The Thursday After

I got the email that WMB is going to spend the next 7 weeks delving into the Genesis scroll (Jan 7: Creation; Jan 14: Fall; Jan 21: Noah; Jan 28: Babel; Feb 4: Abraham; Feb 11: Canaan; Feb 18: Joseph). That seems fitting at the beginning (or genesis) of a new year.

Genesis is an amazing scroll. Genesis 1-3 contain all you really need to know for life, like All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten. Yet, both Genesis and kindergarten take a life of meditation to work out. On Nov 12 & 19 when Marv talked about work and our purpose in the world, I was reminded again that Genesis 1-3 is amazing.

So I am really excited for this journey together through Genesis. I have no inside knowledge of what we will cover (just the office email). I have been tracking with the BibleProject and they have been so so helpful in my understanding of and love for Genesis.

Here’s some suggestions to get ready for the Genesis series:

• Get a story overview of the Genesis scroll. These two videos (~6 minutes each) tell the main story line. The Genesis 1-11 video is here and the Genesis 12-50 video is here.
• Get an organization overview of the Genesis scroll – like seeing the main stories on a map. The Genesis 1-11 video is here and the Genesis 12-50 is here (~7 minutes each).

Here’s a few ways to prepare for January 7, the creation story:

• Genesis chapter 1 is absolutely brilliant, and it takes a tour guide to show you. Check out this video and you will never look at Genesis 1 in the same way again. This will make sense when you are done: a commenter points out that the video (before the credits) is 7 minutes and says “well done”. And double bonus points for observing that we will be covering this on January 7.
• The creation story shows who God is and who we are, key to understanding the rest of scripture and foundational for our own lives. Here’s a great “Image of God” video (6 min).

Now if you really want to track with Genesis deeply, take the courses they have online (~15 hours each). There is Heaven and Earth (Genesis 1), Adam to Noah (Genesis 2-5) and Noah to Abraham (Genesis 6-11). The rest of Genesis is coming in 2024. All of this underlines how one can spend a lifetime meditating day and night on the Bible (Psalm 1).

Finally, I really like the 5 minute video The Story of the Bible • What It’s About From Beginning to End. God is really insistent on working with humans, and Genesis is really important in understanding our relationship.

Looking forward to learning with you.