Bible Reading Plan – January 8-14

Genesis begins to unfold the plan of God to save humanity from their fall and their sin against him.  To accomplish this task, God adopts as his own what might seem to us a very strange family.  Filled with discord, fighting, sexual impurity, and with what can only be called a very loose view of the truth at times, this family does not seem to be an ideal family to redeem humanity through. And yet, God’s plan moves forward. Interestingly, God’s plan was always to save humanity through humanity. He was not going to use angels, or dogs, or some mystical power. God would work his salvation for all people through this one particular family. This means that sin and the fall would not only be present, but need to be overcome.

But why did God work his will this way? Why not save through some other means that didn’t involve putting up with so much sin, or using such sinful people? There was, it seems, no other way to bring us Jesus, who was God with us, and yet very man of very man. A perfect man to rescue a sinful people.  Jesus didn’t just come from Abraham and his family line; he came to rescue it.

This is good news for us: we too are disfunctional, filled with problems and sin. But we don’t need to overcome these for our salvation, for we never could.  The good news, the gospel, is that Jesus does that for us.

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”(Galatians 3:6, ESV)

Also, if you would like a short study guide to help you through Genesis, we at Crossway have made two of them. The first, covering chapters 1-11, can be found here. The second, covering 12-50, here.