CLICK HERE to access the Class! (You will need the password to access the class.)
Description:
This in-depth study of Genesis 1-11 focuses on Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Dispersion from Babel, and God’s plan throughout those periods of time. Even explore a little about potential evidence for the historical Exodus. Within these chapters, there is important history and doctrine that set the foundation for the rest of the Bible. Through this course, we hope that you will learn to better discern what is True amidst the deceptions and compromises in our world today. We pray that this course helps you understand more about who God is and what His Word says so that you might grow in your relationship with Him.
If you are interested in further Creation Ministry Training...
There are some other options beyond just the online classes as well.
First, what would be ideal is if you could visit us in Grand Junction, so that we can get to know you and be able to train you in person. We are considering the potential of arranging a 1-3 week Creation Teacher Training Session at our ministry center, possibly during the summer – if you are interested, let us know ASAP and consider bringing family or friends with you to make that week(s) a real possibility. We have even had people pay to bring us out and host us as we do a full training week for your church and/or community.
Second, if you are able to do a longer internship with us in Grand Junction, CO, we have had interns before and would be interested in considering that with you. There may even be opportunity for long-distance internships if you have particular writing skills and/or computer and video editing skills.
Third, again, we would still love to meet you and we would love to see you join us for some of our ministry opportunities like our camps/tours (http://www.discovercreation.org/camps-tours/) or even setting up a seminar in your local area (http://www.discovercreation.org/events/set-up-information/).
We would love to hear from you! Let us know what you think and may God Bless You!
Class Details
The following is a preliminary “beta” version of our first online class – “The Genesis Foundation”.
As this is a rough-cut, unpolished product, we are offering this to you for free and are asking for your feedback as you are able as you go through this material. For the sake of keeping file sizes low, our videos have been saved in a lower quality than we would ultimately desire and we very likely will redo certain videos as necessary. This is a tremendous amount of useful and helpful information and we hope it helps you as you prepare yourself for greater use in Creation ministry.
You can take this course at your own pace through the 11 different sections. We encourage you to do the participation or homework and again would highly value your feedback.
Goals:
Students will:
- Examine Genesis 1-11 and clearly communicate insights regarding the text.
- Learn and clearly communicate why Genesis is important and still relevant in our culture today.
- Study to better understand God’s nature and to better communicate that to others.
- Discern the differences between multiple Old-Earth perspectives and will communicate why the Young-Earth perspective is correct according to the Bible and confirmed by Science.
- Examine the teachings and failures of Evolutionary Naturalism. Students will compare and contrast the teachings of Evolutionary Naturalism with the teachings of Young-Earth Creationism.
- Discover how and what God created.
- Answer challenges like: What is the Purpose of Life? Why is there pain and suffering and death? Where did Cain get his wife? How Did Noah Fit All The Animals on the Ark?
- Explain how current geologic evidence confirms the truth of the worldwide flood confirming the true accounts of the Bible.
- Explain evidences that point to the fact that people did disperse from the tower of Babel and therefore that the Bible records accurate history.
- Investigate claims for the historical reliability for the Exodus from Egypt.
- Evaluate the overall importance of the topics covered in this course.
Required Textbook(s):
- The New Answers Books 1-4
- You may be able to search and find some of these chapters online at www.answersingenesis.org, but we also sell all four books here: http://www.discovercreation.org/shop/youth-adult-books/new-answers-books-1-4-set/
- Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus Movie
- Rent or Buy (recommended) this Movie
Evaluation Standards
Work will be graded by the following qualifications:
- Excellent (4 points)
- The content is accurate and ideas flow smoothly and well supported with no grammar problems or misspelled words.
- Good (3 points)
- There are only minor flaws that could be addressed to make this work excellent.
- Satisfactory (2 points)
- There are a few flaws that would need to be addressed to be published, but overall a sufficient amount of effort is shown in this work.
- Redo (Failing – 0 points)
- Falls far from the marks of perfection and shows evidence that the expected amount of effort is lacking.
“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.” (Col 3:23 NASB)
Contact me with any questions:
Brian Mariani
970-523-9943
CLICK HERE to access the Class! (You will need the password to access the class.)
21 Comments
When adding comments, remember to mention what section you are commenting on.
In the book of Genesis God is utterly in control, through every creation, sin, and rejection of God, the first 11 chapters truly show God’s love and mercy for us. There’s not one story in the first 11 chapters of Genesis where God does not intervene or show up caring for the first people of the world, as he loved them through everything they did, and through everything still do.
First through creation, everything God created he planned and controlled perfectly, the stars/moon/sun for their seasons, plants for animals, and us being created for a relationship with God himself! Then, through our first sin he still loved us, though he did have to punish us, he still shows his mercy in referencing to Jesus’ coming to defeat our enemy and set us free from sin (Genesis 3:15). Then when the people he had made started rejecting him, he still kept on loving us, when Cain had killed his brother (the first murder in the Bible), God showed up and counselled him saying, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, its desire is for you but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:7).
So the start of the book of Genesis shows God mercy and love while he’s in control of everything; he could have destroyed the earth after sin entered it, but he chose to show compassion to us instead.
Great points!! I love seeing how whenever we have judgment depicted in Scripture – there is also always grace and mercy that is extended as well! God really is in control!
(Section 1)
(Section 2)
The book of Genesis in the Bible is an extremely important book, without it we would not know that God loves us, how we ended up in sin where we are today, and that we can look for a hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and still waiting to be fulfilled by his epic return very soon. First we see that God loves us, he gave us the Earth saying “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”, and “God blessed them ‘Adam/Eve/Us’ ” (Genesis 1:28). Next, it shows that we have sin, which we can’t deny as we look at the world all around us. Sin entered our world after we disobeyed God, and ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil which he had told us not to eat, as a result, sin entered the world and the Earth has remained that way until today. Without the book of Genesis we would not see the reason for death and sadness that we see today, making Genesis a key book of the Bible to understand what sin is, how it entered, and its effects on us and the world. Then finally, it shows us that despite our sin and failure, we have a hope, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life”(John 3:16), and we see the reflection of this through a promise made in Genesis 3:15, “I(God) will put enmity between you(serpant/satan) and the woman(Eve), and between your offspring and her offspring; he(Jesus) shall bruise your head, and you(serpant/satan) shall bruise his heel.”, in this we see that satan will harm Jesus, but Jesus shall/has crushed him and given us our freedom. So Genesis is an important book as it shows God’s love, discipline, and forgiveness at the beginning of the world, which carries out onto this day.
Well said. And if we cannot be sure that Genesis is True, can we believe that any of the rest of the Bible is True? I think we can!
Re: Section 1
The opening of the Bible explodes with the transcendence of the triune God, as He speaks into existence the entire known universe and forms man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). God is undeniably lavish as He creates “swarms of living creatures” (Genesis 1:20). He crafts every bird, every beast, every living creature on the earth (Genesis 2:19). From the outset of the Bible, God proves that He is fully in charge, and fully wise. His creation blueprint includes every provision for the creation to thrive: the perfect climate, an abundance of food, companionship, procreation, and connection with the Creator. This provision surpasses man’s initial needs and graciously includes a covering for their sin. In Genesis 3:21, the Lord covers Adam and Eve’s nakedness and subsequent shame. He also references the victory of Jesus over sin in Genesis 3:15 when he says to the serpent that “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The Lord extravagantly provides from the beginning of time, pouring out His grace to any who would recognize their separation from Him because of their sin, “that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:18).
Thanks for that! How Amazing is Our Great God!
Re: comment above
The final reference should be Romans 5:8.
Section 3
We can see many characteristics of God in the book of Genesis, which shows the reader God’s work of creation, and therefore also his character as we see him shaping the earth and the lives of the first people on it. First we see that he is omnipotent as, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1), God created the whole world, everything we see today in existence exists because of him. Next we see that God is transcendent, “The earth was without form or void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water”(Genesis 1:2), he is above us in all ways, he existed before we did, and he is incredibly superior to us. Next, God is good, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”(Genesis 1:3-5). God is good, he created light, night, and the day, he created them perfectly and wonderfully, creating light before the sun, and creating night and day that we see each day, which never fail to continue to do what God had commanded them to do for his glory, God is good in his creation and character. Then we see that God is omniscient, which means He knows everything,”And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.”(Genesis 1:6-7). Through this verse we can see God’s knowledge, where it says “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it seperate the waters from the water.”. Why did God want to make the water separated (a.k.a. oceans & clouds)? There was no good reason to separate the waters because there were no plants to shade, rivers to fill, animals and humans to water, so you can see that God had a plan and knew what needed to be done in preparation for what was to come; proving God is omniscient. So even through the first 7 verses of Genesis 1 we can see just a few of the many characteristics of God; that he is omnipotent(having very great power), transcendent (beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience), good(to be desired or approved of), and omniscient(meaning to know everything).
How cool to be able to see those characteristics just from the first 7 verses of the Bible – and then to think about and recognize how those characteristics are shown throughout the whole rest of Scripture! Thank you, North!
Genesis is a vital book of the Bible because, as the first of Scripture’s 66 books, it lays an uncompromising foundation for the rest of the Bible. It has been said that if a person doesn’t believe the beginning of the Bible, that person will probably doubt the rest of the Bible. In Genesis, God reveals the past in a critical way that relates to our present and ultimately our future. It shows God’s careful creation of man in an originally perfect world and man’s sinful choice to disobey God, leading to severe consequences of hardship, pain and death. Ultimately, it tells of God’s love for us through the future sacrifice and victory over death by Jesus, which secures a right relationship back to God for those who believe that Jesus is Lord and God. Believing the history in Genesis affects many areas of our lives, such as our identity, our purpose in life, and where we will spend our eternal lives after death. Because of this, the book of Genesis is a key to understanding life.
The above comment is regarding Section 2
That’s great – Foundational!
One of the attempts to compromise the Bible so that it is compatible with evolution is a theory called the Day-Age Theory. The Day-Age Theory states that each of the 6 creation days in the first chapter of Genesis were not each individual twenty-four hour days, but each millions, or billions of years long, and that through those billions of years evolution occurred to where we are today. Through this new theory of creation with each day in Genesis 1 being millions of years long, evolution scientists try to make their theory fit with the Bible, but as we will see when you try to fit man’s own presumed ideas into the Bible, it doesn’t work, as we can see many flaws to this Day-Age Theory against God’s word.
One of the ways scientists try to fit the Day-Age theory into the Bible is by saying that the Hebrew word yom (used as the word day in Genesis) refers to a great or unrecognizable period or length of time whenever God uses the word yom in the creation week of Genesis. But when God uses the word yom(day), He uses it with a number(first day, second day, third day, etc, examples: Genesis 1:5,8,13), which in the Hebew language defines this as a twenty four hour day, and not a long period of time. God also repeats this phrase which indicates a real twenty-four hour day, “And there was evening and there was morning the “1, 2, 3, ect,” day, which makes God’s intent of the word yom even clearer.
Another flaw we see when we try to fit the Day-Age Theory into Genesis is that the evolutionists’ timeline doesn’t line up with the book of Genesis in the terms of how things were created, and what order they were in. To start off, evolution says that the sun and stars were created before the Earth, but God says the Earth was there before the sun and stars, and that God created the heavens on Day 4. Next, evolution says that the sun had to be there before the planets, that the land came into existence before the ocean, and that there was marine life before plants, but in Genesis we see the exact opposite of all these. Then finally, evolutionists say that the sun was Earth’s first light, but in Genesis 1:3 we see that, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’and there was light.”, with the sun being created later on Day 4, making the Day-Age theory and Genesis distinct, and not the same story.
Then one final way the Day-Age theory tries to squeeze its way into Genesis is by referencing to 2 Peter 3:8b, ” that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”, looking to fit this verse into the six days of creation, for them to each become thousands, or millions of years long instead of a single twenty-four hour day. 2 Peter 3:8 does seem to fit with the creation account from a first glance, but to understand this verse we must look at the context behind it. The next verse after 2 Peter 3:8 continues saying, ” The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”(2 Peter 3:9). Through this next verse we see that 2 Peter 3:8 and 2 Peter 3:9 together state that God is patient towards us, and the metaphor used in verse 8 is used to display that picture. While it may seem tempting to try to bring the verse 2 Peter 2:8 back to Genesis, this verse in the original context shows a metaphor about God’s character, and should not be taken back as a literal fact into Genesis.
One of evolutionists’ theories, the Day-Age theory seeks to compromise the authenticity of God’s Word for their scientific theory, by trying to fit long periods of time in between each of the days of the creation week in Genesis. But when the Day-Age theory is held up against the Bible you can see some major flaws, from the differences in the evolution timeline and the creation week of Genesis, to the distortion of the Hebrew word yom, and finally the misinterpretation of God’s word in 2 Peter 3:8, all to try to fit millions of years into each of the six days of creation in Genesis. The Day-Age theory is one of the many ways people try to enforce their own presumed and fallible ideas on the Bible, but as you can see here man’s fallen ideas cannot be compatible with God’s Word, as Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”.
Section 4 North Barrett
Awesome! That was a very clear explanation – it makes the most sense that we can trust that the days are simple, ordinary 24-hour days! Thanks for that!
You would have to imagine what life would be like without sin, what the earth would be like up to this day if no one had ever sinned. First of all I’d like to think that the earth would be a whole lot warmer(All the Canadians in the room should be laughing right now, they all understand this close to heart principle). If the world had been lived up to this day without sin, there’d be no sin, suffering, or death, and because of the absence of these three punishments, the world would be drastically changed.
One of the first things that I’d think to see gone in a world without sin as I’ve already mentioned, is the cold. I don’t know if cold climates existed before the fall, it’s hard to describe how cold could be bad and not part of a world without sin, cold to me, seems like a lesser degree of pain, a hard thing to endure that I would be glad to see gone.
The next thing that comes to my mind that we wouldn’t have is broken relationships, or our ability to talk, act, relate, or interact with each other without sin, which would be awesome, and a little confusing as our own free will(decisions) would be mended with everyone around us in a loving, non sinful way.
Then next in a world without sin we would see hundreds of practical day to day things disappear. Here’s a few of the things we would see gone in our daily lives if there were not sin: schools(which teach us things that we would no longer need to be taught as God will renew our bodies, and get rid of our limited minds), police/fire/rescue stations, dentists, doctors, and anything that pertains to health issues(toothbrushes/bandaids), electricity, and probably even the internet, just think of the other thousands of millions we’d be able to do with a new body/no sin.
Wow! That is so interesting to think about! Yeah, if there were no sin, there probably would have been no global flood which likely did change the climate drastically so that we have the more extreme temperature swings than there would have been if it were all controlled better.
No suffering and death – wouldn’t that be nice!
Section 5 North Barrett
The biggest eye-opener for me in this class was the fact that God is in control of everything, working things out so amazing and intricately in the world today in ways that I cannot dream of, and also throughout history. Seeing God in China, as well as the modern archaeology of Mount. Sinai was fascinating, and it makes me wonder how much else is out there that we/I cannot see, or perceive, that God has been powerfully working in throughout all of history. I also loved being brought through all of the opposing questions to the creation story, and seeing God having a “rock-solid” case for every single supposed contradiction, and also how Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible. It was really cool to see that all of life’s questions and problems origin’s can be found in the book of Genesis, which plants a firm foundation for the rest of the Bible, that we must defend, and be ready to give an answer for. Thanks so much for having this course available, it has helped me a lot grow in my knowledge of God’s Word in the Book of Genesis, and how we can trust God for His answers for His creation in His unchanging word. Well done! Thanks again! -North Barrett (Section 11)
Wow! That is so great! North, would you mind if we use your paragraph here to share with people to show how a solid understanding of Genesis is really so important?
Thanks again for your thoughts and for investing the time into going through this course! May God Bless You!