This Sunday Message was originally delivered at Weasley Chapel United Methodist Church on July 7, 2024. Below the live video is the sermon text I preached from, if you would like to follow along. Biblical texts for reference: Genesis 14:1-24; 2 Samuel 5:1-10; Hebrews 7:1-19; Revelation 21-22 Read online with https://www.biblegateway.com – a fantastic resource. … Read more
Genesis 1:11, the second part of Day 3, marks a critical turning point in creation. Here creation makes a great leap which science alone has difficulty explaining, from inanimate to animate objects. The jump from simple chemical reactions, to life. Creation and Evolution Evolution is the scientific explanation for how complex life forms develop over time … Read more
Up until now, each day in Genesis 1 has culminated with the creation of a single thing. Day 1: light. Day 2: sky. All the days that follow also feature the creation of a single type of thing, except for Day 6. (The creation of birds and fish on Day 5, while we see this … Read more
In the ancient world, the Sea represented the forces of chaos, disorder, and terror. Travel over water was considered unnatural, even by the sea traveling nations. Boats stayed close to shore, clinging as well as they could to the safety of the land. And from great sea storms, to the simple vast, endlessness of the … Read more
Earth’s sky was, science now says, not the second thing to come into existence in this universe. A whole lot of stars, planets, galaxies, comets, asteroids, even other skies above other worlds, proceeded the sky that we look up and see today. And yet, when allowed to, Genesis 1 and modern science do stand together quite … Read more
Why is the second thing that God creates here in Genesis 1:7 the Sky? Before sun, moon, and stars, before dry land, God makes something called an Expanse, separating the blue water from the blue above out heads. An Expanse later named “Sky.” Why? The answer has to do with ancient cosmology, or how people … Read more
On this little planet that we call home, there exists approximately 400 miles of vertical space between the surface where we walk, and the upper shell of our atmosphere. Long before we reach 400 miles, the oxygen level becomes so thin that we would lose the ability to breathe, and the temperature so cold that we would … Read more
Our calendar, our entire perception of time, is based on this one cycle: Sunrise <-> Sunset. In Genesis chapter 1 verse 5, the passage of time itself finds its origin with God. Though each unique version of the calendar is a creation of human civilizations, the concept of the calendar is part of God’s design, … Read more
One may wonder, why light? Why is this the first thing that God creates, even before the objects that give light—the sun and moon and stars? What is the meaning of this division between light and darkness in Genesis 1:4. Layers One of the wonderful things about bible stories, is that each story has several … Read more
There is a meaning in Genesis 1:3 that our English cannot quite capture, because we English speakers have separated the concepts of spirit, breath, and life. Check out the trailer below! Back in verse 2, we were told that the “spirit of God was moving over the water.” The Hebrew word for “spirit” here is “ruach.” … Read more
