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HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE
MESSAGE STUDENT DEVOTIONAL BIBLE
Genesis
GOD FIRST AND LAST
An amazing pastor, author, and poet named Eugene Peterson spent years translating The
Message, this version of the Bible. Eugene was passionate about helping people of all ages
engage with Scripture, and he believed (like the rest of us on the team who created this
student devotional Bible) that, since the Bible is God’s primary way of communicating with
us, we will grow and learn and live our best lives when we read the Bible.
Throughout history, Christians who wanted to live the fullness of life that Jesus promises us (see John 10:10) have developed regular practices (or habits) of Bible reading.
With all that in mind, here’s a little road map of what you’ll find in these pages . . .
THE BIBLE ITSELF. This is kind of obvious, right? But we wanted to call it out: The point
of all this isn’t to create additional stuff you’ll read while skipping reading the actual Bible.
If you skip all the stuff we created and only read the Bible parts, we will still be very, very
happy about it. That’s first and foremost. Our additional words are not the living Word of
God; the Bible is.
SECTION INTRODUCTIONS. When reading the Bible, it’s helpful to understand what the
context and intent are for the various sections it’s organized into. In order to help you with
that, you’ll find six section introductions created by our team that’ll help give you some
background and landmarks for what each section looks like.
BOOK INTRODUCTIONS. The Bible is for you, but it wasn’t originally written to you. To get
the most out of your reading, it’s helpful to know who wrote a book of the Bible, who their
original audience was, and the context for writing. That’s why we’ve created short book
introductions for each of the Bible books (and in a few cases, groups of books). Other than
the actual words of Scripture, these might be the next most important thing for you to read.
DEVOTIONS. You’ll find 320 devotions spread throughout this Bible. These are intended
to help you understand and reflect on God’s story and what it means for your life. You’ll
notice that along with each devo there are three questions. The Bible itself encourages us to
meditate on (think about) Scripture, and that’s what these questions are designed to help
you do. Each devotion has three questions that follow a pattern: (1) a content question,
(2) an understanding question, and (3) an application question. Even though they’re numbered, the questions in these devos float around on the page. Feel free to go through them
sequentially (1, then 2, then 3) or to just start with the question that gets your mind going
the fastest. And with all the devotions, you are welcome to work through them in order or
jump around—whatever you sense would be helpful to you.
page 9 d G E N E S I S 1
1-2
3-5
6-8
9-10
11-13
14-15
HEAVEN AND EARTH
First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth
was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit
brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
1
God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters;
separate water from water!”
God made sky.
He separated the water under sky
from the water above sky.
And there it was:
he named sky the Heavens;
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Two.
God spoke: “Separate!
Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;
Land, appear!”
And there it was.
God named the land Earth.
He named the pooled water Ocean.
God saw that it was good.
God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
of seed-bearing plants,
Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
And there it was.
Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
all varieties,
And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Three.
God spoke: “Lights! Come out!
Shine in Heaven’s sky!
First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don’t have a sense
of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not
God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and
circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.
Genesis gets us off on the right foot. “First this: God” (Genesis 1:1). Genesis pulls us
into a sense of reality that is God-shaped and God-filled. It gives us a vocabulary for
speaking accurately and comprehensively about our lives—where we come from and
where we are going, what we think and what we do, the people we live with and how to get
along with them, the troubles we find ourselves in and the blessings that keep arriving.
Genesis uses words to make a foundation that is solid and true. Everything we think
and do and feel is material in a building operation in which we are engaged all our lives
long. There is immense significance in everything that we do. Our speech and our actions
and our prayers are all, every detail of them, involved in this vast building operation
comprehensively known as the kingdom of God. But we don’t build the foundation. The
foundation is given. The foundation is firmly in place.
Jesus concluded his most famous teaching by telling us that there are two ways
to go about our lives—we can build on sand or we can build on rock. No matter how
wonderfully we build, if we build on sand it will all fall to pieces like a house of cards. We
build on what is already there, on the rock. Genesis is a verbal witness to that rock: God’s
creative acts, God’s intervening and gracious judgments, God’s call to a life of faith, God’s
making a covenant with us.
d d d
IF YOU AND I MAKE SOMETHING, we use our imagination, time, space, and preexisting
materials. We never make anything out of nothing. Imagine someone doing that! That’s
what God did: God made everything—including time and space—from nothing.
Sometimes we spend so much time arguing and nitpicking about certain understandings
of the Creation story that we miss the main point: God created everything—out of nothing.
And God did it in such a way that creation continues to grow and re-create.
This creation and re-creation were all part of God’s loving intention. You might even
think of Genesis as our origin story. Certainly, Genesis shows us truths about God, God’s
character, and God’s desires.
There’s also an invitation embedded in this book: You are invited to be a co-creator.
We all create stuff all the time, good and bad (we see lots of both in the stories of the
people in Genesis). God is inviting you to play an active and intentional role in this ongoing
creation. We can be God’s partners in the continuous work of bringing forth God’s loving
and creative dreams for this world.
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
G E N E S I S 1 : 2 6 -2 8
THE DEEPEST
G E N E S I S 1 d page 10
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons and days and years,
Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”
And there it was.
God made two big lights, the larger
to take charge of Day,
The smaller to be in charge of Night;
and he made the stars.
God placed them in the heavenly sky
to light up Earth
And oversee Day and Night,
to separate light and dark.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Four.
16-19
God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all
sea life!
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
20-23
God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
24-25
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image,
make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
26-28
When it comes to humanity, our
beginning is good. In this passage
we see that God creates humans in a
way that reflects God’s nature. And,
to make sure we don’t get too far off
track, the end of this passage says
that God looks over everything God
has made and that it is very good!
That means that before humans
did anything, before humans were
anything, we reflected God’s nature,
and so we were, at the heart of it,
very good. Some rabbis suggest
that uncovering those parts of us
that reflect God’s nature is the basic
purpose of the spiritual life.
How do you see
God’s nature
reflected in your
personality?
How do God’s
instructions to the
first humans help
you understand
what it means
to reflect God’s
nature?
TRUTH ABOUT YOU
GENESIS
G E N E S I S d page 8
But Genesis presents none of this to us as an abstract, bloodless truth or principle. We
are given a succession of stories with named people—people who loved and quarreled,
believed and doubted, had children and married, experienced sin and grace. If we pay
attention, we find that we ourselves are living variations on these very stories: Adam
and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his sons, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah,
Jacob and Rachel, Joseph and his brothers. The stories show clearly that we are never
outsiders or spectators to anything in Heaven and Earth. God doesn’t work impersonally
from space; he works with us where we are, as he finds us. No matter what we do,
whether good or bad, we continue to be part of everything that God is doing. Nobody can
drop out; there’s no place to drop out to. So we may as well get started and take our place
in the story—at the beginning.
What part of this passage captures your imagination?
GENESIS
1:26-31
