Words That Give

What does Genesis 1 actually say? And what happens when we let it speak before we tell it what to mean?

For four hundred years, Christians and scientists have been talking past each other about the opening chapter of the Bible. Believers have feared what the laboratory might do to Scripture. Scientists have dismissed Scripture as something the laboratory has outgrown. Both have missed something the chapter itself has been saying all along.

In the Beginning, God is a careful walk through Genesis 1 for readers who want to take Scripture seriously without flinching from what science has discovered. This study examines what the Hebrew actually says and shows how the architecture of the seven days reveals a Creator who brings order out of chaos and fills what He has formed.

Across four chapters, you'll explore:

• Why the church's collision with Galileo over a fixed earth still matters for how we read Genesis today

• The three honest readings of Genesis 1 the church has lived with for centuries, and the strongest case for each

• What the Hebrew reveals about the days of creation that most English translations smooth over

• Why the Big Bang, properly understood, confirms rather than contradicts the opening verses of Scripture

• How Augustine, Calvin, Newton, Lemaître, and Penzias each saw the same God at work

Written from a Reformed theological perspective with a high view of Scripture, this booklet is designed for personal devotion, small-group study, or Sunday School use. Each of the four chapters concludes with discussion questions sized for a 45-to-60-minute class. Hebrew word panels, a glossary, and a guide to further reading make the booklet useful long after the first reading.

The goal of this study is not agreement on a creation theory. The goal is awe — at the Creator who spoke, and it was so.

Soli Deo Gloria.