TLDR: A guide for having a family discipleship time on Genesis 1 based on the ACT Bible Study Method.
Act 1: God Creates
Scene 1: God Creates Everything
Genesis 1:1–31
Analyze the Passage
Step 1: Introduce the Passage
Genesis was written by Moses sometime between 1445–1405 BC to help the Israelites leaving Egypt understand their history with God. It’s one of the five books of the Law that Moses wrote, which we also call the Torah, or the Pentateuch, which means “five books.”
Today’s true story is the very first one in the Bible; the one story that begins all the rest of the true stories we will read. It is in Act 1 of the Bible’s big story, God Creates.
Step 2: Read the Passage
Step 3: Summarize the Passage
In the beginning, there was nothing but God (v. 1).
Then God created:
- Day 1: Light and separated light from darkness (vv. 2–5).
- Day 2: The sky and separated the waters (vv. 6–8).
- Day 3: Land, separated the waters from the land, and created plants and trees (vv. 9–13).
- Day 4: The sun, moon, and stars to fill the heavens (vv. 14–19).
- Day 5: Fish to fill the waters and birds to fill the sky (vv. 20–23).
- Day 6: Animals to fill the land and people in his image (vv. 24–31).
Everything God created was good.
Step 4: Interrogate the Passage
Questions you and your family ask might include:
- Why did God create everything in this order?
- Why did God create everything?
- What did God create everything from?
- What were the waters above the sky?
- Why does this passage talk about things producing according to their kind?
- Were these literal days?
- Who is God talking to when he said “let us” in v. 26?
- What does it mean to be made in God’s image?
- Were people vegetarians to begin with?
- What does it mean that God “blessed” people?
Step 5: Wonder about the Passage
Wonder statements you and your family make might include:
- I wonder why God made everything.
- I wonder what the universe looked like after each day.
- I wonder why God made so many different kinds of plants, fish, birds, and animals.
- I wonder what food tasted like at first when everything was perfect.
Connect the Passage to Christ
Step 6: Find the World in Front of Text
The ideal world that God created is one of perfection: perfect design, perfect harmony, perfect purpose, perfect everything. This is a world without sin, conflict, pain, or death. It is a world where everything is good.
Step 7: Find the World of Jesus of the Text
God was abundantly kind and generous to create such an amazing world for us to live in and to make us in his image. He didn’t have to do this, but he did because he wants us to love him and enjoy what he has made.
Generosity is a mark of living like Jesus. He was so generous to us that he gave us his very life so we can be saved from sin.
Translate It to Your Context
Step 8: Connect the World of Jesus of the Text to Your World
How can you be amazingly generous with someone this week to show them Jesus? Who might you be generous toward, how might you do it, and when might you do it?
NEXT: Act 1: God Creates; Scene 2: Adam and Eve Obey (Genesis 2:1–25)
Learn more about this family discipleship method here.
brian dembowczyk 