In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, let there be light and there was light, God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness he called night, and there was evening and there was morning, one day. How old is page 1 of the Bible, it was written in ancient Hebrew and it was written by an author who lived over 3,000 years ago, but we don’t actually let this sink in when we open up page 1 of the Bible, we’re supposed to have a completely different image come into our mind, an author’s mind over 3,000 years ago. When they used words, words like heavens and earth in Hebrew literature, it’s not complicated, it’s the sky that’s up there and the ground down here. There’s no way this author could have envision the idea of a globe, what model people would think today.
The Bible, is there both a divine and a human word that we need to somehow believe that the mindset of these authors got hijacked, if God wants to communicate he’s going to do it in ways that we normally communicate, which means words mean what they mean to the people who say them, what does words mean for an ancient? We assume the Bible, it’s going to speak my language, if God’s gonna communicate to us as humans, then he’s going to do it in ways that we normally write and talk, but what we shouldn’t have in our minds is a globe floating in a universe, what’s the perception of a human’s experience of the earth 3,000 years ago. What do you experience every day, it’s land what’s under your feet and sky is what’s up there. There’s a handful of words the author could have used to describe a point in time, but the Bible isn’t designed to answer all of our questions and rather what it’s designed to do is to get us asking the questions that these authors think.
The first sentence of the Bible is actually saying something deeply profound, everything up there and everything down here, it did not cause itself, universes don’t just happen to exist. What’s down here was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, does it sound like a place where you can plant a garden, we came from a whole set of causes and effects, in the beginning God. God is the only one in all of heaven and earth who does not have a cause or a maker, God’s name in the Bible is the one who is, everything that is, depends on God. When we go outside and we look up and we look down, what we see is two realms, the earth realm and then there’s the sky realm, all of the life and the goodness and the flourishing that we experience here on the land doesn’t come from itself, but it comes from two main things, it comes from the light that comes from above and it comes from the water that comes down from above, when you put light and water on the ground, stuff grows, this is a tale of two realms of heavens and earth.
Everything that’s going to happen on earth, happens because of the life-giving source of the heavens that comes down upon the land, earth depends for its very existence on heaven. If God created the heavens and the earth, where is God in the heavens and the earth? One way to talk about God’s location, the author of all that is, is not in the heavens and earth, God being in heaven, it’s a metaphor for talking about God as above and beyond as the author of all, the heavens cannot contain God, shattering our concepts of reality, shattering the boxes that we put God within. God doesn’t exist within heavens and earth, God is not a being in the universe, God is the author of all that is and everything that happens here on earth is sourced by the infinite life of heaven, that’s what Genesis 1:1 is trying to communicate to us, behold the image of the creator who is behind and within and beyond all of it. Heaven and earth are made for each other and everything that you and I experience on earth is itself a reflection in a gift, an outpouring of God’s generous heavenly life and love. Although these realms are distinct, they are not separate and they are made to become closer and closer eventually till they become one together, that’s the seventh day.
The Bible, is there both a divine and a human word that we need to somehow believe that the mindset of these authors got hijacked, if God wants to communicate he’s going to do it in ways that we normally communicate, which means words mean what they mean to the people who say them, what does words mean for an ancient? We assume the Bible, it’s going to speak my language, if God’s gonna communicate to us as humans, then he’s going to do it in ways that we normally write and talk, but what we shouldn’t have in our minds is a globe floating in a universe, what’s the perception of a human’s experience of the earth 3,000 years ago. What do you experience every day, it’s land what’s under your feet and sky is what’s up there. There’s a handful of words the author could have used to describe a point in time, but the Bible isn’t designed to answer all of our questions and rather what it’s designed to do is to get us asking the questions that these authors think.
The first sentence of the Bible is actually saying something deeply profound, everything up there and everything down here, it did not cause itself, universes don’t just happen to exist. What’s down here was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, does it sound like a place where you can plant a garden, we came from a whole set of causes and effects, in the beginning God. God is the only one in all of heaven and earth who does not have a cause or a maker, God’s name in the Bible is the one who is, everything that is, depends on God. When we go outside and we look up and we look down, what we see is two realms, the earth realm and then there’s the sky realm, all of the life and the goodness and the flourishing that we experience here on the land doesn’t come from itself, but it comes from two main things, it comes from the light that comes from above and it comes from the water that comes down from above, when you put light and water on the ground, stuff grows, this is a tale of two realms of heavens and earth.
Everything that’s going to happen on earth, happens because of the life-giving source of the heavens that comes down upon the land, earth depends for its very existence on heaven. If God created the heavens and the earth, where is God in the heavens and the earth? One way to talk about God’s location, the author of all that is, is not in the heavens and earth, God being in heaven, it’s a metaphor for talking about God as above and beyond as the author of all, the heavens cannot contain God, shattering our concepts of reality, shattering the boxes that we put God within. God doesn’t exist within heavens and earth, God is not a being in the universe, God is the author of all that is and everything that happens here on earth is sourced by the infinite life of heaven, that’s what Genesis 1:1 is trying to communicate to us, behold the image of the creator who is behind and within and beyond all of it. Heaven and earth are made for each other and everything that you and I experience on earth is itself a reflection in a gift, an outpouring of God’s generous heavenly life and love. Although these realms are distinct, they are not separate and they are made to become closer and closer eventually till they become one together, that’s the seventh day.
