Concluding Thoughts

Hey, welcome back.
Thanks for being with us.
As we wrap up Genesis today,
we kind of finished the book with some,
maybe some thoughts on
where it fits in the broader Christian life,
the broader connection to Scripture.
And maybe we just highlight some of the themes in it that we think are important.
You know, Genesis in its own way is a very interesting book
historically because it’s generated so much conversation and one could even say conflict about how you read it,
about what it intends to tell us,
those in the Christian family who take it more on the literal side of
the timeline and the way in which the creation story unfolds.
I think, you know,
have generated a lot of conversation,
a lot of discussion,
a lot of debate.
You know,
it has been,
in some ways, I’m not sure, Michael, I can think of another,
I suppose the literal history versus spiritual,
I suppose that exists in lots of books,
but I can’t think of anywhere in the Old Testament,
certainly, that’s attracted more of those
conversations than the book of Genesis and even specifically the early chapters,
the first 10 or 12 chapters.
How did people live so long?
How did the days of creation work?
How old is the earth?
The literal reading of those
sections has really created some tension,
I guess, within the Christian family historically.
Yeah, and we may have a hard time seeing that from our vantage,
Clint.
I think maybe just a
really quick point is
one thing that we fail to see from our own time in history is that Genesis
has had its kinds of controversies at different stages of Christian history and we just bring our
own particular cultural milieu,
our own questions, our own concerns.
You know,
there would have been
no thought at 1000 or 1200 or 1400 AD to ask some of the questions about the literal reading
of history that we now have spent a lot of time in certainly the 20th century talking about that
doesn’t make those conversations unimportant.
But I do think it should remind us that the
similar conversations that were had out of the cultural milieu and questions of the 1000s and
1200s and 1400s, those were important too.
And they were also related to the people asking them.
And so I think as you read a book like Genesis,
that is one of the tight ropes that kind of
walked is we need to be willing and humble enough to own the questions we’re bringing to the text
and to ask the text those questions.
But then we also need to be willing to look backwards to some
of the questions that have been asked previous to us.
And as best as we can,
also try to consider
what Genesis is doing in the scope of the whole of the scriptures.
And as we don’t find in the
rest of the scriptures,
a substantial concern about naming sort of the political economic
realities that we would be interested in in a 21st century history course,
we need to understand
that these texts were intended to teach.
They were intended to confirm and to intensify identity.
And in many ways,
they are the cultural heirloom of a people who have lived without a land for a
very, very, very long time that it’s these stories that the people found their identity.
And
we may miss some of the reality of that because of our place,
because of our experience of life.
As best as we can hold on to that,
Clint, I think the more we’ll appreciate the book that we just went through together.
Yeah.
And this is certainly not to discount those who read Genesis through that
lens, but from our perspective as Reformed Presbyterians 21st century,
to argue over
the literal account is in our estimation,
I think, to risk missing the larger points of Genesis, like
faith,
like the struggle with
belief and obedience,
barrenness,
covenant,
sovereignty,
family,
both the blessings of that and the difficulties of that.
Genesis is packed with
very rich spiritual themes that I think if we get bogged down into conversations about were there
dinosaurs and was a day 24 hours long,
I think we risk missing some of those undertones that,
at least in my experience,
are more profitable.
I mean, ultimately,
if we want to weigh in on
the opinion of scripture versus science,
I don’t know.
I don’t feel drawn to that.
I know a lot of people do.
I’m far more interested in what Genesis says to me about living my life as a
follower of Jesus Christ than what it does or doesn’t say about science and ecology and geology
and stuff like that.
It’s not that those things are unimportant.
I just think for me,
and I think for our tradition, they’re secondarily important to what God is trying to say to us through the
book, and we’ve largely lived in a crowd that said it’s not primarily that.
So one thing that you named,
I’d like to just bring up and talk a little bit about here as we
look backwards, and that is,
I also bring some suspicion when we come to a text like Genesis
as a seedbed to discuss the way that family relationships should be,
and this happens in a lot of
places,
and certainly some circles are more quick to jump to Genesis than others,
but if we’re going to be honest,
if I’m going to be honest with you,
I think in many ways,
a thorough reading of Genesis should lead one to conclude that this book has no interest in
discussing what an ideal family relationship looks like.
In fact,
as a majority theme throughout the book,
family relationships are not incredibly psychologically or sociologically healthy,
to use 21st century terminology.
They’re not very healthfully attached to one another.
They don’t have very good conflict management tools at their disposal.
One of the core stories of Genesis,
very much a fulcrum story,
is Abram who’s willing to sacrifice his son on an altar,
and it leaves us
with a whole lot of questions that story does,
whether we need to make of this,
and was this what God wanted, and all these kinds of questions.
My point is,
instead of thinking of Genesis as a
primer or some kind of user manual for our family relationships,
I think we would be much better off
to see Genesis as an example of God’s faithfulness in the midst of messy family situations.
And, Clint,
I don’t know anybody who’s escaped life without some mess in their family,
not if we’re honest.
I’m not if we’re truly honest about reflecting about our parents,
if we have siblings,
maybe even our parents’ parents,
and the generational kinds of concerns.
That’s a reality of being human.
Genesis is not afraid of the messiness of brothers stealing brothers inheritances,
and people trying to trick their daughter-in-laws.
There’s a whole lot of stuff in Genesis.
I’m just very hesitant when we come to it and we look for it to be for us a kind of rule of life.
Maybe there’s some of that in there,
incidentally, Clint, but I think I’d be very
There is a sense in which if you want to lift up the patterns of Genesis as normative,
and I think in the early Genesis,
in the creation narrative,
you might be able to do that.
But I think if you want to do that,
you at least have to acknowledge that,
at best,
that’s a mixed picture,
and it’s a messy picture.
I mean, yes, you have husband and wife,
but you have concubines,
you have multiple wives,
you have a very messy kind of relationship,
you have favoritism,
you have lots of things that we would be concerned about
in our own.
And this is part of the danger
of trying to read Genesis backwards and put our culture into it,
and this is why I think,
as we’ve tried to,
I think, suggest throughout this study,
and really throughout all the studies we do,
it is … We are best served when we learn the context of the story first,
and then look for meaning coming out of it for us.
It is dangerous to put our stuff into the text,
because sometimes it simply doesn’t belong there,
it doesn’t fit, and at worst,
it can mislead us from the actual point of the story.
And I think Genesis is ripe with those opportunities.
It is easy to look at Genesis and want it to tell us things that it may or,
you know, frankly may not be trying to tell us,
and I think that is a well-thought-out caution
and an important one.
Another concern I think that is worth noting,
you know, at the end of a study
like this, is it can seem to those who don’t come from the Israelite
tree,
that branch of the family tree.
As Christians,
when we come to a text like Genesis,
it can in some ways feel old.
It can even feel dated.
I would say at some points in history,
some have even spoke of it,
I think, without a great amount of humility,
as being somewhat unhelpful,
sort of old history,
and to not really
have much impact on our own understanding of the faith.
Now, to be fair,
you know, it is background
to who Christ will be in the foreground,
and as Christians we do hold attention there.
But I would put to you,
and Clint, you know, I’d be interested if you agree with this, I would submit
that to understand the key metaphors and symbolism
and I would even say spiritual
sort of reality of who the New Testament authors tell us Christ is,
we have to on some very
substantial level understand the story of Genesis,
and then I would also say we need to understand Exodus, clearly,
and then the prophets,
and you know, there’s much to come upon which Jesus Christ is the fulfillment,
but you are surely lacking in your understanding of the magnitude of God’s
solution to the problem of sin,
which we saw at the very beginning of Genesis,
of course, but the magnitude of God’s solution is so much larger when you understand
this part of the family story.
It, you know, it’s been already,
just at the end of one book, handed down tenuously,
generation to generation.
It’s going to only continue as the people,
as a nation, encounter struggles that are massive,
but from a New Testament perspective,
this book matters, and I do think understanding the characters of this story,
the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who they are is not only a part of that Hebrew identity,
it’s a part of who Jesus was,
and it’s a part of who the New Testament wants us to understand that he’s the ultimate fulfillment of.
Yeah, I would agree with that,
Michael.
You know, early on in Christianity,
there was a movement as more and more Gentiles came to the faith to sacrifice the Old Testament and to say,
“We have Jesus, we now have the New Covenant, the New Testament.
Why do we need the Old?” And
I think fortunately,
you know, led by the Spirit,
our ancestors in faith said,
“No, there is something for us to learn.” Everything after chapter 2 in the book of Genesis and
throughout the Old Testament,
is God dealing with human sin?
Is God in relationship with broken people?
Is God navigating our human frailty and selfishness and flaws?
And
if we were to give that up,
we certainly would still be moved by the gospel,
but I think we would sacrifice a great deal of understanding of the power of sin, the brokenness,
the commonality with which people,
even in light of what God is trying to do,
find a way to go their own way.
I think we would lose just incredible amounts of insight
and depth into the Christian story.
In a part of the Bible,
we don’t actually consider Christian,
but I think it undergirds everything we understand about what God then does in the New Testament.
Yeah.
It’s difficult because it’s not direct.
It’s difficult because we don’t see one-to-one correlations.
It is far more being apprised of the family story,
of understanding who these folks
are, of understanding the struggles that they walk through and the way that God carried them through those struggles.
But I would put to you,
it would be impossible to read the book of Romans
and understand what Paul’s
arguing there without understanding this part of the story,
to understand this idea of
grafted and pruning.
Reckoned as righteousness.
Right.
How could we come to a book like Hebrews where we talk about the great people of faith and
not understand the story of the people who in some ways are being reinterpreted or reunderstood
from a Christian vantage.
So it may not be fashionable to read closely a book like Genesis.
That may feel like an endeavor,
sort of like plowing through a fictional novel.
You’re just trying to push through the narrative.
If you do that,
you’re likely to leave behind some of the
fruit that’s available as you make your way into that more direct Christian study,
that more direct kind of discipleship sort of growth.
And hopefully in the midst of the conversation,
somewhere along the way, you’ve seen that connection happening.
Yeah, I want to be conscious of time,
Michael, but I’d be interested in your take on this,
and I’d be very interested in our listeners.
If you want to email us or post a comment,
what is your short takeaway this time through Genesis?
In other words, if there’s something that sort of struck you big picture,
and I’ll give you a minute to think about that as I share.
I think with me this time through the book,
I’ve noticed this before,
but I think I find very
challenging and comforting the way in which God moves in and out of the foreground of the story,
the times in which God is big and giving visions and clear
direction and even promises that are not necessarily being trusted.
And then at other times,
people are navigating their life really
with God as a compass point,
but not as a flashlight,
not as an immediate sense of do
this or don’t do that.
And I think I’ve gained this time through Genesis a deep appreciation
for how true that feels in my own life.
There are thankfully those moments where
God’s guidance, God’s presence, God’s direction,
not that I always follow it,
but it does seem clear.
And then there are whole seasons where I feel like,
boy, I haven’t heard a word lately.
I hope, you know, I wonder how am I doing?
And I think sometimes we follow God with that sort of direct
influence and other times more,
I think this is the way I’m going to try and stay in it until I
learn otherwise.
And for me, that’s really settled on me this time as we’ve worked through the book.
Well, that’s interesting.
I think what I was going to say is a close cousin,
if not maybe just a
brother to that comment,
Clint, I think for me,
one of the things that has struck me numerous times
in our study together has been how oftentimes the things that I would expect this text to
make moral judgments about, it doesn’t.
And you being naturally a narrative person maybe
is part of the reason why I had that lens in this reading.
But there are sometimes like, you know,
marrying outside the Israelite family,
that certainly happened,
or certainly like Joseph
making decisions about what he does to his brothers in that interlude sort of period,
where as a reader,
if I’m honest, it makes me uncomfortable or makes me think,
hey, you know, in a couple books,
this is going to be outlawed.
But in Genesis,
that’s not a concern.
In Genesis, it’s rather depicting these folks living their life.
And I’m not even sure if I
can honestly say trying to follow God.
I mean, I’m sure they are.
I mean, you know, they consider themselves as being the recipients of the blessing.
But
fundamentally, the story is about even in the
midst of these very non-binary decisions that have been made,
the things that these folks are
doing without any clear moral compass,
yet God’s plan is at work in that.
So I think I may be
putting my own words to it,
but there’s a kind of,
for a person who likes structures in order,
there’s a kind of resistance to that in Genesis.
Yeah, I don’t want to put words in your mouth,
but it’s sort of a fascinating idea
that Genesis
is both from the creation narrative and some of the prehistory narrative kind of loose,
that it’s also patriarchally and legally loose in the sense that as the story unfolds,
those fences will get tightened up through the book of, say,
Numbers and Deuteronomy, where we get laws and we get a very much more rigid application of do this and don’t do that,
that doesn’t fully exist in Genesis that way.
And in some instances doesn’t seem to exist at all.
Yeah, that’s very interesting.
I think that’s a good insight.
Again, we’d love to hear from you.
Email us, post it in the comments if you have time.
Pull us aside at church or send an email,
whatever that would look like.
Be interested in your Genesis takeaway.
Give you a very quick commercial.
Tomorrow we won’t be meeting for Bible study,
but we will post a short intro to what we plan to do
next, which is at least 1 Timothy.
We’ll see how that goes,
possibly 2 Timothy with it.
A very different book from Genesis,
very much sort of church-centered,
very devotional, very discipleship-related,
lots of good stuff.
Some challenging stuff as well,
but I think it
will be a kind of turn of course for us,
but I think no less interesting and no less engaging
than Genesis has the potential to be.
So hope that you’ll be with us.
If you’re curious, watch the commercial tomorrow.
Otherwise, join us Monday as we kick off in 1 Timothy.
Yeah, and maybe just as a final last word for me, thank you.
Some of you have been here for
every conversation, and I believe that following today,
that’s either 97 or 98 conversations.
So if you’ve been with us along that whole way,
thank you, wow, for making that kind of investment.
Obviously, we’re honored that you would consider to do that.
And I hope,
you know, maybe if you have only started halfway,
you’ve always got those conversations to finish out the book that
are waiting for you there.
But we’re excited to start this new thing.
It’s a great on point.
So if you can think of someone who you think might appreciate a study like this,
like Clint said, it’s very devotional.
It’s very accessible.
So maybe make that invitation that they could
join us on Monday.
But for all who’ve been with us,
Yeah, absolutely.
Two years ago when we thought we’ll try to do this for two weeks,
we didn’t dream that you’d be hanging in there with us.
So thank you.