In the Beginning
Creation, fall, flood, and Babel: a world made very good, a rebellion that broke it, and the first promise of rescue. Genesis 1 through 11.
In the Beginning
What is the Bible's big story?
The Bible is one unfolding story: God makes a very good world, humanity rebels, and God begins a long work of rescue through one family, one nation, and finally one Son, until all things are made new. Every book is a chapter in that single plot.
In the Beginning
What went wrong in Eden?
Our first parents doubted God's word, seized what He had forbidden, and brought sin and death into a very good world. But even as He judged them, God promised that the woman's offspring would one day crush the serpent: the whole rest of the Bible is the story of that promise kept.
In the Beginning
Why did God place the tree in the garden at all?
The tree looks like a trap until you see what it was for. God filled the garden with food and beauty, fenced off one tree, said plainly which one it was and what it would cost, and let the man and woman choose Him freely. A love that cannot say no is not love, so the tree was the one place where trusting God could be chosen rather than assumed. The serpent's whole strategy was to make that boundary look like stinginess, and every temptation since has run the same play.
In the Beginning
What does the flood show us about God's judgment and mercy?
The flood shows us a God who is anything but indifferent: He saw the violence and evil filling the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. His judgment really fell, yet Noah found favor before he had built a single plank, and after the waters receded God bound Himself by a covenant never again to destroy all flesh by flood. The same water that buried the old world carried the ark, and Peter says that water points to baptism.
In the Beginning
What happened at Babel?
Humanity, still one family with one language, pooled its strength to build a city and a tower and to make a name for itself rather than receive the name God gives. God came down, confused their speech, and scattered them over the earth: a judgment that was also quiet providence, filling the world He meant to fill. At Pentecost many languages heard one gospel, the first hint that what Babel divided, God would reunite in Christ.