In the Beginning

Let There Be Lights in the Heavens

God created the sun, moon, and stars as light-bearing signs of the days, years, and seasons. These celestial bodies were not created to define the day, but to sign the day. God obviously didn't ordain the day on the fourth one, but the first. One of the reasons we know the days of creation are the same as the days we experience now is that the when the heavenly bodies were created in accordance with the morning and evening, they did so according to the pattern of evening and morning that God had already established on the first day.

Let Land Appear & Earth Produce

The land and seed that God brought forth on the third day of creation remind us of the promised seed who was buried in the earth and came forth on the dawn of the third day as the true first fruit over all creation.

Let There Be an Expanse

When God stretched out the expanse of the heavens on the second day between the formless waters, He began the act of forming the earth through separation. Just as He had formed time when He separated light from darkness as evening and morning of the day, He formed space when He spread out the expanse of the heavens. Every morning and evening, the heavens are a canvas in which God paints a unique portrait for us to be reminded of His glory and the beauty of His creation. They are where the waters begin and end, and that through which the rain comes down and evaporates up. Most of all, they are the space through which we are reminded that although God descended, we cannot traverse them to Him, except through faith.

Members of the Body Serving its Needs

As the first church in the New Testament grew, a major problem arose when certain widows who depended on the church were being neglected in the distribution. The twelve apostles, acting as the first elders of Jerusalem were made aware of the problem, but instead of attending it themselves, petitioned the congregation to choose 7 men who they could appoint to the duty, so that they could devote themselves more fully to prayer and the ministry of the word. Though the role of deacons morphed into priests in training, or the group who "ran" the church, or leaders of ministries, originally they were groups of servants appointed to care for the needs of the church so that the elders would not have to give up their primary service of preaching.

Then God Said, "Let There Be Light"

The eternal Word of God was in the beginning as the agent through which creation was spoken into existence. All things which came into being did so through the Word. Light itself illuminated the darkness of creation when the Word communicated that which was in Him, not merely as involuntary emanation, but by His eternal will. By His sovereign will, God spoke and it was. Time as we know it began, of which this light itself is inseparably connected. And although science has recently come into more discovery of this, that connection has always been on these pages of Scripture, as Genesis intricately connects light and time with that by which it is named: “Day.”