Bible Survey: Genesis
Genesis runs fifty chapters, so this lesson is a survey rather than a verse-by-verse study of the book that everything else in Scripture is built on. Its theme is the failure of man and the salvation of God.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The Bible never sets out to prove that God exists — it simply begins with Him. The word Genesis means beginning, and the book gives us the beginning of marriage, the family, sin, sacrifice, human government, the nation Israel and the languages of the earth. Everything except God Himself, who has no beginning.
The gospel is here as early as chapter three. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel (Genesis 3:15). Scripture speaks of the seed of Abraham and the seed of David, but only here of the seed of a woman. It is the first promise of the Saviour, who would be born of a virgin.
Moses wrote Genesis, likely between 1440 and 1400 BC, and holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21).
Because Genesis is foundational, a good many questions people argue over today are settled by simply believing it. The Lord Jesus spoke of a literal Adam and Eve and a literal flood, so creation is no fable and man did not evolve. God ordained human government in Genesis 9:6, and its first duty is to protect life: Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And since every one of us descends from Adam, and again from Noah, there is only one race — the human race.
The book follows a simple outline: creation, the fall, the flood, the tower of Babel, and then four men — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Next in the series: Exodus.
Taught by Brother James Barker in Sunday School at Naples Independent Baptist Church, April 19, 2020. Watch the lesson.
