Out
of Nowhere (Creation of the world)
Maybe you’ve been sitting in Sunday school since you
were able to fit on a kiddies chair or maybe not. Either way, you might think of the bible only as a
strung of unrelated goody goody stories. You might have a relationship with you
and with all the other people he put here on planet earth. God’s been working
is master plan for a monstrously long time. So there’s a whole heap of history
that happened before you showed up . . ..
BRAIN
DRAIN Where do you think
the world came from?
FLASHBACK Some people laugh at what the bible says about how
the world began. Well, you might not like them saying your way back relatives
were part ape. You might wonder how the process scientists call “natural
selection” could have cooked up all living things. But evolution’s signal
hairiest challenge is its claim that everything in the world got here through
random natural forces that is, totally apart from any involvement by God. As
you read the first chapters of the bible, you discover one huge truth: the
world is no accident. This Bible Chuck is one of the longest in this Bible
Study, but it’s worth a big look at who behind the origin of your world.
BIBLE CHUNK Read Genesis 1:1-25
1 In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the
surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from
the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the
darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was
morning-the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to
separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and
separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8
God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was
morning-the second day.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one
place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called
the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called
"seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation:
seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it,
according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land
produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees
bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning-the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky
to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons
and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the
sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two
great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern
the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of
the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the
night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19
And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day.
20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and
let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing
with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird
according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed
them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in
the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And
there was evening, and there was morning-the fifth day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures
according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and
wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25
God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to
their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to
their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
STUFF TO KNOW The Bible’s first ten words make since of everything else that follows:
“ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” They tell you how the
world got here and who hung it up in the sky. So what was the world like before
Got got his hands on it (verse 2)?
INSIGHT
Trick question. First, God doesn’t have Hands. Unlike other gods of the ancient
world, the God of the Bible is spirit (Genesis 1:2. John 4:24). Second, God
started from scratch. “ Formless and void” means there was nothing there. God
was the original creator of everything out of noting, not a repackager of
prehistoric ooze.
What all Did God Make? List a Bunch- or circle
God-Made stuff back in the Bible Chunk.
How did God thunk the same thought several times in this chunk. What was it
(verses 3, 10, 12, 18, 21, And 25)?
INSIGHT
God thought there was one thing
he made that was even finer that fine. After he made people, he saw that his
creation was very good (Genesis 1:31). More in your next study about the people
God crafted.
BIG QUESTIONS This Bible Chunk says what God made’ so why do you think God made planet
earth and everything else in the universe?
What Gives God the right and the ability to say
whether some thing is good or not?
DEEP THOT The world didn’t come about by chance. It came into existence by the
choice of God.
STICKY STUFF You’ll be clear on where you came from if you memorize Genesis 1:1
DIG ON Read
Psalm 19:1-6 to hear how creation shouts to the worlds just how real God is.