As I meditate on Genesis Chapter 1, it appears as though I don’t really need many more management books than this one. I see, immediately, some insights. But I sense much more – a depth of insights yet to be plummeted. Here are some examples:
- I am not the first to notice it, but it still feels original. This is because it is speaking to me where I am at in my own journey. The enormous emphasis on the fact that God saw the creation was good needs to be considered. The phraseology is very clear in the Hebrew. Can I interpret this phrase as indicating that God enjoyed the creation? At the very least, I can note that He was engaged in three activities: He built, He reviewed, and perhaps, He enjoyed. I wonder how much of our attitude towards business is culturally tainted. Business or not, I think we should be more grateful for the opportunity to create, to review, and to enjoy.
- In the first two days of creation (verses 1 through 9), God let things “be” (come). But on the third day He commanded the creation to produce. There is a sense here where the resources are created to somehow support the living. There is a categorical difference between how God speaks of and speaks to these elements. The former is charged to “be”; the latter is charged to produce. The nature of this production is also delineated. The former is told to teem, to fill, to increase, to multiply, and to be fruitful. In this phraseology I sense a charge to do more than duplicate, but rather to duplicate in spades. Moreover, the text stresses the phraseology according to their various kinds. From these two insights, we might say that there are at least two aspects to this production: likeness and abundance.
- One could spend the rest of his life speaking of significance here in verse 27, God created man in His own icon/image. The implications are overwhelming. One cannot accuse the Christian God of being anthropomorphic, but rather the Christian man as being “theomorphic”. More should be said, but this will be tasked for other observations.
- In verse 29, there is a clear “handoff”. One cannot deny the implications for stewardship, and for Kingdom theology in verses 28 through 31. Again, we have the injunction to be fruitful and increase, to fill the earth, but to the sixth element, man, there is an additional injunction: to subdue the rest. I think we could move past the Aristotelian-based classification systems. There are distinct categorical differences in the creation to be found in this first chapter. These categorical differences may be detected by paying close attention to the language of Elohim.
These few insights are offered only as an experiment. I was wondering if I could read twelve to fifteen chapters at a time, but I find it so difficult to breeze past truths. I could spend the rest of the year on Genesis 1. I need to strike a balance between the macro and the micro.
