Sermon Illustrations on Genesis
Background
Becoming a Tiller of Soil
One of my favorite sections of Home Depot is the power garden tool department. Even though I have all the tools I need, I still like browsing through Home Depot’s collection of power mowers, chainsaws, and string trimmers (better known as “weed whackers”). Among all of those machines you can find some power tillers. These tools look rather like lawnmowers, but in place of horizontal blades that cut grass they have vertical blades that cut and turn up the soil. In a word, they till.
According to the NRSV, God put the man in the garden “to till it and keep it.” “Till” is a reasonable translation of the Hebrew verb ‘avad in this context…“To till” means to break up, plow, or turn up the soil before planting. Tilling enables hard ground to accept seeds. It aerates soil that has been tamped down. It can help fertilizer to be absorbed into the dirt prior to planting. Tilling isn’t planting seeds, caring for young plants, or harvesting. Rather, it is preparing the soil for fruitfulness that is to come.
There is an element of metaphorical tilling in work beyond farming. Teachers till when they prepare a learning environment. Managers till by seeing that the environments, systems, and relationships in their care will allow those they supervise to work well. Leaders till by shaping corporate cultures, defining core values, and lifting up compelling vision. Often, we have to break up old assumptions and practices for the seeds of innovation to be planted and grow.
Of course, so much more could be said about how our work is a form of tilling. Preparing, planning, and prioritizing could all be forms of tilling. Tilling describes work that prepares the soil, so to speak. It gets things ready for new life and for ultimate fruitfulness. Tilling is a central task of our lives, one that God has entrusted to us so that we might fulfill his intentions for our work.
The Bible has its Own Garden Path
The Bible has its own garden path. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, some of the most important events in the Christian faith take place in Biblical gardens, evens around which Christianity has established its doctrines as great rocks in the sand. Many of us have known these crucial teachings of the Christian faith since we were children-the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden, Christ’s night of sorrow in the garden of Gethsemane, his resurrection from the dead at the Garden Tomb…
God first planted a garden. He is given many names in the Bible-grand names, majestic names-but from the beginning to the end there is one name more illuminating than the rest by which we can know him: God is a gardener. In Genesis 2:8, we are told, “God had planted a garden in the east.” Immediately we get an image of the Deity stooping down from the high heavens to dig a hole in the ground for a maple sapling or an evergreen, eventually dropping to his knees to grub about in the soil.
He is doing the things we do in gardens-or we’ve seen others do: patting earth firmly around the base of a newly planted choke cherry bush, spreading the roots of a petunia, placing carrot seeds, watering. There is mud under his fingernails, mud under his skin, mud streaked under the sockets of his eyes. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (verse 9).
Murray Andrew Pura, Rooted: Reflections on the Gardens in Scripture, Zondervan.
The Dickensian Approach to Storytelling (Or, Rather, the Biblical Approach)
Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the novel, and we learn why he has such an odd name. Yet other stories wait for some time before the protagonist appears. In Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Jean Valjean does not show up until around page 50 (out of 1200). If you were not familiar with Hugo’s classic story, you might think while reading the first chapters that the Bishop of Digne is the main character. As it turns out, he plays a pivotal but relatively small role in the story of Les Misérables, in which Valjean is the main character.
The Bible takes a Dickensian approach to its protagonist. The leading figure appears in the very first verse: “In the beginning . . . God.” …today, I want to underline the centrality of God in the biblical story.
God is the protagonist. God is the main actor. God is the one who ties together all the pieces of the story. God is the one who orchestrates the events. Indeed, God is also the author of the biblical story. To be sure, the Bible tells a human story as well, with people playing an essential role from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. The Bible also narrates the affairs of the nations, especially Israel. The Bible can be useful for philosophy, psychology, and a wide array of other disciplines. It provides the sure foundation for right theology. But, at its core, the Bible is a story, a story of God, the story of God.
Eden a Temple, Adam a Priest
John Walton, in The Lost World of Adam and Eve, argues that the Garden of Eden should be seen as a sacred space (a kind of “Holy of Holies”) set off from the rest of creation, with the seven days of Genesis 1 as a temple inauguration. Indeed, the association of gardens, as beautifully and carefully landscaped spaces, with temples would have been familiar to the ancient Israelite audience. When God puts Adam in the garden to “work” and “take care of” the garden, these are terms in the Bible that are usually in discussions of “human service to God rather than descriptions of agricultural tasks.” (105) To “take care of” in particular, is used about agriculture only when it is being guarded against people or animals. It is also used of the control of the sacred precincts by Levites. Adam as priest would be charged with “preserving [Eden’s] sanctity and mediating its benefits.” (107)
The role of Adam (and Eve) as priests prefigures the role of Israel in the Torah as a “kingdom of priests.” The land promised to Abraham and possessed by the Israelites was an Eden and the Israelites priests tending it for the sake of the world, mediating knowledge of God. (112-3) As Adam and Eve (and Israel) failed at this task of tending sacred space, “Christ, as the ‘last’ man, succeeded as he provided life and access to the presence of God for all as our great high priest.” (115)
William Rowley (see Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2–3 and the Human Origins Debate, IVP, 2015)
Shepherds versus Farmers?
In Understanding Genesis Nahum Sarna explodes the myth that in the story of Cain and Abel represents a biblical preference for the shepherd over the tiller of the soil. He points out that “there is no hint of disparagement of the occupation of the tiller of the soil,” indeed, this is Adam’s vocation both before and after the fall. The problem is with Cain, not his occupation—and the judgment of Cain is restricted to him—not added to his children.
William Rowley (Please see, Sarna, Understanding Genesis, The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2015)
God Was There First
‘In the beginning God.’ The first four words of the Bible are more than a way of launching the story of creation or introducing the book of Genesis. They supply the key which opens our understanding to the Bible as a whole. They tell us that the religion of the Bible is a religion in which God takes the initiative.
The point is that we can never take God by surprise. We can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always there ‘in the beginning’. Before we existed, God took action. Before we decided to look for God, God had already been looking for us. The Bible isn’t about people trying to discover God, but about God reaching out to find us.
Taken from Basic Christianity The IVP Signature Collection by John Stott. Copyright (c) 2019 by John Stott. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
God’s Abundant Provision in Genesis 2
There is a tendency among readers and scholars of Genesis 2:16-17 to focus on the prohibition of verse 17: “but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”
…I want to pause to consider with you verse 16: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden.”
We have already learned in Genesis 2 that God “made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (2:9). Now we hear that the man, and by implication all human beings, may eat the fruit from every single tree in the garden, save one. God is giving us all kinds of fruit from all kinds of trees, inviting us to enjoy it. The Hebrew phrase which could be rendered literally as “from all the trees of the garden to eat you may eat” underscores the opportunity and freedom for human beings. We may “freely eat” the fruit of every single tree, with one exception.
I’m struck here by this picture of God’s generosity. God did not give us just one kind of tree with one kind of fruit. God did not provide just what we need to survive. Rather, God created a great variety of trees with a great variety and quantity of fruit. If you’ll permit me to read into the text a bit, God created apple trees and orange trees, lemon trees and pineapple trees, cherry trees and plum trees, almond trees and coconut trees, peach trees and pear trees, pecan trees and olive trees. (If I have missed your favorite fruit tree, please add it to the list!)
God made all of this variety and then said, not, “Eat just what you need” but “Freely eat” from all of this. “And as you enjoy the taste and benefit from the nutrition, enjoy the beauty of the tree as well, not to mention its shade.”
Many Christians were raised in homes and churches in which God was not seen to be generous. God was stingy, giving us only what we really need and no more.
Moreover, God was the rule maker, who formed our lives principally by telling us what not to do.
A God Apart in Genesis
In Understanding Genesis, Nahum Sarna argues that a critical distinction between Genesis and the stories of contemporary pagan societies is that Genesis is not myth. Myth is associated with ritual. The story happened once upon a time, but continues to influence the world. Thus, rituals re-enact the myth as “imitative magic,” reactivating the events of the myth, effecting “the periodic renewal and revitalization of nature and so [assuring] the prosperity of the community.” (7)
Genesis simply takes the existence of God for granted. There is no birth of God to be re-enacted. God cannot be touched by magic as he is not bound by the world, he is its creator. There is a clear “line of demarcation between God and is creation [that is] never violated.” (11) Thus, there is no cultic function to Genesis. Instead, Genesis (as with the rest of the Hebrew Bible) is the “attestation of the experiences of individuals and of a nation with the Divine.” (10) When the Law will be given and rituals laid out, there will still be no notion of imitative magic that makes use of myth to influence events. There is worship and petition to a sovereign God of creation.
William Rowley (Please see, Sarna, Understanding Genesis, The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2015)
God’s Image in Humanity
Nahum Sarna writes in Understanding Genesis:
Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the mythological and the Israelite conceptions more striking and more illuminating than in their respective descriptions of the creation of man. (14)
In Genesis, though, like in some of the contemporary Ancient Near Eastern cultures, man is fashioned from clay, he is made “in the image of God,” giving him a dignity and value unheard of in other societies. Sarna understands this key phrase as making reference to the blessing God gives humanity, endowing “man with power over the animal and vegetable worlds” and the ability to make use of natural resources for his own benefits. Such a privilege and duty requires the distinctive features of humanity: “intellect, free will, self-awareness, consciousness of the existence of others, conscience, responsibility and self control.” (16)
But being fashioned from clay by the Creator, humanity remains under divine sovereignty – the demands of the higher, divine law.
William Rowley (Please see, Sarna, Understanding Genesis, The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2015)
A Moral God
This capriciousness of the gods is diametrically opposed to the biblical view. The God of Creation is not at all morally indifferent. On the contrary, morality and ethics constitute the very essence of His nature. The Bible presumes that God operates by an order which man can comprehend, and that a universal moral law has been decreed for society. Thus, the idea embedded in Genesis of one universal Creator has profound ethical implications. It means that the same universal sovereign will that brought the world into existence continues to exert itself thereafter making absolute, not relative, demands upon man, expressed in categorical imperatives—”thou shalt,” “thou shalt not.” (17)
Mythology in Genesis
Mythology by its nature seeks to explain how the world works and how it came to work that way, and therefore includes a culture’s “theory of origins.” We sometimes label certain literature as “myth” because we do not believe that the world works that way. The label is a way of holding it at arm’s length so as to clarify that we do not share that belief—particularly as it refers to involvement and activities of the gods. But for the people to whom that mythology belonged, it was a real description of deep beliefs. Their “mythology” expressed their beliefs concerning what made the world what it was; it expressed their theories of origins and of how their world worked…
The fact that many people today share that biblical belief makes the term mythology unpalatable, but it should nevertheless be recognized that Genesis 1 serves the similar function of offering an explanation of origins and how the world operated, not only for Israel, but for people today who put their faith in the Bible.
John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP, 2010).
Paradise: A Set Apart Place
The first garden (Eden) was perfection. In it was the possibility not only for the purest fulfillment of the human race but for all of creation. It was meant to be a paradise, which is, in fact, no different from saying it was meant to be a garden-both words mean the same thing.
Our word paradise comes from the Greek word paradeisos, “garden,” which comes from the Persian pairidaeza, an enclosed area, a wall around. Our English word garden finds its root in the Old French jardin and the Old High German gart, both of which mean “enclosure.” So a garden is a place that is set apart, a place with unique boundaries, an area that is protected and distinct from that which is without. It’s meant to be something special.
Murray Andrew Pura, Rooted: Reflections on the Gardens in Scripture, Zondervan.
Polemic Against Paganism
Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an introduction to the religious ideas characteristic of the whole of biblical literature. It tells us something about the nature of the one God who is Creator and supreme sovereign of the world and whose will is absolute. It asserts that God is outside of the realm of nature, which is wholly subservient to Him. He has no myth; that is, there are no stories about any events in His life. Magic plays no part in the worship of Him. The story also tells us something of the nature of man, a God-like creature, uniquely endowed with dignity, honor and infinite worth, into whose hands God has entrusted mastery over His creation. Finally, this narrative tells us something about the biblical concept of reality. It proclaims the essential goodness of life and assumes a universal moral order governing human society. (3)
Stories
A God Apart in Genesis
In Understanding Genesis, Nahum Sarna argues that a critical distinction between Genesis and the stories of contemporary pagan societies is that Genesis is not myth. Myth is associated with ritual. The story happened once upon a time, but continues to influence the world. Thus, rituals re-enact the myth as “imitative magic,” reactivating the events of the myth, effecting “the periodic renewal and revitalization of nature and so [assuring] the prosperity of the community.” (7)
Genesis simply takes the existence of God for granted. There is no birth of God to be re-enacted. God cannot be touched by magic as he is not bound by the world, he is its creator. There is a clear “line of demarcation between God and is creation [that is] never violated.” (11) Thus, there is no cultic function to Genesis. Instead, Genesis (as with the rest of the Hebrew Bible) is the “attestation of the experiences of individuals and of a nation with the Divine.” (10) When the Law will be given and rituals laid out, there will still be no notion of imitative magic that makes use of myth to influence events. There is worship and petition to a sovereign God of creation.
William Rowley (Please see, Sarna, Understanding Genesis, The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2015)
Analogies
The Bible has its Own Garden Path
The Bible has its own garden path. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, some of the most important events in the Christian faith take place in Biblical gardens, evens around which Christianity has established its doctrines as great rocks in the sand. Many of us have known these crucial teachings of the Christian faith since we were children-the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden, Christ’s night of sorrow in the garden of Gethsemane, his resurrection from the dead at the Garden Tomb…
God first planted a garden. He is given many names in the Bible-grand names, majestic names-but from the beginning to the end there is one name more illuminating than the rest by which we can know him: God is a gardener. In Genesis 2:8, we are told, “God had planted a garden in the east.” Immediately we get an image of the Deity stooping down from the high heavens to dig a hole in the ground for a maple sapling or an evergreen, eventually dropping to his knees to grub about in the soil.
He is doing the things we do in gardens-or we’ve seen others do: patting earth firmly around the base of a newly planted choke cherry bush, spreading the roots of a petunia, placing carrot seeds, watering. There is mud under his fingernails, mud under his skin, mud streaked under the sockets of his eyes. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (verse 9).
Murray Andrew Pura, Rooted: Reflections on the Gardens in Scripture, Zondervan.
The Perfect Soil for Winemaking
My first call to ministry was in Eastern Washington state. It turned out to be one of the most prolific winemaking regions in the country. One of the things I learned from a local winery was really quite fascinating. But let me back up for just a moment. When it comes to soil for growing things, whether it be flowers or vegetables, trees or shrubs, generally speaking you want a rich, fertile soil. Lots of organic material like compost or manure provide the nutrients necessary for the plants to grow in abundance.
But apparently, with wine it is quite different, if not the opposite, from other plants ideal growing conditions.
The perfect soil for winemaking is actually quite low in nutrients. In our area, there was a vinicultural heritage site, in other words, a place set apart as an ideal location for growing wine. Interestingly enough, it was almost entirely made up of sand, which as any gardener will tell you, is devoid of the kinds of nutrients we would expect to create the perfect grape for wine.
But just as interesting is why wineries prefer soils with such low nutritional value: when this is the case, the majority of the nutrients go, not to the vine, or the leaves, but straight to the grapes. What a great metaphor for our lives.
Sometimes we need to go to desolate places, not the lush, green landscapes of an Eden, but rather, to the wilderness, where there is so little life, where pain and suffering are intrinsic to the experience, in order to really “bear fruit,” if you will allow a little pun. It is often in the wilderness that we learn the most about God, about our own sinfulness and need for repentance.
But it is also out of such a place that the best of us: a newfound humility, a greater capacity for compassion and love. A deeper reliance on the “vine,” that is God’s sustaining us over the comforts of this world can take place. So perhaps, when God plants you in a desert, devoid of most nutrients for healthy production, he is actually doing something spectacular to help you grow a deeper understanding of yourself, and more importantly, a deeper love for Him.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Humor
Organizing the World Quickly
The Yalta Conference, helmed by Allied leadership (Most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin) came at the conclusion of hostilities in Europe during WWII. It dealt with a variety of major topics, including the fate of Germany, much of Europe and the ongoing war in the Pacific.
In other words, they had a lot of business to conduct and decisions to make. Early in the conference, Roosevelt mentioned to Churchill he hoped the conference wouldn’t last more than five or six days. Churchill, always a quick wit remarked, ““I do not see any way of realizing our hopes about world organization in five or six days. Even the Almighty took seven.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Three Men Argue About the Oldest Profession in the World
A physician, a civil engineer, and a politician were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The physician remarked, “Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam.
This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world.” The civil engineer interrupted, and said, “But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos.
This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world.” The politician leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, “Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?”
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