Why Genesis is my Favorite Book in the Bible

This is my confession: I love the Book of Genesis, perhaps even more than any book in the New Testament, including the Gospels. But in truth, Genesis is also “Good News.”  It is the beginning of the Good News.

We began with one man and one woman, who couldn’t keep one simple rule, and then blamed everybody but themselves (Gen. 3). And thus they were alienated from their maker, and from each other. That alienation led to a cycle of murder and revenge (Gen. 4), that hurt God as much it hurt Eve to give birth (Literally. The same Hebrew word used to describe Eve’s pain in childbirth is used to describe how “grieved” God was to have made the human race).

But God finally decided to start over again, with one man and woman, Abraham and Sarah. God makes an astounding promise of blessing, to which he binds himself. And then we get a generational story of generally bad behavior. From Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and his sons, we see a family that was dysfunctional before dysfunctional was cool.

But then, Jacob’s sons do something that no other human beings have been able to do before now. They sold their brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt to do away with him. But they find the courage to confess their sin, and risk losing face: “His brothers wept too, fell down in front of him, and said, ‘We’re here as your slaves.’” (Gen. 50:18)

And in doing so, they are reconciled to each other and their God. “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I God? You planned something bad for me, but God produced something good from it, in order to save the lives of many people, just as he’s doing today.’” (Gen. 50:19-20). And just in time is this family healed from their alienation.

“Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph.” That is how the next book, Exodus, begins. This small nation is made slaves of the Egyptians and is threatened with the fate of countless other peoples throughout human history, in which genocide has been the rule, not the exception. But they have been humbled, and in that humbling, strengthened.

And through these brothers and their descendants, shall the Good News be carried down to our own day. God does not desire that we be alienated and lonely, dying without purpose or meaning. That Good News will eventually take shape through the God who became a human being, Jesus, and who made an unbreakable covenant, sealed with his own life.

But that Good News begins here, with this family. We are called to share this family’s blessings, by humbling ourselves and in that humbling, be reconciled. The Good News of Genesis is the Good News of Jesus Christ, and that is why I love the book of Genesis.