What is the book of Genesis all about? 

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2)

 First up: Genesis – the book that begins it all. In it we read of God’s power in creation and His power in blessing His people. We see God shape the world, give humanity a key position in it, and then choose and bless one particular family through the generations.

What do we need to know to read Genesis?

First, it’s the story of God’s world.

This is the foundation of a theistic worldview – a way of understanding the world that necessarily starts with its Creator. The book opens with the words, “In the beginning, God…” It ends with a reference to how God works for good through human history – including human evil. Genesis is not a scientific textbook, but it is no less true in the history it tells. Some people abandon the book as anti-scientific (especially in its description of creation in chapter 1), but others – like John Lennox – have argued that Genesis doesn’t actually contradict what scientists believe about the origins of the universe: it simply tells a different side of the story. At its heart, Genesis is the story of a God who creates a world and a humanity out of the overflow of His love, and then calls a people for Himself so that He can shower His love on them.
 

Second, it’s the story of God’s people.

It starts with God creating Adam and Eve, then follows their family line as it expands and covers the earth (chapters 1-5). Then it narrows in on one family: that of Noah and his descendants (chapters 6-11). Then it narrows again, this time focusing on Abraham and his descendants (chapters 12-50). Within that, we have the story of Abraham himself (chapters 12-25), Isaac and his half-brother Ishmael (chapters 16-36), Jacob and his brother Esau (chapters 25-50) and Joseph and his 11 brothers (chapters 29-50). It’s divided into sections that have been traditionally called toledot (the Hebrew word for “generations”), with the repeated phrase, “This is the account of X’s family line” – (see 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, 36:1, 37:1). [Note: each of these usually refers to the family line of the father, e.g. in 11:27 we start the account of Terah’s family line by following his son Abraham.]
 

Third, it’s the story of God’s promises.

Arguably the key moment in Genesis (that sets the tone for the rest of the book, and even for the rest of the whole Bible) is when God meets with Abraham and gives him three foundational promises: people, place and blessing (Genesis 12:1-3). These promises are then repeated to Abraham’s promised son Isaac (26:1-6), and then to Jacob, the son God chose to bless (28:12-15). With Jacob the pattern changes somewhat, as the rest of the story indicates that God has chosen all of Jacob’s descendants as His special people. But the last ‘act’ of the book follows Joseph as God’s chosen servant who secures the safety of all of his family.

At every stage there are roadblocks, barriers and existential threats to God’s promises being carried out for God’s people. Abraham and Sarah needed a miraculous intervention of God in order to conceive the promised child Isaac, because of their age. Isaac was determined to go with tradition and choose his older son Esau to receive the blessing of God’s promises, even though God had told him clearly that it would be Jacob who inherited that gift (25:23) – nevertheless God worked through the scheming of Rebekah and Jacob to ensure that His promise remained on track. And then Jacob had to fight enormous family difficulties, not just with his brother Esau but also with his (equally scheming) uncle Laban. Yet God caused him to prosper. Finally, a global food shortage threatened to wipe out God’s chosen family, but God orchestrated that Joseph would be sent to Egypt (in chains, but latterly promoted to Prime Minister) in order to store away food supplies and ensure their continued survival. In other words, Genesis is the story of a sovereign, good God who works to ensure that He keeps His wonderful promises to His people.