Discussion Questions
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What does the book of Genesis reveal about God’s Nature?
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God’s nature in Genesis is that of Creator, Father, Knowledge giver, and Disciplinarian. His will is ultimate and when we do not follow as He has intended, there are consequences. Even in the case of having offspring, Abraham was given Hagar to produce offspring with. The chosen son is Isaac, but humans have a way of trying to make ends meet, even when it’s not time yet. In this case, God allowed it, even though it was not his plan. This caused a rift between Hagar and Sarah. God specifically uses normal people to fulfill His will. Also, God lets us repeat our mistakes and then eventually one of us learns. God blesses those that listen to His voice and the leading of His hand as seen in Joseph, Isaac, and Jacob. Each of these men had times of issue, but for the most part they did as God desired. Any time that we humans thought ourselves better than God, He reminded us that we are not and an example of this is the Tower of Babel or even in the cities before the flood. People did what was right in their own mind and even built great economies, but because the focus was taken away from the family and away from God, the people did not please God, so He decided to wipe out creation. Luckily, even when God decides to do something like this, His fatherly nature and love looks to fins at least one person to bless and help through the process. Noah and his family fit the bill. God often spoke directly to His people and he cared that they had the right information for the situations around them, they may not have always listened though.
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What does the book of Genesis tell us about creation?
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Genesis speaks of beginnings of the heavens and the earth, of light and darkness, of seas and skies, of land and vegetation, of sun and moon and stars, of sea air and land animals, of human beings ( made in God’s own image, the climax of his creative activity), of marriage and family, of society and civilization, of sin and redemption.
Genesis is foundational to the understanding of the rest of the Bible. It speaks about relationship, highlighting those between God and his creation, between God and humankind, and between human beings. Genesis clearly teaches that the one true God is sovereign over all that exists, his entire creation.
God brings out to the fallen human race e new humanity consecrated to himself, called and destined to be the people of his Kingdom and the channel of his blessing to the whole earth. -
He created all things over a period of time. There was a purpose and reason for the creation. God created man and woman in His image allowing for dependance upon on another. He created us to have a partner in this life and knew we needed each other. God wants us to rely on Him and have faith in Him. He also showed in Genesis the importance of rest. Rest for us to have time with Him. Rest for us to recharge and regain our perspective of what’s important. Time to lean into Him.
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God specifically goes through the creation of the stars and the earth and all the creatures on it in a very particular way. The term “day” is not necessarily a single 24 hour day, but it is a span of time. The morning and evening of the days were meant to match with the Jewish week and even the importance of resting on the 7th day. This importance is depicted in the position that God takes, when he didn’t need to rest, he still did as a point of how the Jews should do their work week. The spirit of God hoovered over the face of the waters in Genesis 1 and even in this time, he was creating and setting up the world to be inhabited by those he wanted to fill the earth with. Humans were made last, which shows that the Bible was written with inspiration. People generally want to be first in everything, so if this was a story of just man’s ideas, likely they would have man being the first creations. God gave Adam the task of finding one that would suit him from the other creations and God knew that Adam would not find any creature to meet that, so he formed Eve out of Adam. The symbolism of this is carried into the deeper meaning of marriage as well. When we become one flesh with our spouse, it’s to parallel the initial one flesh by which woman came from Adam.