I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 1-3.

And a new year begins.  I want to begin with a thought experiment I have referred to parts of from time to time.  Let us assume that God as described in the Old Testament exists (I may talk about if and how the New Testament changes our understanding of God later).  So, this God created the Universe and everything in it and takes a personal interest in humans.  And that interest is not just in humans in general, or just a few humans, but each and every human.  I will expand on this as we go along (unless God directs my thoughts in another direction).

Which brings us to my understanding of today’s passage and what I think it means for us.  Part of the above assumption means that God could communicate to humans what happened that they had not witnessed.  However, nothing in my understanding of God suggests that He had any reason for humans to know in detail what happened before He created them.  So, there is no reason to expect that the description of what happened before the creation of human beings is correct in the details.  But there are a couple of things to take from it.  Entropy and death happen because of mankind’s sin.  And what was that sin?  The desire to know the difference between good and evil so as to be like God.  Ultimately all sins come down to attempts to substitute ourselves, or our desires. for God.