CREATION
Good morning class!
Question of the day: What was your biggest blessing this past week?
Today we start a new study, done in a new way on the book of Genesis. I hope you were able to read chapters 1 and 2. This is a familiar story. Many of us memorized the days of creation in Sabbath School when we were beginners class, or kindergarten class. Either way we knew them from a very young age.
Creation
Chapter 1 starts with the wonderful phrase, "In the beginning..."
Beginnings are often wonderful!
The beginning of a love relationship.
Birth or even conception/pregnancy
Start of a new job
Beginning of your relationship with Jesus
The first day of school
What other beginnings are awesome and wonderful?
I love sunrise. Somehow the sunrise for me is so much more beautiful than a sunset. A sunrise has hope and possibilities. The colors are often softer and more subtle, or quiet. There is a peace early in the morning, a quiet that makes them so special.
Can you imagine, in the beginning before our creator started to create?
When I start to paint a painting, I sit there looking at the white blank canvas and the possibilities are amazing.
Our creator stood there with a blank canvas and started to create! I am sure that he was excited. I am sure there was a thrill at the possibilities, there was joy for what was about to happen. I know he just spoke it all into being but I wonder how much he contemplated and planned ahead of time.
At my new job I am responsible for some pretty big event planning. I am already finding myself lying awake at night thinking about all the possibilities. Do you think God did the same thing.
I think it is interesting to note that the first chapter is like the outline of creation and then the writers decided to go into more detail about the creation of man.
There are times when I don't agree with chapter placement in the bible and this is one of them. Chapter one shouldn't end until after the Sabbath.
When Ryan and Laura asked Chris and I to keep their girls while they were away I decided that one day after school we would paint. I had purchased a canvas for over our fireplace and was dying to get started. Once the project was completed and up over the fireplace there was this great satisfaction. Even when we just finish painting a room or folding the laundry basket of clothes, there is something wonderful about finishing a task.
When Chris and I redid Andrews room, I just wanted to sit in it and look. Funny since I had put it all together and knew exactly where everything was but I just wanted to sit and look.
I can imagine our Creator just sitting in the garden and looking, watching, with such great satisfaction. I can imagine him just walking around with Adam and Eve, and finding such joy in watching him discover the world.
The HGTV loves the whole reveal. On the Fixer Upper show that moment of showing what they have done to the home owners is quite the moment.
That was the first Sabbath. A huge epic reveal. God walking around and spending time in his creation with the two created beings.
With that in mind, what does that tell us about the Sabbath?
Are there any life application ideas we can take away?
At my new job I am responsible for some pretty big event planning. I am already finding myself lying awake at night thinking about all the possibilities. Do you think God did the same thing.
Did he also lie there thinking about what was going to go wrong, and how he would redeem us?
What does that tell us about our God?
I think it is interesting to note that the first chapter is like the outline of creation and then the writers decided to go into more detail about the creation of man.
There are times when I don't agree with chapter placement in the bible and this is one of them. Chapter one shouldn't end until after the Sabbath.
Ahh, the Sabbath!
When Ryan and Laura asked Chris and I to keep their girls while they were away I decided that one day after school we would paint. I had purchased a canvas for over our fireplace and was dying to get started. Once the project was completed and up over the fireplace there was this great satisfaction. Even when we just finish painting a room or folding the laundry basket of clothes, there is something wonderful about finishing a task.
When Chris and I redid Andrews room, I just wanted to sit in it and look. Funny since I had put it all together and knew exactly where everything was but I just wanted to sit and look.
I can imagine our Creator just sitting in the garden and looking, watching, with such great satisfaction. I can imagine him just walking around with Adam and Eve, and finding such joy in watching him discover the world.
The HGTV loves the whole reveal. On the Fixer Upper show that moment of showing what they have done to the home owners is quite the moment.
That was the first Sabbath. A huge epic reveal. God walking around and spending time in his creation with the two created beings.
With that in mind, what does that tell us about the Sabbath?
Are there any life application ideas we can take away?
What does this say to us about the other 6 days of the week?
I think one of the most memorable sermons for me that Pastor Ryan ever preached was the one about the Sabbath where he spent most of the sermon talking about how we were created to work.
The creation of Man and Woman
The rest of chapter two is all about us! I would love to spend and entire class on this. The creation of man and woman is such a wonderful story and one that we have distorted in so many ways. However, we will just cap off and end our lesson with this beautiful story.
Was there anything in reading this story that you were surprised by or that you didn't know?
I found it interesting to think about God creating Adam along with all the other animals that he created to procreate and yet with Adam, he didn't have the other half. Why? God knew the end from the beginning. He knew we would fall and he had a plan, so he knew he was creating Eve...
Why didn't he create Eve at the same time as Adam, if He knew he would?
It is clear here in chapter two that God spent time with Adam and Adam spent time in the garden naming animals and spending time exploring this amazing world. He spent time alone.
Was there something important about Adam having that time alone?
At the time that this was all being written down the culture is important. What was the culture like for men and women, for husbands and wives? Who needed whom most?
Women had no property, women went from father to husbands home, and if their husbands died their only hope was that a family member would take them in. Women left their family homes and joined their husbands. Women NEEDED men to survive.
I would like for us to read a short passage, here at the end of chapter 2.
1. This is the first words we hear Adam speak. The only quote. I'm not sure how word for word it could be since it was written quite a long time after the fact. None the less it is the first thing that is written and it is a "love letter."
Women had no property, women went from father to husbands home, and if their husbands died their only hope was that a family member would take them in. Women left their family homes and joined their husbands. Women NEEDED men to survive.
What does this passage really say to us?
Yet in the story of creation, who felt the need, who needed a companion?
I would like for us to read a short passage, here at the end of chapter 2.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
It is important to note a couple things.1. This is the first words we hear Adam speak. The only quote. I'm not sure how word for word it could be since it was written quite a long time after the fact. None the less it is the first thing that is written and it is a "love letter."
2. Verse 24 is fascinating. First, we use this verse all the time to speak of the important principal of a couple coming together. It is a good verse for that and the principal is good. However in the time that this was written, women always left their families and clung to their husband. It is much more accurate to say that she would leave her father and mother and is united with him. The man never left his family home to be united with her. Was this a mistake? A miss print? In the book, The epic of Eden by Sandra L Richter she writes this,
"Everyone knew that the relational burden of forming a new household fell upon the women in Israel's society. Everyone knew that it was she who was uprooted and isolated by the process. Yet the earliest and most foundational word we have regarding marriage states that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. The shall become one flesh. I believe this is an intentional reversal on the part of the biblical author. And I think he is intending to communicate something like this: 'young men, although you have all the benefits and comforts in this system, from this day onward you shall live your life as though too have left. She is now bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh. Your most significant kinship alliance, as of today is her."
This passage turns upside down the social norms. This passage in fact states exactly the opposite of what "should" happen.
This entire wonderful book is about how the Lord redeemed us. That redemption plan was opposite of what "should" happen. It was upside down. He paid the price for what we did. He is the one who left his father and then paid for our sins.
What are some over arching themes in this story?
The awesome greatness of our God?
His great love for us?
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