Aug. 13

After going through the letters in the New Testament not written by Paul we are going to turn our attention to the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis. This could take a long time if we covered everything that we possibly could in the midst of this book so we will try to focus upon what we can learn from these wonderful stories about God, our relationship to God, as well as our relationships with one another. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I will.

Read Genesis 1

God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature (The Message)

One of the age old questions seems to be, "Are men and women born good or do people have to learn how to be good?" While this could be a great psychology class discussion it really has deep theological and practical implications. How you answer this question will say a lot about how you read the Bible, how you treat other people, and how you understand your place in the world.
The Bible starts out by setting the stage for humanities existence. God creates a space and context which people are to inhabit and when humans are made for this place they are made reflecting the essence (or nature) of God. To say this separates the followers of God from many other early religious ideas which placed  humans on earth for the entertainment of the deities. The God of the Bible though has a different relationship with humanity and invites humanity to have a different relationship with God. Being made in God's image invites a connection and an understanding of ourselves and one another which is centered around God's creative work. If we are to understand our relationship to God and to one another we have to start here at the very beginning.

Some thoughts to ponder and share with others:

• Did you grow up being told that everyone was basically good or basically evil?
• How has your life been shaped by your answer to the first question? 
• When you look at someone else do you see God in them? What difference does that make?
• If you lived each of your days with the awareness that you have the likeness of God within you what difference might that make?