Genesis 1:11-12

2006.Apr.05 17:24

Flora

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God makes plants. This is good, since later creations will eat them. Additionally, these plants do a couple of things:

1. They sprout from the earth; or, more precisely, the earth sprouts them
2. They bear seed, or fruit with seed, after their kind

The attributes suggest that God is designing them to reflect his plan for humanity, in addition to providing sustenance.

God orders (or allows from the “Let”) the earth to "”sprout vegetation…and fruit trees”" (Genesis 1:11, NASB) . God builds up his ideal location for humanity, that is earth, but he also reflects humanity in this. Humans are created from the earth, and sustained by the things of the earth. We, like flora, are constrained to an environment. And one, considering the size of the universe, indeed of the planet, that is pretty darn small. We are dependent, explicitly, on the earth. Why would that be important to God? Because he is teaching us to depend on him. These environmental constraints remind us that we are now gods, at least not on the level of Jehovah. We see this constraint all around us, and plants, which must hold root, dependant on the earth, are an excellent example.

The plants also have seed, after their kind. (Side note: Sorry for the bad transition sentences. My essayist skills have diminished.) Once again, we see God creating distinctions, now adding to it that of generations. Also here is the concept of parenthood, although not of rearing.
In all, that is, God is presenting the concept of connection with prior generations, that each species can be seen as its own entity. As Adam and Eve are one, even more so prior to the seperation caused by sin, so we as humanity act as one. This point is solidified is the concept of the bride. God desires friendship and companionship. However, due to the natural claim to godhood of sentient beings–anyway, I think it’s inevitable–that companion must be matured, with things added and things cut off. We as humanity are the bride, but only those unwilling to renounce their godhood and turn to Jesus will be cut off.

And so, once again, I am left wondering how I got from the first point to this. Coming up: God plays with light some more!

Genesis 1:5-10

2006.Mar.28 20:26

In which God names (and makes) stuff

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In Genesis 1:5, God names something for the first time recorded. He calls the light (that is the separated from darkness light) “day”. God is actively creating language as well as “stuff”. In particular, he is creating a vocabulary, introducing those things which he wants us, humans, to identify distinctly. He then calls darkness, “night”, and in verse 7 distinguishes between “earth” and “sea”. As with separating light and darkness, God is using words to train us to think in distinctions, in boundaries.

Okay, that’s not where I thought I was going with this. But it makes sense.
Then, the question is why this would be so important to him as to occupy a fair part of the creation story–or perhaps, so important to those who wrote it–begging around twenty questions; since I choose to believe God could speak even through us crazy humans, I’m not going to indulge them at the moment. It seems, he is building up to the distinction between the trees, and between righteousness and sin.

It is important that these distinctions relate to where it is easiest for humans to thrive. Humans are better suited to land than water, to light than darkness. Both the sea and darkness impede our natural abilities, the former through a less suitable environment, the latter through loss of sight. While we can survive in these situations, trying to act out normal tasks is draining and difficult. On the other hand, night is when we tend to get rest. The heavens, likewise a domain ill-suited for humans, is one which we equate with God, oddly enough. Again, it is distinguished from the earth, but it also has its own set of water–clouds, I assume–again, distinct.

So, even the less hospitable of the pairs provide good things. So, what am I saying here? I have no idea. Perhaps because the tree of knowledge does contain something good: knowledge (2 Peter 1:6, tells us to grow in knowledge among other things). However, it is also destructive. It is that choice between living with something that brings both bad and good, versus living only in good. Could any of us really have chosen the latter? Would it have been better had we not eaten of the forbidden fruit. Well, now, that is a complicated question.

None of the above makes much sense, does it? Oh, well, these are my rambling thoughts.

Genesis 1:3-4

2006.Mar.19 14:19

Creating Light

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Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
(Genesis 1:3-4, NASB)

God’s first step, post creating “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) is to create light. It’s interesting that it specifies “light” rather than, for example, “energy”. (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/9_literal.html also uses the term “light” in its translation, so I’m going to more or less accept that). Creating light, particularly in contrast to “energy”, implies sight. And then he separates light from darkness. That is, he prepares a situation in which most humans can visibly see for part of the time. The use of sight, light and darkness are often used, in the Bible and elsewhere, to symbolize spiritual realities.

Then, it seems clear, that God deliberately wants us to get used to the idea that we don’t know everything, and he is, indeed, explicitly hiding some knowledge, some understanding from us. This is reiterated with the trees, later. In this, God calls light “good” but has no recorded comment here on the darkness. The darkness is not so much good, perhaps, as necessary. The darkness of the night is the absence of one sort of energy, just as a lack of certain knowledge is also the absence of a desire to sin in humans. To see some of the things God can see, we must be aware of the ability to hurt others. It might have been nice had that knowledge remained absent, but, then…well, perhaps that’s another subject.

Genesis 1:1-2

2006.Mar.06 16:08

Above the Void, a Plan

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From Genesis, Entry 1

So, God’s chilling. Or whatever a omnipotent being apparently largely unaffected by time does before time begins. Since the subject of this blog category is neither metaphysics, nor philosophy, I’ll skip the required descussion on God’s self-existance. I’m more concerned with the relationship between God and I.

Let’s suffice it so, he has a plan, whilst chilling. So, he creates the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1). Insofar as for the time being, I assume he had a plan by this point, I can’t exactly engage my wish of fanciful: “Well, I guess I’ll make a…earth!” Okay, I have some metaphysical thoughts on that. But I will refrain. Still, this seems a little disconnected. I’ll get to a point later.

Now here may be one of my favorite things ever written, from the NASB: "”The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters”" (Genesis 1:2, NASB) .

Why so cool? Because this is the one time I can think of that we really see, in the Bible, God just…chilling. Think of that, God hovering over a formless earth, moving across the waters. What was he thinking.

Okay, so, I am going to jump into theology for a moment. Here’s my theory.
Trying to refine my understanding, to correct, alter, drop if need be, this theory, is one of the major reasons that I am trying this step-by-step through the Bible. I imagine it will take most of my life, should I keep it up. Cool.

Here’s my guess:

God wants friendship.

Let me back up. To know God better, to begin to understand his reasons, motives, desires, I have several resources, among them: the Bible, the Holy Spirit, worship, prophecy, talking about him with other people, etc. All these being great, they also leave me wondering how I can understand him on a more “human” level.

There is one more source: myself. "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”" (Genesis 1:26, NASB) . That implies to me that I am enough similar to God that I can gather some of his desires by looking at my own. Among them, friendship. I’ll have a lot more to say about this when I actually get to that verse, say, sometime around June.

So, let’s propose that God wanted friends. And that’s what maybe he’s thinking as he hovers over the deep. About me and you, being his friends. But he knows it’s not as simple as just saying “Hey, you’re my friend”. And if you question the difficulty of that, I encourage a look at your friendships.

I hope to post in this once a week.