These ten simple words — or seven in the original Hebrew — constitute one of the most significant sentences ever written. Genesis 1:1 is not merely an introduction to a book; it is a foundational declaration about the nature of reality itself. Before any human eye had opened, before any creature had drawn breath, before light had pierced darkness or water had found its shores, there was God. And... Read more
What strikes me most about this verse is the absolute confidence of it. There is no argument, no philosophical defence, no attempt to prove God's existence — just a bare, majestic declaration: in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Moses writes as though the reader already knows this is true, and the job of the text is simply to say it clearly. I find that incredibly grounding,... Read more
Light before the sun — this always stops me when I read it slowly. God's first creative word brings light into existence on day one, but the sun and moon don't appear until day four. For a long time this bothered me, but I've come to see that the text is making a theological point, not a scientific one. The source of all light is not the sun — it is the word of God. John 1 makes this explicit:... Read more
"Let us make man in our image" — the plural has fascinated theologians for centuries. Whether it points forward to the Trinity, or reflects the ancient literary convention of a divine council, what is undeniable is that humanity's creation is presented as a deliberate, communal, and weighty act. God pauses before making us in a way He doesn't pause for anything else. The image of God — the imago... Read more
I've been spending time with the Hebrew text, and the very first word — Bereshit, meaning "in the beginning" — is extraordinary. It opens with the letter Bet, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, not Aleph the first. The rabbis have long reflected on this: some things before creation are beyond human understanding, and the Torah begins with humility built into its first letter. There is also... Read more
The Spirit of God hovering over the surface of the waters — this image has stayed with me for weeks. The Hebrew word for hovering, merachefet, is the same word used in Deuteronomy 32 to describe an eagle hovering over its young, caring and ready to act. God's Spirit is not absent from the chaos and emptiness of verse two. He is present in it, attentive, poised. This reframes how I think about the... Read more
Not just good — very good. At the end of the sixth day, after creating humanity, God surveys everything He has made and the verdict is emphatic: it is very good. This is the original divine assessment of the world and of human beings. Whatever brokenness came after — and much brokenness came after — this is the foundation. Before the fall, before sin, before shame, God looked at His creation... Read more
Every time I read this verse I feel as though I am standing at the edge of something infinite and being invited to step in. The simplicity is what overwhelms me. No preamble, no explanation, no argument — just: in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Nothing existed, and then God spoke, and everything existed. That is not just cosmology, it is an act of pure grace. We did not ask... Read more
God made the lights in the sky for signs and for seasons, for days and for years — and the calendar itself is therefore built into the structure of creation. This is not incidental. I think about how the great Jewish feasts — Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles — are all tied to the movements of the moon and the rhythms of the agricultural year. And then Christ arrives and fulfils them all in real... Read more
Sofia Andrade·Église Protestante Évangélique de Paris·Mar 18, 2026
Creatures of the sea
Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth. And God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply. What moves me about this is the sequence. God blesses the creatures of the sea and sky on day five, before He ever creates human beings on day six. His delight in creation is not conditional on the presence of people to appreciate it. The oceans teem with... Read more
Calvin observed that Moses wrote Genesis not for philosophers or natural scientists but for ordinary people — for farmers and fishermen and anyone who could look up at the sky and recognise that Someone made it. The point of "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" is not to provide a technical account of cosmological origins that can be mapped onto modern science. It is to anchor... Read more
David Mensah·Cornerstone International Church·Mar 18, 2026
God speaks
And God said, let there be light — and there was light. God doesn't build or carve or shape or mould. He speaks. And what He speaks comes into existence immediately and completely. The power of God's word is absolute — there is no gap between His command and its fulfilment, no resistance from the material, no delay in the response. This is why I take the Scriptures with the seriousness I do.... Read more
So God created human beings in His own image — in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. This verse has become increasingly important to me as I think about what it means to bear the image of God. The image is not contained in one individual alone, and significantly it is not contained in one gender alone. Both male and female together reflect the image of their... Read more
The doctrine of creation out of nothing — creatio ex nihilo — is one of the most philosophically distinctive and important claims in the entire Biblical worldview, and it is rooted in this opening verse. God does not form the world out of pre-existing material, as the Babylonian creation myths describe. He does not reshape chaos into cosmos by defeating a rival. He speaks, and what did not exist... Read more
Tohu vavohu — formless and empty. The earth was without shape and without content, and darkness covered the surface of the deep. This is the starting point before God speaks. What is important to notice is that this is not a battle. God is not fighting chaos in Genesis 1 the way Marduk fights Tiamat in the Babylonian Enuma Elish. There is no cosmic combat, no defeated rival. There is simply... Read more
David Mensah·Cornerstone International Church·Mar 18, 2026
Cultural mandate
Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish, the birds, and every living creature. This is what theologians call the cultural mandate — humanity's original commission to develop the potential of creation, to take what God has made and build culture, cities, art, agriculture, and civilisation from it. What this verse establishes clearly is that... Read more
I keep coming back to this verse whenever I feel lost, which has been more often lately than I would like to admit. There is something about the sheer weight of it that steadies me. If God was there before anything existed — before time, before matter, before space — then He was not caught off guard by my situation. He is not scrambling to respond. He who spoke the universe into being from... Read more
God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. Notice what is missing: their names. The sun and the moon are not called by name. In every other ancient Near Eastern creation account, the sun and moon are named because they are gods — Shamash, Sin, Ra, Khonsu. They are the objects of worship and the powers that govern human life. Genesis... Read more