The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Genesis pt. 1 | New Beginnings
This episode delves into the theme of new beginnings, emphasizing how the Book of Genesis offers insights into renewal and redemption in our lives. We explore crucial narratives that reveal God’s nature and challenge listeners to embrace fresh starts in their faith journey.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
On this week's episode, marcos Padilla and I talk about the theme of new beginnings as found in the book of Genesis. Welcome to the Extra, hi, marcos.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon Curtis. How are we today, oh?
Speaker 1:feeling good. You know you've worked at our church for what? Seven months now? I?
Speaker 2:think we're seven or eight now. Yeah, we're getting close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some people still call you Marcus. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Marcos. It is not Marco, it is. And some people still call you Marcus. Yeah, it's Marcos. It is not Marco. It is not Carlos. It is not Marcus Marcos, get it right. Somebody's called you Carlo, carlos. Yeah, a couple of times.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:We're not going to get into that.
Speaker 1:That's really disappointing.
Speaker 2:Us Southerners need to do better with, uh, with, what is the origin of your name, marcos? Um, so if you look at the Spanish Bible, the gospel of Mark is actually the gospel of Marcos. So, yeah, so both my brother Lucas, and I, uh, are both just named after the Spanish gospels of Luke and Mark.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go. You're named after the gospel writers.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. So technically, if I cite something from the Gospel of Marcos, it is not unbiblical, it's true.
Speaker 1:I like it Well, marcos. This week we opened up the book of Genesis and we're just kind of going through. We started by looking at the literary pattern of Genesis and what one of the major themes is, which is new beginnings. After all, that is the name of Genesis. Do you remember that Hebrew word that I shared?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Let me get.
Speaker 2:Let me get back into my seminary brain for a second. Why am I drawing a blank right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't remember how to pronounce it. Admittedly, I didn't bring my sermon notes with me to record today, which I usually do. That's a mistake. Well, either way, while you're looking it up maybe you're not looking it up, I don't know it means in the beginning- yeah, in the beginning. So the very first phrase of our scripture is actually the name of the first book of the Bible in the beginning, and we find lots of new beginnings in the book of Genesis.
Speaker 1:We walked through a number of those things creation, the account of Cain and Abel. It's interesting that Cain kind of gets his own new beginning. He murders his brother and then he cries out to the Lord your punishment is too much for me. And so God says I'll protect you, and so anybody that kills you I'll avenge seven times against you, right? So God kind of gives Cain the ability to have a new beginning out beyond, to the east of Eden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, out beyond his sin when he gets his mark and everything's like that. Okay, it's Bereshit. Bereshit, yeah, so this is in the beginning.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we just recently started Genesis and I think, yeah, we tend to, because Genesis talks a lot about the origins of creation and mankind, as well as, just like our religion and the way that we approach our entire worldview, for whatever reason. Because of that, and we, because we have such a culture that is so anti now, like what we seem to be like, against our religion or whatever we tend to, for whatever reason, we now tend to approach the book of Genesis, though with the wrong questions. I totally believe, because, especially, like I remember being in public school growing up and some of like, especially like the Christian soccer moms, like their biggest concern was like are they teaching evolution in the public schools, or whatever. And so Genesis one and two, actually, well, while I don't necessarily believe in evolution, well, while I don't necessarily believe in evolution, like I don't think that it's these books were written to disprove anything of that sort, more than it was, to give just a broad scope of really who the God of Israel was and who the God of the Christians are now, which is the creator of everything, because all of the other cultures surrounding Israel, they tended to believe that the gods actually came from matter and came from everything else.
Speaker 2:And so Moses is like yeah, no, psych, our God is better than yours. And so there's so much that's in there that like our modern 21st century brains like tend to not understand. And so, when we approach it in… with the right questions that we're asking, I think that it tends to open up. It tends to be a key to really what the rest of the Bible is going to be about, because Genesis is the foundation of the scriptures.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. The Bible isn't necessarily a science textbook, right yeah, Although it does inform a lot of how we understand science no doubt Of course, about creation and those things. I'm tracking with you on that. I do think those things are very important, and so do our listeners you know that we have a firm foundation on how God created the world, and I'm a six-day person. However, that really worked out because there wasn't like the keeping of time until the sun and the moon were created.
Speaker 2:So how does?
Speaker 1:days one and two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like before there was a sun and a moon and all these things like there was light even before those things Um but like.
Speaker 1:so how does the timing of all that work out?
Speaker 2:I can't tell you but I can guarantee you Moses was not asking the question is the earth 6,000 years old or is the earth millions and bajillions of years old? Uh, but I don't think that the authors of the scriptures tended to be as concerned with that as much as they were. Like what were the origins of humanity, as well as their nation themselves?
Speaker 1:Well, certainly for Moses in the wilderness right. That time period, of what is it? 1445 through 1405?. It's a 40-year period where we believe that the first five books of the Old Testament were written. It's called the Torah, but we know it as the Tanakh.
Speaker 2:No, that's the sorry, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1:The Pentateuch Jinx.
Speaker 2:Yes, the Pentateuch Jinx.
Speaker 1:You can't talk anymore. This is a monologue now from the rest of this podcast, the Pentateuch. So I think you know what's important for Moses and what he's trying to explain to these new Israelites before they become a nation in Canaan is that God is in control of all things. He created it all and he's forming this nation to be separate from the rest of all creation. Why do you think the Israelites needed to be so different from the rest of all creation? Why do you think the Israelites needed to be so different from the rest of the people?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it comes to the point, or it comes from the fact that they were actually you know, they're coming from slavery in Egypt and especially in the Egyptian culture.
Speaker 2:Everything that they did had to do with, like, serving creation. And so when God is talking about the fact that actually, no, you were made to take dominion over creation and it's not to take dominion over you is because they had gods for everything like rain and fertility and the river and everything like that, and so now they're hearing, actually no, god made you in his image to actually take dominion over everything, and so they had to get completely rewired to think like, oh, I'm actually not meant to serve the gods of Egypt, but actually God has given me all of creation to possess and take ownership of and take dominion of, because I am actually a picture of what God should look like, or I should be, because I'm made in God's image. And so, yeah, I mean I think that that's super important. If you're going to get into, hey, if I'm going to be conquering a nation and doing what God has told me to do, like, I first must understand why God has put me on this earth.
Speaker 1:I can imagine that some of it, like the desire to be rewired, came from the Exodus. You know, god conquered all of the little g gods in Egypt through the 10 plagues and I'm sure that some of the Israelites were probably a little baffled by what was happening. You know, the crossover of religion is the phrase that I keep thinking of as living in a place for 430 years, that's multiple generations of people.
Speaker 2:For 430 years, that's multiple generations of people there would have been a crossover or a like, a like a syncretism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, a little bit of syncretism, or a what's the word Like when watercolors like mixed together, they bleed into each other a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's like my kids they.
Speaker 1:They paint with watercolors and like it's cute Cause the watercolors get everywhere, but like the little yellow watercolor ends up being brown by the time they're done because they're mixing the paint back and forth, and like that's what I'm picturing is happening to the Israelites during their slavery in Egypt 430 years of mixing watercolors together. They knew they came from somewhere other than Egypt.
Speaker 2:Because they looked different still, they looked different.
Speaker 1:They talked different.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's so simple, so easy for this religious crossover to happen and to bleed into each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's so easy to, I think, especially today when we live in such a pluralistic society or whatever, where we're just kind of sold this lie of everybody can just dance around the fire and sing Kumbaya and all the world's religions are equal, and stuff like that. It's so easy ourselves now to you know we have lost our sense of identity as Christians as well. You know we weren't made to serve Allah or all the other gods, right Like we were made to serve Jesus Christ, and so no, I mean, I think especially now, like while sometimes we may come asking the wrong questions, like when it comes to the text of Genesis or whatever is actually, we're not so much different than the Israelites after all.
Speaker 1:Not at all. Yeah, I told you recently. I think the biggest difference between us and these ancient people that we read about is that actually we are more moralistic in our day and age than the people in the Bible ever were.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Just as the world as a whole. I think the world is more moralistic, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are better, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, some of that is, I think, because the gospel, like a lot of, especially, western society, has become Christian in its understanding of the world. But when you detach, when you just have a Christian quote, unquote, quote, unquote Christian society, but you don't have Christ, like you're not going to be saved. And so you're going to have these Christian understanding of what morality and what right is and what wrong is, but if you don't have Christ, like you're going to be pursuing after all of the wrong causes, which is, I think, a lot of what we see with a lot of like social justice campaigns and things like that, like we care more about like animals than we do, like about lying and things like that. Or, uh, I saw this statistic that you know people thought it was actually, uh, more morally wrong to not recycle than it is to lie.
Speaker 1:You said, you saw that somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was actually based off of a training that I did with our student leaders for small groups, talking about the moral needs of Gen Z and the generations after. Is Gen Z's view of just morality? Is it's more immoral to not recycle than it is to lie?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not a Gen Z, so I don't resonate with that.
Speaker 1:And also I live in Conyers. I don't think I've ever had a recycling bin at my house. So the theme in Genesis that we hit on so poignantly on the sermon was the idea of new beginnings and that God is the God of new beginnings, and we see that all the way through to Jesus, who has given us the last new beginning, if you will. So I just wonder do you have anything to add on the idea of new beginnings as it pertains to Genesis and maybe even beyond that?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, I think number one. What was awesome is we got to see like the ultimate new beginning ever. This past Sunday we got to see a baptism, which was so great, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That guy's name was Jamie.
Speaker 2:You can go back on the live stream and watch it.
Speaker 1:So sorry, Jamie, if you don't want your name to be out there.
Speaker 2:No, but we got to see a baptism in that sense and I love the fact that we get to be in ministry and see this week in and week out. But I also think that our church as well is in a time of multiple new beginnings, in the sense like we have a new senior minister you as well as like myself, like we have, you know, we're starting a new kind of program for the youth ministry and things like that as well and I think that it's going to be super fruitful.
Speaker 2:But with that, like we do have to looking into the scriptures, we have to be able to define who are we as a church as Crosspoint, who are we as Crosspoint students, so that way we can best effectively do ministry as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if is the novelty worn off yet of you and me being at the church.
Speaker 2:I think in some ways, maybe yes, but like also now that, like, certain things are starting to be implemented. They're like oh yeah, they are the new guy and they're doing different things, but I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1:I think that Absolutely so let's let's come back to Genesis, though, and the idea of new beginnings, because I just love tracking the new beginnings that happen in that book.
Speaker 1:And we started with creation, and then we see Adam and Eve. They have a beginning together, you know, when God makes the woman to be with Adam because him being alone was not good, and then, even after they get exiled from the garden, god doesn't completely abandon them, like the relationship changes. There was fracture in the relationship, but God still allows for food to grow from the ground, and Eve even says in chapter four that or I don't know if Eve said it, forgive me if I'm misquoting here, but in chapter four it says that Eve gave birth to a son and she said it is only by the help of God that I could have this son. Okay, so God is still present in here. He's not present like physically, like he was in the garden, but they still have some sort of relationship with God east of Eden. So that's a new beginning. It's not the ideal, but it's something new for them.
Speaker 1:And then Cain and Abel have the new beginning. Cain I said this already earlier at the beginning of the episode Cain gets his new beginning. It's not ideal, but then more generations come after him and then eventually Noah and God sees nothing but evil in the hearts of mankind. And so God does a real new beginning for the earth right. The great flood comes and Noah and his family are the only ones left on the mountain. But even they squander their new beginning so quickly. And after that we get into the family of Abraham, which is in Genesis 12, and God's doing another new beginning through Abraham and Sarah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just after all the nations got dispersed, god decides to make a new nation out of Abraham. That's really where we're going to kind of see everything tracking, and I think that especially the lesson now like we're going to kind of see everything tracking and I think that especially the lesson now, like we're going to get into a few stories from Genesis over the next couple of weeks before we move to Exodus. But really I think what we can track with is how do we not squander the new beginning that God has given us as well, like, especially as we're starting a new year, especially, you know, a new year isn't necessarily any different than 2024.
Speaker 1:It's just it's all about the mind. It's all about the mindset.
Speaker 2:But, like if we believe the fact that you know God's mercies are truly new every morning, like how can we live out that new beginning and how can we start today, even if you didn't start on January 1st, like you can still start today, january 15th, at the time this is being recorded, or whatever, because God has provided you with grace and mercy to be able to get up and start today as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I guess that's where we leave it right Is, what are you going to do today to participate in the new beginning that God has provided for you? Yeah, I love that verse that his mercies are new every morning. Can you look that up real fast? Let's read it while we close out that his mercies are new every morning. Can you look that?
Speaker 2:up real fast.
Speaker 1:Let's read it while we close out your mercies are new every morning. We get to start out every day fresh with God, clean slate in the morning and it was awesome to see that baptism on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it says. The New Living Translation says the faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning.
Speaker 1:Man. I'm so thankful for that. What are you going to do in light of God's fresh mercy this morning? Hopefully? Live for Jesus. Choose to do the good that Jesus has put in front of you. All right, hey. Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast today, Marcos. Thanks for filling the seat. Ken is out this week, but he'll be back soon. Hey, if you're listening and you're still here. Thank you for listening to the whole thing. Make sure to check us out online at crosspointconyerscom. There's a lot of things happening at the church these days. I feel like I say that all the time Broken record A lot happening, A lot happening, but it's for real. There's a lot going on and we don't want you to miss out. All right, Thanks for listening today. Have a good one.