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Vol. 11 No. 8 August 2009 |
Page 4 |
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Vol. 11 No. 8 August 2009 |
Page 4 |
Tim Childs
Some find it interesting that the Bible does not begin with someone trying to make an argument for the existence of God. Such would have been natural had the book been written by a man or group of men who were trying to pull the proverbial wool over the eyes of humanity.
No, Genesis 1:1 begins with a simple, but profound, declarative statement: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” What better way to begin the Book of all books than with such an arresting attention getter? Hearing these words, a sincere, objective man is anxious to hear more.
No mere mortal man, without the help of God Almighty, could have sat down to write in such detail this concise accounting for the origin of man and the universe. Not only to write it, but to write with such pinpoint accuracy while it gives us insight as to why certain things are as they are in God’s world that we are privileged to use.
The following are just a handful of truths we discover in the early pages of Genesis: God chose to call the period of darkness, “night,” while He chose to call the light time, “Day.” God called the firmament, “heaven,” which we know as the heavens or the sky. God called the dry land, “the earth,” and the bodies of waters he called, “the seas.” God gave us two lights, a greater light (we know as the Sun) to rule the day and a lesser light (the moon) to rule the night. God gave us the days of the week, seven in number, and he gave us the seasons of the year. Adam, the first man God created, called the helper God made for him, “woman,” since she was taken from the man.
In conclusion, we observe that every single detail in God’s Book of Genesis pertaining to the origin of man and the universe is accurate and true to even the (scientific) facts as we know them, thousands of years later. As love is known through its deeds, so God, too, who is love, is known through his works (cf. Psalm 19:1).