October 19

Passage: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27

Hermeneutical Tool: Polemic

Thanks for joining Symphony’s 40 Days in the Word campaign.  I’m Pastor Barry, and I’m excited to share the first of 34 devotions.  In these devotions, Monday through Saturday, we will be walking through the whole bible together, starting in Genesis and ending wth Revelation.  Along the way, we’ll get the sweep of the story of Scripture, and pick up some tools or principles to better understand the Bible.  

Why are such tools and principles necessary?  Well, the Bible was written FOR us, but it was not written TO us.  It was written to an ancient people with their own worldviews.  It was written so that they would understand.  In order to bridge the cultural and worldview gap, we start not by projecting our modern worldviews onto the Bible, but rather by learning how to understand the Bible as the first hearers/readers would have.  Over these 40 days, we’re going to learn ways Bible scholars have sought to bridge that gap, to see what the authors sought to communicate to their original audience.  By understanding their culture, we will see how God’s truth disrupted their world, and how it still disrupts ours.  

Let’s start at the beginning: Genesis 1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 

Jumping to verse 26:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton, poses a helpful scenario.  If he walked late into a play and asked, “How did the play begin?”, he might get a number of different answers.  The play began when the author got the idea for the play.  Or when it first got funding.  Or it began when the theater and actors were booked.  Or it began with their rehearsals.  These are all correct answers, but not the answer he was looking for.  He would be wanting to know what he had missed.  

In the same way, when we ask “How did everything begin?”, we could be asking different types of questions: Scientific, philosophical, theological.  But the creation story was not written to answer modern scientific questions, but to answer more ancient ones.  BTW, while Genesis 1 is not a scientific account, it made later science possible.  The order of the universe is possible to understand ONLY because there is a creator God who established order out of chaos. 

Instead, Genesis was written for a people who were living in a confusing swirl of beliefs about a pantheon of gods.  One representative sample of these beliefs can be found in the Babylonian creation myths.  These myths taught that creation was the by-product of a chaotic war between rival gods, that the sun and moon were participating deities, and that human beings were created to be slave labor for the gods.  But Genesis 1 reveals the truth: there is ONE creator God, who brings order out of chaos.  God created through sovereign decree rather than cosmic violence.  God created the sun and moon; i.e., they aren’t deities.  And most of all, God created human beings to represent his order in the midst of chaos.  Genesis 1 was written as a polemic: a theological statement about the supremacy of our God over all other “gods” who might attract our attention.  Other examples of biblical polemic include God taking on the Egyptian pantheon during the plagues or Elijah taking on the prophets of Baal.  The point is our God is greater!  

The Bible says we are created in the image of this God, after his likeness.  When we read Genesis 1:26-27, we find an interesting structure.  It’s a chiasm – an A, B, A structure – we’ll see more of these in future devotions.  Idea A is God making man in his image.  Idea B is God giving humanity “dominion over the fish and the birds and all living creatures”.  Then verse 27 goes back to idea A: So God created man in his own image.   That word “so” is very important.  Christians have spent a lot of time trying to figure out which of our attributes most resembles God.  How are we like God?  I think Genesis 1:26-27 is pretty clear.  We are like God because we are called to represent his dominion – his ordering of chaos.  This hits home when we learn that in the Ancient Near East, kings would place their image – a statue – in far reaches of their kingdom.  The statue wasn’t the king, but it represented his presence, his rule, and authority. 

Friends, this means you are not an accident.  You were created to represent God – his love, his peace, his kingdom in the midst of the chaos.  There’s a lot of chaos out there.  That’s the result of the Fall – more on that tomorrow.  But our God still sits on his throne, and he is still the God who brings order out of chaos.  He is greater than any other power or authority.  He can bring order into your chaos.  And he can use you to bring order into the chaos out there.

Father, we thank you that you are the God of order.  We live in a swirl of false beliefs about who we are and what we should follow, but your Word is clear.  We are the loving creation of a loving creator, designed to represent and extend your shalom in this world.  Would you fill us with your Spirit so that we might be able to go this day in your love and power.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.