The Bible clearly tells us that all humans are made in the image of God. This has led to an ongoing discussion to figure out what that means - what exactly is it about humanity that makes us image bearers of our creator? While there is definitely value in exploring this, perhaps an even more relevant and practical question to ask ourselves is why did God make us in his image?

The Hebrew word for image is found over 30 times in the Old Testament - the first 5 refer to humanity being made in God’s image, and the majority of the others translate as the word idol. In the time Genesis was written, the Jews understood idols to be a physical representation of an invisible deity. They were there as a sort of shadow or copy of the greater reality they represented. And this is similar with images we make today - every picture, statue or carving we create, serve the purpose of drawing attention to and bringing glory to whatever they represent.

So if we apply this same understanding to us being made in God’s image, he has created us with the special purpose of drawing attention to Himself and representing who He is to all of creation. And because God is love, if we want to live as the image bearers we were created to be, the best way and only way to do this is to walk in love. The Bible says, “Whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in them.”

I’m Becky Gillespie from Thinking Matters and this has been your Thought for Today. For more reasons to believe visit thinkingmatters.org.nz