I’m trying something a bit different. Some spontaneous writing inspired by the thoughts, reflections, and prayers that come out of my daily Bible reading. Nothing fancy. Not too long. Just the Bible and my in-the-moment thoughts. In Christianese terms… sharing with you some of what goes on in my mind as I do my daily morning devos.
These days, I’m reading in Genesis.
Origin stories are interesting. We like them. Think of all the movie franchises that eventually put out variations of origin stories for their different characters. We like to find out what shaped them into the characters we first discovered in the original movie.
The Bible opens with this:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
In the beginning.
This is where our story, your story, starts.
Technically speaking, my story and your story start the moment we were conceived. Perhaps we could take it back a bit further and say that it started when our parents decided they wanted kids, although for some, it may have taken them by surprise.
At some point in your life, you probably became interested in knowing where you came from. Not from a birds-and-the-bees angle, but larger than that. You wanted to know more about your parents’ stories, then your grandparents’ stories, and so on. Maybe you are one of those who really geeked out and went all in with ancestry tracking. You might even have provided your DNA to obtain a report indicating the genetics that make up who you are; the heritage that transferred itself from one generation to the next and shaped the life you were born into.
There is something about knowing our origins, both at the micro and macro levels. It helps shape our sense of belonging and inserts our lives into a larger picture.
That is sort of what the Bible is doing when it opens with those words: “In the beginning.” God’s people wanted, no, they needed to know why things were the way they were. The people of Israel needed some reminders. They needed a refresher on who they were, by whom and for what purpose they had been set apart, and why in the world they had ended up where they were.
So the author, or authors, establishes a starting point and then carefully selects the key characters and their stories to provide some of those answers.
Not unlike writers, preachers, and professional speakers today, as they tell the story, they do so in such a way as to grab their readers’ and listeners’ attention. They use hooks, illustrations, emphasis, exaggeration, comparisons, and so on. They make certain assumptions, allude to commonly known references, and write in the way those kinds of stories were told back then.
When reading Genesis, there is a mistake that can easily be made. We can come to the book with the wrong questions. That’s quite normal since today we don’t approach things the same way people did a few thousand years ago. For the writers and readers of Genesis, the driving questions were not only “how,” but deeply “who” and “why.” When we read it today, we are also interested in the who and the why, but we are also, and sometimes excessively, interested in the how.
But not just a broad, generic how. We are thinking in terms of science and mathematics.
Great stuff. Great questions.
But not exactly what was driving the intent of the book.
It’s important to be mindful of this. Otherwise, we become distracted, argumentative, and we miss the point.
In the beginning, God.
That is where your story begins: with God.
Simple.
Let it sink in.