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During the time of his doctoral course at Cohen University, Dr. Kim went to Korea to learn tointerpret the Bible through Hebrew thinking.
For five consecutive days, Dr. Kim attended a very intensive lecture series on how to interpret the Bible through Hebrew thinking.
However, at this lecture series, the entire first day was spent interpreting and studying only Genesis 1 verse 1.
In fact, the next four days were spent solely in the first book of Genesis ? Genesis Chapter 1.
So, in all five days, only five chapters were learned. It was an unusual lecture.
To that extent, Genesis Chapter 1 is packed with important meanings.
Allow me to share a little of what I learned during this time.
Genesis 1:1 begins with the following words:”Bereshit bara”.
Vocalized: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָאאֱלֹהִיםאֵתהַשָּׁמַיִםוְאֵתהָאָרֶץ
Transliterated: Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayimve’etha’aretz.
“Bereshit” is translated as “Introduction,” and “bara” is translated as “Created”.
These two words are an example of Hebrew’s word repetition.
To better understand the repeating part, let’s look at these Hebrew words:
בראשׁית ברא
“bara” is simply translated as “to create”.
“Bara” also means, “God created order”.
God Emphasizes Belief By Repeating “Order”.
In Genesis, there is no single word “believe”.
This is because, for the Jewish people, belief in God is an understood premise.
Therefore, for them, there is no need to mention a “belief” in God and “belief” does not need to be said.
Biblical questions about God’s word such as, “Is that really so?” are not common in Judaism.
Greek thinking is classified, criticized, and analyzed from many directions.
However, this mode of thinking is derived from Satan.
The word of God is to be believed and declared, not explored or argued.
When it comes to understanding something new, many people first try to understand it with their own minds and then they make many mistakes as they try to teach what they understood to people.
However, evangelism is not an explanation of what you understood with your head.
Instead, evangelism is giving people the riches and grace of God as a result of believing with full faith that God’s word is true.
Maintaining, Preserving, Managing, and Progressing The Order That God Has Made
“Bara” not only creates order but also includes maintaining, preserving, managing, and progressing the order that God has made.
Preserving God’s divine order is the most important thing.
When God’s rules of order in the world collapse, it will be a time when the entire universe collapses.
That is why, consciously as well as unconsciously, each of us are seriously troubled in our hearts and minds when we see God’s order in the world collapsing even a little bit.
Due to the fact that God declared and created order in the universe by His “declaration”, the whole universe and each individual body and operation in it works according to God’s original declaration.
Even though every moment in the universe seems to operate casually, every moment is actually the order of God in operation. The order in the universe is a continuation of God’s infinite grace.
There are few people who worry that their heart will continue to beat for a hundred years without it needing to stop or rest while sleeping.
If any person worries that their heart may stop at the next moment, doubting God’s sovereignty and command by His grace to “keep the heart moving”, it will lead to a life of constant worry and burden.
When order in the world collapses and many people are deceived by Satan, unnecessary worry and ruined lives will result.
God’s “Grace” Means “Restoration Of Order”
God originally created the world to be perfect and in order. So, there was never a need for anything to “recover”.
Now, however, people need God’s grace and recovery.
God created a perfect order but there is a person who is trying to interrupt God’s order.
As a result, the world and the people becoming cursed.
That person is Satan.
Satan is trying to enter into our personal relationship with God and trying to cause division between us and God.
Satan wants to enter human relationships, intervene in human history, and collapse God’s divine order.
Satan comes to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10) and has no hesitation or compassion.
The moment Satan enters into any situation, he comes to undo and destroy everything good that comes from God.
Satan tries to dominate any situation and tries to quickly disturb peaceful hearts and break quiet relationships.
No matter how much of an angel-like light you may have or what kind of sheep-like character you may have, as soon as Satan comes, the temperature of thoughts and ideas drops and it is easy to become irritable when Satan is working.
God Originally Created People To Rule This World
“Bereshit bara”
It is God who has created the whole universe and it is God alone who has created the its invisible order.
It is God alone who maintains, conserves, manages, and causes the universe to grow and progress.
When God’s order collapses, we become helpless beings who can not do anything.
Satan is constantly trying to break God’s divine order and is always trying undermine the sovereignty of God.
Satan is trying to destroy God’s order through humans.
God originally created people to rule this world.
If you believe in the Word of God and do exactly as the Bible commands and instructs, then God’s creation works as He declared, order is preserved, and everything is deemed “good”.
However, if you question God’s sovereignty and live your life according to Satan’s ideas that oppose the word of God, then destruction and death will soon begin to work in your life and the world around you as well.
We need to live our lives according to the words declared by God.
When we do this, we have the authority of the gospel of God to restore order in this world that Satan is trying to destroy!
Bless you in the name of Jesus!
