A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the village of Marshfield, England, where my great-grandfather grew up. Sam, my great-grandfather, lived in England until his father died in 1911. In 1912, Sam, only fifteen-years-old at the time, bought a ticket to...

Our reading in Genesis today is kind of nostalgic for me. I love that the people of the earth all spoke the same language and were in one accord. I really love that setting. But because of the nature of sin that had already begun to eat deeply and consistently into...

Sadly, it didn’t take long for Noah’s descendants to not follow in his footsteps and go their own way. Unlike Noah, Nimrod and the people in the cities he founded choose not to follow God. Nimrod was known as a great hunter, ruler, and builder. He was described as...

From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live.  --Acts 17:26 Paul’s visit and time in Athens was not by accident. He was there for a purpose and on...

The story of Noah and the flood is so commonplace to many of us that we lose the wonder and awe of this event. The entire earth was flooded and Noah and his family were in some contraption that no one had ever seen or heard of before. What if they run out of food?...

Waiting is my kryptonite! I am very vulnerable to impulsivity, recklessness, and discouragement when I do not have an obvious expiration date for my periods of waiting.   Yes. I have prayed daily about it, but we all know what happens when you pray for patience!  The...

Everything I know about Bible stories for kids I learned from Veggie Tales. Honestly, not everything, but I didn’t grow up going to Sunday School, so I have no emotional attachment or fond memories of flannel graphs, puppet shows, or whatever other culturally relevant...

“I don’t want to listen and obey!” I sat on a stool in front of a pint-sized sinner. His fists were clenched, and his face was grimaced in a very stubborn frown. He pushed the milk away like it was poison. I took a deep breath, and I looked down at him with eyes of...

When we read Genesis 4:23 we see how, sadly, history repeated itself in a descendant of Cain. It broke my heart to read this. Humanity hadn’t existed for long and evil had already begun replicating itself in a family. But as I read verse 26, hope surged in my heart...

Have you ever known a person who is really, really good at giving meaningful and intentional gifts to others? They are the ones who months ago heard you mention that you really loved a certain brand of coffee, or that you had seen a beautiful emerald green scarf at a...

I will admit that, at times, I get confused as to how something written so long ago could apply to my life today. However, I am excited to remind you (and myself) that we serve a God who is timeless and whose Word will never return to us void (Isaiah 55:11). When I...

Do you want to know a secret about my wedding? Most of the guests never knew this, but the beautiful music that was playing as they waited for the service to begin wasn’t from some carefully curated wedding playlist. Oh, it was a playlist, and we definitely took our...

I’ve had various jobs, some paid and some not. The strangest, but probably most fun paying job I ever had, was being a Living History Interpreter at a museum. For this job I dressed as and attempted to speak like a Georgian lady living in the year 1776! When we are...

This week my six-year-old asked me: “How big do you think the computer was that helped God make people?” It was an innocent question and a sweet teaching moment, but it made the contrast of these verses and the norm of our daily life so obvious. “The Lᴏʀᴅ God formed...

I don’t know about you, but the last few years have been hard. Between living in a global pandemic, racial tensions, and seeing how divided our society is on almost every issue, I’ve grown tired and weary. Like many of you, I’ve lost friends and family members to an...

It wasn’t enough to give the earth light, to stretch out land and fill our sky with the sun, moon and stars… God wasn’t done yet.  In today’s reading in Genesis, so far God has:  Created light and changed the darkness on Day 1. Separated sky from water on Day 2....

We come to the third day of God's amazing work of creation. The world was not yet ready for humanity to live in it. There was air and there was light but there was no land and so God commanded the water to separate from the land, and it obeyed His voice.  He...

As a child, I was rushed to the hospital after I swallowed a coin and it got stuck in my throat. I was scheduled to have an operation the next day because, by the time I arrived at the hospital, the coin was stuck between my ribs. That same night, I woke up and felt...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. --Genesis 1:1-2   The book of Genesis is the book...

  The first eleven chapters of Genesis can be challenging to understand. While there is much debate in the world today about the true meaning of these events, we can rest in the truth that God’s Word provides us with exactly what we need to be equipped for good...

The In the Beginning Bible study journal is currently available in 28 languages, with more in process!  Help us spread our amazing translations around the world by sending this information to your missions pastor, missionaries your church supports, or any missionary...

We are one week away from our next study, In the Beginning! We begin our In the Beginning Bible study on Monday, April 12, and we couldn’t be more excited to dig into God’s Word with you! We're thrilled that you've joined us this spring to study the story of creation...

  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” – Genesis 1:1   Nothing is a surprise to God. From the beginning He planned to create life on earth. From the beginning He created humans in His image. From the beginning He desired to have a relationship...