Bible Studies

GENESIS 1. - 2.4.

1.. ‘In the beginning God created’. What thoughts or insights do theses words bring to your mind?

2. The word ‘God’ comes 30 times in 31 verses of chapter 1. What is this saying to us?

3. There is a parallel between the first 3 acts of creation and the next.
Does this suggest anything to you?

God forms the world God fills the world
Day 1. Light from darkness.
Day 2. Sky from ocean.
Day 3. Land from sea.
Day 4. Sun, moon and stars.
Day 5. Birds and fish.
Day 6. Animals and humans.

4. The word for ‘God’ used here in Hebrew is Elohim. This is a plural word. What does that say to you?

5. What is there in this passage to suggest that God is:

Personal
Powerful
Uncreated
Creative
Orderly
Good

6. What do we mean when we say that human beings can make things but only God can create?

7. What do you think it means when it says God created man in His own image?

8. What does it imply when it says ‘God created man in His own image – male and female He created them’?

9. What does it mean when God told man to ‘rule’ over the earth and what does it say to us today?

10. Compare Genesis 1 and John 1l.1-5.
What parallels do you find?
What is John saying about Jesus?

11. ‘God made man on the 6th day – the same day as He made the animals but it was to man only that God spoke. This is the significance of man, that he is addressed by God. What distinguishes him from the rest of creation is that he alone is created to be addressed by God, to listen to God, to speak with God, to commune with God and to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
But the Great Conversation broke down because man chose to listen only to himself and his own desires and not to God. And because he would not listen to God, he could not listen to his brother.
The Bible is the story of the restoration of the Great Conversation. Some men listen and bear witness to the Word and then One comes whose life at every step is listening to God. He not only hears the Word, He is The Word. He alone sets us free from our dialogue with ourselves, free to speak with God and hence to speack the truth in love with others’. (Ernest Moore)

12.
a) What things have given you most deight in God’s creation?
b) What things in creation have ever given you a sense of awe?

> back to Bible Studies index