Why is a literal interpretation of Genesis Important? Part 3
Defending What We Believe
This is Part 3 of a 6 part series. To get the most out of this article, I recommend reading Part 1 and Part 2 first.
As Christians we are told to be “a light to the world” and to “be separate” and to “tell the truth” and “to be able to give a reason for the hope within us.” So often when we get involved in the culture wars, we make statements that may be true and right, but we do a lousy job of defending them. To outsiders, it seems as if we are pushing our personal opinion rather than standing for the truth set out by the creator God. Although defense of our beliefs can come from any part of the Bible, frequently the strongest basis for our beliefs is from Genesis. It makes me think of the song from “The Sound of Music”:
Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with
A-B-C
When you sing you begin with Do-Re-Mi
Do-Re-Mi.
When we have a spiritual principle we want to defend, we should start at the beginning: Genesis, which means beginnings.
Marriage
One area in our culture that most Christians rightly feel strongly about is Marriage. Too often, when we are asked why we are being so judgmental or harsh in our definition of marriage, we answer something like “because it’s right” or “because same sex marriage is wrong.” We don’t give a reason. The fact that we believe it or that it is our opinion is not enough. Most of us realize it is more than a personal opinion, but we aren’t very good at articulating why marriage is defined the way it is. When an individual believes marriage should be defined a particular way, that doesn’t have much weight. When the creator God, who created man and woman and created the first marriage, says what marriage is, it has a lot more influence.
The Bible defines marriage as one man and one woman. There are examples of marriages of one man to more than one woman, but you will notice that all of those lead to heartache and hardship. If we go to where God defined marriage, and start at the beginning, we will see it was meant to be one man married to one woman. Genesis 2:18-25 says:
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
When Jesus is asked about divorce, he refers to Genesis in his answer. Matthew 19:3-8
Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.
If quoting Genesis was good enough for Jesus, I’d say it is good enough for us and we should imitate Him in this.
Gender
Today gender fluidity and so-called gender affirming care has become rampant and is pushed with religious fervor. As Christians we know this is wrong, but it is not sufficient to just say “it is wrong” and have people agree with us. Why is changing one’s gender or becoming one of the numerous alternative genders wrong?
Genesis 1:27
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
God clearly said He created us “male and female”. There are no other genders (or sexes). When God makes something a certain way, we are not to change it. Not only are we created male or female, we are created in the image of God. It is a total affront to God to change his creation in general, but especially His crowning glory, man and woman.
One thing I would add is that those who would change God’s design try to use nice sounding language like “gender affirming care” to make their sin sound loving. Telling someone, especially a kid, that they have to take hormone blocking drugs, cross sex hormones, and have body parts chopped off and/or remolded in order to feel good or have value is not gender affirming. It is abuse. Real gender affirming care is telling someone they have been created in the image of God and that they have value just the way God created them.
Abortion
Once again, we are good at being against the evil of abortion, but to many we come across as judgmental and hateful. We need to better explain why we are against abortion. It starts with Genesis 1:27
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
No one is supposed to kill or damage a human because they are all made in the image of God. Killing is damaging the image of the all-powerful, creator God. He punishes murder harshly as is shown with the first murder. Genesis 4:11-12
He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
You may say that this doesn’t prove that an unborn life is the same, but there are many other verses, mostly in the Old Testament, that support the understanding that God considers human life as beginning from the moment of conception. The most explicit and generalized is Psalm 139:13-16
For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You,for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
From these verses we can see how tenderly God cares for every person before they are even conceived. He knows us from the moment of fertilization. He personally forms each one of us to be the person He desires us to be. The last thing anyone should do is harm one of these little ones.
Although this verse is not from Genesis or the Old Testament, I’d like to add one more verse here. Luke 17:1-2
He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.
If this is God’s response for someone making a little one stumble, how harsh will His judgment be towards those who kill His precious little ones?
There are so many more principles that Christians rightly defend, but we need to do a better job defending them with God’s word. We need to make sure we are communicating the will of God and not our own will. We need to make sure we communicate God’s truth, not our opinion, and to make that clear to any with whom we chose to share.
Trust Jesus.
your sister in Christ,
Christy
FYI, I decided to add at least 3 more parts. See Part 4.
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