This week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the PhotoGenX DTS and the other two DTSs going this term at U of N meet together for worship, and we read Genesis and Hebrews out loud in groups of three or four. A lot of people seemed not to enjoy this corporate experience very much, but I loved that we read through two books out loud together.
Genesis is probably considered the book of the Pentateuch (the Books of Moses, the Law, i.e. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) that is most relevant of important to us today, followed by half of Exodus. I would personally argue that Leviticus is a contender for the best book of the Law; but they all have to be taken together to understand the others in context, so none can really be the best.
So Genesis starts... well, at the start, the beginning. The first verses of Genesis are some of the best known of anything in the Bible, and are well known outside the Bible. But most of Genesis is a narrative account of Abram/Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, and the covenant God made with Abraham and Abraham's descendants.
This is simply brilliant. Covenants were made between two people or parties, or between a king and his subjects, for strategic economic or political reasons. But a covenant between a people and a god was unprecedented. Gods do not make covenants with people. But there is something different about this God, and He wants a relationship with people. The nature of covenants was that if either party broke the stipulations of the covenant, the other party had the legal right to take the blood, the life, of the other party. (Israel later broke the covenant again and again and again, countless times, and God showed mercy to His people instead of killing them. But this is something for another time.)
Genesis is about God beginning something big, where He has a relationship with a people. He has made a promise to bless them, something no other god would do. This sets up the narrative of His covenant people, told in Exodus.
I'm really tired, so I'm going to stop writing. I wanted to get out some thoughts about this week. More soon.
Grace and peace!
Chris
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