Saturday, June 10, 2006


In the Beginning

Gen 1:1- Gen 2:3

My goal is to start posting again close to daily- let's see how long it actually lasts. ;)

Some things I think I know:

Reading the account of the creation I'm struck by the feeling of all things being done in God's time. He's (they're) calling the shots, making the rules, creating the mold and designing the schedule. Day by day (at least 1-6) he adds what he wants and waits for the next day to do more. Why not all at once? Not part of His plan.

It also strikes me that the more important things don't always come first. He didn't start off with man- he built to him (and actually further toward woman). While the earlier stuff might be bigger and more dynamic (the world, the stars, etc.) the beings created in His image are at the end of the list. The lesson here for us might be that sometimes we must prepare, or deal with less important stuff before jumping into what's most important, most interesting, what we want.
Here at the end (I like this part), God ordains rest. It seems like Christians (at least in my circle) emphasize the work- the doing- here God stresses the recouping. You've worked...relax, take 5, watch a movie, go to a ball game, Cause after all- I made all this stuff for you.

Now it gets fuzzy...

Is it puzzling that God feels it necessary to evaluate His own work? Why does He have to check and see if it's good? Shouldn't He already know that it is?

All the water is in one place? Huh? My best guess here is that after the flood things were a little different. I think that vs 6 is foreshadowing the flood- setting up that great rain with the "firmament"- and maybe this flooding changed things around- but that's just a guess and sounds really silly (maybe accurate- but still sounds silly).

Before the stars are created- what does it mean to have evening and morning? What makes a day?

Vs 24 seems weird to me: "Let the LAND produce living creatures..."(NIV). I've never heard of Creation/evolutionists using this passage to support that idea, but it seems like they could. Is this God's way of hinting that the animals weren't an all of a sudden creation- or just a funky translation? Vs 25 does go onto say that God created them...just seems weird.

Anyhow- more than my $.02. Whadda you think?
Posted by chiphall at 09:36 PM Comments (5)

2 comments:

Chip said...

Rob Bell notes that God creates things that create. He makes trees that make fruit. He makes animals that make animals. He makes people who make people.

His point, at least in part seems to be that creation isn't yet finished. We are part of creation- our lives are part of God's plan of creation.

Pretty cool. You can see more on his Nooma video "Open"

Chip said...

More cool Rob Bell stuff: http://robbellcom.tumblr.com/post/67379374479/what-is-the-bible-part-10