Genesis

Literary Structure is important
- Author’s best clue for major ideas:
- Genesis: “These are the generations of” (This is the account of/what became of)
  - Divides it into 12 sections
  - 1-11 6 sections, 12-50 6 sections
1A
- God’s Word produces heavens and earth as God’s gift to man; 1:1-2:3
- Chapter 1
- is the emphases in chapter 1 on: who, what, why, when, or how?
  - a lot of who (says God every verse)
  - not much emphasis on what
  - nothing about why
  - doesn’t say when
  - a lot of how (God said)
- why is this the first thing God tells us about himself?
- we have to be able to trust what he says in order to have a relationship with him
- God’s role → man’s role
- days 1-3 forming, days 4-6 filing (Gen. 1:2 earth unformed and unfilled)
- 1:26 man made in God’s image
  - reflect him: rational, emotional, volitional
  - represent him by what we do
  - rule over…
  - subdue it and rule over it
  - subdue came before the fall → to search out, discover, create, invent, compose…
- God passes the baton to Adam, he drops it
- God rules through man over creation
  - man has scepter (creation mandate)
2B The Word of the Evil One Challenges the Word of God
- introduces conflict
- snake brings doubt and denial about the word God spoke
- met by word of judgment and promise
- Loss of relationship and loss of rule
- promise for woman, judgement for snake
- $Gen. 3:15$
- bad news in Gen. 3:19 (death)
- BEFORE: ground was in submission to Adam
- AFTER: ground rebels against Adam
- work → toil
- life → death
- vs. 20 (expression of faith)
- Adam named Eve (mother of all the living)
- response to vs 19 and the promise in 15
- vs. 21 (covering of sin)
- God made clothes
- innocent substitute needed
- vs. 22-24
- Problem: we’ve been kicked out of our home and the tree of life
- Goal: get back in
- How: The promise is the only way → focus on the seed
Gen. 4-11
- 4 Murder of Abel, 5 Genealogies, 6 bad people, 6-8 Noah and ark, 9 Noah drunk, 10 genealogies, 11 Babel
3B God’s word is fulfilled in the first generation
- 4:1-24
- Eve focused on the seed, but Cain was not it
  - Cain was on the wrong team
  - we learn that God loves Cain even though they are against him
  - God loves blue people
- big idea
  - conflict between Cain and Abel - serpent’s seed and Eve’s seed
  - God’s promises take place in the first generation, show’s God’s word is truth
- Lamech
  - killed someone like Cain, but didn’t have the same attitude
  - brags about killing someone
  - rejects God and puts himself above God
- 4:25-26 preservation of the righteous seed
- Seth worshiped God, red
- 5
- 5:1-2 parallel to Gen. 1:26-27
- red genealogy to contrast blue stories from ch. 4
- theme: looking for seed, hoping that each seed is the one
- Enoch walked with God and didn’t die
  - Enoch and Lamech same generation, but opposite teams
- shows promise coming true already, which brings hope for the saving point of the promise
- parallels to Matthew 1
The conflict deepens the break down in created order
- 6:1-8
- the seed intermarries, loss of godly seed
4A God’s word brings judgment
- God’s word of preparation
- 6:9, 22; 7:5, 8-9; 8:15-18 a
- new order of life
- 9:1 parallel to ch. 1
- Noah is like the seed, brings hope of the one who will defeat Satan
- God’s word through Noah separates
- Ham does bad thing, his son gets cursed
- Shem gets blessed
5A God’s word of judgment comes upon the families which settle 10:1-11:9
- people trying to get significance and security outside of God
- languages force division into nations
- necessary to prevent further unity against God
- ruin any chance of unified, shalom community that God desires
God’s Promise to Abraham 12-25
- land, nation, leader
- “all nations on earth will be blessed through you”
- ~~God → Abram → Nations blessed~~
- God → Abram → seed → nations blessed
- Gen. 3:15
- leader → seed
- nation → Ex. 19:6
  - God <→ nation of priests <→ other nations
- land→ Israel is crossroad of ancient world
- command to leave, not condition
- God promised not based on Abraham’s belief
- 12:10-20 Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife
- God intervened to bring Sarah back
- 15: Abraham had doubts because he didn’t have an heir
- God tells him he will have a son
- vs. 6: Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him for righteousness
- in that culture, they’d cut animals in half and walk in between them to make a covenant
  - God makes a covenant with Abram not based on human conditions
- 16: God’s promise to Abraham conflicts with culture
- Hagar
- 17: God commands a sign of promise
- change of Abram’s name to Abraham
  - father of many nations
- response is laughter
- 18: 3 messengers visit Abraham
- Sarah laughs
- 20: Abimelech wants Sarah
- God brings Sarah back
- 21: Isaac is born
- 22: God confirms Abraham’s faith in the promises
- do you believe I will keep my promises
- Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac in faith that God will bring him back
- 23: death of Sarah and 400 shekels
- swindled, admits he is alien and stranger
- Heb. 11:13-14 aliens and strangers
- $James 2:21-23$ Gen. 22 and 15:6
Gen. 26-36
- Jacob: the UN-Abraham
- ch. 25 Jacob rather than Esau
- Jacob: heel-grabber, deceiver
- birthright
  - double portion of inheritance
- ch. 26
- Isaac gets the promises
  - she’s my sister routine
  - promises unconditional for Isaac, too
- ch. 27
- the blessing
- Jacob deceives and then leaves
- ch. 28
- Jacob dreams of the stairway leading to Heaven
- John 1:51
- Jesus is the stairway that makes it so people can have a relationship with God
- ch. 29
- God disciplines and blesses Jacob to make him blue
- ch. 31
- return home
- tries to deceive Laban
- ch. 32
- who is “the man”?
  - messenger for God or God
- why “touch” the hip?
  - Jacob is going to keep fighting unless there’s intervention
- why ask his name after the fighting"?
  - Jacob tells his character and since he admits it, his name changed
- how does Jacob “overcome”?
  - stops fighting, confesses his character, asks for blessing in faith
  - salvation
  - changes color