Genesis 1-11: Foundations for Living
by Ray Stedman
1
1 Corinthians 4:1-2 -- So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.
1: Foundations for Living
It hardly needs to be said that the place to begin reading a book is at the beginning. Still, many people have the habit of reading the last chapter of a book first. But if you try that with the Bible, you will become very confused indeed. The best place to begin with it is at the beginning. There are, however, many who find it difficult to begin with Genesis. They are thrown off by the language, which they find to be a bit stiff and somewhat antiquated, especially if they are reading one of the older Bible translations.
Others are discouraged because they bring to the study of this book certain immature concepts about God and the Bible, which they have retained from their childhood. I call these "teddy bear" ideas. Most of us slept with a teddy bear when we were little but discarded it when we grew up. But unfortunately we have not always discarded the "teddy bear" ideas we had as boys and girls about God and the Bible but instead have carried them over into adult life. When we impose these teddy bear ideas upon the Scriptures, we discover that the Bible has a tendency to turn us off and that the book becomes dull and uninteresting to us.
Still others come to Genesis rather prejudiced by the widespread rejection of this book as unscientific or primitive in its concepts. So they read the book, especially the first chapters, with a sense of distaste. They read it simply to be informed about a book that is widely known. But they are already prejudiced against it, and consequently they never really see what is here.
I would like to suggest that we attempt to read this book as though we have never read it before, to carefully note what is said and what is not said. We must remember that Genesis is the first chapter of the story that ends with the presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the declaration of the way God has found to obtain the release of human life from despair and death and to bring it into power, excitement, and grace. In other words, the God of Genesis is the God of the rest of the Bible.
It is a completely false idea to assume that the God of Genesis is different from the God found in the rest of the Bible, to view Him as an austere, stern, harsh, rather remote Being--a Creator only--whose attitude toward humanity is quite different from in the New Testament. But this is not true at all. The idea has come from people who have taken isolated texts from the Scriptures and used them to build a distorted picture of God. But you will find the grace of God shining through the book of Genesis as much as it does in the New Testament. The love of God, the compassion, the tenderness, the sweetness of God, are manifest as much in Genesis as they are anywhere else in the Bible.
If we read this book carefully, we will discover that the God of Genesis is undoubtedly the God of the rest of the Bible. In the New Testament, He is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and all those who believe in Him; He exercises a father's heart. But our first glimpse of this same God is as the Creator. That is the way we are introduced to Him in the first chapter of this beginning book of the Bible.
Insights into Ray Stedman -- The Preacher
Those who knew Ray Stedman saw him as a very ordinary man. People never addressed him as Reverend or Doctor, or even as Mr. Stedman. He was Ray. Rather than standing at the church door following the service, simply to shake hands with everyone, Ray waited near the front to answer questions and be available to those who sought him out. Some of Ray's most effective ministry took place while most people were still filing out!
Ray had an encyclopedic mind, and was able to instantly recall to memory poetry, ancient history, musical lyric and literature.
Ray told pastoral interns at PBC that they should expect to study at least 20 hours for every hour in the pulpit. He was committed to a high standard of expository preaching (see On Expository Preaching and The Primacy of Preaching), different from what often passes for expository preaching today.
In considering a new preaching series, Ray would often ask many people all sorts of questions so as to understand their issues and needs. Ray then would prayerfully seek the mind of the Lord, finally choosing a book of the Bible which would best speak into the congregation's life with relevance and effectiveness. He was committed to teaching the whole counsel of God, encouraging pastors to preach from all books of the Bible. Ray never boasted, and one might think him a very ordinary person – until one heard him speak. He never “talked down” to his congregation, as if from a higher office, recognizing that as demeaning to God’s flock. He was embraced as “one of the people.” Ray taught and modeled against the unbiblical division between clergy and laity, championing instead the “ministry of the saints” (Eph.4:11–13). He spoke in plain English, each message laid out as a banquet table for all. Each age group could learn and grow, and folks rarely ever fell asleep! He seldom used fancy words, not wanting to seem as if he knew much more than others.
Early in his PBC ministry the elders determined that Ray should spend about a quarter of his time each year teaching away from Palo Alto. Ray's heart, and most of this time away, was devoted to teaching young pastors around the world how to preach effectively. His reduced “time at home” had the unfortunate effect that Ray therefore never preached from some books of the Bible. But PBC's "loss" was the church's gain.
In his message preparation, Ray only referred to commentaries as a final step. Rather, he would begin by reading his complete Bible text over and over, pondering difficult sections and praying for wisdom and clarity. In his teaching, Ray relied strongly on the meaning of the original languages, even more than did many commentators. (Ray has been known to have gently corrected the translators of newer Bibles where they may have missed certain nuances of the original Hebrew and Greek.) From the text he anticipated questions he was likely to hear, and always welcomed such inquiry. Ray encouraged critique from both his staff and others, and weighed seriously their comments. Not seeing himself as elevated in status, Ray treated these encounters as an interchange between brothers.
The earliest online recorded message from Ray (38 minutes) is The Body of Christ; it seems as fresh and applicable today as it was in 1958! Each Sunday when the time came to preach, Ray simply stepped up and began speaking in a conversational voice, easily connecting with the congregation. For many years Ray’s preaching notes consisted of simple 3x5 cards mainly containing quotations he planned to use. His sermons were so flawlessly delivered they seldom needed editing before being put into print. Each following Sunday the now-printed sermon was made available, along with dozens of earlier sermons, in racks that covered both walls of the large entry lobby to the auditorium. This www.RayStedman.org website library is the electronic version of those racks, now making Ray's teaching even more accessible to a people still hungry for these timeless gospel messages.
