Yippee! We're beginning. I am so excited about this. I thought of John 1, too, as I read these first verses of Genesis. I recently studied John 1 with some international ladies and we referred to Genesis then. The whole idea of "light" is what has been hitting me. God made light before He made the sun and stars. Genesis 1: 3-4 "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and Go separated the light from the darkness." God doesn't make the sun and stars until the fourth day. We think of light as coming from the sun and stars, not as something apart from them. For some reason these verses from Genesis that show light as something independent of heavenly luminaries satisfies me, reassures me, makes me wonder. I love to wonder! And it ties in with John 1, too! "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (v. 4) That's all for now, but I may be back after pondering Gen. 1 some more.
Great thought Becky. I could have gone into so much detail. So, I am glad you talked about the "light"! I think of God as this big director: LIGHTS, CREATION, ACTION. The whole story begins and goes on. It just thrills me.
Do you know the song by Michael Card called "The Beginning." It is a song about Genesis. I wish I knew how to add songs to this blog. I would add it right here and now!
A couple of things stemming from what you said, Carol. First, this past year has been a huge one for me of seeing (and therefore enjoying--I think one follows the other since truly seeing God's hand necessarily inspires joy and awe) and experiencing the beauty of God's creative work in nature. Dh and I have taken to hiking, and it's wonderful! But what's even better than admiring creation in the abstract is recognizing in it God's care of me. Yes, what he's made is objectively beautiful, like a painting I might admire in an art gallery, but it's also PERSONAL in that it shows how he provides for me in every way--he created a world that supports and sustains life in every way imaginable.
Secondly, I love to think about creation as it relates to incarnation. The human action of spoiling creation so that it no longer supports and sustains the most important life of all (the life of fellowship with God) was not allowed to be the "end of the story" for creation. What we spoil, he restores. Our inglorious response to his glorious work of creation resulted in further action on his part--the action of entering creation as a human, a surprising and often confusing action. I mean, when someone creates a wreckage of what was made beautiful, why would the creator ENTER the wreckage, submit himself to the danger of being wrecked, too, rather than fixing it from afar or scrapping it to start over? It's a mystery worth pondering.
I like to think, too, about honoring and loving creation not only because it in itself is beautiful and a reflection of God's character and disposition toward me, but also because it hosted God himself for 33 years, kind of like how old buildings are preserved and honored because "George Washington slept here." Our little planet was highly favored!
Welcome Rachel! I was hoping you would come along.
The "God made the sky before He made the birds" quote was getting at what you said about God supporting and sustaining us in our life. I see God not only as Creator in the first chapter of Genesis, but I see Him as provider of all I need for life and godliness that is a consistent thread throughout Scripture.
I love this. I have been so aware of my personal Creator God as I have mused on Genesis 1 today. My goal for 2008 is more and more to have a minute by minute awareness of His wonderful presence around me and before me.
P.S. I also think taking a picture a day was very helpful in my awareness of God too. :)
I love Becky's and Rachel's comments, and Carol, I am so excited about reading the Scriptures together! I sent this address to almost everyone from my address book who are Christians because reading through the Bible so meditatively and thoughtfully is so important! And so rewarding.
I love the poetic repetition and parallelism in this first chapter of Genesis. The structure of each day of creation is so similar: God spoke, God made/divided, God "saw that it was good," and then "the evening and the morning were the ____th day."
Also the repetition of "God saw that it was good" really stood out to me. Everything He made WAS GOOD. And after He created humans after His own image, He "saw that it was VERY good." I love how the fact of the goodness of creation is repeated in a parallel structure that causes it to stand out to us as readers; we can't miss this essential truth.
I also noticed that this world as created by God was a vegetarian world (before the Fall, anyway). That's something to think about. No killing of animals, either by each other or by people. That intrigues me.
Thanks so much, Carol, for leading this study/club. I am so thrilled and excited to dig into God's Word this deeply.
Yes, Susanne! I love the repetition. I look forward to your insights into poetry and such!
"God saw that it was good." That we were "very good." I love that too. We will talk more about that as we get into Chapter two and the "maginified" view of the creation of man and woman!
Hi all! I wanted you to know I was here and reading along. I'm really enjoying the comments and will chime in along the way as well. I'm looking forward to having some accountability this year for reading the Bible.
I've spent a little more time thinking about this passage and want to share one more thing that's hit me today. Actually, it came to me as I was writing for my blog. I am treating today as a kind of fresh start - the beginning of a new year. We often do that... we begin again in the mornings after a night of sleep. And I think that this passage implies that was intended... the sun and moon and stars were given to us as signs to mark seasons and days and months and years.
I am very thankful that we often get a chance to start over. Each morning we can wake up and once again remember God's faithfulness which doesn't end with the day before but continues through the night and is just as new when we begin a new day as it was the day before. God doesn't change, but I'm so glad that He gave us the markers of days and months and years so that we can reorient ourselves, begin anew in a way.
Carol, you know that I love the music of Michael Card. And I have that one so I'm putting it on now!
I have all kinds of thoughts about this passage. I just read something in C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves that applies here - actually Rachel's comment is what made me think of it.
Thanks Heather! That is great. I don't understand the ins and outs of Rhapsody. I probably can't put the song to play on the website without permission though. It would be fun to play songs that are appropriate for what we are studying though, but the link will do! I may post the words to the song "In the Beginning" tomorrow!
Wow! I just listened through the Rhapsody website, and I am in tears. I know I have the CD here, but for those of you who do not own the Michael Card CD, you can listen to 25 songs per month for free through Rhapsody, and it so enhances your meditation on Genesis 1&2! Loving this. Love, love, love this!
I'm here. :) We got home a little while ago from our New Year/ Christmas celebration with my family. It's late, and I'm about to crash. I read everything, though, and my thoughts were pretty similar to you guys'. This is going to be such fun! :)
Hello Carol and others. Well, today is my husbands birthday and he wanted to take us to the snow. So in the car driving up there I was struck by the beauty of the snow on the trees. So magestic! On the way home we were talking about the different forms of water that God created, how they have different purposes and yet they all work together in God's plan. It's fun praising God for His creation! Thanks Carol for all the work you are putting into this. I, too, am already enjoying this. Keep up the good work! Jan
16 comments:
Yippee! We're beginning. I am so excited about this. I thought of John 1, too, as I read these first verses of Genesis. I recently studied John 1 with some international ladies and we referred to Genesis then. The whole idea of "light" is what has been hitting me. God made light before He made the sun and stars. Genesis 1: 3-4 "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and Go separated the light from the darkness." God doesn't make the sun and stars until the fourth day. We think of light as coming from the sun and stars, not as something apart from them. For some reason these verses from Genesis that show light as something independent of heavenly luminaries satisfies me, reassures me, makes me wonder. I love to wonder! And it ties in with John 1, too! "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (v. 4) That's all for now, but I may be back after pondering Gen. 1 some more.
Great thought Becky. I could have gone into so much detail. So, I am glad you talked about the "light"! I think of God as this big director: LIGHTS, CREATION, ACTION. The whole story begins and goes on. It just thrills me.
Do you know the song by Michael Card called "The Beginning." It is a song about Genesis. I wish I knew how to add songs to this blog. I would add it right here and now!
Hi! I'm here, too.
A couple of things stemming from what you said, Carol. First, this past year has been a huge one for me of seeing (and therefore enjoying--I think one follows the other since truly seeing God's hand necessarily inspires joy and awe) and experiencing the beauty of God's creative work in nature. Dh and I have taken to hiking, and it's wonderful! But what's even better than admiring creation in the abstract is recognizing in it God's care of me. Yes, what he's made is objectively beautiful, like a painting I might admire in an art gallery, but it's also PERSONAL in that it shows how he provides for me in every way--he created a world that supports and sustains life in every way imaginable.
Secondly, I love to think about creation as it relates to incarnation. The human action of spoiling creation so that it no longer supports and sustains the most important life of all (the life of fellowship with God) was not allowed to be the "end of the story" for creation. What we spoil, he restores. Our inglorious response to his glorious work of creation resulted in further action on his part--the action of entering creation as a human, a surprising and often confusing action. I mean, when someone creates a wreckage of what was made beautiful, why would the creator ENTER the wreckage, submit himself to the danger of being wrecked, too, rather than fixing it from afar or scrapping it to start over? It's a mystery worth pondering.
I like to think, too, about honoring and loving creation not only because it in itself is beautiful and a reflection of God's character and disposition toward me, but also because it hosted God himself for 33 years, kind of like how old buildings are preserved and honored because "George Washington slept here." Our little planet was highly favored!
Welcome Rachel! I was hoping you would come along.
The "God made the sky before He made the birds" quote was getting at what you said about God supporting and sustaining us in our life. I see God not only as Creator in the first chapter of Genesis, but I see Him as provider of all I need for life and godliness that is a consistent thread throughout Scripture.
I love this. I have been so aware of my personal Creator God as I have mused on Genesis 1 today. My goal for 2008 is more and more to have a minute by minute awareness of His wonderful presence around me and before me.
P.S. I also think taking a picture a day was very helpful in my awareness of God too. :)
I love Becky's and Rachel's comments, and Carol, I am so excited about reading the Scriptures together! I sent this address to almost everyone from my address book who are Christians because reading through the Bible so meditatively and thoughtfully is so important! And so rewarding.
I love the poetic repetition and parallelism in this first chapter of Genesis. The structure of each day of creation is so similar: God spoke, God made/divided, God "saw that it was good," and then "the evening and the morning were the ____th day."
Also the repetition of "God saw that it was good" really stood out to me. Everything He made WAS GOOD. And after He created humans after His own image, He "saw that it was VERY good." I love how the fact of the goodness of creation is repeated in a parallel structure that causes it to stand out to us as readers; we can't miss this essential truth.
I also noticed that this world as created by God was a vegetarian world (before the Fall, anyway). That's something to think about. No killing of animals, either by each other or by people. That intrigues me.
Thanks so much, Carol, for leading this study/club. I am so thrilled and excited to dig into God's Word this deeply.
Yes, Susanne! I love the repetition. I look forward to your insights into poetry and such!
"God saw that it was good." That we were "very good." I love that too. We will talk more about that as we get into Chapter two and the "maginified" view of the creation of man and woman!
This is so fun!
Hi all! I wanted you to know I was here and reading along. I'm really enjoying the comments and will chime in along the way as well. I'm looking forward to having some accountability this year for reading the Bible.
Happy New Year!
I've spent a little more time thinking about this passage and want to share one more thing that's hit me today. Actually, it came to me as I was writing for my blog. I am treating today as a kind of fresh start - the beginning of a new year. We often do that... we begin again in the mornings after a night of sleep. And I think that this passage implies that was intended... the sun and moon and stars were given to us as signs to mark seasons and days and months and years.
I am very thankful that we often get a chance to start over. Each morning we can wake up and once again remember God's faithfulness which doesn't end with the day before but continues through the night and is just as new when we begin a new day as it was the day before. God doesn't change, but I'm so glad that He gave us the markers of days and months and years so that we can reorient ourselves, begin anew in a way.
Carol, you know that I love the music of Michael Card. And I have that one so I'm putting it on now!
I have all kinds of thoughts about this passage. I just read something in C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves that applies here - actually Rachel's comment is what made me think of it.
I am loving this.
Happy New Year, everyone!
We're off to a great start, Carol! I hope to meditate further on this after my kiddos are in bed. Here's the song if anyone is interested:
http://www.rhapsody.com/michaelcard
Heather
Thanks Heather! That is great. I don't understand the ins and outs of Rhapsody. I probably can't put the song to play on the website without permission though. It would be fun to play songs that are appropriate for what we are studying though, but the link will do! I may post the words to the song "In the Beginning" tomorrow!
Wow! I just listened through the Rhapsody website, and I am in tears. I know I have the CD here, but for those of you who do not own the Michael Card CD, you can listen to 25 songs per month for free through Rhapsody, and it so enhances your meditation on Genesis 1&2! Loving this. Love, love, love this!
I'm here. :) We got home a little while ago from our New Year/ Christmas celebration with my family. It's late, and I'm about to crash. I read everything, though, and my thoughts were pretty similar to you guys'. This is going to be such fun! :)
Hello Carol and others. Well, today is my husbands birthday and he wanted to take us to the snow. So in the car driving up there I was struck by the beauty of the snow on the trees. So magestic! On the way home we were talking about the different forms of water that God created, how they have different purposes and yet they all work together in God's plan. It's fun praising God for His creation! Thanks Carol for all the work you are putting into this. I, too, am already enjoying this. Keep up the good work! Jan
YEAH! Jan is here! Jan and I are in a classic book club together. We are reading Jan Austen's Mansfield Park this time!
Jan, Happy Birthday to your husband! How great that you could enjoy his creation in our beautiful state and get into a discuss with dhusband about it!
Welcome, welcome. I know you are going to be a great addition!
Carol, could you post a reading schedule or link to it? In case "we" or "I" get lost and/or behind? Thanks tons!!
Hi Mary,
The reading schedule is on the side bar. :) Enjoy! Carol
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