"In The Beginning, God..."

"In The Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1

        This is a sublime sentence with which the Bible opens. Will the sentences that follow be in keeping with the musical throb and stately massiveness of these opening words? Even when we regard the book simply as a monument of literature we find it impossible to conceive a more appropriate introduction than this: " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Yet the end is not less majestic than the beginning: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away."

       How should we approach the study of a book which opens and closes with words of such sublimity?  In John Wesley's first volume of sermons, in which the great evangelist gives us the secret of his method of Bible-study. "Here am I," he says, "far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone ; only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His Book; for this end to find the way to heaven. Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift my heart to the Father of Lights. I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. And what I thus learn, that I teach." To Wesley, then, there were two great realities the visible Book, and its invisible but ever-present Author; and to a man of his training and susceptibilities the one would have been an enigma without the other. He saw God at the beginning of every section of Holy Scripture. Hastings, D. D.

Focus Your Thinking & Lather up with a bit of  SOAP.

• Scripture: "In The Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1
• Observation: God is at the beginning of our generation, the generation of humans in this world. God is with us at the start, making us, nurturing us, teaching us. He never leaves our side. When we leave... He has a plan to bring us back home. And Genesis is the beginning of our redemption story.
  
• Application: Whenever I feel overwhelmed, lost or lonely, I can go to God who is always waiting for me with open arms.
  
• Prayer:  Lord of all things, in heaven and on the earth, Thank you for bringing me into the world to discover so many mysteries! When my life has ended, I will remember that you have promised to be at this ending, and to carry me home for a new beginning with yourself and my heavenly family. Amen.
  

The color version of my "Genesis" title was filled in with colored pencils.

Focus On Your Illuminating.

       Genesis; a canonical book of the Old Testament, so called from Greek genesis, or generation, because it contains an account of the origin of all visible things, and of the genealogy of the first patriarchs. In the Hebrew it is called "בראשית ברא אלהים" B'reishit bara Elohim, which signifies, in the beginning, because it begins with that word. "In the Beginning, God.."

•  See more illustrated scriptures...

       You can begin your Bible journaling in a variety of ways, for example: you could choose to begin illustrating the first page of your note taker's Bible with a title page. In fact you could choose to illustrate/illuminate every book of the Bible with a title page.

       What is a title page exactly? The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a work.) A title banner depicts the illumination of the book's title. Below are a few examples of title banners from my desk top publishing blog:

• The Book of Jonah
• A Genesis carved title

       In my King James note taker's bible, there is only a narrow margin given to the opening of every title page, so a title banner that runs the length of each opening page would fit perfectly into this vertical margin. So, I have decided to open the title page of Genesis with a banner. I'm going to use a creative vintage type from The Grimm Scriptorium to design this banner. You can download the "tree like" alphabet here and trace one very similar to mine.

Focus On Your Listening.

"Look At The World" by John Rutter
Who is John Rutter?

Find much more about the Book of Genesis:

• The Genesis Reading Room at Tyndale Seminary
• בראשית Bereishit – Genesis (Hebrew – English at Mechon-Mamre.org)  
• Genesis is the beginning book of the Pentateuch. Pentateuch, (from pente, five, and teuchos, an instrument of volume,) signifies the collection of the five instruments or books of Moses, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Read more...