Teach me who You are O' God! (Gen. 1)

Here we go...2nd part of a 586 part series! :)  Makes me think about this video.



I know it's hard to be serious after watching that video, but alas we shall try.  In Genesis chapter one we see God beginning time as we know and understand it. We see God creating the heavens, the earth, and every physical thing that exists in them. We learn that God is the Creator of all things and that without Him and His decision to create the heavens, earth, and everything we experience would not be. We also learn that God commands and blesses the things He creates.

We learn some things about what God is creating, but since our focus is on knowing who God is, those things lay outside the periphery of our vision.  We could also infer some things about God through what we learn concerning the nature of the things He is creating here in Genesis 1, but that also is counter productive to what I hope to gain here because it complicates the process. What I mean by this is that I want to focus in on what God is saying about Himself and not what I can infer about what He is doing and how He is doing it. Although that is a legitimate way of gaining knowledge about God I don't want to have to worry about constantly backtracking on my inferences to make sure they are consistent with each new piece of information I learn along the way. I could be wrong about an inference I make, but it becomes much more difficult for me to be wrong if I stick to understanding God by understanding what He directly says about Himself.

With that in mind we learn a very profound thing about God here in chapter one, namely that God is an "us". God says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." in verse 26. Verse 27 goes on to restate that God creates man in His own image.

So God is an "us". How confusing this fact must have been for the Israelites. I know I'm jumping way ahead here, but I just can't help but to wonder what would have gone through my mind if I were an Israelite and all I had were the books of Moses. Learning daily as a child the Great Shema, "Hear O' Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." and then learning that God is an "us". God is one, God is an "us", God is one, God is an "us", God is one, God is an "us". I imagine that I would have had one thought pulsating through my mind at all times, "This is a contradiction, God cannot be one and an "us" at the same time!" But as an Israelite, at this time, my life and many generations of Israelite lives after me would have come and gone without any resolution to this conflict. More revealtion from God is required to solve this problem but many of God's people never had that revelation.

In my life I have found a couple of those types of issues in the Scriptures as well. It seems impossible for me to understand how two pieces of information that are opposed to each other can be reconciled. Is there a contradiction here? Can I be intellectually honest and continue to believe? I've struggled with these things and still have some that I have not reconciled in my mind and so I too, like the Israelites, wait for further revelation from God. Will I ever get an answer to my questions? Probably not, I'm not expecting God to send someone to write more Scripture and so unless the problems are solved by further study then I too will die without answers to my questions.

When I think about the plight of my questions and the plight of the Israelite wondering how God can be an "us" and one at the same time I remember and am heartened by God's word. "without faith it is impossible to please Him..." -Heb. 11:6.

Much more could be said about intellectual honesty and faith and what it means for our lives but that is another conversation and not the focus of this study. 

So God is an "us"?  That's interesting.

Teach me who You are O' God! (Introduction)

I've learned a lot of things about God in my lifetime from a lot of different people. Lately though I've been thinking about this video.

So I've been asking myself the question of how much what I know about God comes from what He has revealed about Himself and how much is from what I've heard other people proclaim about Him. What I hope to do is study through the Bible and see what God says about Himself and believe in, worship, and serve Him as my King.

I imagine that some of the things I've learned in the past will be confirmed, some will be challenged, and some will be destroyed, but I want to worship and serve God as He is and not as I would like or imagine Him to be.

So you're welcome to join me, comment, challenge me along the way in understanding what God has said about Himself.