In this issue:
Children’s story: God creates the heavens and earth
Essay
Bible Accent: The snake tricks Eve
Saint for Today: St. Ethelbert of Kent
Puzzle: True or false
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth didn’t have any form.
Over the course of six days, God formed the earth and created everything on it. And at the end of each day’s work, he saw that all he created was good.
On the first day, God said, “Let there be light.” He separated the darkness from the light, calling the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
“Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other,” God said on the second day. He called the dome “the sky.”
On the third day, God gathered the water under the sky into a single basin so dry land would appear. The dry land he called “the earth,” and the water he called “the sea.”
Then God created plants that would bear seeds, and trees that would grow fruit with seeds in it.
On the fourth day, God created the two great lights and also the stars. The greater light ruled the day, and the lesser light ruled the night.
“Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky,” God said on the fifth day. “Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
On the sixth day, God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle and all kinds of creeping things of the earth.
Then he said, “Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
God created male and female and blessed them, telling them to be fertile and multiply. He gave them dominion over all living things and gave them the seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees for food.
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.
On the seventh day, God was finished with creation and rested from all the work he had undertaken. He blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
READ MORE ABOUT IT:
Genesis 1 & 2
Q&A
1. How many days did it take God to create the earth and everything on it?
2. What was the last thing God created?
Essay
Would you want to live in the Garden of Eden, and why?
Bible Accent
In Genesis 2, we read that God created the Garden of Eden for man to live in.
God told Adam, the man God had created, that he could eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In Genesis 3, we learn that the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals God had created. One day, the snake asked Eve, the woman God had created to be Adam’s wife, if God really said she and Adam could not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Eve told the snake that God had said: “You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.”
“You certainly will not die!” the snake exclaimed. “God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.”
The snake tricked Eve into desiring something she wasn’t supposed to have. She went to the tree, picked some fruit and ate it. She gave some to Adam, and he ate too.
When God heard what had happened, he was very angry.
God punished the snake for tricking Eve by making it cursed among all the animals. And part of Adam and Eve’s punishment for disobeying God was to be banished from the Garden of Eden forever.
Saint for Today: St. Ethelbert of Kent
St. Ethelbert of Kent was an Anglo-Saxon who was born around the year 560.
He ruled over southern England and was the first Anglo-Saxon king to support Christianity. When he wanted to marry Bertha, daughter of the king of Paris, he had to promise to allow her to practice her Christian faith. He also gave St. Augustine of Canterbury land for churches and a monastery so Augustine could evangelize the people of Britain.
Ethelbert became a Christian around the year 601, and he died in 616. We remember him on Feb. 24.
Puzzle
Using the hints provided, put a T next to the sentences that are true and an F next to the ones that are false.
1. ___ Adam and Eve used animal skins to make their first clothes. (Genesis 3:7)
2. ___ A river rose in the Garden of Eden to water it. (Genesis 2:10)
3. ___ God gave the animals meat for food. (Genesis 1:30)
4. ___ A fiery, revolving sword protected the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)
Answers: 1. F; 2. T; 3. F; 4. T
