I've Got The Baby, You've Got The Bathwater

 

I’ve Got The Baby, You’ve Got The Bathwater

Genesis 1 and 2

     My daughter has a problem.  No, she is a very accomplished woman.  Diligent and loyal, self-controlled while driving to an end.  She is independent and seeks support from no man.  Still, she has a problem.  Recently she found her basement foundation to be flawed.  Cracks in the wall.  Some bricks that were crumbling. The repair man gave her a costly quote for her newly acquired home.  A fix is imminent for a failure threatens the upward integrity of the structure.

     How important is our understanding of scripture!  Line upon line.  Precept upon precept.  God builds upon successive revelation as He did with Abraham and his journey. 

     Genesis is our foundation book.  In it we find the start of everything we know created save angels and Heaven.  In chapter one, God gives us an overall summary in a sequential day format.  In chapter two, He illuminates the sixth day as He creates Man and Woman.  Here lies the supposed crack:

Genesis 2:19 “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

     Why is God forming again beasts?  Is the Garden a special case?  This verse used to confuse me until I keyed on the word field.  These were not dinosaurs God was bringing to Adam.  In day six, God created all the beasts of the earth.  I think He brought to Adam all the creatures fit to reside in Eden with Man namely domesticated animals that could be helpers.  Then none suitable was found.  Hence the great need for Eve.  All this was done in the daylight of the sixth day.

     Still the matter of creating fowl on the sixth day.  God starts verse Genesis 2:19 with And not Then.  It is possible He is just reiterating Genesis chapter one not giving another timed sequence.  I could insert “…the Lord God had formed every…” but that would be dangerous and unnecessary.

     Genesis is indeed our foundation book.  If slight cracks appear as we refuse to take God literally in the Word He has painstakingly preserved, how will we continue to believe?  He desires His children to be well educated.  He writes a book with farfetched ideas because He is a great God who cannot be bound.  He calls us to faith.

     We choose to doubt or believe.  Scripture is hard.  When was the last time I saw a global flood or leprosy healed for that matter?  I have run across apparent contradictions in the Word.  They have injured me.  When I asked Him to explain Himself, He has answered.

After thirty years of trying, I am now settled to approach scripture this way.  “It is written as it is written without detraction or addition.  Understanding it literally as fact by fact when not a blatant parable like told by Jesus.”

     Now when I run across a hard passage, do I panic as before?  Is my faith shipwrecked because I don’t understand a minute detail?  No, the baby still needs a bath.  And that baby might be me.

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