Read It for What It Is
“God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” – Genesis 1:5
Dear Friends,
When we study the Bible, we should strive to understand what the author intended and what the original readers or hearers understood was being said. If you were a Jewish person in ancient Israel hearing the creation story for the first time, you would have heard this verse and understood that the “first day” was a day, a 24-hour period.
The Hebrew word for day is “yom.” It is used throughout the Old Testament and in the vast majority of cases, it means a day, a 24-hour period. But most importantly, as we read through the creation account, we see the passing of day and night repeatedly for six complete days until the Sabbath, the day of rest. This is the best indication that the author intended a 24-hour period – remember, in literary studies context is king.
However, many people today will read Genesis and instead of trying to understand what the original author and readers understood to be true, they will attempt to impress their own worldview into the story. Unfortunately, when someone does this, they distort the true meaning of the text.
That’s not to say that an individual has to believe everything thing that they read. If I were to read a passage from the Quran, I could read it and understand what the author intended, yet not necessarily agree with it. But it would be wrong for me to impress my Christian worldview into that text.
Yet people do this all the time with Genesis. They want to reconcile their belief that the world developed over millions or billions of years, so they claim that “yom” in this instance means many years, possibly the billions of years they are trying to jam into the story. They will even use other Scripture - out of context mind you – to “prove” their interpretation. They may quote 2 Peter 3:8, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
But in this passage, Peter is arguing against those who claim the promise of Christ’s return isn’t true. As their evidence, they say it has been a long time and He still hasn’t appeared. Peter is trying to help them understand that while from their human perspective it has been a long time, from God’s perspective it hasn’t been long at all because God is eternal.
In the end, it comes down to one thing, the authority of the Bible. Either you believe the Bible is authoritative and when it is in conflict with outside sources you still trust it or you believe outside sources are authoritative over the Bible and when there is a conflict you trust them. This is how Jesus handled the question of divorce in Matthew 19. The Mosaic Law allowed for divorce, but that was not the way God intended it. Jesus said, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginnning." In the context, Jesus is referring to the creation account and using the authority of Scripture over man's understanding. We should do the same.
In Christ,
David
