Gen. 1, 2 & 3

I've started so many "reading through the Bible" plans that I've got these chapters practically memorized (depending on the translation). This time through, some new and not-so-new thoughts occurred to me.

Obviously, the Bible starts with the creation account. I have a theory as to why that is, aside from chronology. It's like God's starting out by saying, "Look, if you can't believe what I'm telling you here about what I'm capable of, about the miraculous beginnings of all known matter in the universe, then there's no reason you can believe what I tell you I will do for you in the future." Okay, God probably didn't think that. But I do.

So many people feel the need to try and explain away how God told us He created the universe, for one reason or another. But I have to say, and I'm not calling anyone out here, but personally, if one can't believe in a six-day creation, I don't see how one could be a Christian.

I mean, what's more fantastic? An omnipotent supernatural being creating a world, or a man being tortured to death, dead for three days and rising from the dead as a penalty for all the misdeeds of the entirety of mankind? Both instances are about life being created from non-life.

If you can't believe one, then logically, you can't believe the other.

Either you believe in miracles, or you don't.

The other thing, which is totally random, is when God says He's going to create a partner for Adam, he has to go through every possible mammal before he finally makes a human woman. I wonder why that was. Why not just skip straight to the woman? I wonder if maybe Adam needed convincing that there wasn't a better option than the one God gave him. Eh, maybe I'm projecting there :)

The last thing, in Chapter 3, when God prophesies the Messiah, He says to the serpent that his undoing would come from the woman, that his battle would be with the woman's seed. I find that interesting. Elsewhere in the Bible, we read that sin entered the world, not because Eve ate the fruit and disobeyed God, but because Adam did. And yet it wasn't through Adam that God decided to bring deliverance.

Obviously that is foreshadowing the virgin birth. But I like to think there's another element to it as well. God brought deliverance not through Adam, through man, but through Eve (later Mary) - through woman. I think that's pretty cool.