In the Beginning |Comparing Genesis 1 and John 1-Part 3
In Bereshit Part 2, I asked you to reflect on some questions:
- Compare and contrast the two passages.
- Why did you think both books start the same way? What was each book’s focus?
- Based on your findings, what are the implications for us as Christians?
- Based on your findings, what are the implications for us as parents and educators?
Today, I’m going to share with you my personal responses. You may have drawn different conclusions:
- A Venn diagram is a good teaching tool to use in language arts/mathematics and even studying Scripture. You can see my Venn diagram above comparing John 1 and Genesis 1.
- From studying Scripture over the years, I’ve learned that God has a million simultaneous reasons for doing something, so it’s hard to narrow it down. I want to draw attention to one point: He begins with himself.
- The implication for us as Christians is that we need to spend a lot of time focusing on the character of God and who He is.
- The implication for us as parents and educators is that we need to find ways to show our students/children the many different aspects of God’s character including striving to be a good (but flawed and forgiven) role model.
I believe that there is an order in Genesis that each person needs to grasp in some capacity in order to understand the purpose of Jesus. That is we need to understand—
- Who God is?
- Who God intended us to be?
- And why eating the forbidden fruit was so significant?
Therefore if we want those in our care to come to know Jesus and make sense of this crazy world, we need them to understand the list above. Which means we have to know the answers! And this isn’t just intellectual knowledge, but the answers to those questions need to be so imbedded in our thought and actions, that this is our reality. In the next few posts, I’ll take a little bit of a deeper dive.
So here is today’s reflection question:
- Who is God? Since that’s a huge question! For the next post focus on what is revealed about God in Genesis 1. Try using a noticing and wondering chart.
Also, feel free to take a deeper dive into Genesis 1, by completing my study.
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