Prayer: God, open our eyes to see Jesus! Make our hearts burn in your presence. We want to see Jesus. Father, we ask You to open our minds and soften our hearts to learn more of You…
Read the Introduction, written by the author.
Read the first chapter “The Beginning in Light of the Ending”
The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis is an in-depth study of the first book of the Bible. Our goal of going through this study is to understand it [Genesis] in the way that Jesus himself taught the disciples to read and understand the Old Testament: as being all about him. As we see Christ in the people and patterns and in the shadows and stories of Genesis, it will help us to understand the person and work of Christ more clearly and cause us to worship him more fully.
Summary
Nancy starts by telling us why we’re starting our study of Genesis with the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry. For it is there that something is revealed that makes us want to go back to the very beginning. This week we’re beginning at the end and next week we continue at the beginning!
Next we read Luke 24. Jesus’s followers thought they understood who he was and what he came to do but they actually did not! Their understanding was distorted or diminished.
“Do you think you have Jesus figured out? Have you ever found yourself profoundly disappointed because Jesus has not done what you expected him to do?”
Jesus explains to his followers who he was and why he was on earth but he didn’t start with his own birth. Rather he opened up Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, all the way through to Malachi. He showed them, “This is who I am… why I came…”. As he worked his way through the OT, he pointed out various prophecies that he had fulfilled but he did more than that. He didn’t tell them to look to the OT men and women for how to live. He didn’t tell them (and us) to follow a formula. Rather he helped them to clearly see what God has done for them through Himself (Christ).
“… Jesus is saying here that the Bible is not primarily about what God wants us to do but about who God wants us to see.”
~Nancy Guthrie
Discussion Questions
Have a look over the 6 points for discussion. Choose to answer one or more of them either here in the comment section or on your blog. (If you respond on your own blog, please leave a comment below and link to it so that we can follow along with you).
What jumped out at you this week in the study? Have you been pondering a particular verse? What have you learned so far? Share a favourite passage or paragraph from the book.
Prayer: Father God, we thank you for Your word… we ask that you use this study to implant in us a greater longing for the end of the story – when we will one day enjoy the Promised One in the way You always intended. Strip away all the false assumptions that we have and replace them with your views. Lord, give us more than facts and doctrine, rather work in us – burn away the impurities that are in our hearts. Father, open our eyes to see Jesus… give us the ability to recognise him.
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
~Luke 24:27
*Next week: We will read through the second teaching chapter (Week 2: Creation) and complete the Personal Bible Study (PBS) section. You might like to put an asterisk beside the questions in the PBS that you’d like to share on. Be sure to underline any key passages in the chapter and your Bible – passages that are meaningful or that raise questions you’d like to discuss.
Thank you Susan, both for hosting the study and for the good summary of this week’s chapter. Having never answered a study on line, I will post a few of my answers and then perhaps comment again as I read what others have written. okay?
One of the things which struck me during the reading of this chapter was the blessing I have had, both in a good, although not Biblical. upbringing, and in the teaching I have received in the twenty eight years since I first professed faith in Christ.
Question 1 asked about upbringing and although I did not read and learn all of the Old Testament stories we were taught about the many things in the OT which foreshadowed Christ. Remnants of OT practice still carry over in the RC church in areas such as priests, sacrifice, vestments, incense etc What a wonderful eye opening experience it was for me to read the scriptures for myslef and see so many types and pointers to Christ fulfilled in his birth, death and resurrection.
I am looking forward to gaining a much deeper understanding in this study!
Question 5 reminds us that it is easy for us to be just like the Pharisees. We have the blessing of living after the Promised Messiah’s earthly ministry so we can look at both the prophecies and their fulfilment and learn more of Him. Yet had we lived in Jesus’ time no doubt, except the Lord opened our eyes as with Anna and Simeon and others, we too would have missed many of the proofs of his deity and called him a blasphemer. How can we keep from being like the Pharisees? As we study the scriptures now in the light of New Testament revelation we can keep humble and obedient hearts, calling upon the Holy Spirit for guidence. We can draw near to God and our Savior Jesus Christ in a way and depth which they could never experience.
Question 6 : My hope is to grow in knowledge and love for this Jesus who reveals himself through every chapter of The Holy Word.
Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit will be with each one of us as we read, study and absorb your Word. Fill us with a delight to learn of you, a hunger to know the scriptures, a longing for Jesus’ triumphal return and a new love and fellowship for each other. Amen.
Amen!
28 years Ruby? Wow! I wasn’t raised in a Christian home – far from it. I actually developed an interest in spirituality in my early teens, which led me to go to the local catholic church as well as read as much information as i could get from the library on witchcraft, astrology and other things like that. No doubt it was pretty scary stuff but obviously I was hungry for ‘something more’, something to fill the void, something of spirituality. God didn’t let me wander too far down that path before He drew me to Himself. / / /
I had only been a believer a few years before my first child came along so a lot of my early learning as a Christian occurred as I was teaching my own children. 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Susan, as I said, I had a wonderful upbringing but not Biblical , so much like you, I have learned along with my children. I have especially lamented that I did not learn scriptures by heart as a child. It is so much harder to teach an old fried brain!
1. I was always taught that the “Old Testament contained the New and the New Testament explained the Old.” I didn’t really understand that at the time, and yes it sometimes seemed as if the OT was a lot of unrelated stories, yet looking back I can see the connections and how things fitted together. I don’t think we really get that as very young children, yet a sound beginning is a very good thing to have. When teaching OT to children I often turn to Hebrews to help make the connection between old and new. That great chapter on faith, Hebrews 11 is particularly useful.
2. I can imagine it was the most exhilarating moment of their lives they must have been stunned, fear and confusion followed by joy and worship. They would have known though that it wasn’t going to be an easy road to follow, so I think they would have felt fear for the future. The crucifixion had just happened, they would have no doubt there would be persecution for Jesus’ followers.
3. Amazement, realising it was all true and how it fitted together with the Scriptures that had been part of their lives for generations 🙂 Maybe frustration at the way the prophecies had been misinterpreted by the religious leaders.
4. They all look intriguing; I am looking forward to finding out more.
5. A few years ago a lady who was leading a Bible study group I was attending, a lady who has a theology degree and many years experience leading small groups, stated that the Bible is simply God’s set of rules for us. I was saddened by this, because even though it does contain some rules and some very good advice it is so much more than that, I think of it as God’s love letter to us, an invitation to a greater, deeper relationship with our creator. I think 1 Corinthians 13 sums this up perfectly, if we don’t have love it doesn’t really matter how good our Biblical knowledge is. The Pharisees really knew their stuff, but were so caught up in the knowledge they forgot the whole purpose of having God’s word.
6. Another difficult question. Obviously I want to learn more about the topic we are studying, finding more about how the OT fits together with the new to point to Christ and to hear others opinions, but this is my very first online Bible study though as well as the very first eBook I have purchased, so I am not 100% sure how it will all work out or what will happen. I’ll just have to wait and see
7. I pray that we come closer to Christ through this study and to appreciate the enormousness of the details of the purpose and plan God has always had for his creation and his people and the great love this shows even though we don’t deserve it.
Hi Jenny,
Thanks for stopping by with your thoughts!
1. Yes, I agree that we don’t always see the connections as children but I think that is two fold: the early stages of learning are all about collecting information, the processing of that info comes a little later on. But also, I wonder how much of the Scriptures are taught sequentially or do we jump around? And how much does it matter to the children? Really?
I have, at times, tried to make all those sorts of connections for my children but it never quite holds the same intensity or significance for them as it did me. Why is this? Because some of these things must be a revelation. We have to dig for them ourselves in order for it to be that light bulb moment. KWIM?
Hmm, pondering with my fingers again. ☺
5. Yes, that is really sad but I too, have heard this kind of summation of the OT. How dreadfully sad for people to be unaware of the richness of the old texts. 🙁
1. As a child, I knew the stories to be true, but didn’t understand the depth of them. It sounds silly perhaps, but I have been told that if you believe the accounts of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David etc to be true, than you are not a mature Christian. I disagree with this comment, and think that the more we mature the more these people come real to us and relevant.
3. I think it would have been a real eye opener for them, a real head slap moment, like why didn’t I see that? How obvious is it all. Perhaps they would be feeling rather special knowing that it had been explained and intrusted to them to share it with others.
G’day Lisa,
Sadly, I have also heard similar… and along the lines of ‘how silly and infantile to believe in Genesis literally when it was a form of story telling to pass on the concept of God’, etc.
Glad you’re going to join us… I look forward to hearing your thoughts along the way 🙂
It is sad that some think they are too mature to accept the Biblical accounts as truth. Another trend is to try to explain away miraculous events. eg A big cyclone could have pushed the Red Sea back etc. etc. Our God is able!!!!!
I’m late, so late but I’ll keep plodding along anyway. I know I could speed through week one and get to week 2 but I really do want to develop the daily discipline.
John and I had a lovely long weekend away. We took my dad back to his hometown and we stayed there. 4 days and 3 nights away. By ourselves. Just the two of us. Alone.
Bliss.
We left the two teen boys at home. We arrived home on Sunday afternoon to the house which was in a state the opposite of bliss.
That’s why I didn’t quite get around to contributing much last week. Sorry.
4. On the last page of the chapter (24–25), there was a list of snapshots of how we are going to see Jesus in this study of Genesis. Turn to that page and look at that list. Which one is most intriguing to you and why?
I am looking forward to learning more about Jesus as the promised offspring who will crush the head of the serpent as we read through Adam & Eve in the garden. I’m also looking forward to learning about Jesus in the story of Jacob wrestling in the dark.
5. Jesus said that the Pharisees studied the Scriptures intently, thinking that their knowledge of the Scriptures and tedious law keeping would put them in good stead with God. But there was Jesus standing in front of them, and they rejected him. He infuriated, offended, and threatened their power, so they had him killed. How do we keep from being like those Pharisees as we study the Scriptures?
I think that when we read through the OT we should keep an eye open to see how and where it (the OT) points to the Messiah rather than simply looking at it as a list of rules or a formula.
My favourite bit from this week was where Nancy Guthrie wrote,
“Jesus didn’t work his way through Genesis to point out what we must do for God, but to help us to see clearly what God has done for us through Christ.
As we read the Old Testament, we don’t want to merely make observations about the behavior of the godly and godless and then try harder to be like the godly and less like the godless. Instead, we must realize that there are no true heroes in the Old Testament. No one is perfectly and persistently pleasing to God—the judges aren’t strong enough, the kings aren’t good enough, the prophets aren’t clear enough, and the priests aren’t pure enough.”
Glad you were able to have a break away, Susan.
There is something just so marvelous for a believer to read and study the scripture. A good novel has twists and turns and climaxes to get our attention but the Word of God has so many amazing pieces of a puzzle all beautifully woven together, only revealed by the Holy Spirit, to the be believer. Every reading is a new pearl for us!!!! Only possible from the mouth of God.
Amen to that!
I don’t know if I am allowed to post backwards, as we are already almost at the end of the second study, but I hadn’t received any e mail notifications of more comments for some reason, so I have only just caught up.
Is the sequence we teach the Bible in really as important as what it is about? Do I really need to know Jeroboam comes before Hezekiah to have a relationship with the living God? We don’t necessarily learn that way, think of how History is taught, we don’t always start with cavemen and work up to the present day, yet we seem to end up sorting it out more or less in our own minds.
Personally I have always liked to teach what the Bible is, break it up books of history, law, prophecies, poetry, the gospels, Acts and letters to the Churches. Obviously there is a lot of overlapping, but that is OK.
Then I always put the story (and there is another problem) into context. This is the real history of a nation and how God chose them and interacted with them. I try really hard to say event or subject. If I do slip up and say story, I correct myself by emphasising it is a true story. If I was teaching about the Eureka Stockade or The Middle Ages etc I would never introduce it as a story.
I also like to give the kids something they can identify with to make it real. I have a great time line and I am sure they are easy to find. When you tell a child that the Judges began to rule in Egypt around the time of King Tut or Jonah was alive when the first recorded Olympic games happened you can see lights go on . Did you know that around the time of Jesus’birth the Romans first began to use soap? Eww smelly! The Bible uses this technique by giving us details of what was happening in the world around Israel at the time of various events, so I think it is fine to use it. It wasn’t a great nation as far as great inventions or taking over the world goes, so it’s history tends to get sidelined. Another great point, God choose a small humble nation to be his people, not a great military power like Rome or Egypt.
Older kids can start looking at the wealth of archaeological evident for the Bible if they are interested. To me, showing it isn’t just a collection of unrelated stories is very important. It is the word of the living God as relevant to us today as when it was first written 🙂
Wow, thank Jenny! Such wonderful gems shared in your post. And I don’t think it matters one little bit if we work backwards or anyway in between. 😉