The basic guidelines for interpreting Genesis 1–3 derive from Scripture itself. If we follow the guide of Scripture, we will read Genesis 1–3 with understanding. We will not have all our questions answered, because Genesis 1–3 does not say everything that could be said about the details of how God did things. Much remains mysterious.

ABSTRACT: The beginning of the book of Genesis is not, as some claim, a mythical or poetic account of creation. It is historical narrative, telling the same story that unfolds in the patriarchs, the exodus, and the establishment of Israel. And, being from God, it speaks truly. Modern readers may not learn everything they would like to know about creation from Genesis 1–3, but they will find everything they most need to know. They also will find an account of creation unlike anything outside the Bible. Compared to the creation myths of Israel’s neighbors, Genesis stands majestically alone.
How do we interpret Genesis 1–3 in a sound way? It is not so easy to find out just by listening to and reading modern interpreters. There are many voices, and they disagree with one another.
I have only one main piece of advice. We learn how to read Genesis 1–3 wisely in the same way that we learn to read the rest of the Bible wisely. And how is that? By taking to heart what the Bible itself says. Several aspects of biblical teaching need to be taken into account.
Let us begin with a foundational issue: the nature of God.
Who God Is

Does God exist? And what kind of God is he? Is he a God who can create the world, in the way that Genesis 1 describes? Is he the kind of God who could fashion the first woman from the rib of Adam, as Genesis 2:21–22 describes? Is he the kind of God who can speak in an audible voice from the top of Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:9–20:22; Deuteronomy 5:2–22)? Is he the kind of God who can multiple five loaves and two fish, so that they feed five thousand men (John 6)?
Most of elite culture in the modern Western world does not believe in a God like that. Rather, the culture is deeply influenced by philosophical materialism, which says that matter is the ultimate constituent of the world. If some kind of a god exists, he is not involved in the world in the way that the Bible describes. He is not a God who speaks or who works miracles.
In addition, some people are influenced by New Age mysticism. They believe in various kinds of spiritual influence. But their “god,” if they call it that, is an aspect of nature.
The issue of God is monumentally important. If God is not a God such as the Bible describes, then either the Bible is a lie or it has to be radically reinterpreted. And that is what people do. Much of the academic study of the Bible at major universities of the world takes place under the assumption that the way we read the Bible must harmonize with modern ideas about the world. Hence, this academic study corrupts the Bible. And then this corruption travels out into general culture.
But in fact, God exists — the same God that the Bible describes. Therefore, the elite people in Western culture are walking in the dark about God. It is the culture, not the Bible, that has to be radically reinterpreted. Genesis 1–3 is one text — a crucial text — that shows the massive difference between the Bible’s view of God and common modern Western views.
The first point, then, is that when we read the Bible, we need to reckon with who God is.
The Divine Authorship of the Bible

A second issue concerns the nature of the Bible. It is the word of God. It is what God says.
One principal reason for the diversity of readings of Genesis 1–3 is an underlying diversity of opinion about what kind of text the Bible is. Much of the academic study of Genesis takes place with the assumption that God is not the author of Genesis. In effect, academics deny the divine inspiration of the Bible. This denial follows directly from the prior assumption that God does not speak. According to modern Western thinking, either God does not exist, or he was not involved in the writing of Genesis in a special way. Or, if he was involved somehow, he deferred pretty much to the human author or authors. One way or another, these people discount divine meaning and search only for human meaning.
Clearly, the issue of divine authorship makes a difference in what meanings come out at the end, because a misjudgment about who the author is leads to a misjudgment about what he means. Or, according to some postmodern interpretive approaches, verbal texts and the readers who interact with texts float in a sea of meanings, more or less independent of either God or human authors. But this kind of multiplication of meanings is a mistake, because it discounts the unique authority of God to say what he means and to do so with unique authority.
So it is worthwhile asking whether the Bible teaches divine authorship. It does, in any number of places. Second Peter 1:21 says, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This verse affirms a role for human authors: “men spoke . . .” But it emphasizes that the more ultimate and decisive author is God: “men spoke from God”; and “they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus himself affirms the divine authority of the Old Testament in a number of places and a number of ways (Matthew 5:17–20; 19:4–5; 26:54; John 10:35). Interested readers can consult any number of books by evangelical authors, showing how the Bible affirms its own divine authorship and authority (2 Timothy 3:16).
Since God is a God of truth (John 3:33), his word is truth (John 17:17). He can be trusted. The Bible can be trusted, because it is his word. That must be our attitude as we read Genesis 1–3 — and every other passage in the Bible.
So here, in the fact of divine authorship, we have a second central principle in interpreting the Bible. We read and study it with respect and trust, rather than distrust. Just as we must reinterpret modern Western culture in its view of God, so, for the same reason, we must avoid imitating the distrust that the culture has toward the Bible. We avoid also the human temptation to pick and choose the meanings that please our prior preferences, or picking and choosing to believe only those parts of the Bible that line up with our preferences. That picking and choosing makes sense only for people who have already rejected God.
The Genre of Genesis

Next, let us ask what kind of a book Genesis is. In accord with the richness of who God is, what God says in the Bible includes a variety of forms or genres of literature. God chooses a variety of ways of communicating, in order that we may absorb what he says and grow in communion with him in a variety of complementary ways. The book of Psalms, for example, is a collection of poetic songs and prayers. In the Gospels, we find sermons of Jesus (such as the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5–7), parables, records of miracles, records of healings, and the record of the crucifixion. The Bible has prophetic books like Isaiah that contain exhortations, recollections of God’s past dealings, and predictions about the future. There are historical books, such as 1–2 Kings, that have a record of past events in the history of Israel.
Each literary section of the Bible was crafted by God, as well as by the human author (2 Peter 1:21). It is exactly what God designed to say, not only in its contents, but also in all its details, including the features of genre. If we respect God, then we should take into account how he chooses to communicate. It would be a mistake, for example, if an interpreter were to treat Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3–7) as if it were a prosaic nonfictional account that is merely about one shepherd and one sheep. It is a fictional story with a spiritual point. The point is indicated at the end: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Jesus also indicates near the beginning of the parable that it is hypothetical, rather than an actual case in real life: “. . . if he [the shepherd] has lost one of them [the sheep], . . .” (Luke 15:4).
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You will not miss the day for no one can miss the day, not even the dead. The dead will be rising from the ground and from the depths of the sea. At that day dear friend, and at that moment, look up and see the salvation of our God! Jesus Christ Himself will be descending with all power and glory to judge the living and the dead for He has been given a dominion which is everlasting and a kingdom that shall never be destroyed!

And at midnight there was a cry made…Matthew 25:6
Few errors in the last 150 years have distracted the church and the world from the primacy of the Triune God and Salvation through Jesus Christ alone than the teaching of the secret rapture.
While not as widespread as it was 50 years ago, in some areas of the evangelical world, belief in the secret rapture seems to be the litmus test for a Christian profession. It is discussed as if when the Philippian jailor asked Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved in Acts 16:30 that Paul and Silas responded, “believe in the secret pre-tribulation rapture of the church and you shall be saved.”
Of course Paul and Silas said something quite different. Nevertheless in our day it is a very common, perhaps even a majority evangelical position, that ascension into heaven by God’s people will take place in secret. If you have read the “Left Behind” series or seen any number of movies based on those books, it is portrayed with planes falling out of the sky and cars crashing because their Christian pilots and drivers have been secretly raptured.
The cry described in Matthew 25 is not a cry that only the wise virgins hear or experience. It is a cry that goes out to all. It is a public cry. The public cry is the testimony not only of Matthew 25 but of the whole Scripture. In chapter 24, the Lord told us that like in the days of Noah when all men saw the flood coming and it was too late for it was upon them, so when the Lord returns all men will see His coming and it will be too late to obtain salvation.
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To engage in gospel ministry is to be given over to death for Christ’s sake, so that others would know the life Christ offers. Paul’s love for the Corinthians is so great he will even live a life that looks like dying. He’ll be afflicted, persecuted, and hurt for them. By every measure, his life looked in danger. He was bleeding out life for them – giving his minutes, hours and years for them. He was giving up comfort and home and security for them. He was giving himself up for them … much like Jesus did. In a world that teaches us to love ourselves – where the self is sacred and must be protected as priority – the Apostle Paul gives up that ‘safety mindset’ for his love of Jesus and others. And not only does he forgo his own security. 

‘Caution: slippery when wet’
Our society is risk-averse. With our endless road signs, laws and regulations, we’ve cultivated a society that champions safety and prioritises the elimination of risk. Our Western world is safety obsessed.
How have we got here? Surely, our love of money is a part of the picture. We don’t want to pay out for an ‘oversight’, and so we love the fine print. Our faith is in the fine print. Human hubris and the unrealistic belief that there is a world in which we can truly control every outcome and risk also forms a part of the picture. It has led to urbanisation and infrastructure. Increasingly, the average human experience is ‘life in the city’ – where our buildings, streets and city lights allow us the illusion of safety. ‘If you live within our city walls, and follow our laws, you will flourish and thrive’ is the catch cry.
Most of all, however, our safety obsession must stem from our fear of our own mortality. Death is our common enemy and so let’s give ourselves a fighting chance to keep it at bay as long as possible. We do this partly by denying death’s power and keeping it at the peripheries of the human experience: in our hospitals and out of our conversations. ‘Fifty is the new thirty’ is the lie that ‘death has no power’, wrapped up in billions of dollars of cosmetic branding. We fear death and its portents: sickness and age. So we adopt a ‘safety mindset’ to protect ourselves.
Perhaps there are other reasons for how we got here. Nevertheless, safety has become a virtue and aspiration. We use the ‘safe’ adjective endlessly: safe schools, safe house, safe spaces, safe ministry. We cannot conceive of a world in which there is ever an argument against safety. My question is whether this is a good and biblical thing?
Please be assured, this isn’t an argument for recklessness! A society with no laws and regulations for the general good is a place of chaos.
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