Lux Lucet

The Reason for This Series

I think of this series on Genesis as an example of root cause analysis. 

When I was in business school a few years back, they brought in a couple of speakers from Toyota to talk about the Toyota Production System (TPS).  Toyota, of course, is famous the world over for producing consistently high-quality cars at reasonable prices. 

One of the secrets of TPS is what the speakers called root cause analysis.  That is, to really address a quality problem in the manufacturing process, it’s necessary to determine the root cause of the problem.  There’s always a temptation to fix things ad hoc.  But if you really want to permanently solve a recurring quality issue, you have to pursue the problem to find its source.  Once you’ve traced the problem back to its source, you can then fix whatever the issue is.  Doing this will correct the downstream quality problems. 

It is my conviction that the moral, political, and economic confusion we face in the 21^st century is that we, like the men of Judah in Isaiah’s time, have turned away backwards from the revealed truth of God.  Even many Christians are confused about these things.  And the root of much of this confusion is that they are confused about Genesis.  Either they have never been explicitly taught Genesis as history or have been instructed by modern misinterpretations of the book that present it as something other than what it is, history. 

Genesis – and by Genesis, I’m referring to the whole book, including the first eleven chapters – is not myth.  It is not metaphor.  It is history revealed to us by God himself. 

It is my intention in this series to apply the revealed history found in Genesis to the current moral, political, scientific and economic problems of our day, refuting the contemporary confusion and setting forth the mind of God on these issues. 

The Scope of This Series    

It is my intention to focus on the first eleven chapters of Genesis in this series.  Not because the remaining chapters are not worthwhile studying, but in an effort to limit the length of this study to something manageable. 

A second reason for focusing on the first eleven chapters is that in them are found the origins of, and the answers to, many of the most vexing problems we face here in the early 21^st century. 

A third reason for focusing on Genesis 1-11 is that these are the chapters that are the most controversial and the ones most likely to be explained away, even by professing Christians.  Genesis, we are told by many serious Bible scholars, really doesn’t require that we believe the world was created in 6 literal twenty-four-hour periods.  This is foolishness.  Very clearly, that is exactly what Genesis teaches.  And if we deny this.  If we soft peddle this.  We’re falling into the trap that Eve fell into when the serpent tempted her, asking, “Yea, hath God said?” 

God indeed hath said! He has revealed to us the creation of the universe, and of all things in it, including man himself. As the Shorter Catechism puts it, “God’s work or creation is his making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six [literal 24 hour] days, and all very good.”

A fourth reason for focusing on the first eleven chapters of Genesis is that they are absolutely fascinating.  If we take God at his word and understand these chapters as history, we become the wisest people on the face of the earth.  As the psalmist wrote, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”  The smartest scientists strain and yearn to understand the origin of the universe.  But in the end, the most they can say is this or that may be true, but we can’t know for sure.  But you and I can know for sure.  For while science never can furnish us with knowledge, the Christian understands that knowledge it is a gift of God, freely given to those who trust in him. 

One last item regarding scope.  It is not my intention that this series exhaust all important implications of Genesis chapters 1-11.  Such is the depth of the Word of God that, I suppose, a lifetime of dedicated study would not exhaust everything from even a small portion of Scripture.  With that said, it is my prayer that in this series I can bring to the surface at least a few of the treasures found in this portion of Scripture and to impart them to my readers.    

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