UCC members: The materials these questions relate to will be emailed to you immediately after the September 2, 2012 class. Please reflect on the passages cited and try to answer the questions on your own.
Other readers: See the Creation 2.0 page to find the materials these questions relate to.
Read Genesis 1 – 3. It’s familiar and won’t take long. Don’t ask modern questions: how old is the earth? Such questions didn’t concern Moses’ original readers, the Israelites. They’re good questions, even important questions, but not today’s questions.
1. Reflect a bit on Genesis 1. If you were to seek God’s purpose in the Creation based on what he does last — the culmination — what would you think God’s purpose was?
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2. In what sense is man — male and female — made in God’s “image” and “likeness”? Does this mean that God looks like us?
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3. At the end of chapter 1, God is said to rest. Consider David’s description of God “resting” in the Temple in Psalm 132 –
Let us go to his dwelling place Let us worship at his footstool— “Arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place, You and the ark of your might.”
For the Lord has chosen Zion He has desired it for his dwelling: “This is my resting place for ever and ever Here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it.”
What does it mean to say that God “rested” on the seventh day?
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4. Moses wrote,
(Exo 19:4-6 ESV) 4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
What did Moses mean by calling Israel a “kingdom of priests”? Weren’t only the Levites priests? And doesn’t a kingdom need a king?
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5. Peter and John say the same thing about Christians —
(1Pe 2:9 ESV) 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
(Rev 1:5b-6 ESV) To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
In what sense are we priests? Try to think beyond: “because we can read the Bible for ourselves.” It’s true, but not likely to be really be the main point.
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6. If Christians are supposed to be both images of God and priests of God, what does that say about the kind of people we are to be and how we are to act?
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