How things begin matters. We see God‘s intention for creation from the beginning: an integrated whole, in which all the parts are good and all the parts fit together to give glory to God. The Hebrew word for this is?shalom: peace, wholeness, harmony.

The Song of Creation

One other quick thought on Genesis 1. The author talks of days and nights from the very beginning, but the sun and the moon aren‘t created until the fourth day. Ancient peoples were more connected to sun and moon than we are, now that we have electricity and night doesn‘t mean dark. Ancient peoples certainly knew that the sun and the moon are required for there to be days? and nights.Here‘s the point: Genesis 1 is a beautiful theological treatise on creation, and for me, I don‘t see it contradicting physics and cosmology; I see physics and cosmology providing the fine details and Genesis 1 the broad strokes. 

P.S. The Best Visual Interpretation of the Bible I've Ever Seen

I've written previously about Darren Aronofsky's?Noah?and shared some of my reservations about the final 15 disappointing minutes of the movie. But this scene in which Noah retells the Genesis story of Creation and Fall is the best visual interpretation of scripture I've ever seen (although the image from The Minimum Bible project I included above is pretty good, too):[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFCXHr8aKDk[/embed]

P.P.S. Join Us!

Folks in my church are reading through Genesis as part of our 2015 Bible?reading plan. We'd love to have you join us and make it a part of your #First15.