Made in His Image: Understanding Our Unique Role in Creation

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Good morning, good morning. We talked the whole night through. Good morning, Good morning to you. I missed it, well, no, no, I missed it. I did the little reprice you did it arise, Okay, so yeah, you you went and did like a cool version. Well you know, actually ending of it. No, it's the second. It's the second sung by the girl. What's her name? Come on, Kerry Fisher's mom? Uh, missus Fisher. I don't know. Is it Donna Reid? I don't mean Kelly. And no Kathy, No, Kathy Sheldon was her name in the movie Goofball. Yeah, it's gonna bother me. It's super important. People. People are looking up right now. People are looking it up right now. Important whatsoever. But I'm doing it anyway, Go ahead, continue talking. I can't yeah, I will function. No, this is riveting now. I can't hardly look away. So if you can find it right away, if only there was a little box you could carry in your pocket, they had all of the knowledge of the universe. Yes, wouldn't it be cool? Yes? And I good gravy. Oh there's another singing in the rain. What's happening? I didn't know that? Is this real life? Okay, so it's Gene Kelly Debbie Reynolds. Debbie Reynolds almost said that she's dead. Okay, yep, she's dead in the ground. Okay, hard of belief. Way to start this message, by the way, Yeah thanks, Okay, Hey, we're gonna start off with a segment and well, I think you should explain why you sang that for our new listeners who are going like, really, is this the best that's gonna get? Oh? Yeah, Well, so we have a suitet listener who wrote in and said, I like when you've seen good morning and h and Chris does what the listeners tell him to do, and said, I would appreciate you doing that at least once a week. Now. I haven't done in several weeks because I did it for weeks and weeks and weeks, probably like eight or ten weeks in ago, and then I missed a few weeks. So I just thought, hey, i'll sing it here. We are well, thank you, Chris, Yeah, you're thank you. You've made our day. Yeah, well, welcome. What is her? What is our Joe competition. Yes, so we love this. We have not read these, and so we have five each and I will go first. Okay, you do it all right, Here we go, did Jodiye you didn't read through them because you just said we haven't read through these. I haven't read through mind yet. Here we go. Okay. I was really struggling to get my wife's attention, so I sat down on the sofa and looked comfortable. That did the trick. What what I was really struggling to oh saying she bugs me when I when I'm on the count, I think so. Yeah, I was really struggling to get my wife's attention. So I down sat down the sofa and look comfortable, And that did the trick. Yeah, that's when she nags him. Yeah, as soon as he says down he gets comfortable, that's when she If you have to use that much work to understand a joke, it was not fun. Well, the complexity of a dad joke for you. Sometimes you got to work through a little bit. Yeah, here we go. I'm over here with my crayons. Where where what you at? Okay, I've been banned from the Secret Cooking Society. I kept spilling the beans. Oh, get clever. We'll give it a clever sna. God, I would like it. Yep, all right. How about this one? I heard that you should always look into a mirror before making a big decision. It helps you reflect. That's not bad. Okay. I had a happy childhood. My dad used to put me in tires and roll being downhills. Those were good years. I like that one. That's pretty good. I used to do that, but did you. Yeah? That explains a lot where where you at. That's good. Okay, here we go. Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. Life travels faster than the speed of sound. It's a it's a science joke. Yeah. Wow, light faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. Yeah, that's right. That's good. Yeah. Again, it's not a mystery as to she gave that to you? Oh wow, didn't she? You know what, Jeff, it's random. Okay, sure there's randomness in this one. Doesn't give any thought as to who reads which one. I'm sure she just gave that to you. Correct, Okay, two slices of bread got married. The wedding was amazing until someone decided to toast the bride and groom. Oh my goodness. Now that's a good one. I really like that. That's a good one. Excuse me. Okay, just bought a book called one hundred and one Ways to Get Glue Off your Hands. It's dreadful, but I can't put it down. That's a good one. Okay. For her birthday, I took my wife to an orchard and we stood there looking at the trees for half an hour. Not the apple watch she was expecting. Apparently. I literally felt the physical disappointment in that one. Sometimes that's one of the benefits. I mean, that's what you're going for. Is either you're going for such a great surprise that makes you laugh until you cry, or it has to be like massive disappointment where you've just grown almost out of It's almost a physical pain you feel. It's the it's the other direction. Yes, Okay, how about this one. I walked down the street dressed as a screwdriver. I turned a few heads. Okay, here's my last one. I've just invented the first thought controlled air air freshener. It makes sense when you think about it. Oh wow, sense it's a great play on words. That really a good one. Okay, not bad, thank you. Those were good ones. Desire, Yeah, those are good. They weren't bad. They were like, you know, either Sometimes you get like a phenomenal one and then a really growner. I feel like this was sort of in the middle. In the middle. Yeah, it's skating between. I thought they got better as we went on. Yeah, they skatered between like a seven and a four. But there was no two's and there was no tens. Okay, so there you go. Thank you for rating those. WHI should gets you like cards, number cards to rate the jokes. Well, for the only the viewers, the listeners won't be for my benefit. I wasn't even thinking about them. But yes, I was just thinking it'd be great for you to have you hold up a number that was a solid six. Okay, we could do that. We could. Hey, we're about to launch into the second week of our brand new series, which is second day. What did I say week? Yeah, the second you're way out ahead of yourself. Well, it's a week for creation, That's what I was thinking. Good safe, Yeah, And so it's the second day of our new series and we are covering milestones of the Old Testament. Oh, that's a pretty good day. Milestones. Yeah, important. These are the highlights. Yeah yeah, highlights of the Old Testament. Yeah. So yesterday, if you missed our first episode in the series, we just talked about the first verse in the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter one, Verse one, about the fact that there's a creator, right, and then it unpacks the rest of Genesis chapter one unpacks the first day of creation, he created light, and then then the second day he created sky and water, and the third day created the land and the seas. The fourth day he created sun, moon and stars, and then on the fifth day created the fish and the bird. On the sixth day he created animals, and then he created a man and a woman to care for everything that he had made. On the seventh day he rested chilled. That's right, that's my favorite day. So today we're going to just establish the fact that God created humanity. So again we're only reading just a couple verses here, but i'd encourage you go read Genesis chapter one. It's interesting for sure. And then if you have a life application study Bible, there's probably fifteen notes, right, Pa that we're about to read from is all commentary. There's so much to unpack for sure. Anyways, Genesis chapter one, verse twenty six, it says, then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us, and they will rain over the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, and the live stock, and all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground. So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God. He created them male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and govern it. Rain over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. Then God said, look, I've given you every seed bearing plant throughout the earth, and all the fruit trees for your food. And I've given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground, everything that has life. And that is what happened. Then God looked over all that he had made, and he saw that it was very good. The evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day. There it is now. I think I was only supposed to read through verse twenty eight. Yes, I just to say that, But then I thought maybe I shouldn't. You know what, I just decided I was going to throw in some bonus value for our listener. I think it's three extra verses. I think you you got six for the price of three. Sometimes you just can't help but to keep reading. Oh, I love the Bible so much. That's it right right. I don't know why desiree wants to. I saw forming above you as you kept on reading. Can you hear the angels singing all down? Chris? Can you hear the angels singing all the time? Like? Can you hear? Or is it just when I'm around you? Did you say like angelic chorus? What not? Everybody has that? Okay, we'd have to, you know, question you there if that was the case, if that was your claim. So so here God made people. Yeah, and let's let's start off with we sort of referenced this yesterday. But he said let us make human beings. It says, so actually it says then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us. So like us and so the word trinity is not in the Bible. A lot of people they hear the word trinity and they think, oh, yeah, that's in the Bible somewhere. That's a word that man invented to create, basically, a word to piece together all the the fundamental doctrine that we are told about God himself. So, in other words, God is talking about himself, and he describes himself in various parts of the Bible, all the way from the first book all the way through the last book, right, and and he references the Father, he references the Son Jesus Christ, and then the Holy Spirit, and it refers to that is one God. They are God. Jesus himself said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one. He says, I am, and everybody falls down. We read all of that. And so so anyway, when he says, let us we understand the Trinity to be God, one God in three persons, the trinitarian belief is it's a it's not polytheism. It is it is monotheism. It's one God. And yet we have trinitarians God who has three persons in one that's correct, Yeah, yeah, and so the word, it uses that word. The word. And by the way, this is in the notes for Genesis one twenty six Pone uses the plural words. It's not definitive whether he's talking about the trinity, let us the three of us one, or is this the majestic use of plural like a king or a queen would say, we are so pleased. That is true? Right, that is true. So it could be either way, but it sure seems like God is establishing at the very beginning what we know to be true throughout the whole rest of the Bible. So most of the key elements of the entire Christian faith, most of the key elements of what we believe about God and creation and humanity and all things, happen in the first eleven chapters in the Book of Genesis, right, So everything else is informed by those first eleven chapters. And so as we know that the rest of the Bible begins to unpack the idea of a trinity, it's established first here, right at the very beginning. So there's this law in you know this in the in Bible study, they call it the law first mentioned. So the rest of the Bible will never go against what God says the first time about a thing. And so when you read Genesis chapter one, it's not just or Genesis two or three, four, five, sixty seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. It's not just those are random stories. What God is doing is using those as as anchors now for the rest of the human story, anchors for the rest of what we can know about God. He does it. He builds a you know, when we talk about sin in a couple of days, that becomes the anchor as to why everything else in the Bible has to happen. Right, So those first eleven chapters established all of those anchors that God ties the entire human story into, and it will never deviate from it. It may expand, but it'll never actually go opposite of what you discover those first eleven chapters. So that's why I would believe then that when He says let us, he's speaking about the Trinity, not just in a royal way, but in a Yeah, it would be very unusual and it would be inconsistent with if that was the choice. That's right, right, And what we're going to see in this series is the scarlet thread. You know, is Jesus even even through the Old Testament, right, So the scarlet Thread of Jesus is the theme, and you're right, it's one big story. And even though even though that it's so random that you know, which, by the way, aren't all of our lives random? You know, it feels like it all our lives feel like they're just a crazy story after crazy story that are unrelated. And yet there the scarlet thread is our life and our story and our journey. And so what we're going to see is we're going to see that, yes, everything launches back. Even the purpose of why Jesus came is anchored back into these verses in Genesis. So the original word in Hebrew there let us make human beings is the word adam, right, and it's translated as man, so let us make man in our own image, let us. But he's talking about humanity, not just the masculine, but humanity in general. And so then the man is hot Adam, which is interesting, right, So when he's talking about let us make man or let us make humanity, he uses the word adam. That eventually the first guy, his name is Adam, right, which is very clever name, which we name it. It's a man, right, And then the man, it's what Adam did when he when he saw and he's like fly, yeah, exactly, exactly. So well, yeah, where is that? Does did it say in this passage? I just read go name the animals isn't alive yet? Yeah? Yeah, well he just made him. Well he hasn't breathed life into it. And he said, look, I've given you everything. Yeah. Oh yeah. So it tells the story twice. So tomorrow we're going to do a different piece. Okay, there's there's a little layover. That's correct, it's it's a little lay right. So this one he's talking about just the fact that he made humanity and he made them in his image. It's this idea being made in the image of God, I think is a really important thing. It's what sets us apart from the rest of the animals. Right, So, people who don't believe in a soul, people who don't believe in a God, would say that we are just a higher evolved version of the rest of the animals. But God says, no, I made humanity separate, and I made humanity in my image. The Bible doesn't say he made ard varks in his image, right, he made humanity in His image, and so there's a lot of elements to that. A part of that is that we're spiritual beings, as God is spiritual. We have self determination in a lot of ways. We're not only driven by instinct, even though we have instincts, but we have the ability to make choices, we have the ability to make moral choices, and anyways, there's so many elements along those lines of being made in the image of God. Did you ever read McManus's book or Teasian Soul? Yeah, yeah, So it was an interesting way. That was a reach back. Man, this how old is that? Fifteen year at least? But the concept was interesting. I didn't love the book, to be honest with you. Sorry, if Alex McManus is listening or Irwin, I apologize, No, Alex, I knew Alex personally, but uh, it's it's a good book. Let me let me, let me let me say, Let me say that the concept of the book is spectacular, which was he basically said, every time you and I create, we are we are in the image of God because God created and he made us in his image, and so he gave us the ability to create. And he talked about how only humanity has the ability to create, right. I mean, beavers can certainly build a damn, But I'm talking about like the inception of saying, Okay, let's sit down and come up with a brilliant, brand new idea and create it, you know. And so every time you create artistically, which is why it's called the teas and soul. Uh. You know that, then you are fulfilling a part of you created the image of got right, which I thought was brilliant. Yeah, there's several of those things. Reason is another one, yeah, right, Especially complex reasoning is significant speech. There are animals that can communicate, but there are any animals that they have speech, except you know, humanity. We have speech, and speech being the ability to convey complex ideas. So the ability to reason come on a complex level, and then to be able to with speech convey complex ideas. The creativity component is a God element as well, not that we are gods, but were made in God's image. There and then, like as I mentioned, self determination, those would be the really big ones. And then on top of that, God expected us to reflect his character love and joy and peace and gentleness and kindness and right self control, all those kinds of things, and God then elevated us above the rest of creation and gave us responsibility to be stewards of it. And then he also made us diverse. So where God made one human, then we'll talk about this tomorrow. But then he makes them male and female. The diversity of humanity, the complexity of God goes beyond either of the genders. Right, but God made them male and female, So yeah, that's great. And so then it goes on and it says, you know, he made human beings, and then it says they will rain over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, and everything else on the ground. So so then he gave us authority, didn't he. So along with along with the creation and everything else, he gave us a job to do. And so we have clearly assigned dominion over the planet. And so and we're about to find out that, you know, he gave Adam and even job a fruitful and multiplier. Was the first job, yes, yes, And the second job was to tend the garden, yes, and name the animals. So Adam was then, in essence the first zoologist, right, yeah, the first gardener, yes, in the first landscape architect, right, he was the first of a lot of things. Yeah, yeah, wow, good good gravy. So there's a note on verse thirty one, which thirty one says, then God looked over all that he had made. This is after he made people, and he saw that it was very good. And I love this note as we wrap up, it says God saw that all he had created was excellent in every way. You are a part of God's creation and He's pleased with how he made you. If at times you feel worthless, remember that God made you for a good reason and you're valuable to him, which leads totally into tomorrow's conversation. Yeah, that's awesome, incredibly important. All right, Well, we will pick up next time, and hopefully we will see you there on this journey with us in this new, brand new series through Genesis. We'll see you next time on the bubble. Guys,