June 7th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

It amazes me how skillful writers can pack so much into one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter. I think the hardest part of writing is the beginning – setting the tone and preparing the reader for everything that follows.

Have you ever thought of reading the Bible as… a book? Opening to Genesis one with no prior understanding of what it is about, no childhood Bible stories or flannelgraph pictures floating around in your head, no idea of who God is or why Jesus came? What does the first chapter, the way this book begins, tell us?

Crack open your Bible {or look at Genesis one online}. Does anything stand out to you as you read through this? I know it’s probably familiar – but try to look at it with new eyes.

Let me summarize…

1“…God created…”
3“Then God said…
4“And God saw…and God divided…”
5“God called…”
6“God said…”
7“Thus God made…”
8“And God called…”
9“Then God said…”
10“And God called…God saw…”
11“Then God said…God saw…”

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was writing this account, I think I might throw in a few personal pronouns here or there. I mean, God is the only one in existence at this point, so I don’t think it would be confusing to the readers! :)

This chapter has a lot to tell us.

We have got to stop thinking that the Bible is all about us. It’s not about us. It’s not about grand heroes of the faith. It’s not about people who followed rules or broke the rules. It’s not about the rules, either. It’s not about giving us little inspiring nuggets to make us feel good, or positive thoughts we can embroider on a tote bag. {although, I do love me some tote bags with verses on them!}

The Bible is all about GOD.

It starts with God, and God alone. He is creating, speaking, saying, making, calling… the text seems to be reverberating with this message: It’s all about GOD! And as we read through the pages of this book, we find that while human beings come and go through the narrative, sometimes making a brief appearance and sometimes occupying several chapters or books, GOD is the star of the show. It’s all about His plans, His Word, His name, His glory.

If we could only wrap our minds around this, the Scripture and even our very lives would make more sense. There are a lot of details I wish were in the Bible – I want to know more about what life was like on the ark, what the Tower of Babel looked like, what on earth Solomon was thinking when he decided to marry about a million women {only a slight exaggeration}, what Jesus’ childhood was like. But the Bible isn’t really about those things. It’s about God. It’s all about revealing His nature and ways and glorious plan. He makes Himself known to us through Scripture, but we are constantly looking for ourselves instead.

Even our daily lives would make more sense if we fully comprehended that this book, this world, this day is not about us and our glory and our plans and our happiness. It is all about God.  It is all about His glory, making His name known, fulfilling His plans and purposes.

He is the point of The Story. He is the point of my story.

He is the point of it all.

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