Different Details, Same Divine Love for Life
Daily Scripture
Genesis 2:15-20
15 The Lord God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it. 16 The Lord God commanded the human, “Eat your fill from all of the garden’s trees; 17 but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die!” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name. 20 The human named all the livestock, all the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But a helper perfect for him was nowhere to be found.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The second Genesis creation story pictured God creating animals after the first human to be “helpers” for him. That difference does not spoil the creation stories, but instead deepens their central message. “These two different images of the human as ruler and as servant point to universally acknowledged realities: Humanity has the unique power to alter the world, but we are ultimately dependent on the earth and its life for survival.” *
- “God creates the animals from the same fertile land out of which the first human was made (Gen 2:7)…. The animals God created were, in fact, helpers on the Israelite farm, but none were like the first human, corresponding to him, or perfect for him. In other words, none were suitable partners to begin the human family.” ** How does Genesis 2’s “folksier” picture of creation show different dimensions of God’s care for both humans and animals?
- Scholar John Goldingay offered a vital insight into how to read the Genesis creation stories. He noted “the superficial difference that in Genesis 1 God makes the animals before the human beings; here God makes them afterward. Evidently Israelites could happily accept both stories and not panic about their being contradictory. Parables don’t have to be consistent in that way.” *** How can fixating on the creation stories’ details obscure rather than clarify their central message?
Prayer
Dear Jesus, make me ever more aware of the ways in which my choices affect the people, the other forms of life, and even the life-sustaining earth around me. Amen.
GPS Insights
Torey Byrne
Torey Byrne, who is serving for her second summer as an intern with Resurrection Student ministry, wrote today's Insights. She just graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan university with a degree in Religion and Philosophy. She is a big advocate of random adventures, trips to the lake and lover of Bibbibop!
As a religion major the small details easily come to mind but today, I want to write broadly. Sometimes we need simple. I think I read this Tuesday section for GPS about 10 different times trying to find any words to come to mind, but honestly I struggled.
This passage just reminds me that we were created to be in community. Let’s put people and animals aside for this and just think on community as a whole. Working at Resurrection has taught me a lot, but the main thing is that I’m never alone. Everyone is truly a team. Each time I try to do a task alone or take on another project I have someone coming up telling me that I can’t do everything alone and that they are here to help. I did not grow up with a church community or a church to call my home. But here? Here, I’m home.
In student ministry everyone on the team is flexible. They all have your back and are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure you know you are cared for, not alone and always have help. It’s the definition of what God created for us–to be in community with all his children. Wrapping up, I pray that you are able to find your community, your people. If you battle with that, I hope you know you have a home at Resurrection.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Theodore Hiebert, sidebar note “Dominion or Dependence?” in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 8 OT.
** Theodore Hiebert, study notes on Genesis 2:19, 20 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 8 OT.
*** John Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–16. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p. 39.
