourselves, but with God – and the reminder that we do not properly understand the world (or our place in it) without acknowledging the God who created it, holds it together, and rules over it.

Genesis 1 was designed to work this way. The people of God knew that the real God – the only God – made the world not through violence and bloodshed (a regular feature of tales from cultures surrounding Israel) but by his word, through his wisdom, and out of love. The account thus shapes the way God’s people think and live at the same time as engaging with alternative takes on reality, in such a way as to say: this is the true God; this is what the true God is like; this is the one who alone is worthy of worship.

Genesis 1 does this not by discussing creation in the abstract, but by focusing on God as Creator, and not primarily through nouns or adjectives, but through verbs, highlighting what God does: he creates, he speaks, he sees, he names, he separates, he rules, he delights, he blesses, he rests… And this talking, acting God will take centre stage in the plot that unfolds, showing that far from removing himself from creation, he is personal and relational, intentionally providing an arena in which men and women can live under his rule and blessing.

It’s no surprise, then, that while Genesis 1:1 can use the standard word for ‘god’ or ‘gods’, Genesis 2:4 makes it clear that he is ‘the Lord God’, using the name by which he later reveals himself to Moses as the one who will establish a covenant with his people, setting up a link between creation and covenant which will be played out in the rest of Scripture.

Genesis 1 isn’t designed to satisfy our curiosity about issues raised by science, since something different and more significant is at stake, namely: which God do we trust to have the whole world in his hands? What stands at the heart of the Christian worldview is not a god of our own making, but the Lord God himself – Creator God and covenant God.

For further reflection and action:

1. If possible, take some moments this week to read through Genesis 1:1–2:4, pausing after the account of each day to reflect on – and then to praise – God as creator, sustainer, and ruler of all.

2. In Proverbs 8:22–31, God’s wisdom is personified as a craftsperson through whom God makes the world, designing, measuring, and setting boundaries in place, showing that wisdom is the standard by which God works as he crafts the world. This being the case, where do we see evidence of God’s wise ordering of the world? And what difference should it make to the way we seek to live in God’s world?

3. What do you bring to your reading of Genesis 1 in terms of background education, church tradition, scientific knowledge, and convictions about God? How might these various factors both help and distort your understanding of the passage?