Audio As we kick off a new year, we also kick off a new series of studies in God’s Word. In the past, we have devoted prolonged seasons of study to single books of Scripture, and I remain convinced that this is the best way to understand the Bible and to feed ourselves spiritually. However, I also believe that sometimes it is easy to “miss the forest for the trees,” and for that reason, I have felt inclined to “zoom out,” if you will, and take a broader look at Scripture over the next indefinite season of time. A number of years ago, I became acquainted with a Bible study plan called “The Essential 100” which covers 50 carefully selected passages of the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament which provide the grand overview of the entire metanarrative of Scripture, the “Big Picture,” you may say. And so we begin today with the first of these studies, and rightly so, we begin the series where the Bible itself begins, with the creation account in the book of Genesis. Today we will deal with the first two chapters of Genesis, but for time’s sake, I will only read a selection of verses from these chapters. So, if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, I invite you to turn to Genesis 1 as we begin. This is the Word of God: Genesis 1:1 (NASB) 1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:26-31 (NASB)26  Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28  God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29  Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30  and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31  God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 2:1-3 (NASB) 1  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2  By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. Genesis 2:7-9 (NASB) 7  Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8  The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9  Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:15-25 (NASB) 15  Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16  The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 18  Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19  Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, th