Inform Us a Story
Are you able to recall studying the tales in Genesis 1-11 as a toddler? Often, we heard them as brief episodes wherein the characters both obeyed or sinned. Which may clarify why we have a tendency to recollect the characters lengthy after we’ve forgotten the plot of the story. For instance, we name Genesis 37-50 the Joseph story regardless that it’s about God’s providential take care of His individuals (Gen. 37-50).[1]
When and why did historical Israel hear the tales from Genesis 1-11? At each alternative God taught His individuals theology together with the biblical phrase view: Grandparents and fogeys advised tales round campfires or when different instructing moments arose (Deut. 6:4-7); monks gave Torah readings of the tales when all Israel gathered throughout vacation celebrations, or after they met weekly within the temple (Neh. 8); at virtually any group occasion, God’s individuals heard the tales, for instance within the sermons recorded within the E-book of Acts, even the message on the Day of Pentecost delivered in tongues (Acts 2:11).
However the tales have been additionally for people. Kings and monks learn tales in private examine from their very own copies of the Torah (Deut. 17:18-20); individuals advised God’s tales to 1 one other in non-public conversations (Acts 8:26-40). People additionally meditated on the tales of their hearts (Ps. 1:1-4). With out specifying an viewers, the psalmist says, “I’ll inform of all of your deeds” (Ps. 73:28). However why tales?
Tales, God’s Instructing Methodology
By listening to about God’s mighty deeds, individuals feared Him. After God dried up the waters of the Jordan river as He had the Purple Sea, He inspired His individuals to ask a couple of pile of stones on the river Jordan’s edge (Josh. 4:21): God “did this so that every one the peoples of the earth would possibly know that the hand of the Lord is highly effective and so that you simply [Israel] would possibly at all times concern the Lord your God” (v. 24). Listening to the story afresh about God’s love and mighty energy would lead to fearing and glorifying Him. So it was with all tales.
Right this moment, God re-tells His tales every time His individuals take heed to Him converse by way of His Phrase. In each setting, we must always reply to His tales in concern, worship, and obedience by listening to the mighty acts of God.
God’s Tales for All Believers
How about us and our counselees? As adults, we must always learn the narratives as did historical Israel for his or her doctrinal truths. We must always hear particularly for a way they amplify God’s story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation.[2] Critically, the tales in Genesis 1-11 convey the biblical worldview and the theological framework for our soul care. What’s extra, we can’t perceive the remainder of Scripture with out understanding the tales, as a result of later biblical authors generally discuss with them (for instance, in Hebrews 11).
At first, God taught us doctrine by way of tales. Right this moment, He re-tells the tales afresh each time we learn them or hear them learn. However it’s simple for us to overlook the earliest seeds of doctrinal instruction in Genesis 1-11. How can we learn them as theological tales? We should first perceive what a biblical story is.
What Is a Story?
Our use of the phrase story doesn’t imply fiction or fairytale however somewhat an traditionally correct account offered in a literary theme as a theological message.[3] We are able to consider our private testimony as a narrative, an account of our lives that chronicles how God works in and thru us. It’s all about God. He’s the hero of each story.
For instance, returning to Joseph, after his brothers promote him as a slave, they arrive earlier than him in Egypt and plead for his or her lives. Joseph responds, “You meant to hurt me, however God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). The theological lesson is that God’s sovereignty overrides the depraved plans of Joseph’s brothers. Though the brothers oppose God with their sinful scheme, they unknowingly do His will. What does God need us to be taught from His different tales in Genesis 1-11? Among the many many particulars, a minimum of three theological themes stand out.
Sin-Judgment-Grace
It’s a well-known lesson. When individuals sin, God holds them accountable in judgment however presents them grace.[4]The account of the autumn, the very first story of sin-judgment-grace, units the thematic sample for all of Scripture.[5] Once more, studying the tales in Genesis 1-11 ensures we concern the Lord and stay out our concern in each circumstance of life. This contains studying extra about God, His mighty acts, and His attributes. Tales enhance our concern of Him. What impact does fearing God have on us?
Not surprisingly, fearing God is a situation for buying knowledge.[6] That’s how we assist our counselees develop spiritually: by addressing their sin and struggling with biblical fact motivated by the concern of the Lord. Certainly, “Such concern breeds humility and indicators a willingness to obtain instruction from God.”[7] This response is pivotal for our progress.
We first see the sin-judgement-grace theme when God warns Adam and Eve to not eat of a particular tree. In response, they arrogantly disobey Him, so He pronounces judgment upon them. Then God provides grace by forgiving them. Not surprisingly, God then recommissions man and lady to do the identical work He mandated from the start, albeit in nice discomfort (Gen. 3:15 ff.). With this account, the sample is fastened for all Scripture.
All salvation historical past—the historical past of God’s mighty saving acts—follows this sample. Actually, it’s true in our Christian lives day by day and can proceed till Jesus is available in one ultimate saving act to take us to be with Him. After that, the sin-judgment-grace cycle will solely be a praiseworthy reminiscence, though God will proceed to manifest His grace. The earliest chapters of Scripture information us in our relationship with God by serving to us perceive Him higher, significantly how He pertains to us as sinners.
Creation-Uncreation-Recreation
Along with the sin-judgment-grace theme, one other theme emerges in Genesis 1-11 that additionally recurs all through Scripture. It’s the creation-uncreation-recreation theme. God creates the world (Gen. 1-2), destroys it (6-8), and renews the creation in a covenant relationship with Noah (8:20-9:17).
Scripture assures us that creation-uncreation-recreation can be a theme manifest in our non secular lives as God makes us new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). What’s extra, seeking to the longer term, we await a brand new heaven and a brand new earth, one other new creation (Rom. 8:18-25; Rev. 21:1-2). At the moment, our completely healed relationships might be a part of the brand new creation. This leads us to a different theological sample in Genesis 1-11.
Decline of Human Relationships
God created individuals for relationship with Him and one another. No surprise Scripture’s first chapter is a hymn celebrating God’s creation and centering on His relationship with His newly created individuals.[8] However with every new episode in Genesis 3-11, human relationships progressively worsen. After ruining their relationship with God, Adam and Eve activate each other, husband in opposition to spouse (3:1-15). Additionally, Devil declares enmity in opposition to individuals, together with future generations (3:15). Not lengthy after, Cain and Abel rise brother in opposition to brother (4:1-15).
The relational framework God designed for creation continues to break down when angelic beings take human wives (6:1-4). Now individuals are at odds with fallen angels, Devil amongst them (Job 1-2). Even individuals and animals develop mutual hostility, in order that after the flood, individuals can eat animals if animals don’t eat them first (Gen. 9:1-7).
This relational decline reaches a end result within the Tower of Babel story (11:1-9) when God scatters the nations and selects one nation to steer a remnant to worship and serve Him (12:1-3). However because of Babel, the ultimate assault on human relationships comes when nation rivals in opposition to nation, alluded to within the checklist of peoples and their geographical areas (10-11). Pivotally, Israel should do battle with its neighboring nations.
Briefly, relationships have been damaged. Genesis 1-11 serves as a preamble to God’s covenant relationship with Abraham and, subsequently, your entire nation of Israel. Via them, God goals to right the relational decline of Genesis 1-11.[9] Critically, salvation in Christ, the promised Messianic seed (3:15), will come by way of Abraham’s seed, Israel, to all nations.
If we don’t give due consideration to the decline in human relationships because it pertains to God’s salvation plan, our soul care lacks a transparent theological footing. Counseling goals to revive relationships, significantly our relationship with God. We yearn for an entire and everlasting new creation. All creation groans for redemption (Rom. 8:19-23).
Conclusion
God gave us the muse for our doctrine in tales. To summarize the overarching theological themes in Genesis 1-11, we see the sample of man sins, and God judges, however then exhibits grace to man. We additionally see that God will create, uncreate, after which recreate all through human historical past.
Lastly, we acknowledge the sample of human relationships declining till they hit all-time low, the place they languish till “Jesus Christ redeems and restores relationships.”[10] God leaves nothing damaged, together with human relationships. All three thematic patterns that start in early Genesis intertwine and reappear all through God’s story of redemption in Scripture.[11]
Genesis 1-11 is a theological prologue for Genesis and all Scripture. Right here, our doctrines first come to us in tales. God retells them to us afresh each time we hear, learn, or meditate on them, and reply in worship and obedience. We and our counselees develop spiritually by attending to know God and His methods higher by way of His tales.
Questions for Reflection
- Are you able to consider one main doctrine that isn’t launched in seed type in Genesis 1-11?
- Why would God present us in Genesis 1-11 that after the autumn, each form of human relationship tends to disintegrate? How is that realization helpful in our soul care?
- Do you learn and counsel with God’s tales from Genesis 1-11? They’ll provide help to and your counselees perceive God and, consequently, worship and obey God higher.[12]
[1] John Piper argues convincingly that the Joseph account is the clearest illustration of how God’s windfall works. Windfall (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 176-77.
[2] Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard, “Hermeneutics and Counseling,” IBC Perspectives 2:1 (1989): 28-30.
[3] A theme is a compressed narrative (David J. A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch [JSOTSS #10; Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Press, 1978], 17).
[4] I’ve conflated D. J. A. Clines’s sin-speech-mitigation-judgement theme together with his spread-of-sin spread-of-grace theme and simplified it. “Theme in Genesis 1-11,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976): 487-498.
[5] Within the fall passage (Gen. 2-3), human knowledge could appear to be a risk to the concern of God, but it surely ought to function the very foundation. (Tova Forti, “The Polarity of Knowledge and Concern of God within the Eden Narrative and within the E-book of Proverbs,” Biblische Notizen. Neue Folge 149 [2011]: 46).
[6] Ibid., 54.
[7] Tremper Longman III, The Concern of the Lord is Knowledge: A Theological Introduction to Knowledge in Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Educational, 2017), 13.
[8] David Atkinson, The Message of Genesis 1-11: The Daybreak of Creation (Downers Grove. IL, Inter-Varsity, 1990), 15.
[9] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 WBC (Waco, TX: Phrase Books, Writer, 1987), xxii.
[10] David Powlison, “Christ-Centered Counsel: Redeems and Reconciles Relationships” from the 2016 Biblical Counseling Coalition Summit: Higher Collectively.
[11] D. J. A. Clines discusses all three themes handled on this examine in “Theme in Genesis 1-11,” CBQ 38 (1976): 499-502.
[12] For sensible ideas the best way to preach, train, and counsel from narrative parts of Scripture, see Dave Deuel, “Options for Expositional Preaching of Outdated Testomony Narrative,” The Grasp’s Seminary Journal (1991): 45-63.
