Rev Bill Eng preached on Genesis today. Sounded a little apologetic but surely an interesting approach. I will highlight a few interesting points that we all should ponder upon.
Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
A statement of faith, there is no reason given.
Our attitude towards the Book of Genesis is utmost important. How we accept Genesis will determine how we accept the rest of the Bible. Adam was the first man, Jesus is the second Adam. If we cannot believe in the first Adam, how can we believe in the second Adam? If Adam is a legend, well, that would conclude that Jesus is a legend as well. It is utmost important that we believe in the Book of Genesis.
The Book of Genesis gave the account of creation, life, death, marraige, family, kingdom, nation, government, culture, sex, shame, moral, sin, knowledge of good and bad. God set the rules here in Genesis. It is here the answer to the beginning of things. You asked about why there is marraige; the answer is in Genesis. You asked why we wear clothing, the answer is here in Genesis; you asked why killing another is considered bad, the answer is here in Genesis.
Genesis is the foundation of our faith. The enemy had been very busy trying to destroy this foundation. He speak lies and deceive man into a ridiculous state of unbelieve.
The atheist do not believe in God. But it really takes equal level of faith to NOT BELIEVE in God as it takes to BELIEVE in God.
We need to pray, pay more attention and give due respect to this Book of Genesis.
The question now is how should Christians give due respect to the book of Genesis? Should we defend it as confessional statements of faith without any reasoning or deeper understanding? Or do we try to understand it better with all the resources we have, both from biblical studies and other more 'secular' fields of research?
ReplyDeleteHi Israel, tough questions, what's your answer?
ReplyDeleteMy personal answer is that we live believing in Genesis. We talk as believers. We share as believers.
Not all are scholars, not all even reads or are literate. Praise God we can read and research. I would do it the simple way, read and research, believe, and be obedient.
Gen 1:1 is a statement, not a apologetic. Maybe it should be just like that.
I have a engineering trainee from the a UK university reporting to me a few months back. A typical British lad, smart, intelligent, handsome, and with a passion for girls and beers. Since we have much time together, I get rub some influence over him. I shared to him a lot from Genesis, the reasoning for many things around us. Genesis works well with left brain engineering lads. He asked the question, how can it be possible? But as he listened more, he is pretty amazed over what he heard. For the first time, he finds God interesting.
It is sad how people are deceived by the enemy, they are not ungodly, just ignorant, until someone tells them. Someone needs to do the work of the evangelist and tells them of God.
Maybe you, maybe me. :)
The next question is how do you share Genesis as a believer? The popular perception is towards using the theory of evolution to discredit the story of Genesis. You do not need to be a scholar to run an Internet search to find scientific facts that seems to challenge the story of Genesis. How do you explain to left-brain engineers about the sprouting of vegetation when the sun has not come into existence? Are we to simply accept this as faith statement? When the author, inspired by the Spirit, to write down the book of Genesis, did he intend it to be read as statements or something else? What was the intention of the author when he wrote it down? God does not hijack someone and put him into a trance to write a book which he has no intention of writing or one which he does not know the meaning at all. More questions to ponder. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWill ponder, what is your conclusion? I'd to hear your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe British engineering lad asked, How can it be possible?
Can we try asking, How can it not be possible?