#30SecondBible: Genesis

Plotting Goodness Everywhere

By Brian McLaren

It all begins in Genesis. God creates the world and it's all good: light, dark, land, sea, animals, plants, male, female, good, good, very good. But we humans lose our way. We start playing God and the results are ugly: shame, fear, violence, oppression, injustice, enslavement. People keep plotting evil but God keeps plotting goodness. Genesis invites us to join God plotting goodness everywhere.

  1. Where do you see God plotting goodness in the world?
  2. How can you join God in bringing goodness to life in the world?

The Book of Beginnings

By Billy Honor

Genesis, also known as the book of beginnings, is the epic collection of writings that connect the history of the small Hebrew-Jewish nation with the larger history of the formation of the entire world. Beginning with the poetic stories of creation that led to the formation of the first civilization and then the call of a man named Abraham, Genesis tells the story of how God mysteriously superintends the world through the unfolding of human history.

  1. What do you remember most about the creation stories?
  2. How do you see God working through the unfolding of human history?

The Ultimate Good

By Billy Honor

For me, when I read the pages of Genesis, there I encounter the image of a God who gives us all the good news that despite the occasional horrors of human life that sometimes manifest themselves in the form of family disfunction, greed, domination, corruption, oppression, abuse, and slavery, that there is a God who still mysteriously is moving all things towards an ultimate good and that good is a more just and divinely ordered human community.

  1. What image of God do you encounter in the pages of Genesis?
  2. Do you believe that God is moving all things towards an ultimate good? Why or why not?

See the complete #30SecondBible series

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