God created the earth, therefore we should care for the earth. God created humans, therefore we should care for humans. We, as created ones, should long to reflect something of the Creator. No person is insignificant and no part of the created order is without meaning.Other thoughts? This is a great chapter for conversation. Join in...
The creation story is consistent throughout major religions and many minor religions, with the exception of the personal nature of God’s love for people. Only the God of the Bible embodies this love.
What questions or insights does this raise?
Sunday, April 06, 2008
In the Beginning
Phew. Tonight at Journey we began a walk through a new book of the Bible. Not tht the book itself is new but that we newly began this look at the book. Yeah. So we are embarking on the journey through Genesis. It's a long one, but full of lots of fun stuff. Here's the podcast. Here are some of the thoughts that got our conversation going...
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4 comments:
So ... to steal imagery from Ryan ... I'm swimming in the thought pool of perception here.
And I'm wondering how a fresh look at this chapter might help our perspective on life.
And I don't think it matters much if you look at it as a poem, a chunk of metaphors, a passed down feel-good story, or a literal word-for-word account of history.
The truth is, when you put this chapter, and the story it tells us, into perspective, it hits home. God is a lot more significant than we are. The ways and wills and paths and purposes of God are a lot better and more impactful and meaningful and lasting than our own. We might think what we're trying to accomplish is great. We might think we need to accomplish something no matter the cost. But our place in time and our significance next to God is about the same: the lifetime of a puff of vapor.
But that's not the only perspective pool I'm swimming in. Lori mentioned something tonight about trying to get a box big enough to fit God in. And this is semi-related to the above. We can't get that box big enough, because we're not that good. We can't fully understand God, because we're a single drop of water in the Pacific Ocean.
But beyond that, think about this: God created man and woman in his image. So why do we so often as Christian fight (sometimes literally to the death) to create a picture of God, where God is created in our image?
Tyler - what a fantastic ending thought. We are so self-centered as humans that we actually try to create God in our image. To create him as we want - to satisfy our needs and wants. Not a very pretty picture of us, is it...
Last night, I also focused on a perspective I have never really given thought to - and that is our responsibility to be caretakers of all God said was good. I've trashed the Earth as much as anyone in my lifetime without giving consideration to essentially trashing God's handiwork. It certainly puts things in a different light when I think of it from that perspective.
Jim Z.
I love Tyler's comment that we are just a drop of water in the Pacific Ocean. I have been thinking a lot lately about just how small I am. That might sound strange but it's really pretty significant. I've been teaching astronomy in one of my classes the last few weeks and as the class went farther and farther out into the universe (Earth, our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, the local group of galaxies, distant galaxies and beyond) something became evident. There are billions of stars in our galaxy. Some smaller than our sun, some larger. There are billions of other galaxies in the universe each with billions more stars. Can you comprehend billions of billions of stars? There isn't enough space in this blog for enough zeros to write out that number. But God know each one intimately. And yet...He consideres me (ME!) even more important. Tiny little me in Bluffton, Ohio, in North America in the Northern Hemisphere of the third rock from the star of a solar system on the third arm of the Milky Way galaxy! He knows EVERYTHING about me...and still loves me. That's the love I know!
Blessings.
We're going to try to put together a viewing of Rob Bell's video - "Everything is Spiritual." It looks at the bigness of creation and the smallness of creation and how God pursues us in the midst of all of it.
It's pretty incredible. I'm not sure when we'll fit that into the schedule, though.
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