Genesis 1:2-23

Rev. David Collins
Jan 26
11 min read

The Untitled, Open-Ended Study Bible

Jan. 25, 2026

Rev. David Collins

Well, we came up with a name for this project we started this month. We’re calling it

The Untitled, Open-Ended Study Bible.

One reason for this project is to tease out just how and why the reading of the Bible that a lot of us grew up with as American evangelicals contributed to the mess we’re in right now

in this country, pictured again this week by another murder by ICE and the way that so many Christians continue to support them, and the man ultimately responsible for all of it.

And so we are going to study the Bible and look for how it all went wrong, not just in the story of the Bible itself, because it has a lot to show us about sin and other conditions of the human heart and mind, but also in how bad readings of the Bible got us here now.

This didn’t happen because of one bad reading of Genesis, or of the Bible in general. But I do believe one key factor was how a series of interpretive choices went unchallenged for a long time, and help create an authoritarian community.

Because the way many of us learned to read the Bible didn’t just shape our theology. It shaped our instincts. It trained people about who to trust, who to hate, and what to ignore.

And if I’m honest, this isn’t just about “them.” It’s about us.

It’s about how a lot of sensible, thoughtful “get-all-of-their-shots” Christians watched all of this unfold and didn’t quite know what to do with it. We didn’t share the certainty. We didn’t believe the arguments. But we also didn’t feel equipped…or energized…or confident enough to challenge them head-on.

So we stayed quiet and polite.

We told ourselves it wasn’t our fight. That it would sort itself out. That bad theology didn’t necessarily lead to bad things. And for a long time, it didn’t.

We’re realizing now that it did.

So we need to map out the territory we’ve inherited. To look at how certain readings of Scripture didn’t just stay in Bible studies, but formed habits, where one small agreement made the next one easier. Where a decision that didn’t feel costly at the time became the foundation for decisions that were.

Genesis 1 is just one part of that territory. But it’s an important one.

Because when Genesis 1 is read badly, it doesn’t just give people wrong answers about science. It trains people to distrust their own eyes, and to ignore people who refuse to do the same. It trains people to believe that faith is just certainty that requires ignoring reality.

And if that’s true, then our task isn’t to argue harder. It’s to slow down and pay attention to what this text is actually doing.

So today…we’re not here to do an autopsy on American evangelicalism. And we’re not here to sort out who the real Christians are.

We’re here to slow down and listen to Genesis 1 the way it was actually meant to be heard. Not as a weapon. Not as a proof text. But as a word of hope spoken to people who were also living with the consequences of unchecked power.

And once we hear it that way…we’ll come back and talk honestly about the mess we’ve inherited.

So before we decide what Genesis means for us, we need to notice where it actually starts, and what kind of people it was first trying to form.

As Megan explained last week, Genesis begins not with answers. But with deep wet chaos.

Gen 1:2 the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

That chaos was pre-existing. Genesis doesn’t say where it came from, and it doesn’t have to.

Genesis isn’t for people sitting comfortably, wondering how the universe works in theory. It’s written to people in exile, trying to remember who they are, trying to figure out whether their God is still present when everything familiar has been taken away.

When people treat this text like a piece of objective, absolute information that fell straight out of heaven, they ruin it. They miss the fact that this is a word spoken into history, into competing cultural and religious narratives.

Because the people in exile weren’t just surrounded by chaos. They were surrounded by other creation stories.

Babylon

In Babylon, the dominant story was violent. In their creation myths, the world came into being through combat. Monsters are slain. Order is established through bloodshed. Peace comes when the strongest god wins and everyone else falls in line.

And that mythology wasn’t just for fun, it justified the empire itself. It said this is how the world works. This is how order is made. Violence creates peace. Domination creates stability. Might makes right.

But then in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is no battle. No monster-slaying.

God just speaks.

This is already an incredible departure from the way of the world, speaking instead of fighting. But it gets even more peculiar. God doesn’t just make demands. God invites.

3 Then God said, “Let there be”

Not a threat, or strictly a command.

An invitation.

“Let there be.”

In the Babylonian stories, creation happens because the strongest god wins. But here, there is no battle. No monster is slain. God doesn’t overpower the chaos.

God speaks possibility…and the world responds.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

It’s almost as if the light had been hiding somewhere. Waiting.

Is it safe? the light asks. 

Yes, it’s safe now, God answers. 

Come over here. Sit by me.

Before anything else is named…before there are stars…there is light.

4 And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Now a few days later, God will create the sun, the moon, and the stars. And we might want to stop and ask how that works. The original hearers would have had the same question. They knew that light came from the sun.

But in their world, the sun and moon weren’t just sources of light. They were powers. Gods.

People back then sometimes even believed that what the stars looked like in the sky when you were born affected your life and who you should associate with. Can you imagine such a thing? /s

So Genesis does something deliberate.

Light exists before the lights in the sky.

Day and night exist before the sun and moon.

Which says that light doesn’t belong to the stars. Time doesn’t belong to the heavens. Meaning doesn’t come from the powers everyone else worships.

Those things don’t rule the world. They serve it.

Genesis says that the world is not governed by the gods everyone fears, but by the God who calls and invites good things into being.

Next we go to the second day of creation. And notice here that there is something missing that gets said on the other days.

6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

What was missing?

God didn’t call it good.

Why might that be? Well, for starters, where did all that water come from in the text? It’s the watery chaos from verse 2, isn't it? God took a whole day to separate it and turn part of it into the ancient conception of the sky, and the other part formed into scary sea where not only is the land beyond the horizon, it’s not there at all.

Even for God, the end of a day can come and when someone asks, was it a good day? And God is just quiet, which is answer enough. But God keeps going. God’s not done yet.

9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Now notice that the chaos from verse 2 hasn’t vanished. But it’s been gathered. Given a place and a name.

This isn’t a story about a chaos-free world.

It’s telling a story where chaos becomes livable.

A lot of people were taught that faith meant the elimination of uncertainty. But God doesn’t erase the deep. God makes room for life in its presence.

Land is invited to appear and it does. Enough to stand on. Enough to begin with.

The people in exile weren’t asking for a perfect world. They were asking whether life was still possible in the one they had.

And the answer is yes! But not without risk.  And God calls that good.

11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

I don’t have a real comment to make about day three except that it’s nice to see that God is also a fan of plants.

Now we get back to some of the Babylon context. This next part is telling in how subtle it is.

The stars were incredibly important in the ancient world. All those constellation names? And the stories that went along with them? Those are older than every civilization. But now they are being put in their place by saying that God put them in the sky as a calendar and as decor.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.

But without knowing the context, you might miss this next diss.

16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.

Not "The Sun".  Not "The Moon".

Just “the greater light” and “the lesser light.”

It’s like forgetting someone’s name on purpose.

In a world where those names belonged to gods, the text strips them of that power. They don’t get identities. They get jobs. They mark time. They give light. They serve life.

They are useful and beautiful. But not in charge. And God calls that good.

17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And now God turns his attention back to the watery chaos of sea and sky and really makes them work for him.

20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”

The sea and the sky were not neutral spaces to the ancient imagination. They were the most dangerous. The places where things disappeared and didn’t come back. Or where death came from above.

And what does God do with the places people fear the most?

God fills them with life.

Not sparingly either. Swarms.

God doesn’t wait for the waters to stop being scary before creating there. God doesn’t avoid the sky because storms come from it. God goes straight into the spaces that unsettle us…and makes them teem with life.

21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

The sea monsters are especially important here, because in the Babylonian stories, sea monsters are enemies. The big bad ones at the end of the level. They’re threats that have to be killed so creation can happen.

But not here. Here, they’re not demonized. They’re created. God knows where to scratch them behind their ears.

Which is another way Genesis refuses the logic of empire. Order doesn’t come from destroying what scares us. It comes from God’s ability to hold even the dangerous things within creation.

22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Did you catch that?

The first creatures to receive God’s blessing are not humans. They’re fish and birds. Creatures we don’t control and don’t manage easily. Creatures that live beyond our reach.

The sea is alive. Life is blessed before it’s useful.

That’s a powerful word for anyone who feels like the most unsettled parts of their life are the places God is least likely to show up. In fact, those might be exactly the places God starts.

So that’s what I think is the best, most faithful reading of the days of creation.

As it was originally shaped, Genesis 1 really is reshaping how power really works, and how life emerges without violence…but that’s not how I grew up understanding it.

The Way I Grew Up Seeing Genesis 1

I grew up thinking that the most faithful reading was to see it as the true story of how all this came to be, even if I didn’t really buy that myself. The problem wasn’t with the story, it was with me. I didn’t have enough faith to believe it the way that the certain Christians did.

But now I believe that they were the ones reading the story wrong. And that was one of the things that brought us to where we are today. You see, the problem with bad readings isn’t usually that they make your life immediately worse.

Most people who believe the earth is six thousand years old still love their kids. They still show up to work. They still pray. And they might never personally pay a price for that belief.

The problem is that it asks for one small thing.

It asks you not to believe your own eyes. 

It asks you to distrust entire fields of knowledge.  It asks you to place your confidence in teachers who promise certainty, as long as you don’t ask too many questions.

And once you agree to that…even once…it becomes easier to do it again.

One small agreement becomes the foundation for the next one. And it builds and builds until you end up far and away from where you started.  

And that’s how it works. No one decides all at once to give themselves over to cruelty or lies. It starts with one reasonable step. A belief that doesn’t cost you much leads you to a community that feels warm and familiar.

And this is the part we often miss: By the time someone is ready to reconsider those small agreements, the question isn’t just whether they were right or wrong. The question is what it’s going to cost them to change their mind. Because walking it back doesn’t just mean rethinking a belief. It can mean losing community. Becoming the outsider in the group that once felt like home.

So if all we offer in that moment is correction or ridicule or moral superiority, we’re asking people to give up everything. And most people won’t do that. Which means if we actually want to reach people, we need more than better arguments.