Opening reflection
Genesis is one of the most read and most discussed parts of the Bible. It sets the questions the rest of the story will answer: Who is God? Who are we? Why is the world both beautiful and broken? And what is God doing about it? Reading Genesis well helps everything that follows make more sense.
- Recognise Genesis 1–2 as a theological account of God, the world and humanity.
- Understand what it means to bear ‘the image of God’.
- See Genesis 3 as the story of relational fracture, not just individual disobedience.
- Read Abraham’s call as the beginning of God’s long answer to that fracture.
- Understand ‘covenant’ as a relationship of promise and commitment.
Key Bible passages
Genesis 1:26–31
The making of human beings in God’s image, and the call to care for the world.
Genesis 3
The story of fracture — between people and God, each other and the land.
Genesis 12:1–9
Abraham’s call: a particular family with a worldwide purpose.
Genesis 15
God’s covenant with Abraham — promise spoken, sealed and remembered.
Open these in your Bible, or in a free reader like Bible Gateway or YouVersion.
Teaching
A theological foundation, not a science textbook
Genesis 1 and 2 are best read as careful theological accounts. They’re telling us who God is, what kind of world this is, and who we are within it. They speak in patterned, almost poetic language — light and dark, sky and sea, animals and people — building up a picture of an ordered, good creation.
Christians read Genesis in different ways alongside modern science, but on the central point there’s broad agreement: this is a world made by God, called good, with people given particular dignity and responsibility.
The image of God
In Genesis 1:26–27, human beings are described as made in God’s image. This is one of the most important statements in the Bible. It speaks of dignity that doesn’t depend on age, ability, status or background. It also speaks of responsibility — to care for the world we’ve been given.
Throughout the Bible, this idea quietly underwrites a great deal: the value of every person, the call to justice, the seriousness of harm and the hope of restoration.
Fracture: Genesis 3
Genesis 3 describes a deep fracture. Trust between people and God breaks. Relationships between people become strained. The relationship between people and the land is disrupted. This isn’t a single private failure; the picture is of a whole network of relationships going wrong.
Importantly, the chapter doesn’t end in despair. Even in the middle of judgement, hints of mercy and future hope are woven in. This pattern — honest about what’s broken, but never closing the door on hope — runs all the way through the Bible.
Abraham and covenant
Genesis 12 is one of the great pivots of the Bible. Out of all the families on the earth, God calls one — Abraham and Sarah — and gives them a promise: land, descendants, and a blessing that will reach ‘all the families of the earth’.
What follows in Genesis 15 and 17 is sometimes called a covenant: a committed, promise-shaped relationship initiated by God. Covenant is one of the Bible’s key words. It frames how God relates to Israel, and later how the New Testament speaks of Jesus opening a ‘new covenant’.
How this helps you read the Bible
- You’ll read later parts of the Bible knowing where the themes of image, dignity, fracture and promise began.
- You’ll recognise covenant language when it appears throughout both testaments.
- You’ll be slower to read Genesis as a debate about science and quicker to read it as a vision of God, world and humanity.
Read these two passages back-to-back. Notice the way the second picks up themes from the first.
- Genesis 1:26–31
- Genesis 12:1–9
Questions to ask
- What words or phrases stand out in Genesis 1:26–31?
- What is God promising Abraham in Genesis 12:1–9?
- What does it mean that people are made in God’s image?
- Why might God begin to put the world right through one particular family?
- Where in your own life do you see both the goodness of creation and the fracture of Genesis 3?
- Pray, in your own words, a short prayer in response to one thing you’ve read.
Next we follow Abraham’s descendants into the bigger story of Israel, kings and prophets.
Mark this session as complete to keep track of where you are.