Genesis

[Malohaut]

Hey guys. You know how, every now and again, you have to take your armor and weapons to a smith for repairs? Well, some of my spiritual weapons have been greatly dulled and I need some help sharpening them. Lately, I've been coming up with passages that I remember reading but cannot seem to find in the bible. So I'm going to start reading and sharing with you the interesting things I find.

Right now, I'm going to start in Genesis. Does anybody here have a favorite story or teaching in Genesis? What are some good things to remember in this book? Anyone have some stories or testimonies where they used a reference from the book of Genesis?

I know 'Genesis' somehow means 'The beginning', and was the beginning of the universe, the beginning of man, the beginning of sin, and the beginning of God's covenant.

 

[Malohaut]

Hmm.  There are 2 Enochs listed it seems.  There's the descendant of Cain (actually son of Cain) and there's the descendant of Seth (Adam and Eve's 3rd son)  It is Seth's Enoch that walked righteously and walked with God.  And at age 365, God took him.  Cool huh?

Hmm.  I have an idea for a fun family event and a good teaching tool for children and it can come in two parts.


First, get yourself a fishtank.  Then do the story of the creation for your children.  Start in January with just a fish tank.  And day 1 you have the tank.  And you add some sort of lamp to it and you have light!  On day 2, you put in some water, not as high as you normally would a fish tank, but just a little bit, maybe an inch or two deep.  And maybe have your children make some clouds to make the sky.  On day 3, put in some sort of land mass to make dry land and put some trees and vegetation on that land mass.  Make sure your land mass has mountains one one side that rise to almost half or 3/4 the tank.  On day 4, you make the sun and moon and paste them back to back so that by day you have the sun, and by night you can flip it over to make the moon.  Maybe have your children make some stars to post up or something.  Maybe a mobile.  On day 5, put in some fish and some birds.  On day 6, put in some land animals and Adam and Eve.  On day 7, celebrate and rest.

This helps to give your children a great interactive visual on how God created everything.  Plus, it sets the stage for the next family event.

In February, preferrably february 1st, tell your children about the preflood days, about how long people lived and how they turned from God and hurt God.  Tell them about Noah, about how Noah walked righteously.  Then tell them the story of God and how God commanded them to make a boat.  From this point, you have 2 weeks to build yourself a wooden boat.  Once your boat is done, place it in the tank and put noah and the land animals on the boat.  Leave some of the other wicked people off the boat.  On Feb. 17th, put construction paper rain drops on the outside and from Feb 17th for 40 days, put in a little water each day, little by little.  Ration it so that by the 40th night, you have the tank full and you can take off the rain drops.  Leave the boat floating on the water and explain that Noah and his family lived there for a very long time.  On July 17th, drain the water just enough to rest the boat on the land.  Then on October 1st, the mountains became visible and you can have most of your land exposed.  And you can follow the story of the bible of the dove and Noah waiting and then them finally leaving the boat and Noah thanking God.

Its a very slow event, but gives you many witnessing opportunities to your children about faith and patience and learning to live with each other.  Of course its still a raw idea, but I've always wanted to take stories of the bible and make them live figurines as events for children and such.  Kind of like Christmas.  Start out with the meeting of Mary and Joseph.  Then Mary's pregnancy and Joseph's righteousness.  Then have a bethlehem town (that Joseph came from) and fill it with people for the census.  Then when it gets close to Christmas, have Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem and put them in the stables.  And on Christmas day, bring out baby Jesus and sing happy birthday to him.  Then have Christmas with the family.

Just ideas though.  One thing you have to keep in mind is that if you try any of these, you have to keep it up, even when there doesn't seem to be any interest.  Because it will become a very memorable event for years to come.

Anyway, that's enough for now.  I'll come back with more notes and stuff as I read deeper into Genesis.  God bless for now!

 

[Icthus]

Two notes on Genesis-

It is Hebrew verb for begin or create basically. There is no "perfect" translation.

On Enoch- Yes there are two. One was most likely named for the other.


My personal favorite story is of Joseph, the Dreamer. I love the faithfulness of God in the midst of arrogant and unfaithful people.

My favorite question from Genesis is this- Are these people in heaven? If yes, how did they get there? In other words, what did they do? There is no law to follow or Christ to accept? How does or did one get to heaven?