Wayfinding Bible - Flipbook - Page 13
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Genesis 2
PG 8
PG 8
PG 8
OBSERVATION POINT
The first two chapters of Genesis provide the only
record we have of a perfect world. This is what
perfection looks like. God wanted this world for all
of us. Notice the activities that existed before sin
invaded. Contrary to what most people believe, work
was part of the good creation: God created, blessed,
and planted; man tended the garden, watched over
it, and named the animals. Man and woman were to
be fruitful, multiply, govern the earth, and reign over
the animals. God rested, man slept. These were all
perfect activities.
that scurry along the ground, and wild
animals.” And that is what happened.
25
God made all sorts of wild animals,
livestock, and small animals, each able to
produce offspring of the same kind. And
God saw that it was good.
26
Then God said, “Let us make human
beings* in our image, to be like us. They will
reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in
the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals
on the earth,* and the small animals that
scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings* in his
own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28
Then God blessed them and said, “Be
fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and
govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the
birds in the sky, and all the animals that
scurry along the ground.”
29
Then God said, “Look! I have given you
every seed-bearing plant throughout the
earth and all the fruit trees for your food.
30
And I have given every green plant as
food for all the wild animals, the birds in
the sky, and the small animals that scurry
along the ground—everything that has
life.” And that is what happened.
31
Then God looked over all he had made,
and he saw that it was very good!
And evening passed and morning came,
marking the sixth day.
2
So the creation of the heavens and
the earth and everything in them was
completed. 2 On the seventh day God had
The climax of God’s creation was the formation of
humans. Male and female were made in his image.
You are like him. Out of all of Creation, you carry
his image, breathed into you by his breath of life.
No other part of Creation can claim to have his
image or his breath. You are infused with his likeness through your moral conscience and spiritual
awareness. When you are feeling beaten down and
questioning yourself, these truths can be of great
encouragement!
finished his work of creation, so he rested*
from all his work. 3 And God blessed the
seventh day and declared it holy, because
it was the day when he rested from all his
work of creation.
This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
4
GARDEN OF EDEN
The exact location of the Garden of Eden
remains a mystery, but we do know its
general vicinity. The Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers are the clearest landmarks. We also
know that early civilization centered in the
Fertile Crescent, the area sweeping through
modern-day Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, and Israel.
Eden was located either in the northern
mountains around the source of the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers, or in the southern
delta region, closer to the Persian Gulf.
THE MAN AND WOMAN IN EDEN
When the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens, 5 neither wild plants nor grains were
growing on the earth. For the Lord God had
not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there
were no people to cultivate the soil. 6 Instead,
springs* came up from the ground and watered
all the land. 7 Then the Lord God formed the
man from the dust of the ground. He breathed
the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and
the man became a living person.
1:26a Or man; Hebrew reads adam. 1:26b As in Syriac version;
Hebrew reads all the earth. 1:27 Or the man; Hebrew reads haadam. 2:2 Or ceased; also in 2:3. 2:6 Or mist.
Gen 2:8-9
27
EXPLORATION POINT
