The Gospel in Genesis and in the City

A Thirty-Day Devotional for City Dwellers

John P. Davis

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725262164
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Genesis offers insight and encouragement to those who live and minister in urban environments. Though the world began in a garden-temple, it eventually arrives at an urban temple. There are indications in Genesis that those who are made in God's image seek community, and urban living offers the promise of community. The first major attempt at city-building in Genesis represents man in rebellion against God. Contrariwise, the New Testament tells us that Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. Abraham desired a city designed for worship, not a Babel-like monument to human rebellion. Human cities most often represent rebellion, not worship, and need redemption. Genesis offers much insight into how the unfolding story of the gospel relates to the desperate plight of urban dwellers as they futilely seek to find rest and community in urban temples that worship the creature rather than the Creator.

Day One Introduction to Genesis

“In the beginning God . . .”

Genesis begins with God and ends with the dying words of Joseph who prophesied that God would visit his people and redeem them from Egypt. Genesis is a gospel story, i.e., the entire book is the first chapter in the grand narrative of God’s redeeming grace. It begins with the story of creation, which prepares us for redemptive themes as God by his word calls light out of darkness and order out of chaos. Genesis is about blessing and loss of blessing, about innocence and loss of innocence, about exile and a longing to find rest. It is about an Edenic garden-temple and the divine commission of stewardship and worship; it is about rebellion, about spiritual conflict, and the promise of One who would triumph over evil.

Genesis 1–11 provides the prologue to the storyline of the Bible in telling us of a once good world that is now fallen, broken, divided, and in rebellion. Genesis 12 begins the redemptive story of how God recreates a new people, a new land, and a new mission of bringing blessing to the nations of the world. Israel becomes the new humanity to succeed where Adam had failed. Israel will also fail as Adam did, and as we read the story of Israel, we yet long for the One who will triumph over evil and truly bring blessing to the nations of the world.

Genesis offers insight and encouragement to those who live and minister in urban environments. Though the world began in a garden-temple it eventually arrives at an urban temple. There are indications in Genesis that those who are made in God’s image seek community, and urban living offers the promise of community. The first major attempt at city-building in Genesis represents man in rebellion against God. Contrariwise, the New Testament tells us that Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. Abraham desired a city designed for worship, not a Babel-like monument to human rebellion. Human cities most often represent rebellion, not worship, and need redemption. Genesis offers much insight into how the unfolding story of the gospel relates to the desperate plight of urban dwellers as they seek to find rest and community in urban temples that worship the creature rather than the Creator.

Day Two

In Genesis 1 we find our Redeemer-King creating and forming a world to be inhabited and ruled by those made in his image. Creation was a gracious blessing and generous gift to humankind. All was perfect; all was glorious. But, as we read Genesis 1, we realize that the harmonious world conditions therein no longer exist. Our hearts are not in unison with God’s repeated summary, “all is good.” Instead our hearts cry out because of the brokenness within our lives and within the created world.

Though Genesis 1 provides for us the origin of God’s World, it does not do so in order to generate scientific debate but to provoke spiritual desire. Genesis 1 exposes us to the good that once was and creates in us a desire to regain what was lost and to know the One who brought such a majestic universe into existence. The subsequent biblical and secular history of humankind, as well as our own personal history, reveals the utter powerlessness of men and women to regain what has been lost. Consequently, we long for a Redeemer-King who can rescue, rule, and restore. Ultimately he is the one who says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5).

So, Genesis 1 is an integral part of the gospel story, telling us that the world, as it is, is not what God intended, and causing us to anticipate One who would restore the world and us to an even greater enjoyment of God’s gracious gift and generous blessing.

The urban centers of this world can no longer be called “good.” There is no Eden in Philadelphia; yet living with an awareness of the good that has been lost, city dwellers seek to find Eden or build it themselves. Their efforts are noble but futile. This is not our world. It is still his. He is the Creator and he alone is wise and powerful enough to restore what is lost and repair what we have broken. God chooses to begin that restoration in the hearts and lives of those who have rebelled against him. This is the first step back—to recognize that this is his world, we have ruined it and are ruined ourselves, and we need to be restored to him first. Our hearts cry for the One who can do that!

Day Three

Genesis 2 portrays the kingdom of God in its original harmony. God creates man in his own image and places him in his kingdom, a garden-temple, in which Adam offers priestly service to God by extending throughout creation order and beauty and dominion in the worship of God. God graciously gives Adam a wife with whom he partners in his priestly duties of extending the kingdom of God. All is in harmony, God with man, man with the world, and man with woman.

There is only one restriction in the Garden/temple—“to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God lovingly protected humanity from the experiential knowledge of evil. The only way to know evil experientially was to do evil by rebelling against God and eating of the forbidden tree. Adam knows that good and evil exist because of the nature of the tree. He has only experienced good up to this point and need not experience evil, unless he rebels.

Again, we are reminded, as we read, that this harmony has been replaced with struggle. There now exists a tension in man’s relationship with God, with the world, and with other human beings. We know not only the existence of evil, we know the experience of evil, and it has ruined us.

The harmonious world that once was is broken and cries out for a redeemer—One who can defeat the evil that disrupts the harmony of God’s creation, a redeemer who can restore humankind to the priestly work of extending order and beauty and dominion in the worship of God.

Perhaps nowhere is this loss of harmony seen more clearly than in the city. The brokenness of man’s relationship with the world is seen vividly in the plague of poverty, blighted, trash-ridden neighborhoods, polluted rivers and streams, poor air quality, diminishing open space, etc. Also, the brokenness of human relationships is seen in the prevalence of divorce, single-parent homes, homelessness, economic oppression, racism, and violence. But most evident is the spirit of rebellion against God. Like Adam, city dwellers often choose the experience of evil rather than worshipful obedience to the Creator God. Rather than do the priestly work of serving and worshiping God, through extending the beauty and order of the Kingdom of God, we choose rather to idolize the created world or rape it for our own selfish purposes.

Day Four

As we saw in Genesis 2, God established a relationship with Adam—like the King to his sub-regent and the Sovereign Lord to a priest. In Adam’s relationship as sub-regent and priest he was to rule under God’s command and worship God through his obedient priestly service in the garden-temple. Instead, Adam revolted and chose to act independently of God, believing the seductions of the anti-god, the Serpent. Adam relinquishes faith in God’s plan for his life and instead seeks to achieve life his own way. In so doing, he experiences death, initially seen in his alienation from God. He no longer worships and anticipates the presence of God but rather shrinks back in fear, for he knows that his sin calls for judgment.

Romans 5 reminds us that all of us were in Adam. His revolt it our revolt. His sin is our sin. His alienation from God and banishment from the garden is our plight.

Genesis 3 explains to us the feeling of banishment with which we live. We sense that something is lost. We cannot always define that lost-ness but nevertheless it is common to all humans. We search futilely to fill the void and regain what is lost.

The urban centers of the world increase our sense of lost-ness and loneliness. Yes, you may feel lost and alone in the wilderness or on a secluded mountain top, but you can hear the noises of the city, be pressed upon by the crowds, be surrounded by tall, lighted, occupied high-rises, and yet be alone. This deep loneliness and lost-ness when suffered in the midst of all the sights and sounds of life is painful. The often fragile and trivial communities of work, neighborhood, and play cannot assuage the loneliness of the soul that is estranged from God. Cities then become a harvest field for the gospel because they prove that neither the best nor worst of human culture and society can fill that deep emptiness of the soul.

The cry of Jesus from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(Matt 27:46), is our cry. He suffers banishment from his Father so that we may be restored to the Father. The paradise that is lost because of human rebellion is regained through the obedient sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Day Five

Genesis 4 gives evidence of humankind’s downfall. The brokenness of human relationships brought about...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Day 1: Introduction to Genesis
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• Day 14
• Day 15
• Day 16
• Day 17
• Day 18
• Day 19
• Day 20
• Day 21
• Day 22
• Day 23
• Day 24
• Day 25
• Day 26
• Day 27
• Day 28
• Day 29
• Day 30