Kyle Kauffman

God makes and keeps promises. That reality alone should amaze us. But here’s the even more amazing part: God makes and keeps promises to sinners. God shows us that a relationship with him is not built, earned, or enabled by our obedience and efforts. Rather the gift of his presence and blessing in our life is rooted in his promises. We see in Genesis 9-10 that the story God writes is one where he binds himself to his people with promises through covenants. God shows that the way he will rescue the world and turn it into paradise again is through making and keeping his promises. His promises call us to respond with grateful trust, love, and obedience. Yet we find that God continues to keep his promises even as we fail to trust, love, and obey him over and over again.  

Kyle Kauffman

God judges sin. This can leave us surprised and shocked. It’s hard for us to read stories like the flood in Genesis without walking away surprised by how seriously God takes sin. Yet if we want to recognize how great God’s mercy is in saving us, we must also come to grips with how great our sin is and the judgment we rightfully deserve. The story of the flood is a story that tells us God acts both with judgment and with mercy. He judges sin and yet shows favor on Noah and makes a way for Noah through the judgment of his sin. This story points us to the cross as the ultimate place where God acts with both judgment and mercy and provides a way for his people to pass through his judgment safely. Now we who have received mercy are called to be people who carry God’s message of mercy to others. 

Genesis 6-8

Kyle Kauffman

We often skip over or cruise past the genealogy lists in the Bible. They have unfamiliar names that are hard to pronounce and seem overly repetitive. We might wonder, “Why in the world is this even in the Bible?” Even these lists have something important to teach us, especially this first list in the Bible. They point us to both the beauty and brokenness of life in this world. Life is a wonderful gift, but because of sin life comes to an end. This genealogy teaches us that we all live under the shadow of death. This genealogy reminds us that we will all both grieve the loss of others in our life and that we to will one day face death. No matter how long we live, we must come to grips with the truth that one day we will die. And this genealogy teaches us that God’s plan and promises continue on even after we are long gone from this world. And that although death looms over us, there is hope for us both in and after this life.

Kyle Kauffman

As one author says, Genesis 3 tells us of the “Second saddest day in history.” This chapter tells us the story of where things went wrong, not just in the initial story of the first humans, but in each of our own stories over and over again. In this story we find the entrance of sin into the world. We find an answer to our question, “What is wrong with the world?” We find a clear picture of what sin is. And we find an explanation to why every single one of us is corrupted by sin and in need of a Savior. This is a heartbreaking and devastating story that we find played out over and over again throughout history. Yet it is a story that is not without hope. 

Genesis 3

Kyle Kauffman

Marriage is an incredible gift from God. We see marriage as a institution and relationship designed by God for our good and his glory. Yet there are all sorts of ways that marriage can become twisted and distorted. We can attempt to define marriage on our own terms according to our own desires. We can make marriage all about ourselves and our own fulfillment. We can turn marriage into an idol where we seek ultimate satisfaction and meaning. Or we can see marriage as a negative thing to be avoided because it constrains my own personal freedom. God teaches us a story about marriage that both corrects and at points contradicts our own stories about marriage. God gives marriage as a display of his unity and diversity. He gives marriage as a means to great intimacy and pleasure. He gives marriage as the bond to create, support, and protect a family. Yet our marriages are never meant to be ultimate in God’s story. They are a story within the greater story. They are a parable of God’s covenant love. They are a pointer to the intimacy, love, and glory of Jesus.  

Kyle Kauffman

God gave people specific commands from the start “to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.” And then he puts Adam and Eve in the garden to “Work it and Keep it” God intends for us to be people who cultivate the earth in order to make it better, and who use our gifts and abilities to work as an act of worship to Him and love and service to our neighbors. Work is a good gift from God and not a necessary evil we must do to survive. But since the fall, work has come under a curse. Work is now full of difficulty and fraught with danger. And yet work is still a gift to us where we are able to put the skills and abilities God has given to us to work for a good purpose of worshiping God, serving our neighbor, and providing for our families. God has created us uniquely and gives us individual callings, abilities, and gifts that shape how we do that specifically in each or our lives. And he calls us to work in such a way where we depend on him each day. 

Genesis 1:26-28; 2:1-3, 8-9, 15; 3:17-19

Kyle Kauffman

Part of what it means to be human is have a body. God designed us not simply to be spirits but to have flesh and blood. Our bodies are an integral part of who we are and how God intends us to live. In the 21st century we have a tendency to either overemphasize or deemphasize our bodies. Sometimes we overemphasize our bodies by thinking that what’s on the outside is what gives us value and worth. Therefore, the youngest, most beautiful, and athletic are seen as more valuable than others. But we also tend to deemphasize our bodies. Whether it’s in ignoring the limits we have as embodied creatures or in seeking to change our biology, we try to push back against God’s design for us that is communicated through our bodies. Christians believe that humans are both body and soul and so the body matters, but it’s also not all there is to us. We believe the body is a gift from God that is meant to be stewarded well but not idolized. We also believe that the body is good, but broken by sin. But as we live in our broken bodies in accordance to God’s design we look forward to the day when our bodies will be fully restored.

Genesis 2:5-7, 20-22

Kyle Kauffman

All that we see, touch, smell, hear, and taste (and all that we don’t) was made by God. He spoke everything into existence. God did not create the world because he needed anything, but rather the world was an overflow of the love, joy, and delight the Godhead has within itself. God created the world for his glory to be displayed and enjoyed. God creates the world with limits and order. He first of all forms the universe and then fills it. All that he creates is good. It overflows with beauty and goodness that is meant to be enjoyed as an act of worship to the Creator. The created universe tells us much about God. It displays His goodness, His power, and His wisdom. What we know from God from the very start should shape how we view the world and our lives in it. 

Genesis 1:1-25, 31; Psalm 104