Formations Commentary

In the Beginning

Genesis 1:1-25; John 1:1-4

Originally published January 12, 2003

Introduction
I’ve found this lesson difficult. It is not that I don’t understand the assignment, for I do. But getting my mind around the subject has been a challenge. Anyone can take a parable from Luke, give the background, and offer interpretation and application. But how do you get hold of creation? The idea is larger than my mind.

One thing has come clear from my pondering about how to deal with this text. To reach our classes, we are going to have to aim our remarks at their questions as well as submerge ourselves in the text. I like the way Walter Russell Bowie approached his task. He wrote:

Everyone whose mind is at all open to modern facts has realized some of the perplexities which beset readers of Genesis. For assumptions which used to be taken for granted have been flatly challenged. The first and most acute focus of those perplexities has been the opening chapter of the book. (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 1 [New York: Abingdon Press, 1952], 462)

Adults ask the question, “How can I believe Genesis 1 and also believe the findings of science about our world?” The writer of Genesis did not know the earth rotated round the sun; he thought the sun went round the earth. He did not know how old the earth was. For him, life came by direct command of God. How do we make sense of science and Genesis?

A further complication: people are divided. Some people hold to a literal interpretation of Genesis 1; others try to embrace Genesis and the findings of science. Keeping these two groups at peace in a Bible class is not easy. If the teacher does not take a literal position, then some might say the teacher does not “believe the Bible.” If the teacher does not take into account learners’ questions, they wonder if the teacher is being intellectually honest. Since most churches have a wide range of people, the two positions I’ve described are probably in your class. Neither you nor I will get out of this session without criticism.

Know this from the start. If you look for scientific answers in this text, you are looking in the wrong place, but that does not mean we are dealing with meaningless material. We are looking in another direction. Ralph H. Elliott began his commentary on Genesis with these words: “Genesis, or ‘In Beginning,’ is a good name, for the book tells the beginnings of all things connected with faith. The blueprint of theology is the book of Genesis” (The Message of Genesis [Nashville: Broadman Press, 1961], 17). This text tells about God; when we focus on that part of the session, we are on sure ground. And that’s what I intend to do.