In the previous episodes, I have been trying to show that we must read Genesis as story telling us why our universe and we humans exist because it is was written to give meaning to our existence.

If we remove ourselves from interpreting it as a timeline of events describing the creation process, it becomes possible to think about the text with fresh eyes. To demonstrate this, I want to look at day one and the creation of light. Here I will follow the Apostle John’s way of reading Genesis.

Notice John says that there was a spoken Word as God said, “let there be light.” The Word was Jesus, and He is life, and this life was the light of men. That demonstrates that John is using Genesis as a metaphor. Something does not have to be read literally to be truthful. Jesus told many parables that were not to be taken literally except for the truth they taught.

We have to pay attention to a couple of cues that will tell us how to read these verses. God creates light and then divides it from the darkness, and he names the two divisions day and night. If we are to be literal, we know that day is when the sun is up and night is when it is hidden. If you don’t read it this way, one has to realize they are making up a concept that does not have reality attached to it.

Why would God turn it off the light if it was a vacuum? Why allow darkness? That is very hard to comprehend! The people Moses wrote this to would have no concept of the earth rotating around the sun, which we didn’t figure out until thousands of years later. They would only know that the sun comes up and then disappears.

We also have to think in terms of what darkness means. Today we have lights everywhere, but for the ancient people, light wasn’t with them constantly. If you have ever been away from any light and there was no moon, you realize how dark it can be. You will also recognize that it is terrifying because you have no idea what is around you. You could trip over a rock or fall off a cliff, walk into a tree, or a dangerous animal. Darkness is chaos; it is disorder. Light then is the exact opposite. It is beauty and order.

I know that many have struggled with what this light could be because they believe the sun was not created until day four. We will deal with this in more detail later. However, I will say this now. It does not say the heavenly bodies were created on day four because the word bara was not used. Instead, what we are reading on day four is God telling us He made these celestial bodies for our timekeepers.

As our knowledge of the heaven/sky has increased, this truth has not been found faulty but is become more defined. We define our universe by light, and when astrophysicists describe the size of the universe, it is with lightyears, and light is what defines our space and time dimensions.

However, the genius in Genesis is that it talks about Jesus long before He stepped foot on the earth. Besides what we have read in John, we have other references to Jesus and the light that brings order into our world.

In this episode, I talk about how Genesis should be read as a teleology that gives meaning to our world instead of a narrative explaining how it came to be. We want to know why more than how. People want to know they are loved by their parents more than how they conceived them. I am not aware of anyone who struggles with life because of not understanding conception, but I have met people struggling with the feeling they are not loved.

I also talk about how the creation week is set up to be rememberable. On day one, God creates light. Corresponding with day one, day four, God gives the light to the celestial bodies to govern our time and seasons. On day two, God divides the waters, forming the sky. That corresponds to day five because God gives the water to the fish and the sky to the birds. On day three, God created dry land with its plants, occupied by animals and man on day six. If you remember one of the first three days, you can remember the last three days and the other way around.

The last point is that we are to recognize that there is only one Lord and this God made very thing. We do not have to figure out who we are to follow in this world. Many gods want us to participate in their kingdom, but we only have to trust in one God, who is the real God.

Whether you realize it or not the way we think about the world today is very different than the way people thought about the world in the past. This is because all people alive have lived in the age of enlightenment. This age started in the 17th century and has change the way most of the humanity views the world and the universe. We think different than people in the past! We must consciously think about this when reading things written from the past. Listen for more.

To understand a text correctly, you need to figure out its purpose. If your boss got a love letter, you wrote to your husband, and your husband got the letter written to your boss, they would be pretty confused. So today, we will look at why and who Genesis was written to.

I have wanted to teach on Genesis for some time now. I was encouraged to write a book on it, and I have a manuscript. It is time for me to start teaching what I have learned. I think that anyone who listens to this will glean something new. I am not teaching this to reaffirm anyone's belief about Genesis, and I am teaching this to be honest to the text.

After communicating with Atheist and trying to figure them out I learned somethings that are incredulous. This my rant about the dishonesty of atheist.

Deconstruction seems to be a common term these days. With the rise of the internet more information is available than ever. With all this information confusion sets in as to what is true. In this podcast I want to show how getting back to a big story about your life and this world will help you filter out unnecessary noise. Even if you don't agree with my conclusion I hope it will stimulate your thinking about the need for a big story.

Please comment on this podcast at https:husbandman.org

I admit that this debate is relatively new to me, so I cannot comment on everything as I am not an expert. I want to comment on some things that I heard. One of the things I came across was a discussion between William Lane Craig and Greg Boyd on the Unbelievable Youtube channel.

There are two things I wish to discuss in this article; they are about mixing God with science and religion. Over the years of learning the Bible and about life, I have come to a very different conclusion than I did as an inexperienced young man. I think if one holds on to what they first learned, they can stand on dangerous grounds.

You can read the article here. www.husbandman.org