GENESIS: THE STORY

I recently became fascinated by the book of Genesis; one of the five books of the Pentateuch. The book, which is sourced from the Yahwist and the Priestly source, gives an account of how the earth and all it contains was commanded into existence. Except for those who believe the evolution story and those who choose to believe in nothing, most are comfortable with this version of the creation story. The story is not 'scientific' yet every science finds its origin in God's spoken word. The artistry that God showed in the story is incomparable and almost unbelievable yet you see it everyday you look into a mirror or feel or smell. 

 I started a series on the genesis, the first of which is a summary of the story. The second focuses on the lessons from story with particular focus on God’s process of implementation. The third will focus on what God has been doing since creation and whether or not he moved on to another planet to do same kind of ‘installation’ and if he is indeed still working every day with us here on earth.

The Story 

Once upon a time, the earth as we know it was totally without form; there was no demarcation between the oceans and the heavens. Total darkness engulfed everything. The spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, hovered over the waters. Then God, in his might and power spoke. No, he commanded, “let there be light!” And light appeared illuminating everything in its path. God knew what light was and how he wanted it to be. Before he created this light, surely a lot of thought would have gone into it. He must have had a plan; a master blue print of how everything should be.

When he was done, he saw that the light was good. He was pleased. First, we, humans, a creation he made after he had put certain things in place, have discovered that visible light has a wavelength of about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm with a speed of about 300,000km per second. Scientists like Galileo attempted to measure the speed of light for decades while others studied the behaviour of light and how to use light to make other things. All these things it took man years to achieve, the same things that God, in his infinite wisdom and intelligence commanded into existence in a sentence. Then God separated the light he created from the darkness that existed. He called the light “day” and the darkness “night”. 

Still everything was without form but illuminated. The second day, he created the sky; a dome which separates the water above from the water below. The same way he commanded the light to be so he did with the sky.

Then God commanded the waters to come together so that land, will appear. The waters he named sea. As it is his custom, he stepped back to appreciate his work and his critique was ‘perfect’. He commanded plants to grow. Botanists, have spent their lives discovering and studying plants and their uses. Plants have been known to heal, kill, nourish, provide shelter, protect, and so on. The creator God looked at the living plants and was pleased with what he saw. 

Knowing he had created the sky and light, he went further to create the light in the sky to separate the days from the nights and to show time and season and years. By calculations and years of hard work, man was able to mark the seasons and name them. Man was also able to prepare for planting and harvesting based on the seasons. Man also grew to control the environments in which plants are cultivated making them grow at all seasons. Then he created the two larger lights; the sun and moon.

When evening came, he probably thought about the things he would do next; the action plans on his master blue print. He thought about the animals he wanted to create for the waters; great monsters as well as the gentle creatures of the sea. He thought about their ecosystem and all the details that make a creature to be completely called animal in its existence.  Finally Morning came and God was up and about working again. Speaking his words and showed pleasure in all that he created.

After much labour, on the sixth day, God created man. He wanted man to be like ‘US’ he said.  He had plans for man: to have power over and care for all that he had created. He created man to be like himself, his image, which is different from all other creatures he created. He gave man substance, essence and purpose. He created Man and gave him charge. For the more dangerous animals, still under the care of man, God himself made provision for feeding them. For the birds, he also decided to take care of that himself; perhaps because of the nature of birds to move around without restraint and far out of man’s reach most of the time.

Finally, he looked back at all he had created from the beginning and saw that he had completed all the tasks he set out to do. His blue print became a reality and he rejoiced. He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day.

From this article, you can deduce that there are a lot of lessons to learn about God and the way he did things during creation. Watch out for GENESIS: LESSONS FROM THE CREATION STORY