Introduction — From Eden to Egypt

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

PART 1: Heart & Spiritual Check-In Questions

Questions:

How’s your walk with the Lord?

What are you encouraged about or struggling with?

How has the Lord been at work in your life recently?

How can I encourage or pray for you more specifically?

PART 2: Word & Prayer Life

Questions:

I’d love to hear about your time in God’s Word. What are you reading? What are you learning? Are there any verses, promises, or truths you’ve been meditating on?

Tell me about your prayer life. What are you praying about?

How have you seen the Lord answer prayers? Is there anything you’d like prayer for?

PART 3: Genesis – Awareness & Understanding

Questions:

When you hear the word Genesis, what comes to mind first?

What are some things you know or remember about Genesis?

If someone asked, “What happens in Genesis?” how would you explain it?

PART 4: Genesis – Engagement & Questions

Questions:

If you’ve been reading Genesis, what stood out to you?

What questions do you have about Genesis?

PART 5: Relevance & Expectations

Questions:

Why do you think Genesis matters for us today? How can we connect Genesis to our lives? What do you hope to understand better by the end of this series?

What would make this series feel helpful or interesting to you?

SMALL GROUP PRAYER PROMPTS

Pray that we would approach Genesis with open hearts and open minds.

Pray that this series would deepen understanding of identity, purpose, and God’s character.

Pray that we would be changed because of our series through Genesis.

INTRODUCTION

Over the next couple of months (basically until June), we’ll be traversing through the book of Genesis. We won’t cover every verse, but rather we’ll cover every chapter. Here’s a couple of things I want us to know / keep in mind as we begin our study From Eden to Egpyt:

Turn to Genesis chapter 1. Let’s read the first four words together.

Genesis 1:1 KJV 1900

1 In the beginning God…

The Beginning

*Bibles with family trees — shows where you / or the owner of the Bible came from.

This is Genesis. It is the beginning not just of the Bible, but it recounts the beginning of everything. We’ll see in a moment what we would lose if we didn’t have the book of Genesis.

Anyone have any ideas about who wrote this book? Moses

Anyone have any ideas about when this book was written? Roughly 1440–1400 BCE, during the 40 years after the Israelites left Egypt and before entering the Promised Land.

Think about that for a moment… Moses is writing this between 2,300 and 2,800 years after it happened. How does he know? Inspiration. The same way that New Testament writers wrote is the same way Moses wrote.

Genesis literally means — beginning, origin, or birth.

*string shaken with waves illustration. as the origin goes so do the waves

But it’s not simply the beginning… it’s also the foundation.

The Foundation

In the first couple of chapters we uncover God’s thoughts about many important issues of today. These all find their foundation in Genesis.

What are some important issues that we debate today that we find in Genesis?

Think — human sexuality (what does God say about gender expression, sexes, etc.), marriage (does God view marriage as only between one man and one woman for life, or does he leave room for variants?), creation (did God create all things? did humanity come about through evolution, theistic evolution, etc.), justice and human equity (what does God think or say about slavery and the unjust treatment of racial groups?), work (why do we work? is work a curse of the fall) but it not only covers many important issues for today…

Genesis is the foundation for biblical themes such as justice, mercy, the trinity, grace, redemption, covenant, obedience, trust, faith, justification, sovereignty, atonement, etc. These all find their foundation in the book of Genesis.

If you’ve ever had the thought reading through the book of Genesis… “Why does this all matter?”… I hope to answer that question throughout this series.

The Bible would be incomplete without Genesis. Think, without Genesis we wouldn’t have the root promise of redemption. We wouldn’t have the demonstration of sacrificial atonement. We wouldn’t have Abraham as a model of justification by faith. Genesis is the foundation for much of what we believe about God and humanity.

God

Look again at Genesis 1:1. What’s the fourth word? God. Correct!

God is the central character of the whole Bible and therefore is the central character of Genesis. In Genesis, we see and learn much about God. And my hope is to present God fully and plainly as we walk through the pages of this beginning book of the Bible.

We’ll see God as good, fair, loving, and merciful while also seeing him as holy, just, and transcendent. He displays his omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience throughout the pages of Genesis. We see his transcendent sovereignty in the lives of his people. And most importantly we see the promise of redemption and reconciliation.

Here are two important questions that we’re going to ask along the way to Egypt and that are important to ask whenever you read any portion of the Bible:

What does this passage show me about God? (who is he? what is he doing? what part of his character is he showing?)

What does that tell me about myself? or What does that necessitate from me?

CONCLUSION

As we dive into Genesis over the next couple of weeks, I’m really looking forward to several things:

First, I want to see God clearer because of Genesis.

Second, I want to understand the Bible’s narrative better because of Genesis.

I want to see the Gospel clearly because of Genesis.

Finally, I want to be changed because of Genesis.

So, read the first two chapters of Genesis for our time together next week. Come ready to discuss and participate in our study of Genesis.

GROUP PRAYER PROMPTS

Pray that we would see God clearer because of Genesis.

Pray that we would grow in godliness because of Genesis.