We’re going to look at the Dwelling place of God – the location, the description of heaven; The Nature of the cosmos, including sheol / hades / the lake of fire, where is it?, who goes there?, did Jesus descend to hell?, what is a present or future reality; The Law and order of the cosmos; God’s providence; and we’ll end with contrasting the biblical worldview with that of others.

God is King of His universal cosmic kingdom. In today’s western culture, it can be popular to push back from an any notion of hierarchy and even authority. The universe of which God is King however has a divine order, which made up of a perfect universal law, freedoms and constraints, missions, and ultimately is governed by a heavenly throne.

Before turning to chapter 3 of Genesis, we’re going to look at three main facets of the biblical worldview. First God himself – his nature; his attributes; how he’s described; the trinity; – what we call Theology Proper. Secondly, we’ll turn to the order of the field, the canvas of all things – the dwelling place of God; how is the throne room in heaven described; a biblical view of the order of nature; the where, what, why of sheol, hades, and the lake fire (we tend to bundle together as hell); and how God interacts with his creation. Then lastly, we’ll look at the Order of the players – looking at angelology; the order of mankind; and lastly animals and plants, and the hierarchy and ordained order between them all.

It was 17 years ago that I received what I can only describe as a moving picture of the garden of Eden. I was alone in a room, thinking about the garden. It must have been from God, because what I saw blew me away and the infantile understanding that I’d gleaned. I literally nearly fell of my chair. In that moment I knew the bible was true. Only a decade and more later when I began a deep dive into Genesis 2 did it confirm that image. Hello and welcome, I’m Stephen Buckley, and we’re in a series titled Eden to Zion, where you will form a biblical worldview through the story of the bible, knowing therefore how to go about a proper Christian life. I’m excited because today because we’re turning to Genesis 2, beginning with verse 4.

We should pause momentarily to address one of the most successful attacks on the foundations of the Christian faith in the west. “The Book of Origins,” the book of Genesis, perhaps more than any other informs our worldview. If we do not lay this protological foundation correctly, our whole framework of the gospel story is skewed. Believing the plain reading of the creation account is not a salvation issue as such, but it is a biblical authority issue; and if we are to take God at his Word, we’re required not to read into it our own culturally popular ideologies and theories. His very character is at stake.

Today we’re tacking the creation account, the first seven days since the beginning of time. We’ll move through the account one day at a time. So have your bible ready, it’s a good idea to read chapter 1 and the first three verses of chapter two. Before we dive into the text, let’s remind ourselves of the context in which the creation account sits, the Torah.

We’re going to speed through the bible from Genesis to Revelation in approximately 30 minutes. We’re currently in a series going long through the main themes of the bible from Genesis to Revelation, Eden to Zion. But before we get stuck into Genesis 1:1, I thought it would be helpful to do a fast forward run through the bible, to paint the big picture, even if some of this doesn’t stick.

Firstly, we'll understand what a worldview is, then I’ll briefly underline the truthfulness of scripture, and finally, we’ll touch on Hermeneutics – the methods of interpreting scripture which are led by and play a part of forming our worldview.

We’re going to build the big-picture-gospel by walking through the grand narrative of the bible, from Genesis to Revelation. From the garden of Eden to the mountain of Zion. In doing so we will develop a biblical worldview.

What is going on in our nation? The good news is that Jesus is coming to sort all this out.

If Paul wrote it as “maran atha” then it means, The Lord has come – past tense, his first coming. If he wrote it as “marana tha” then it could be translated, “Lord, please come!”