PRESIDENT'S ESSAY
Poetic word, poetic world
POSTED
August 4, 2010

Yahweh says “light,” and as soon as the word sounds light appears.  God says, “waters divide,” and they are divided.  And so on and on throughout the creation week.  This is the form of Yahweh’s creating activity: Whatever the word means, that’s what the world becomes.  Word made world.

Everyone who confesses creation confesses so much.  But what about the form of Yahweh’s words?  Over the course of the creation week, Yahweh repeats Himself repeatedly: let there be, let there be, let there be; let the earth, let the waters; blessing, blessing, blessing.  Doesn’t that mean that we can go a step beyond “word made world” to say, “poetic word made poetic world”?  And when we recognize that the work and words of the creation week are chiastically arranged, doesn’t that mean that Yahweh placed us in a world with built-in repetitions, returns, feedbacks, loops?

The “framework interpretation” of Genesis 1 is correct that the creation account is a poem, a symphony.  But they stop there, apparently assuming (with much of the modern world) that “if it’s poetic, it’s only decorative.”  On the contrary, the poetry of the creation account provides one of the most profound insights into the nature of reality.

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