Week 2: Genesis 19-41

Reflection:

New Year's is a wonderful time for me. As a planner, I enjoy reviewing and planning our budget, setting family goals, and reflecting on the past year to learn and improve. It is also wonderful because I get to spend time with a really good friend of mine who I only physically meet up with but once a year on New Year's Eve.

As we begin our reading plan, perhaps reading the book of Genesis is similar to my once-a-year meetup with a close friend. You "stay in touch" throughout the year, but you do not dwell and "reside" with this friend but once a year. May I challenge you to not rush through it. Take time to see details that you have never seen before and to be in awe and wonder at the magnificent work of God. Perhaps as you read through Genesis 1, you marveled once again at the symmetry and parallelism of the days of creation. Or how "the earth was without form and void" (Gen 1:2) and then you read how in the first 3 days the earth begins to form and in the last 4 days the earth no longer is void and empty but becoming full!

Genesis is an amazing book, full of miracles and events that put God's glory on full display. It is also a book that sets the stage for everything else in the Scriptures. We believe in progressive revelation, the method in which God reveals His plan of salvation in time and more clearly over time. We see themes introduced in this first book which will be repeated in later books and reinterpreted in light of Christ in the New Testament. Examples from last week's reading include the similarities of Adam and the Levitical priesthood or Eden with the tabernacle and temple.

A central passage in Genesis is 3:15, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Also called the protoevangelium, this prophecy ultimately points to Christ, though we will see this image bore out all throughout the Scriptures. However, we find images of this enmity between the serpent and God's people all throughout the Scriptures. Some examples include:

• Cain and Abel
• Pharoah and Israelites
• Goliath is described as having scaly armor (serpent-like) as he taunts the Israelites
• Saul going to war with Nahash, king of Ammonites. (Nahash means serpent).

But already from the beginning, we have hope because the serpent's head will be crushed. As you continue reading through the Bible, keep an eye out for this theme of enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.