The way God made it!

Last week, you impressed us with your extensive knowledge of some of the main events and stories recorded in the Bible. You already know a lot, and you managed to find the Bible passages (remember the bookmarks?) really quickly. You impressed us with your determination to get to grips with what's in the Bible, and we're off to a flying start - I wonder if you will all know the books of the Bible by the end of this series? How about that for a challenge? :)

This week we talked about the following themes in Genesis chapters 1 and 2:
1 - God himself:
§ God is eternal.
§ God is transcendent above all. Unlike some religions that believe everything is a part of God, the Bible teaches us that God is above and greater than everything. He is the creator of everything – God alone is worthy of worship: Rev 4:11
§ When we look at Genesis, we see that God was pleased with creation. God is the creator of our physical world, and he saw that it was good – he’s as interested in our bodies and the world we live in, as he is in our souls and our spiritual health.

2 - Made in God’s image:
§ When we read Genesis 1:27 we see that we may seem to be very similar to animals, but we are not just animals, we were made in God’s image.
§ In Gen 1:26 God sets us above the rest of creation – not to abuse it. As God’s image-bearers, we are called to rule in a loving way as he does. We have been put here to "take care of" creation.

3 - The climax of creation:
§ Gen 2:1-3: climax of creation is the 7th day (not end of ch1) – no end to 7th day!
§ God’s creation is perfect. He has been resting from his work of creation ever since. OK, he's working to keep it all running smoothly, but he's not giving the trees a little tweak here or the dogs a little tweak there etc.

4 - Perfect relationships:
We started to look at the relationship between God and people... check that you have worked to complete last week's prep - here are a few tips...
- God & human beings – God’s rules for the good of people (Gen 2:17)
- Man & woman – Gen 2:25 humans enjoys marital bliss, complete intimacy without fear/guilt
- Humans & creation – Gen 2:15 following God’s plan to take care of creation.

So... have you done prep 2? Have you unearthed your Bible? Have you read Genesis 3? What are your personal thoughts so far, about what you have read?
I hope you are thinking about all of this for yourselves, because the aim of this term's series, is to equip you for reading the Bible more for yourselves!