Weaver1has's Blog

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Short advertisement for the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria:                                                           

 At the time of writing my blog a huge earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, thousands of people lost their  lives, and many have been injured. One website where you can give donations can be found at the

    following address: https://www.dec.org.uk/

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God is pure love but the world is full of disharmony and moral conflict.  But the creation story shows us another way. The creation story as a metaphor can be the base line for us to aim for.  God created harmony from disharmony so that nature could exist and thus we could live out our lives.  In this story vegetation sprouted and it was set up in such a way that it would always yield more vegetation.  Without food we would die.  In that case those who are in politics firstly and the rest of us need to realize that they have a very great responsibility for the upkeep of nature on earth.  We are all responsible for the upkeep of nature for if nature dies so do we, as a human race. What does nature give us? Food, water, rest, fresh air, time (seasons) etc. 

Genesis Chapter 1; the Creation Story continued.

As I go through Genesis chapter 1, I start to realize that the Lord’s main goal and pinnacle goal was the creation of humanity who could have a meaningful relationship with the Trinitarian God. God went to a lot of trouble to create everything.  Each day in itself was like a mini goal made up of Divine Intentions leading to the perfection of goals. In the creation of the universe and the world, it was a lot of hard work.  We need to go through this chapter in short bursts and looking at these mini objectives because we can learn a lot from them. Genesis 1. 9-13 includes the following:

• Seeing land for the first time.
• Seeing the seas as we know them for the first time.
• The creation of vegetation for its kind.

The environment was now getting closer to perfection and the possibility of animal and human life.  For the first time we see life coming into the world.  Yet the various types of light had not yet been created thus there was no ‘time’ yet as we know it. At this point there were no seasons to speak of. Yet even in this basic unfinished creation there was enough for basic vegetative life and trees (the main food sources for humans). When we look at the bullet points above, we can see that God has been dividing the building blocks of matter towards an environment that will be a liveable environment for people.

Anyhow time to look at our text for this Week:

“Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.  The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.  There was evening and there was morning, a third day.” Genesis 1:9-13 NASB

As we read ‘then God said’ this is a completed action.  God separated the land from the sea and verse 9 finishes off with ‘and it was so’.  At that point we have dry ground for the first time.  Rain, fog and mist is not mentioned. Dry ground is good but if nothing grows then it isn’t very helpful to human and animal habitation.  More is needed to be done.  At the moment there is land on the surface with a real atmosphere but no vegetation, a bit like the planet Mars.

God gave names to the dry land and the water:

• Earth
• Sea

For the first time at the end of verse 10, in our creation story God uses the word ‘good’. Next in verse 11 we have:

“Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.” Genesis 1:11

Again when God said; it was in the perfect completed meaning, There are no seasons yet but God had created the light from the darkness but there are no seasons at this point!

Verse 12

‘and the earth brought forth…’ ‘Brought’ in the Hebrew is in the perfect completed action.

Verse 13

This is a summary of what God has been doing.  Notice however that God created evening first and then the morning.  It is very interesting that the Sabbath in Judaism begins Friday evening.  This goes against our human Western logic.  We always think of the morning as the starting point of the day because this is when we go to work or school etc.  Genesis actually reverses this order.

I want to look a little bit close to Genesis 1.11-12.  Steinmann wrote:

cvcv

11–12. God next creates vegetation (csb) which appears to be classified into two types: plants that bear seeds, and trees (plants that bear fruit which contain seeds). Seed or descendant (when used of humans) is an important Hebrew term in Genesis, occurring sixty-five times, almost one-quarter of its occurrences in the entire Old Testament. This term reveals God’s provision for the continued reproduction of life.

Steinmann, Andrew E.. Genesis (pp. 53-54). IVP. Kindle Edition.

As Steinmann says the word seed crops up a lot in Genesis.  Isn’t it marvellous that God cares for the ‘reproduction of life’?  This is a miracle that happens on a daily basis.

Reflection

Not only did God create the atmosphere, dry land, seas, water and vegetation. God created it in such a way that it could be self-sustaining (in God’s will).   Up to now we see an order and good management from God. Everything was good and perfect and there was no sin in the world yet.  We haven’t reached the creation of man yet, but humans were created in the image of God.  In these few verses we see God creating ‘good’ things and not bad.

God’s intention for the human race has always been ‘good’ towards us.  We see this throughout the universe.  Everywhere else has proven to be barren except earth. Why is that? The outcomes of those intentions in Genesis have come about.  At the moment in the story, it is a monologue in that it is all about this impersonal God and this dead matter, yet we learn enough to realize that he made the unstable world stable by giving order to the seas, heavens and the dry land. God has the power to give life.

How does the creation story affect civilization and the material world?

Metaphorically speaking, Politics is about managing the resources of the world both human and material in a meaningful and wise way.  In politics, those in charge (not all leaders) have been guilty of atrocities on a very large scale.  People can learn from these verses that we can go towards good moral choices (God being our example).  On a smaller scale every time we show love to our neighbour we create goodness.  Our heavenly Father was creating a world for living in.  On a smaller scale parents create a liveable and loving environment for their children. Unfortunately, when we watch the news, this is not always the case.  The selfish greed in the human heart can cause misery to many children and even death. They do not get the chance to grow up in a loving and stable family.  In turn this makes an unbreakable circle that can go on for generations. We can pray ACTS:

• Adoration; Let us praise and be thankful to God for his creation.
• Confession; Let us confess our sins that we have made mistakes in this creation and hurt other people, vegetation and animal life
• Thanksgiving; Let us be thankful that even though we are sinful beings God still pours his love into his creation so we might live.
• Supplication; Let us ask God for our daily needs and also we ought to look out for the daily needs of those under our supervision in Christ’s love by the Holy Spirit

Analytic Notes

The verbs

Verse 9

Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

• ‘be assembled’; niphal,
• ‘Appear’ ; niphal: become visible; appear

Verse 10

God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.

• And God ‘called’; ‘Called’ is perfect in meaning both times used in this verse
• ‘And it was good’ The first time God says good about His creation.

Verse 11

Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.

• ‘and God ‘said’’; perfect in meaning
• ‘Sprout’ as a verb in the hiphil; ‘cause (let) to bring forth’
• ‘yielding’ participle in the hiphil

Verse 12

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

• The effects of God’s spoken word took place and there was now vegetative life in the world.
• ‘And it was good’ is mentioned again
• Hiphils ‘causatives’ in the Hebrew are used in this verse

Verse 13

There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

• The third day was now completed.

Reflection; Although the basics for some life have been completed, the world as we know it was not ready yet.  God was now in the next verses going to create time in a way that is understandable by the ordinary human being.