What does the Bible reveal about the origin of human life?

Ludwig Feuerbach (19th century) was an atheist who declared that God did not make us, but rather we made God as a figment of our imagination. Students of his thinking include Karl Marx (who applied this politically), Sigmund Freud (who applied this psychologically), and Friedrich Nietzsche (who applied this philosophically). Conversely, in Genesis 1-2 we see that we did not create God, but rather God created us with the following features:

• The Trinity created us.
• A personal God personally created us as persons (e.g., by his hands and not his words like the rest of creation).
• God’s creation of us was loving.
• God made us male and female, which means that while the genders are distinct they are equal.
• God made us originally very good (Gen. 1:31 cf. Eccles. 7:29).
• God blessed us.
• Unlike the animals made according to their “own kind,” we were made in the “image of God.”
• Because God is Trinity and made us in his image and likeness, we were made for relationships in the following categories:
  1. With God (theological)
  2. With self (psychological)
  3. With others (social)
  4. With creation (environmental)

HT: Mark Driscoll

The Expository Genius of John Calvin

In The Expository Genius of John Calvin, Dr. Steven J. Lawson delves into the practices, commitments, and techniques that made John Calvin, the great Reformer of the sixteenth century, such an effective preacher during his long pastorate at Saint Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Lawson identifies thirty-two distinctives of Calvin’s preaching, providing comments from Calvin’s writings, quotations from Reformation scholars, and examples from Calvin’s own sermons to reinforce his points. In the end, Dr. Lawson finds in Calvin a strong model for expository preaching and calls on modern pastors to follow the Reformer’s example.

The Gospel in 6 Minutes