We've learned that God is a creator, that he saw all things he created as ''good", that he's all powerful-- that he spoke it and it was created. We've also learned that God wanted a beautiful space for humans, a job of tending to everything he created, rules to live by, and a free will to choose to live by those rules or not. God created us to be in relationship with him. And then we learned that mankind chose to not live by God's rules and therefore, sin entered the world. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve were not the only ones that didn't follow God's commands. Scripture is full of examples of people who disobeyed God. So what did God do? He sent a Savior-- Jesus. And what did Jesus do? He rescued us from sin by being our sin offering.
In Genesis we see our story starts in a Garden. Now let's read in Revelation 21: 1-5 and Revelation 22: 1-5. As we can see by the scripture, our story starts and ends in the same place-- in a garden and with people living in right relationship with God. The other similarity between Genesis and Revelation is that everything is NEW.
The really cool thing is that in between Genesis (the beginning) and Revelation (the end), God is working at making things new all the time. He doesn't wait until the end to make all things new. He's constantly making things and people new.
We have some really good examples of persons who became new when they encountered Jesus.
John 4: 1-42 tells us of the Samaritan woman at the well who became new and brought others to Jesus through her encounter with Jesus. Acts 9: 1-19 is the story of Saul who encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus and has a conversion. Later Saul becomes Paul and goes on to spread Christianity throughout the Roman empire and wrote many letters (the Epistles) that included in the New Testament. (Epistles-- Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1& 2 Thessolonians) In fact, Paul's letter to the Romans has made more of an impact on readers than all the volumes of all the great Roman writers put together.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) - it says: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come." Another translation (NRSV) says this: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new." What is the difference between these two translations? NIV uses 'he' and NRSV uses 'there'.
Both are accurate translations from Greek. When someone has a relationship with Christ, he or she changes or is made new, becomes a different person. But this change is not limited to that one person. That person, through their actions and attitudes, affects those around him. You see this change-- newness-- starts with one but doesn't end with just one. It ends with many.
How does God use persons such as the woman at the well and Saul/Paul? The story of the Samaritan woman says that she went through the town telling about Jesus and many believed because of her testimony. Paul became an important leader of the church and wrote letters that have been touching people's lives for nearly 2000 years.
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