Welcome to Wednesday. We’re half way through our week and half way through our work in the Pastor’s Workshop!
As we “Begin with Basics” this week we’re going to “Get Creative”. Our lead Scripture, Genesis 1:1-2, tells us we have a God who has created. Our supplemental text, Isaiah 43:1,18-21, reminds us our God is still creating. As part of God’s Creation we are given the capacity to create. As participants in God’s Kingdom we are called to “Get Creative”.
On Wednesday we look at the context of the text. We usually explore the world into which the Biblical word was written or spoken. Today we’re going to do something a bit different. We going to survey the Scriptural world into which the Biblical word was spoken.
We did some of this yesterday. We noted how the setting for Genesis 1:1-2 is “before the Beginning”. The Biblical writer spoke of this primal condition as a “nothingness”. “Tohu-vavohu” is the phrase in Hebrew. It means “formless, void, total emptiness, primal chaos”. It is into “Tohu-vavohu” God says, “Let there be…” Let there be Light and Dark, Day and Night, Order and Goodness. And it was so. And that was just the “First Day”!
God created. And after the Beginning, God did not stop. Later in Genesis 12 God pronounced a Covenant and created a People. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the first in a lineage of those who understood their lives were to be lived in life giving relationship with a creative God.
In Isaiah 43 God continued to call people back into that relationship of life and love. When the people of God found themselves in Exile in Babylon, God reminded them they were not forgotten or forsaken. God continued to create “a way in the wilderness”, “streams in the desert”, and a “people prepared for God’s praise”.
In Jesus Christ, God’s creation continues. Through Christ we live in a life shaping Covenant with God. The Apostle Paul describes it like this, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away and behold the new has come.” (II Corinthians 5:17)
We have a God who has created and is creating. We have a God who created us and in creating us has given us a capacity to create. Genesis 1:27 lets us know that we are created in God’s image and after God’s likeness. As children of God that capacity to create is inherent and abundant.
And the call from the Scriptures is always the same, use our capacity for creativity to the good of God’s Kingdom. As with any gift of God we have the option on how we exercise creativity. As I Peter 4:11 declares, “When we speak … when we serve… in all things, glorify God…”
I know this has been a bit different that our usual Wednesday. But I hope this overview has been helpful. To place our creative gifts within the context of God’s Creative nature and to know that God’s Creative nature is bending towards God’s good Kingdom, is important truth. This Scriptural perspective guides and directs us as we seek to “Get Creative” to the glory of God!
In that blessing I hope you have a good and creative Wednesday. I look forward to being with you tomorrow as we “sum it all up” in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Prayer: Gracious God, thank You for the blessing of your Creative love. Thank You that when there seems to be nothing, You are bringing something good into being. Thank You that when we feel forgotten or forsaken You remind us You created us and are still making a way. Thank You for how in Your love You are always making us new creations in Christ Jesus. For that covenant blessing and for the ways we receive it in faith and live it in hope, we give You our thanks and praise this day in Jesus’ name.