Bible Chit Chat: Genesis 1-2

Welcome to the Coffee and Bible Time Podcast! Today's episode is the first in our series called Bible Chit Chats, where we walk through Genesis together! The episode explores the creation narrative in Genesis chapters one and two, emphasizing the nature of God, humanity's identity, and the significance of rest. Mentor Mama Ellen and daughters unpack profound theological themes, encouraging listeners to reflect on their relationship with God and the importance of resting in His presence. 

Join us as we are...
• Exploring the authorship and context of Genesis 
• Summarizing the creation narrative and its key themes 
• Discussing God's attributes as demonstrated in creation 
• Highlighting humanity’s identity made in God's image 
• Understanding the significance of rest in God's design 
• Reflecting on interdependence and relationships in creation 
• Encouraging personal insights and applications of faith

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If you are a Christian woman seeking to know God deeper, study Scriptures, pray with and for others, strengthen your faith, and support other in doing the same, this is the place for you! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Genesis Creation Story Analysis
• 18:33 Rest and Reflection on God's Design
• 32:58 Unveiling the Consequences of Adam's Sin

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. This is Ellen, your host, and today I am so excited to be joined by Coffee and Bible Time's wonderful Taylor and Ashley. Welcome Glad to be here. So good to be with you said that we were going to start doing these Bible chit chats and today we are beginning our new Genesis series. So today we will be discussing chapters one and two. And how about if we just take a brief moment of prayer before we start?

Speaker 2: 0:38

I will start us off with some prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about your word in Genesis, the first chapter that we get to learn about who you are and who we are in light of you. We're so thankful for this opportunity to talk and we just pray that this video and this podcast would glorify you and all that we say, and that it would be an encouragement to all of those who listen. In Jesus name, amen.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Amen. Thank you, ashley. All right, so we are going to be doing these Bible chit-chats in the format of the Easy Bible Study Method, which you can find out more information in the link below. But we are following the E-A-S-Y acronym, and so the very first E is Enter into the story.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Who's the author?

Speaker 1: 1:30

Who's he writing to?

Speaker 2: 1:33

So the author of this is highly debated in the scholarly world, but church tradition and church history and most people, I would say, emphasize that Moses is the author.

Speaker 2: 1:51

He's actually the author, as most people believe, of the whole Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible, and he was originally writing to the Israelite people, originally writing to the Israelite people.

Speaker 2: 2:11

And it's interesting because a lot of times we emphasize here in Coffee and Bible Time and actually a lot of Bible study methods will emphasize that the Bible wasn't written directly to us, it's for us, but the original audience was somebody different, so it was the Israelite people. And I think there are tons of different reasons why Moses wrote this, but I believe one of the biggest ones for sure was that he wanted to write down Israel's history, how their faith in the whole shebang came to be, and so Moses wanted to record that, so that the Israelites could be united under the Lord and know okay, why are we here, who is our God, what is our purpose, what is our identity. And, of course, another purpose of Genesis is for us today too, to know who is God. What is our purpose, purpose, why are we here? What does it mean that we're made in the image of God.

Speaker 1: 3:08

All of those things have you guys ever thought about, like, if you could have been there just to witness that firsthand? I think that's kind of what we're getting at when we say enter into the story, try to be in awe and wonder of this magnificent event so true.

Speaker 2: 3:44

I think that's definitely a hurdle that I have to go through when I'm reading scripture is slowing down enough to actually be present, and a lot of times, I think, when we read the bible, we skip the first step of entering into the story. And in order to really enter into the story, like Ashley said, you kind of have to put yourself in the shoes of the original audience. And it was really really important, like Ashley said, for them to have a record of their history and, in the context of the Israelites, they were surrounded by a bunch of pagan nations who had their own ideas about how the world started, and it's really important that they're able to have a firm grasp of what the reality was, what God actually says and, as we believe, it's God-breathed. What is said here is the truth.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Absolutely Well. How about we start with just a brief summary of chapters one and two, and then we're going to get into the main themes, as we assess the main idea now.

Speaker 2: 5:01

So I actually wrote out kind of a small summary from Genesis 1 and 2, and it simply says God's creation of the universe, where he speaks all things into existence over six days, culminating in humanity being made in his image as the pinnacle of creation.

Speaker 2: 5:21

And actually, if you're reading your bible and you see in the biblical text it says that, um so god created man in his image and you see that that little section of poetry is indented and that shows us that that part of scripture is very important and it should be emphasized and we see that humanity really is the crown of God's creation.

Speaker 2: 5:48

And then, of course, on the seventh day, God rests, establishing the sabbath as a day of rest and reflection on his perfect and sovereign work. And of course, genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are both the creation story, just told from a different perspective or a different lens, as you could say. Genesis 1 has the video camera at this angle and Genesis 2 has it at that angle and we learn different and unique things about God from chapter 1 versus chapter 2, which we'll get into later. But a good question to ask is why are there? Why does Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 both tell the creation story right? Because the biblical author was limited in what he could add into the text, and so why did he add it twice? You know that's a question that I was thinking as I was reading through it twice.

Speaker 1: 6:44

You know that's a question that I was thinking as I was reading through it. I know one of the things that I researched about that is it was saying that verses one or I'm sorry days one, two and three of creation our are sort of refined in the second three days of creation, and then that second narrative of the creation, starting in chapter two, is a further refinement. So when you break it all down you see that you're learning more and more and more information at each one of those stages.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Right, and I saw somewhere someone wrote that. The first, as it starts off, it's a picture with really broad strokes and as you continue going, the details become more clear and the biblical author is just adding more and more details about the garden and about Adam and Eve. And it just you right. It becomes a more detailed story and you continue learning more about who God is, who his creation is, why we're here. It starts to answer all those questions.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Absolutely All right. So in these chapters we discover three main themes. We have God's nature and attributes, we have humanity and relationship with God, and then also rest. So as we talk about the first one, God's nature and attributes what stood out to you that you learned about God?

Speaker 2: 8:26

I mean I don't want to jump ahead because right now we're in assess the main idea and SSC, god and his character, but I will say that we learned so much about God in this chapter. It's incredible, and we see even God in the trinity right, him being father, son, spirit. And we know this because it talks about God, the Father, throughout the whole thing. And then it says in verse 2, it says the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Speaker 2: 9:04

In verse 126, let us make mankind in our image, which there's scholarly debate about what that means, and you can dig into that deeper for yourself what that means, and you can dig into that deeper for yourself. I personally believe that that is God speaking as the Trinity, as Father, son and Spirit. Let us make mankind in our image. And then, of course, if you flip to John in your Bible, it says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And so we know that Jesus was intertwined in the creation story and so one big character quality about God I see already at the beginning of scripture is that he is one God, three persons, and we learn more about the Trinity.

Speaker 1: 9:54

Right from the get-go, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:04

How about for you, tay, anything? Um, I think, in terms of assessing the main idea, I feel like in these first two chapters you get, um, an idea of what humanity was supposed to look like in a in its perfect form, what life was supposed to be like, and that's a really important thing to latch on to before you get to Genesis 3 when spoiler alert things don't end up going very well because sin enters the picture. But in Genesis 1 and 2, I mean, these are, this is how God originally intended things, so it's important to have that foundation. I think. I also believe that, like they said, you get a really strong picture of God's creativity and his sovereignty and you know, I think that that is really just an important attribute to see right off the bat, as God, as creator, and then, as we see in these chapters as well, god creating us in his image. We reflect that creativity and God gives us reign to have creativity and to um. What does it say in here? He um makes, gives us dominion over creation yes, which is so?

Speaker 2: 11:26

he reflection of being made in his image. I would say yes, yeah, absolutely. He gives us the dignity and the the ability to rule over his creation and to take care of things and to provide and to nurture and to create and to be his. Is it called a co-regent? Is that what we learned, tay?

Speaker 1: 11:53

That sounds right, I love um, really sort of digging into, sort of the deep understanding and, I think, something that gets overlooked quite easily, like you said, tay, when you're reading through it fast. But the bible is making this assumption that creation had a beginning, but god has always been right. So we're really talking about something that's beyond our sort of finite human capacity, intellect, to truly, truly grasp. But what is so cool to me is you you see, right from the beginning, god pursuing creating man to have this relationship and so yet he is so big that we can't fully comprehend him. At the same time, it's not beyond our capacity to know God, to know about him, to see his creation and to reflect on how he created us and sustains every breath of our life.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So I kind of love like those big, heady type things you know and truly like. God was the only one there at creation and so he's the only one that could reveal the truth about the creation. He chose to do that through the Bible. But that requires faith and this is where you know a lot of people struggle. This it is, it's faith, it's trusting that God is who he says he is through what's been written in the Bible In fact, hebrews.

Speaker 2: 13:59

I made a note that hebrews 11 3 says by faith, we understand that the universe was formed at god's command I think it does take a lot of faith and I think a lot of people struggle to really grasp the creation story. I know there's a lot of people struggle to really grasp the creation story. I know there's a lot of views about was it actually seven days that God created the world, or was each day thousands of years, and a bunch of people have different perspectives on that. But I do think it takes a lot of faith to just say you know what, god? I believe that you could have created the world in seven days, or technically, six days, right, because on the seventh he rested. But it takes a tremendous amount of faith. I think something that you were saying, mentor Mama, about how thinking like really deep about these things, um, is to go back to the trinity, about how, if god create, if god existed before the creation of the world and he is three persons father, son and spirit and they all had perfect love with each other, um, within the trinity, they, they didn't need any, anything or anybody else, right, god didn't need us, god didn't need humans, um, but he still chose to create a world and to create us, and it really I know I'm thinking about the book delighting in the trinity. It's an incredible book. I encourage anybody and everyone to go out there and read it. It's a quite an easy read, um, but god didn't.

Speaker 2: 15:45

God is so full of love, overflowing with love, that he created us to be a part of that love, right and in in in the first chapter, when it says so God created man in his own image. When it says let us create man in our image, we reflect the trinity even in the way that he created us right in like, needing to be in relationship, like whether you're single or married, god created us to be. Whether you're single or you're married, god created us to be in relationship with one another, right, and that reflects the trinity how we're created to love and to be loved and how we reflect god in that, and how we need god's love in order to flourish and survive, and we need each other's love to flourish and survive. All of us were born into a family. All of us needed other people to like.

Speaker 2: 16:57

I'm thinking about my son, theo. If he would have been born and no one took care of him, no one fed him milk, no one raised him and nurtured him, loved him, he would just die. Like we need, we start off needing each other. We always need each other. We're made in god's image, in the image of needing love, right right.

Speaker 2: 17:17

Interdependence, I think, is what they use, that word yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:24

You've brought up some really good, good dialogue here on this theme of humanity and its relationship with God. That was one thing that I called out too, god. You know, that was one thing that I called out to was that we are completely, so utterly, dependent upon God. Right, for how the universe is perfectly in sync. You know, the temperature of our planet that we live in, all these different things that we take for granted every single day, things that we take for granted every single day. And in acts 17, paul says that men are so dependent upon god for their very existence that that should compel them to seek god and find him, and I thought that that was a good cross-reference on this particular aspect. All right, so let's wrap up our discussion of the main themes here by talking about the last one, which is rest. Taylor, what did you learn about God's?

Speaker 2: 18:35

design for rest challenges us to rethink about rest, especially for those of us in western cultures where we're really valuing pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing yourself to the limit. Even in christian culture, I think we can sometimes idolize overworking, over doing it to the point where we have nothing left to give. We're giving serving on empty, and that isn't God's design. God's design was built in rest, and not just mind-numbing rest of being on our phones, but resting in him and when we rest, like we've been saying throughout this podcast, it is a reflection of being made in his image that's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 19:39

I know that I've struggled with rest as you know I tend to work, work, work, but actually it was this past year that I think all of us talked about the sabbath and the importance of honoring god and following what his design was. Just like he did worked for six days and took that seventh day for rest, and that was carried through in the old testament. That's what Moses outlined for the Israelites, also as part of the ten commandments.

Speaker 2: 20:19

So I think when we allow ourselves to do that and we get into that rhythm of work and rest like I find myself actually really looking forward to that that time I was also telling Ashley that I think her becoming a mother I mean, ashley has the same tendencies as mentor mama, with the work, workaholic bug in them, and the amount of times that babies need to feed, lo and behold, all the stinking time forces her to be present.

Speaker 2: 21:00

I'd love to hear your perspective on this, but the amount of times that I FaceTime her and she's sitting on the couch letting Theo feed the night away because he is hungry, okay, but I'm like that baby is making you rest in the best way possible, and I know it's still work, but it at least forces you to be present, right, yeah, yeah, I mean, I agree with that, I think, and even, um, that's why having phone boundaries during this time has been really good for me, because I think, as a breastfeeding mom, you are tempted to scroll, doom, scroll while you're breastfeeding and that isn't restful. Whenever I doom scroll, I don't feel rested afterwards and I feel more bogged down. So I have challenged myself to even when I'm feeding him. Yeah, I can struggle with that, but I've been living in the moment more and I've been realizing it kind of helps time to slow down, helps you realize, keep you grounded and realize the blessings that God has right in front of you.

Speaker 1: 24:10

Amen. Thanks for sharing that, ashley. Well, let's talk about seeking God and his character, which is the S part of the acronym.

Speaker 2: 24:19

for easy, Well, I was going to say that it's kind of funny. How it's I don't know if funny is the right word, but how. This whole time we've been talking about God and his character. We've been talking about how he created the world and how powerful he is, how he is the father-son spirit, how he was there before the world began, how absolutely incredible he is and how he gave us a purpose. He created us and gave us an identity in him. And it's just. He is the the main idea of this passage.

Speaker 2: 24:58

He's the center of it all, and I think you can't study this passage without studying who god is really. So we've talked about him. I mean, we've talked about how even this passage points to Jesus as being God right and how he's been in, he was, throughout the whole creation process there creating and Colossians. Also talks about how Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created. So we know that Jesus was there, was present in this. He is God. He created the world. I mean, it's absolutely incredible. So I think there's so many ways that you can study God in this passage. I don't think there's just one way. You can study how God's creative. You can study how Jesus's creative. You can study how Jesus was there in creation. You can study how God created us to be in a relationship with us. He's an intimate God who wants relationship, right? There's so many different avenues and so I don't know. I just think you could talk about this for hours, about who is God in the creation story.

Speaker 1: 26:10

Absolutely. You know, ashley, one of the things that I love that you did was in the Genesis guide that you developed for this Genesis study, you have a page for every of the 13 weeks, for every one of those weeks, that talks about how those chapters point to Christ, and I think for a lot of people they don't make that connection between the Old Testament pointing to Christ and then, even so, specifically, examples that you have given in all the various chapters. So, um, I would just love to encourage people. If you want to go even deeper than what we're talking about here, we'll be talking about that in our community so the genesis study is available on our website.

Speaker 2: 27:06

You can purchase it separately, like you can just purchase straight up the genesis guide, or you can join our community, which we give the genesis guide on there for free. But we also meet every thursday night and we talk about genesis together as a group of women wanting to read, study god's word. We also have our in-depth bible study academy on there as well, and that's all available for you on our community. It's kind of like a one-stop shop.

Speaker 1: 27:32

Yeah, and we had kind of a fun get to know you session and it's really neat to meet people from all over the country from the. East Coast to the West, and sometimes we've even had people from other countries able to join us, so it's really awesome. Well, as we wrap things up here, how are you guys going to yearn for heart?

Speaker 2: 27:54

change, which is the why and the easy bible study method. I just wrote in my guide, as I was studying through this, that I I really focused on how the first words we hear God say is let there be light, and I was focusing on how. Even in John 1, it says Jesus is the light, and so I. For me, my takeaway was every time I see the sun shining and I see light, I want to be reminded that God is light. Jesus is the light of life. He's the one who gives us life, and only through him, spiritually speaking. All right, I have to go. My baby's crying.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Goodbye, bye.

Speaker 2: 28:44

You can just finish up. Yeah, so that was a good takeaway. I think about what you said before. Sweet little Theo wanted his mommy. Ashley is the light in Theo's life right now. Let's just say that.

Speaker 1: 28:59

What about your takeaway? You know, for me I loved just focusing in, as I talked about earlier, focusing in, as I talked about earlier, some of the bigger, heavier thoughts about, you know, how God pre-existed, the created creation, and it really has forced me to think about my faith, be grateful that that's one of my spiritual gifts. And then I think it's also challenged me to really maybe put together some thoughts or to like maybe re-look at some of the books, like, uh, like the least struggle books, or some of those um books that help explain how god's existence really is real and so that that's how it affected me and

Speaker 2: 30:00

maybe be more intentional about incorporating um god's creation into part of the story when I tell it, well said, sounds like you're letting your faith drive you to further exploration, without it being you're trying to conjure up a bunch of facts to convince you of why god exists, but rather from faith, your curiosity is, you know, wanting you to lead you to see more pieces of evidence.

Speaker 1: 30:34

Yes, and actually I'm reading lee struggle's book right now, the case for faith, and which is different than the case for christ, which is his other book.

Speaker 2: 30:44

So really good, yeah, nice, yeah, and I think for me, um, something that stuck out to me, which we didn't touch too much on today, was at the end of um, genesis 2.

Speaker 2: 30:56

You see more about God's interaction with Adam and the creation of Eve, and at the very end the verse says Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

Speaker 2: 31:12

And something that I just was moved to think about was the reality that at the beginning there was no shame, and I really feel like that emotion is just so interwoven to how we live our everyday lives.

Speaker 2: 31:29

I know for me it affected so much of my life, like even just feeling a lot of shame about my body or the way that I looked and about how I interacted with people, always feeling kind of inadequate and just reminding myself that the way that God created us is good, the way that he created you, how you look, your body, it is inherently good because you are made in his image, and so my heart is to kind of just prayerfully consider what it would look like for me to live without shame and to combat that shame that you feel and to process it, but not let it control my life. But not let it control my life. So think about okay, where is there shame in my life and how can I live how God intended, which is to live without shame. And we can do that with Christ. I mean, it's not like we're going to do it perfectly, but with Christ we don't have to be shamed anymore.

Speaker 1: 32:24

Yeah. So, taylor, are you suggesting, in heaven, we'll all just be nude?

Speaker 2: 32:32

Wow, that was a jump. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Well, I want to wrap this discussion up with one bit of information that I retrieved from a commentary, because I think it's just kind of an interesting way to end it. So it says because I think it's just kind of an interesting way to end it. So it says, ironically, the first achievement that their newfound wisdom acquired was the realization of their nudity. Adam and Eve Luther observed what we suspect the ancient Hebrew audience would have pondered, which is this Therefore, this passage points out admirably how much evil followed after the sin of adam. For now it would be regarded as the utmost madness if anyone walked about naked you know, that's right so I thought that was a fun way to kind of wrap things up.

Speaker 1: 33:31

All right, if you loved this podcast and its video, we would love it if you would write us a comment and we will definitely reach out to you. Thank you so much for just supporting the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. We love you all. Have a blessed day.