Unlike other religions or belief systems, the Bible speaks of God as not ‘able to love’ or ‘feels love’ but is described as love. God is known as having love intrinsically as part of His nature. Humans are built to know and experience love because love is a reality of God Himself (1 John 4:8). The personal connection from a living God created the certainty of knowing Him and the possibility of loving Him. The people of Israel were to love God in totality—heart, soul and strength (Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27). Like energy, love has a Source. Unlike physical energy sources however, true love can be accessed at anytime, anywhere, because God is its ever-present Source. Just as all truth is God’s truth, every experience of real love mirrors God’s love—even for those who don’t believe in God!

As humans can’t know or control the future, hope is a gift from God that fuels forward-thinking and energizes action. Without hope, humans despair (Prov. 13:12). Hope, however, requires some distance between desire and delivery. A desire that can be realized immediately does not need hope (Rom. 8:24). For believers, God often uses increased waiting to test their faith in the One they claim to trust! Hope in ‘chance’ is no hope at all but only wishful thinking. Biblical hope isn’t an emotional state but a confident expectation that the future will be as God decides it. While our hope lies in the future, it lies in the hand of the God of the future (Jer. 29:11)!

At creation, God designed humanity to be self-regulating and live under the reign of God while ruling over the earth (Gen. 1:28). After sin, God instituted a structure of governance, run by people, to keep order and control chaos like anarchy. Temporary government mirrors the eternal government of God. Governments are supported by taxes and primarily made to bless the obedient, help the helpless, instruct the ignorant, and rehabilitate or remove the rebellious. The order of authority in life is; self, family, church, city, state, nation, God. While not all are equal, there are many types of governance—theocratic, democratic, monarchy, dictatorship, socialistic, communistic, etc. All authority is borrowed from God and those in authority will give account to the authority-Giver (Rom. 14:10-12).

At the beginning of creation, God designed a male and female (Adam and Eve) for connection, completion, and sexual compatibility in marriage for life (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:18, 23-25). This standard was for all people for all time—before, during, and after the Mosaic Law (Gen. 19:5; Jude 1:5-8; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; 1 Tim. 1:8-11). Jesus, who was a Jew living in Israel under Roman rule, doesn’t speak directly of all sexual realities (homosexuality, rape, beastiality, etc.) but reiterated God’s design, even in serial divorces. As a Jew and Roman citizen, the Apostle Paul lists various sexual actions that are unrighteous regardless of culture—fornication (1 Cor. 6:9, 10; Gr. porneia—sexual immorality, sex before marriage), adulterers (Gr. moichos—sex outside of marriage), homosexuals (same-sex sex Gr. malakos—‘to be soft’, passive male partner, arsenokoitace—‘male taking a male to bed’, dominant male partner). Greco-Roman culture allowed sexual freedom for a socially superior male, including pederasty (‘love of boys’—usually teens), making homosexual contact and marriage accepted, including lesbianism. However, by God’s design, all male and female same-sex contact, regardless of social status, love, or marriage is ‘against nature’ (Rom. 1:18-27; Gr. para physin). Sex is God’s idea and design!

At the beginning of creation God decided what, where, how, and how much He would make, and called everything good. At the end of creation—before man was there to evaluate it—He called the universe ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31; Heb. meh-ode tobe, ‘exceedingly beautiful/best/pleasant’). This included not only the vibrant colors, design, and function of the natural world, but also the appreciation and understanding of it. By God’s gift, mankind developed the aesthetic of art, sculpture, dance, theatre, video, etc. (Ex. 31:2-5). Art isn’t good or bad, only God-glorifying or not. Even design in engineering, math, language, and logic represents God’s genius. In math, the order of consciousness, cognition, logic, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations, non-Euclidian geometry, etc. shows God’s truth and man’s limitations. All truth is God’s truth. While technology and invention have been going since the beginning, people don’t create ‘new’ they just reformulate old into different (Eccl. 1:9). All art and design is a minor reflection of God’s creativity as Artist and Engineer!

At the beginning of creation, God created Adam in His image giving him infinite worth (Gen. 1:27). God then made Eve from Adam and from their union, all other humans came (Gen. 3:20). This meant that the race of humans was special and intrinsically different from insects, animals, and fish. Over hundreds of years, millions of people began to populate the earth. After the flood, at the tower of Babel, God separated the people—all Adam/Noah’s descendants—by diversifying their languages (Gen. 11:1-9). They then separated all over the world, and the segregated gene pools made different colors, customs, and cultures. While we may have different skin color, we are of one blood. There’s only one race—the human race!

In the creation of Adam and Eve, God ingeniously designed a human male and female for completion, companionship, and procreation (Gen. 1:24-27; 2:7, 18-25; ish/ishah; man/woman; male female). There is no scientific or evolutionary reason for why there are two human sexes rather than one or twenty, other than it is by the wisdom of God. As all eggs have an X chromosome and sperm have a miraculously nearly equal split of X or Y, God determined that normally every human is made up of these combinations (female XX, male XY). Each cell is permanently male or female and a person’s sex/gender can never change or transition. In the case of intersex/ambiguous genitalia (0.03% of births) with atypical chromosome structure (XXY/XXX, etc.), these aren’t a ‘third sex’ but males or females with some dual characteristics. From the Fall, no one is ideal but all people are special to God (Matt. 19:4-12)!

As no one but God was at the beginning of creation, Genesis records the historical-observational testimony of God. Humans were created after, but lived concurrent with, everything God made—including ‘dinosaurs’. Adam was given authority to name all the representative kinds of land animals and birds showing his headship over creation, which he shared similar genetics/DNA with (Gen. 2:19). This accounts for having a common Designer, not a common descent. Adam (Heb. ‘to be red’ from adamah ‘dirt/earth’) was molded like clay by the hand of God. Then, like CPR, God breathed (Heb. nâfach, ‘to puff/inflate’) life into the dirt-man (Gen. 2:6, 7). From Adam, God made Eve for completion and companionship (Gen 2:20-25). Humans didn’t evolve from lower life forms, a common ape ancestor, or from ‘proto-Adam’ (as where ‘humanity’ began in the chain is non-existent physically or biblically) but by God’s wisdom. There will never be another you, as you are unique!

On day three God created land with vegetation, grass, trees and seaweed/algae. This began photosynthesis and food for the creatures He was about to make. God instantly filled the vast ocean with all forms of aquatic life on the fifth day. Among the ‘swarms’ of things, He built ‘great sea creatures’—possibly the leviathan (Heb. ‘wreathed/coiled serpent/dragon’). These were enormous aquatic predatory reptiles that were the most powerful, fearsome, and untamable creatures ever made. While now extinct, they lived to the time of Job (c. 2000 BC). Their purpose was to show man humility—if they couldn’t contend with a creature how could they contend with the Creator (Job 41:1-34; Ps. 104:25, 26; Is. 27:1). By creating aquatic ‘kinds’, life didn’t evolve from the ocean but each species only modified intra-specie not into different species. Many species became extinct and some fossilized in a worldwide flood, yet many remain unchanged to this day, verifying the biblical designation of non-evolving kinds/species (Gen. 1:21; ‘living fossils’ coelacanth, ctenophores, elephant sharks, horseshoe crabs). Like trilobite eyes, God designed complexity from the beginning to show His power!

On the first day of creation, the earth was made before light or any other part of the universe, showing it was God’s focus and purpose from the beginning. The earth wasn’t made by compressed gas and dust particles 4.5 billion years ago, but a relatively recent creation out of water (2 Pet. 3:5). Radiometric dating results rely on unknown starting conditions and amounts and unproven constancy of rates. It was once thought water didn’t exist anywhere else in the universe, but now thought to be common in some form and is consistent with the biblical, watery origin of the universe (Gen. 1:2, 6-8). The earth’s liquid water (3 oceans-worth is still under the crust) along with the atmosphere, is the ideal composition to support life (anthropic principle). This does not mean that life was created from water but rather that water was created to support life. On the third day, God produced the earth’s core, mantle and crust, using massive tectonic movement to cause unique rock composites (continents have less dense rocks and thicker crust than oceanic crust) to rise above the water, creating a huge supercontinent (Gen. 1:9, ‘water gathered to one place’; Pangea/Rodinia). The earth’s decaying magnetic field was then created and the tilt fixed at a perfectly balanced 23 ½ degrees, allowing for seasons. God is the Master builder (Heb. 3:4)!