I love the book of Genesis. The stories are ancient and rich with wisdom, passed on orally for thousands of years before anyone decided to capture their beauty in writing. While I don’t take these stories literally, I do take them as carefully-crafted reflections of how the ancient Israelites thought about the world and the God in whom they placed their trust. That’s important because it is that worldview and that depiction of the nature of God, humans, and the relationship between them that formed Jesus and, by extension, us.
If you don’t get caught up in taking them literally, the stories of Genesis ring with hope and faith, not to mention a pretty accurate picture of human nature in all of our heroism and folly. So, we’re going to spend a few weeks with the oldest of these stories—the narratives of Creation and the world’s first family. We won’t be looking for facts; we’ll be looking for Truth—the wisdom they share about the ways we are connected to one another, the way God uses power, and what it means to be made in that divine image.
So join me this Sunday for a deep dive into Genesis 1, my favorite Bible word, and the story of what happened when the parsonage air conditioner tripped a circuit breaker.
Blessings,
Anne