Maker Of Heaven And Earth
Adult study
As We Believe, So We Behave
Living the Apostles' Creed
Object:
"I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...." No surprise. Most churchgoers would have little difficulty acknowledging God as creator of all that is. There may be some disagreement on how creation took place -- some want to say it happened in six 24-hour days, others want to say the "days" of which we read in the Genesis account should be understood as meaning thousands or even millions of years, still others say it was the "Big Bang." More about that in due course, but, for the most part, we insist that creation did not just happen -- something ... someone ... was behind it: "God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
This earth and our life on it is truly fascinating. For example, scientists know that the earth's relationship to the sun is not perpendicular -- it is tilted at a 23º angle.1 Is this an accident or is it by design?
While tilted at this 23º angle, our world is rotating on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour. Scientists say if the rotation was only 100 miles per hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long, and whatever survived the incredibly hot days would freeze in the night when temperatures would plummet to something like 240º below zero.
This 23º tilt is not absolute -- it wobbles off by about 3º with amazing regularity. Our seasons and our climates are affected by it. If the world strayed up or down more than the 3º tilt, life might perish. Without the tilt to deflect the light and heat, the earth would absorb too much heat. Moisture would be pulled to the north and south poles and build up in tremendous ice caps.
Another thing -- the depth of earth's oceans. If they had been much deeper back in the dim and distant beginning, that much more water would have been absorbed or would have dissolved the carbon dioxide and oxygen out of the air. Life could never have begun without an appropriate atmosphere.
Not only are the oceans the right depth, the earth's crust is just the right thickness. If the earth were only ten feet thicker on the outside than it is, that much additional matter would have oxidized all the free oxygen out of the air and life could not have begun.
As we all know, the earth travels around the sun in an elliptical orbit at a fairly constant speed. If our world slowed down, it would be pulled so close to the sun at the shallow or narrow part of that football-like orbit that we would all be burned to a crisp. If we were to slightly more than double our speed, we would be thrown far into space at the long point of the orbit and quickly freeze to death.
Speaking of distance, we are approximately 93 million miles from the sun -- just about right to receive neither too much nor too little heat and light to allow us to live. Our moon, while the earth tilts, wobbles, and races around the sun, orbits us at about 240,000 miles, just about perfect for our well-being, controlling the tides and keeping them within livable levels.
Fascinating stuff. Did that all just happen by accident? One would be hard-pressed to defend such a view. On top of all that, what we have is beautiful. Halfway up a mountain road from the port of Charlotte Amalie on the island of Saint Thomas is a clearing that commands a breathtaking view of the sea and the harbor. A sign posted there to indicate the site had been cleared by the hotel at the peak reads: "Lookout Point -- Courtesy of Mountaintop Hotel." Below the lettering is scrawled in angry black pencil, "And a little help from God!"2
"I believe in God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth." How did it all happen? Despite what some would have us believe, the Bible does not tell us.
Genesis, chapter 1, is one of two stories back-to-back that describe what happened way back when, "In the beginning...." To be honest, it has caused more than a little difficulty for people of faith in recent years. Some folks have interpreted the material as a scientific treatise giving the details of God's process. Some want to say that the "days" referred to are the garden-variety 24-hour type with which we are all familiar. Others, influenced by scientific studies that indicate this planet is millions of years old, say the "days" of Genesis 1 should be understood as simply distinct periods, each of which may have lasted for thousands of years. Some have argued a "gap" theory that suggests a long period, perhaps millions of years, between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, a time when dinosaurs and other unexplained ancient creatures could have come and gone from the earth. Until Darwin came along with his theory of evolution, those were the choices for people of faith.
Darwin struck a nerve. Church folk went apoplectic as they heard this "attack" on the Bible. The most famous of the attempts to hold back the tide of science that was threatening to overwhelm traditional belief was the Scopes' Monkey Trial of 1925. National attention was focused on the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, as young John Scopes, a 24-year-old high school general science teacher and part-time football coach, was charged with violating state law by teaching Darwin's theory. Defending Mr. Scopes was one of the finest legal minds of the day, Clarence Darrow, and joining the prosecution was one of America's premier orators, a three-time Democratic candidate for president of the United States, William Jennings Bryan.
It was a carnival. Banners decorated the streets of Dayton. Lemonade stands were set up. Chimpanzees, said to have been brought to town to testify for the prosecution, performed in a sideshow on Main Street. Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed, "If evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued that "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial."
The prosecution's case began with the court being asked to take judicial notice of the book of Genesis, as it appears in the King James Version. It did. Seven students in Scopes' class were then asked a series of questions about his teachings. They testified that Scopes told them that man and all other mammals had evolved from a one-celled organism. The prosecution rested. It was a simple case, they said.
More witnesses were called, but the highlight of the trial came on the seventh day: according to the New York Times, the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history. The defense asked that William Jennings Bryan be called to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Bryan agreed, stipulating only that he should have a chance to interrogate the defense lawyers. Dismissing the concerns of his prosecution colleagues, he took a seat on the witness stand and began fanning himself.
Darrow began his interrogation of Bryan with a quiet question: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"
Bryan replied, "Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." Thus began a series of questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of scripture. Bryan was asked about a whale swallowing Jonah, Joshua making the sun stand still, Noah and the great flood, the temptation of Adam in the Garden of Eden, and the creation according to Genesis. After initially contending that "everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there," Bryan finally conceded that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. In response to Darrow's questions as to whether the six days of creation, as described in Genesis, were 24-hour days, Bryan said, "My impression is that they were periods."
Bryan, who began his testimony calmly, stumbled badly under Darrow's persistent prodding. At one point the exasperated Bryan said, "I do not think about things I don't think about."
Darrow asked, "Do you think about the things you do think about?"
Bryan responded, to the derisive laughter of spectators, "Well, sometimes."
We know the rest. John Scopes was convicted, given a slap-on-the-wrist $100 fine that was overturned on appeal, not on constitutional grounds, but on a technicality. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not the judge. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the court said, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."
Yes, there are still folks who say that teaching evolution or the "Big Bang" theory or anything else that does not follow the outline of Genesis, chapter 1, is nothing less than a fiendish attack that comes directly from the devil in hell. I disagree.
Despite what many of us grew up believing, Genesis, chapter 1, was never meant to be understood as a scientific explanation of creation; rather, these verses are a worship tool, adaptable for liturgical use in the congregation, reading antiphonally -- first the right, then the left, then all together (see the end of this chapter). The majestic cadence of the wonderful poetry conveys the ultimate truth that "I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Look carefully at the verses again. Day one: "Let there be light." Where does light come from? The sun. But the sun is not created in this passage until Day four. And the flora and fauna that we know so depend upon the sun arrive on Day three -- hmm. No need to press this further. Simply note there is a beautiful poetic parallel:
Day 1: Light
Day 2: Waters/Sky
Day 3: Dry land/Vegetation
Day 4: Sun/Moon/Stars
Day 5: Fish/Birds
Day 6: Land animals/People
Was this science? Of course, not. It was faith. It was the ancient theologian's way of saying, "I believe in God the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth." How? -- Big Bang? -- Little Whimper? -- we do not know. Let the scientists argue that out.
One brief aside. We noted above that this account is one of two creation stories in Genesis. The second one is just as familiar and is hundreds and hundreds of years older -- the story of Adam and Eve. It was the ancient Hebrew parent or grandparent's way of answering a child's question, "Where did we come from?" History? Not any more than the account we have been discussing is science. In story form, it is one more way of saying, "I believe in God the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
What will that affirmation mean in day-to-day life? After all, we continue to insist, as we believe, so we behave. The most obvious response is that if this is God's creation, we ought not to mess it up. The conscious pollution of air and water are prohibited. They do not belong to us. In fact, the opposite is surely true. The Hebrew word that we translate "have dominion" should be understood in terms of care-giving, even nurturing, and not exploitation. We must be careful.
One more thing should not be overlooked. This creator God in whom we say we believe did not just go through those ancient motions to set this old world spinning on its 23º axis and then wander off never to be heard from again. According to the message of scripture, this creator God was busy at the beginning and has been busy ever since.
Remember that the next time you look in a mirror, squint at the reflection, and whisper, "God's not done with me yet." Yes -- you know it -- God is still at work!
"I believe in God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth" ... and me!
____________
1. This and the details that follow are from an article by William B. Tolar, Dean of the School of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, "What Makes Life on Earth Possible?" printed in the Texas Baptist Standard.
2. Irene Corbally Kuhn, "Fun & Laughter," Reader's Digest, 1967, p. 557.
The Creation
Genesis 1:1--2:2
Leader: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Right: And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day.
Left: And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the second day.
Right: And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas."
All: And God saw that it was good.
Left: Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.
All: And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third day.
Right: And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
All: And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fourth day.
Left: And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
All: And God saw that it was good.
Right: God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fifth day.
Left: And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.
All: And God saw that it was good.
Right: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Left: Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food."
All: And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.
Leader: Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
All: And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Questions For Reflection
1. The author notes that Genesis, chapter 1 should be understood as a worship liturgy, not a science text. How do we tell what kind of literature we are encountering in a particular Bible passage?
2. Is there a contradiction between science and the Bible concerning creation?
3. Controversy over the teaching of evolution has not gone away since the Scopes trial. Should "Intelligent Design" be taught in our science classes?
4. How are we to understand other scientifically difficult scripture passages such as Jonah and the whale or Joshua and the sun standing still?
5. What are some of the priorities that should be held by people of faith in our care for creation?
This earth and our life on it is truly fascinating. For example, scientists know that the earth's relationship to the sun is not perpendicular -- it is tilted at a 23º angle.1 Is this an accident or is it by design?
While tilted at this 23º angle, our world is rotating on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour. Scientists say if the rotation was only 100 miles per hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long, and whatever survived the incredibly hot days would freeze in the night when temperatures would plummet to something like 240º below zero.
This 23º tilt is not absolute -- it wobbles off by about 3º with amazing regularity. Our seasons and our climates are affected by it. If the world strayed up or down more than the 3º tilt, life might perish. Without the tilt to deflect the light and heat, the earth would absorb too much heat. Moisture would be pulled to the north and south poles and build up in tremendous ice caps.
Another thing -- the depth of earth's oceans. If they had been much deeper back in the dim and distant beginning, that much more water would have been absorbed or would have dissolved the carbon dioxide and oxygen out of the air. Life could never have begun without an appropriate atmosphere.
Not only are the oceans the right depth, the earth's crust is just the right thickness. If the earth were only ten feet thicker on the outside than it is, that much additional matter would have oxidized all the free oxygen out of the air and life could not have begun.
As we all know, the earth travels around the sun in an elliptical orbit at a fairly constant speed. If our world slowed down, it would be pulled so close to the sun at the shallow or narrow part of that football-like orbit that we would all be burned to a crisp. If we were to slightly more than double our speed, we would be thrown far into space at the long point of the orbit and quickly freeze to death.
Speaking of distance, we are approximately 93 million miles from the sun -- just about right to receive neither too much nor too little heat and light to allow us to live. Our moon, while the earth tilts, wobbles, and races around the sun, orbits us at about 240,000 miles, just about perfect for our well-being, controlling the tides and keeping them within livable levels.
Fascinating stuff. Did that all just happen by accident? One would be hard-pressed to defend such a view. On top of all that, what we have is beautiful. Halfway up a mountain road from the port of Charlotte Amalie on the island of Saint Thomas is a clearing that commands a breathtaking view of the sea and the harbor. A sign posted there to indicate the site had been cleared by the hotel at the peak reads: "Lookout Point -- Courtesy of Mountaintop Hotel." Below the lettering is scrawled in angry black pencil, "And a little help from God!"2
"I believe in God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth." How did it all happen? Despite what some would have us believe, the Bible does not tell us.
Genesis, chapter 1, is one of two stories back-to-back that describe what happened way back when, "In the beginning...." To be honest, it has caused more than a little difficulty for people of faith in recent years. Some folks have interpreted the material as a scientific treatise giving the details of God's process. Some want to say that the "days" referred to are the garden-variety 24-hour type with which we are all familiar. Others, influenced by scientific studies that indicate this planet is millions of years old, say the "days" of Genesis 1 should be understood as simply distinct periods, each of which may have lasted for thousands of years. Some have argued a "gap" theory that suggests a long period, perhaps millions of years, between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, a time when dinosaurs and other unexplained ancient creatures could have come and gone from the earth. Until Darwin came along with his theory of evolution, those were the choices for people of faith.
Darwin struck a nerve. Church folk went apoplectic as they heard this "attack" on the Bible. The most famous of the attempts to hold back the tide of science that was threatening to overwhelm traditional belief was the Scopes' Monkey Trial of 1925. National attention was focused on the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, as young John Scopes, a 24-year-old high school general science teacher and part-time football coach, was charged with violating state law by teaching Darwin's theory. Defending Mr. Scopes was one of the finest legal minds of the day, Clarence Darrow, and joining the prosecution was one of America's premier orators, a three-time Democratic candidate for president of the United States, William Jennings Bryan.
It was a carnival. Banners decorated the streets of Dayton. Lemonade stands were set up. Chimpanzees, said to have been brought to town to testify for the prosecution, performed in a sideshow on Main Street. Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed, "If evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued that "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial."
The prosecution's case began with the court being asked to take judicial notice of the book of Genesis, as it appears in the King James Version. It did. Seven students in Scopes' class were then asked a series of questions about his teachings. They testified that Scopes told them that man and all other mammals had evolved from a one-celled organism. The prosecution rested. It was a simple case, they said.
More witnesses were called, but the highlight of the trial came on the seventh day: according to the New York Times, the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history. The defense asked that William Jennings Bryan be called to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Bryan agreed, stipulating only that he should have a chance to interrogate the defense lawyers. Dismissing the concerns of his prosecution colleagues, he took a seat on the witness stand and began fanning himself.
Darrow began his interrogation of Bryan with a quiet question: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"
Bryan replied, "Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." Thus began a series of questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of scripture. Bryan was asked about a whale swallowing Jonah, Joshua making the sun stand still, Noah and the great flood, the temptation of Adam in the Garden of Eden, and the creation according to Genesis. After initially contending that "everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there," Bryan finally conceded that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. In response to Darrow's questions as to whether the six days of creation, as described in Genesis, were 24-hour days, Bryan said, "My impression is that they were periods."
Bryan, who began his testimony calmly, stumbled badly under Darrow's persistent prodding. At one point the exasperated Bryan said, "I do not think about things I don't think about."
Darrow asked, "Do you think about the things you do think about?"
Bryan responded, to the derisive laughter of spectators, "Well, sometimes."
We know the rest. John Scopes was convicted, given a slap-on-the-wrist $100 fine that was overturned on appeal, not on constitutional grounds, but on a technicality. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not the judge. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the court said, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."
Yes, there are still folks who say that teaching evolution or the "Big Bang" theory or anything else that does not follow the outline of Genesis, chapter 1, is nothing less than a fiendish attack that comes directly from the devil in hell. I disagree.
Despite what many of us grew up believing, Genesis, chapter 1, was never meant to be understood as a scientific explanation of creation; rather, these verses are a worship tool, adaptable for liturgical use in the congregation, reading antiphonally -- first the right, then the left, then all together (see the end of this chapter). The majestic cadence of the wonderful poetry conveys the ultimate truth that "I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Look carefully at the verses again. Day one: "Let there be light." Where does light come from? The sun. But the sun is not created in this passage until Day four. And the flora and fauna that we know so depend upon the sun arrive on Day three -- hmm. No need to press this further. Simply note there is a beautiful poetic parallel:
Day 1: Light
Day 2: Waters/Sky
Day 3: Dry land/Vegetation
Day 4: Sun/Moon/Stars
Day 5: Fish/Birds
Day 6: Land animals/People
Was this science? Of course, not. It was faith. It was the ancient theologian's way of saying, "I believe in God the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth." How? -- Big Bang? -- Little Whimper? -- we do not know. Let the scientists argue that out.
One brief aside. We noted above that this account is one of two creation stories in Genesis. The second one is just as familiar and is hundreds and hundreds of years older -- the story of Adam and Eve. It was the ancient Hebrew parent or grandparent's way of answering a child's question, "Where did we come from?" History? Not any more than the account we have been discussing is science. In story form, it is one more way of saying, "I believe in God the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
What will that affirmation mean in day-to-day life? After all, we continue to insist, as we believe, so we behave. The most obvious response is that if this is God's creation, we ought not to mess it up. The conscious pollution of air and water are prohibited. They do not belong to us. In fact, the opposite is surely true. The Hebrew word that we translate "have dominion" should be understood in terms of care-giving, even nurturing, and not exploitation. We must be careful.
One more thing should not be overlooked. This creator God in whom we say we believe did not just go through those ancient motions to set this old world spinning on its 23º axis and then wander off never to be heard from again. According to the message of scripture, this creator God was busy at the beginning and has been busy ever since.
Remember that the next time you look in a mirror, squint at the reflection, and whisper, "God's not done with me yet." Yes -- you know it -- God is still at work!
"I believe in God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth" ... and me!
____________
1. This and the details that follow are from an article by William B. Tolar, Dean of the School of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, "What Makes Life on Earth Possible?" printed in the Texas Baptist Standard.
2. Irene Corbally Kuhn, "Fun & Laughter," Reader's Digest, 1967, p. 557.
The Creation
Genesis 1:1--2:2
Leader: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Right: And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day.
Left: And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the second day.
Right: And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas."
All: And God saw that it was good.
Left: Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.
All: And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third day.
Right: And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
All: And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fourth day.
Left: And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
All: And God saw that it was good.
Right: God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."
All: And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fifth day.
Left: And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.
All: And God saw that it was good.
Right: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Left: Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food."
All: And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.
Leader: Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
All: And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Questions For Reflection
1. The author notes that Genesis, chapter 1 should be understood as a worship liturgy, not a science text. How do we tell what kind of literature we are encountering in a particular Bible passage?
2. Is there a contradiction between science and the Bible concerning creation?
3. Controversy over the teaching of evolution has not gone away since the Scopes trial. Should "Intelligent Design" be taught in our science classes?
4. How are we to understand other scientifically difficult scripture passages such as Jonah and the whale or Joshua and the sun standing still?
5. What are some of the priorities that should be held by people of faith in our care for creation?
