God rests. He takes some time off from all his hard works, and kicks back. I write this on Sunday, my own day of rest, and think about how I spend it. Most of the time, it's involving church, football, eating delivered food that's probably not great for me (chinese), and sitting in my thinking pants on the couch. My thinking pants are flannel, ya dig?
But in Genesis, God rests too. I wonder if he's resting today in our everyday life. I mean back then maybe God could kick back more since the universe was brand new, and there were only two human beings roaming the earth. Maybe it was all much easier back then. Somehow I doubt it. Life tends to be just as complicated today as it ever was back then.
The second chapter of Genesis also gives us the second take on the creation of man. Instead of appearing together, man is created first from the dust, then woman is created from man's rib. It's always struck me as odd that immediately after describing how things were created in chapter one, we immediately see a slightly different creation story and timeline in the next chapter.
Why the difference? Is this just clarification? Are we getting a deeper backstory into the creation of man and woman? Or is this a revision by man telling the tale so that he is front-most in the story. Did the arrogance of man influence the tale of creation so that he plays a bigger part? That God is creating for man instead of man being created in conjunction with everything else.
My personal opinion is the Bible is not flawless, nor is every word and every detail meant to be taken totally literally. You will see why later in other chapters of the Old Testament when several things take place that sound totally abhorrent to a moral person. After all, the Bible is telling us a story of God, and how to live our lives based on that story. But it's not God putting the pen to paper. It's man telling the story about his encounters with God. Like any game of telephone, I personally believe that man is not infallible, and does try to tweak the message in places.
That's why God blessed the Christian man with judgement. We are not blind soldiers meant to look at everything literally. We are supposed to question what we are taught and see if it fits into the sphere of the loving, all-powerful, father that we know. We are also supposed to follow the words of Jesus Christ himself, and let those messages stand as the basis for our faith.
So did God create the world, the seas, the land, the plants, the animals, and then man and woman last as in Chapter 1? Or did God create the heavens and earth, then man, then the plants, animals, and woman as on Chapter 2? To be honest, I don't think the order matters. Other people will tell you that it does and focus on minitua, or use it as a reason to assume that man and woman are or aren't equal in the eyes of the Lord.
To me that's all nonsense. What matters is that we were created by God as his children in his image. That we are important and loved by our creator as his fine creation. Those are the key facts I take away from this chapter and this lesson.
Study Thoughts:
1 - Does the order in which man was created matter to you? Do you think it happened more like Chapter 1 or Chapter 2?
2 - Why do you think Chapter 2 tells a different story of man's creation than Chapter 1?
3 - How do you think our judgement affects how we read the Bible, and how we interpret the message?
4 - What do you like to do on your day of rest? Does it honor our Creator?
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