To begin this New Year, I am committing to restudying and sharing my discoveries with Woodward Park from the "Book of Beginnings." Genesis forms for all Christians the fundamental foundation on which to build a life of faith. As Henry Morris points out in his excellent commentary The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings, "if the Bible were somehow expurgated of the Book of Genesis, the rest of the Bible would be incomprehensible" (17). Morris goes on to show there are at least 165 passages in Genesis either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament, with over 200 quotations or illusions to Genesis in the New Testament and over 100 of those quotations or direct references coming directly from Genesis 1-11 (21).
John Walton, in his commentary on Genesis in the New International Commentary series succinctly establishes the ground on which the Christian is obligated to stand and the inherent responsibility that accompanies that stand:
"With no apologies or embarrassment I accept the Bible as God's revelation of himself. It is a supernatural book, and its affirmations of God's involvement in the world are unassailable. He is the source from which Scripture flows, enabling it to emerge as true and authoritative. As a result, I am committed to accepting without question whatever God has revealed. If I am convinced, for instance, that the Bible teaches a global flood, my worldview of faith dictates that whatever scientific or logical problems may exist must be set aside in deference to the text.
Yet while this firm commitment is not subject to compromise or equivocation, it cannot afford to be naive. The last thing that we want to do is to bring the text into disrepute and subject it and ourselves to ridicule by making claims for the Bible that it never makes for itself. Examples of such misplaced faith litter the landscape of history...We must therefore bring an informed discernment to the table when we address these questions. Without being simple, we must remain without guile" (43-4).
My hope is that our time in the book of Genesis to begin 2008 will solidify our faith while answering questions on the basics of life that often stump our confused culture.
