Can you imagine going to your pastor or counselor because your stress level has shot through the roof only to have him tell you to go home and read the Book of Genesis? Well, it may surprise you to know that this is exactly what some pastors of old would have prescribed. You see, back in the day, a really long time ago when pastors were considered by the Puritans to be "doctors of the soul" Genesis would have been a go-to tool in their spiritual medical bag for people who were struggling with stress. Who would have known--right?!
I mean, this surprises us and the reason it comes as a surprise is because when many of us think of Genesis we picture endless genealogies, ancient history, a really long Book filled with names we can’t pronounce, stories we’ve heard over and over again in Sunday school, and all the technical details about Creation versus Evolution. So, how can this help anyone and why would I say that Genesis can help stressed out believers? Good questions that deserve a good answer.
Well, for starters the original intended target audience God provided Genesis to was a group of several million Hebrew people Moses had just led out of Egypt into the middle of the barren “no-man's” land of the Sinai Wilderness. These were people who had been in Egypt for 430 years—most of that time as slaves—and then this God whom they had for the most part forgotten raised up a man with a criminal record ,whom they did not really know, to lead them back home to a place they no longer knew on a journey through a wilderness they not only did not know but did not in the least care for. Talk about stress! Can you imagine all the “what-if’s” these Hebrew people must have had?!
So, if you were there would it be of interest to you to meet this God and find out a little bit more about Him? Would you want to know something about His ability to take care of you, provide for your family’s needs, keep you safe, and successfully lead you all to the Promised Land? Well, I sure would!! I mean, if I am going to entrust my life, my family, my future, and in fact, my very soul to God—I’d like to get the scoop on Him.
In fact, if I don’t get the scoop on Him—if I really don’t have any understanding of this God—how can I really trust Him—let alone love Him. Because, you see, we humans come pre-wired to only trust what and who we know and to only love what and who we trust. So, if we are going to love and follow someone—like God—we need to be able to trust Him. And to trust Him we need to know some stuff about Him. In fact, we really need to know Him to trust Him.
So, the way in which God began to alleviate their stress and their fear was by formally introducing Himself to them through the very first Book in the Bible—the Book we call Genesis. But, not only did He introduce Himself and make Himself known to these people—He also introduced them to themselves by sharing through Genesis the stories of their roots and their ancestors.
But, that’s not all God gave them Genesis for—In Genesis, He told them why there was so much evil in the world and why life just didn’t seem to add up and what He was doing about all this evil and how in the end He would restore their hope, their dignity, their dreams, their future, their relationship with Him, and their original destiny which, they had all but forgotten. You see, God wanted to help His stressed out and fearful people by giving them faith, hope and courage by revealing Himself, His Attributes, His Faithfulness, His Promises, and His Love for them.
Now, to really get a handle on Genesis we need to understand that the Hebrews were not so much concerned with how old the earth was or precisely how God created the universe as much as they were with knowing if this God Who was leading them into the unknown could and would take care of them. So, He gave them Genesis. And here’s a secret for you—this is why He gave us Genesis too! He gave us Genesis so that we might know Him better than we do so that we will trust Him much more than we are so that we will love and enjoy Him far more than we ever thought. Oh, sure Genesis gives us all the facts we need to know concerning the creation of the universe and people but it was never intended to be a science text book as much as it was designed to introduce us to the God of science Who created the universe and people.
Now, Genesis was recorded by Moses sometime after the Exodus in 1445 B.C. and before Moses died in 1405 B.C. And the other really important thing to know about Genesis is that it, correctly understood, is really all about Jesus Christ and the Gospel. That's right! Don't believe me? Look at Luke 24:25-32. Now check out Luke 24:44-47. Consider John 1:45; 5:39 as well as verses 45-47.And let's throw Matthew 5:17-18 in there too. You see, Jesus not only completes the Old Testament; He fulfills it in the sense that He is the ultimate reality that everything in the Old Testament is pointing to. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, the feasts, the sacrificial system, the Temple, the priesthood, and the promises written about in the Old Testament. Thus, every bit of Scripture including Genesis is part of the same great story of God rescuing us from our sin and its condemnation through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ so that we might be reconciled to God and restored to our original destiny in Creation, which we had all but forgotten.
As Tim Keller writes:
There are two ways to read the Bible. The one way is to read it as though its all about you—what you have to do in order to be right with God and stay right with God. This way of reading the Bible will never give you sure hope and security because you will never measure up. The other way to read it is to see it as all about Jesus. Its about Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done to make you absolutely right with God. If you do not read the Bible this way you will never be secure in your Faith. But, once you understand that the Bible is all about Jesus Christ and what He has done for you and in your place—then you can be secure and experience hope and peace.
I'd also add that once you understand the whole Bible--including Genesis--is about Jesus and His rescue of sinners who will repent and believe in Him from an eternity in hell--you'll be well on your way to experiencing much less stress.
Now, the title “Genesis”, which means “origins”, comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The original Hebrew title of the Book, named after the first word in the Book, is Bereshith—which means “In Beginning”. Both are appropriate titles because Genesis is about the origin or the beginning of our universe, marriage, family, sin, redemption, the Hebrew people, and a bunch of other things. But Genesis is especially concerned with telling us about Him Who has no beginning—He Who has always been and always will be—Him Whom we call God.
This brings us to the very first sentence in the Bible, found in Genesis 1:1 which is—“In beginning God.” Now, I know that does not make grammatical sense in English and so the first sentence in our Bibles is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But, in Hebrew—“In beginning God” or “Bereshith Elohim” form an independent clause which stands alone as a complete thought or sentence with “created the heavens and the earth” being the second clause or second complete thought.
Thus, Genesis 1:1 is telling us more than—when beginning began God is the One Who brought it into being—it is first and foremost telling us that when beginning began God already existed and had existed forever. Perhaps the best way to understand it is to see how Moses phrased it in Psalm 90:2 where he wrote: "Before the mountains were brought forth or you had formed the earth and the world--from everlasting to everlasting you are God." In theological terms, what Moses was saying is that—God is pre-existent!
Therefore, the first complete thought in Genesis—Bereshith Elohim—rightly understood is introducing to us the God Who has no origins, no beginning, no end, no source, no equal, no superior, no needs, no rivals, no limitations, and no problem dealing with us and whatever is causing us stress. You see, the fact that God is pre-existent means He is previous to and thus, more powerful than and in fact--sovereign over any thing, person, experience, situation, problem, anxiety, challenge, issue, glitch, fear, doubt, or sin which might be causing you to be stressed out.
Notice also that the Bible does not begin with man or with creation but with God because God is the beginning and the source of all things. This means that nothing in our universe can be understood correctly without beginning with God first. This means nothing that is wrong can be made right apart from starting with God first. It means that God is necessary to every equation, every proposition, every truth, and the solution to every stress-causing problem because God as the originator of all that exists is essentially necessary. In fact, God is the only Being Who is necessary!
So.....got stress? Read and believe Genesis!
I mean, this surprises us and the reason it comes as a surprise is because when many of us think of Genesis we picture endless genealogies, ancient history, a really long Book filled with names we can’t pronounce, stories we’ve heard over and over again in Sunday school, and all the technical details about Creation versus Evolution. So, how can this help anyone and why would I say that Genesis can help stressed out believers? Good questions that deserve a good answer.
Well, for starters the original intended target audience God provided Genesis to was a group of several million Hebrew people Moses had just led out of Egypt into the middle of the barren “no-man's” land of the Sinai Wilderness. These were people who had been in Egypt for 430 years—most of that time as slaves—and then this God whom they had for the most part forgotten raised up a man with a criminal record ,whom they did not really know, to lead them back home to a place they no longer knew on a journey through a wilderness they not only did not know but did not in the least care for. Talk about stress! Can you imagine all the “what-if’s” these Hebrew people must have had?!
So, if you were there would it be of interest to you to meet this God and find out a little bit more about Him? Would you want to know something about His ability to take care of you, provide for your family’s needs, keep you safe, and successfully lead you all to the Promised Land? Well, I sure would!! I mean, if I am going to entrust my life, my family, my future, and in fact, my very soul to God—I’d like to get the scoop on Him.
In fact, if I don’t get the scoop on Him—if I really don’t have any understanding of this God—how can I really trust Him—let alone love Him. Because, you see, we humans come pre-wired to only trust what and who we know and to only love what and who we trust. So, if we are going to love and follow someone—like God—we need to be able to trust Him. And to trust Him we need to know some stuff about Him. In fact, we really need to know Him to trust Him.
So, the way in which God began to alleviate their stress and their fear was by formally introducing Himself to them through the very first Book in the Bible—the Book we call Genesis. But, not only did He introduce Himself and make Himself known to these people—He also introduced them to themselves by sharing through Genesis the stories of their roots and their ancestors.
But, that’s not all God gave them Genesis for—In Genesis, He told them why there was so much evil in the world and why life just didn’t seem to add up and what He was doing about all this evil and how in the end He would restore their hope, their dignity, their dreams, their future, their relationship with Him, and their original destiny which, they had all but forgotten. You see, God wanted to help His stressed out and fearful people by giving them faith, hope and courage by revealing Himself, His Attributes, His Faithfulness, His Promises, and His Love for them.
Now, to really get a handle on Genesis we need to understand that the Hebrews were not so much concerned with how old the earth was or precisely how God created the universe as much as they were with knowing if this God Who was leading them into the unknown could and would take care of them. So, He gave them Genesis. And here’s a secret for you—this is why He gave us Genesis too! He gave us Genesis so that we might know Him better than we do so that we will trust Him much more than we are so that we will love and enjoy Him far more than we ever thought. Oh, sure Genesis gives us all the facts we need to know concerning the creation of the universe and people but it was never intended to be a science text book as much as it was designed to introduce us to the God of science Who created the universe and people.
Now, Genesis was recorded by Moses sometime after the Exodus in 1445 B.C. and before Moses died in 1405 B.C. And the other really important thing to know about Genesis is that it, correctly understood, is really all about Jesus Christ and the Gospel. That's right! Don't believe me? Look at Luke 24:25-32. Now check out Luke 24:44-47. Consider John 1:45; 5:39 as well as verses 45-47.And let's throw Matthew 5:17-18 in there too. You see, Jesus not only completes the Old Testament; He fulfills it in the sense that He is the ultimate reality that everything in the Old Testament is pointing to. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, the feasts, the sacrificial system, the Temple, the priesthood, and the promises written about in the Old Testament. Thus, every bit of Scripture including Genesis is part of the same great story of God rescuing us from our sin and its condemnation through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ so that we might be reconciled to God and restored to our original destiny in Creation, which we had all but forgotten.
As Tim Keller writes:
There are two ways to read the Bible. The one way is to read it as though its all about you—what you have to do in order to be right with God and stay right with God. This way of reading the Bible will never give you sure hope and security because you will never measure up. The other way to read it is to see it as all about Jesus. Its about Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done to make you absolutely right with God. If you do not read the Bible this way you will never be secure in your Faith. But, once you understand that the Bible is all about Jesus Christ and what He has done for you and in your place—then you can be secure and experience hope and peace.
I'd also add that once you understand the whole Bible--including Genesis--is about Jesus and His rescue of sinners who will repent and believe in Him from an eternity in hell--you'll be well on your way to experiencing much less stress.
Now, the title “Genesis”, which means “origins”, comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The original Hebrew title of the Book, named after the first word in the Book, is Bereshith—which means “In Beginning”. Both are appropriate titles because Genesis is about the origin or the beginning of our universe, marriage, family, sin, redemption, the Hebrew people, and a bunch of other things. But Genesis is especially concerned with telling us about Him Who has no beginning—He Who has always been and always will be—Him Whom we call God.
This brings us to the very first sentence in the Bible, found in Genesis 1:1 which is—“In beginning God.” Now, I know that does not make grammatical sense in English and so the first sentence in our Bibles is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But, in Hebrew—“In beginning God” or “Bereshith Elohim” form an independent clause which stands alone as a complete thought or sentence with “created the heavens and the earth” being the second clause or second complete thought.
Thus, Genesis 1:1 is telling us more than—when beginning began God is the One Who brought it into being—it is first and foremost telling us that when beginning began God already existed and had existed forever. Perhaps the best way to understand it is to see how Moses phrased it in Psalm 90:2 where he wrote: "Before the mountains were brought forth or you had formed the earth and the world--from everlasting to everlasting you are God." In theological terms, what Moses was saying is that—God is pre-existent!
Therefore, the first complete thought in Genesis—Bereshith Elohim—rightly understood is introducing to us the God Who has no origins, no beginning, no end, no source, no equal, no superior, no needs, no rivals, no limitations, and no problem dealing with us and whatever is causing us stress. You see, the fact that God is pre-existent means He is previous to and thus, more powerful than and in fact--sovereign over any thing, person, experience, situation, problem, anxiety, challenge, issue, glitch, fear, doubt, or sin which might be causing you to be stressed out.
Notice also that the Bible does not begin with man or with creation but with God because God is the beginning and the source of all things. This means that nothing in our universe can be understood correctly without beginning with God first. This means nothing that is wrong can be made right apart from starting with God first. It means that God is necessary to every equation, every proposition, every truth, and the solution to every stress-causing problem because God as the originator of all that exists is essentially necessary. In fact, God is the only Being Who is necessary!
So.....got stress? Read and believe Genesis!
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