In the Beginning . . .

March 9, 2025

The Bible opens simply enough. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As simple as that sentence is, it really packs a wallop. The phrase “in the beginning” introduces a critical element of everything that ever has, is, or will exist because since the “beginning,” the world has operated on the concept of time. To what does “the beginning” refer? The beginning of creation. Before creation, the only thing (or person) that existed was the eternal God Himself. So, the phrase “in the beginning” introduces time. The next word in the sentence is “God”. First and foremost, God is a Person. He is an eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Person. However, in this verse, God represents a force. The next word “created” tells us what this force did. He created. The word “create” as it is used in this verse, means to create something from nothing. God even created the elements needed to create the world! The final phrase “the heavens and the earth” tells us what God created. For those of you who are grammar junkies, in this sentence, God is the subject, and created is the predicate. Left by themselves, those two words, “God created”, are powerful, aren’t they? The phrase “in the beginning” is a prepositional phrase telling us when God created and the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a direct object telling us what God created. While I typed those last sentences, my mind returned to Ms. Dana Evans’ High School English grammar class. She taught us English grammar by teaching us the concept of “meaning, function, and form” whereby we would take a word or phrase and determine its meaning, function, and form. I also thought of Ben Dennis’ red pen. Unfortunately, after he finished grading my papers, there was usually as much red ink on my paper as there was black ink. Years ago, when I sat in their classes, my goal was simply to pass the class. If I had known back then that effective communication would make up a large part of my life, I would have paid better attention. By the way, those last several sentences are known as a rabbit trail. A rabbit trail is where you get off-topic and take off down another road entirely. As I get older, I find myself on more and more rabbit trails! Let’s get back on topic, shall we? When God wrote that first sentence in the Bible, God made it simple on purpose. It’s almost like God is saying, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, BAM, believe it or not. The more I let that thought simmer, the more I realize that’s exactly what God meant to say. Genesis chapters one and two are not science lessons. While God does tell us the important stuff, He doesn’t give us a lot of details as to how He created the world. God wants us to know who created the world and accept that by faith. If you can’t believe the first verse of the Bible, you will have a hard time believing the rest of it! Perhaps that’s what God had in mind when He wrote, “We walk by faith and not by sight.”

Happy walking y’all . . . Bro. Andy