Readers Guide: “The Word for Today” Sunday, September 9, 2012 Read – Genesis 1 & 2 Perhaps you’ve noticed that the Bible gives us two stories about Creation. The first story – Genesis 1:1-2:4a –proclaims some important things to us. First of all the story proclaims that God is the creator of everything that is and that God creates through the power of God’s Word – God speaks and it is so. We can make things out of other things but only God creates. Secondly the story proclaims that everything God creates is good. That’s worth remembering in a world where everything is not good. That’s a question we will need to ponder as the story unfolds. Finally the story proclaims that the world God created is orderly and dependable. The first creation story is a very orderly account. The world that God creates is a trustworthy place. The second creation story – Genesis 2:4b-25 – is really the first part of a five-part story that unfolds over the next few chapters of the book of Genesis. The parts of that story are: “Creation” – Genesis 2:4b-25; “Adam and Eve” – Genesis 3:1-24; “Cain and Abel” – Genesis 4:1-26; “The Flood” – Genesis 6:1-9:28; and “The Tower of Babel” – Genesis 11:1-9. Together these five stories seek to answer the question of what went wrong with God’s good creation and set the stage for God’s action to save that creation. The second creation story proclaims that God created human beings to be caretakers of the rest of God’s creation. At the center of the story stands the challenge of obedience – will the human beings God has created listen to God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thus live – or will they disobey God, eat of the tree and die? Together these two creation stories form a foundation upon which all the rest of the story is built.