2026 Reading Plan

Hebrew Word of the Week: Demut (דְּמוּת)

Translated as “likeness,” it points to an abstract or outward similarity in shape and appearance.

Reflection:
I don’t know if you have noticed, but Genesis is broken up into different “accounts”. Today’s reading introduces us to the written account of Adam’s line. The word that sticks out to me today is “likeness” which is used not only in how humanity was created in the likeness of God, but also in the verse about Adam’s son Seth.

I kind of want us to sit with that for a moment. Think about your family and how you may have similar features. Sometimes you have similar personality traits.

If you recall from the second account of creation, the name Adam means human and it is so similar to the word for clay and dirt, Adamah, that it paints this muddy literary word picture. Family lineage and land were very important to these ancient people, so much so that it feels like a link to eternal life.

The image of this to me is reinforced in our scripture today. We see a God who works and creates through the eyes of a humankind that works and creates.


– Natalie Moon

Practice:
For our reflection today, I want to invite you to think about how you see God’s likeness in your own life. How do you see God’s likeness reflected in others? Do you view God as working and active in your own life, even and especially where things feel muddy? Where do you see this? There is a song called Here Now (Madness) by Hillsong United, on their Of Dirt and Grace album. It was recorded live in Jerusalem several years ago. I want to invite you to listen and reflect on today’s passage.


Prayer:
Creator God,
Thank you for making us in your likeness. Amen.

Reflection:
The Next Right Step
Spoiler alert…genealogies are not usually the parts of the Bible I underline.
Genesis 5 is full of names, ages, children, and incredibly long lives. Jared lived this long. Methuselah lived that long. Someone became the father of someone else. And on and on it goes.
But tucked right in the middle of all those names is a simple description of a man named Enoch and it simply says that “Enoch walked with God.”
That’s it. We aren’t told about some great accomplishment. We don’t read about a battle he won, a nation he led, or a miracle he performed. We are simply told that Enoch walked with God.
I love that image because walking isn’t particularly impressive. Walking is often slow. It is one foot in front of the other. Most of the time, you don’t notice much progress while you’re doing it. But keep walking long enough and eventually you look back and realize you’ve traveled farther than you thought. It turns out that taking the next right step, no matter how small, can eventually lead us to where we need to go.
Maybe that’s a pretty good picture of faith.
We sometimes imagine spiritual growth happening through the big moments…the mountaintop experience, the answered prayer, the life-changing decision. And there’s no doubt that God meets us there. But most of our lives aren’t lived on mountaintops. They’re lived on ordinary Tuesdays.
Faith is built by getting up and walking with God again and again and again. Praying when you don’t feel particularly spiritual. Showing up for worship. Opening Scripture. Forgiving someone. Serving someone. Choosing kindness. Sitting quietly long enough to listen. Taking the next faithful step when you can’t see very far down the road.
And then, near the end of today’s passage, Noah enters the story. His name carries the hope of comfort in a world marked by struggle. Before we ever get to the ark, Genesis is already whispering that God has been at work through the generations reminding a people that pain and brokenness will not have the final word.
Maybe that’s what happens when we keep walking with God. We begin to trust that God is working even when we can’t see it yet.
You don’t have to have everything figured out today. You don’t have to know exactly where the road leads. Just keep walking and trust that God is walking with you.

– Hill Carmichael

Practice:
Take a 10-minute walk today without headphones or your phone. As you walk, simply pray: “God, help me walk with you today.” Pay attention to what you notice, what comes to mind, and where God might be inviting you to take one faithful next step.
 
Prayer:
God, teach me to walk with you. Give me faith for the next step, patience when the journey feels slow, and eyes to see the ways you are already at work. Help me trust that I never walk alone. Amen.

Reflection
Today we study what MAY be one of the first Bible stories you ever learned about, Noah and the flood! Growing up, I remember a mural of really cute animals and an equally cute boat with smiling people and a rainbow. But really this story begins with deep tragedy. As we have deemed Wednesdays, Wesley Wednesday, I wanted to share that John Wesley interpreted Genesis 6 as a profound moral commentary on human corruption and divine mercy.

And corruption we begin with! Verse 5 certainly indicts humanity as selfish and undeserving. Noah, the lone bright spot in the dark world, catches the attention of the Almighty, grieving creation and humanity.

We end our reading with a glimpse into God’s mercy towards all of creation, with the first mention of the word covenant. Covenant means a solemn, binding promise or relationship initiated by God. Instead of a casual promise, it is a life-saving commitment where God pledges to preserve Noah and his family through the coming flood. I want to invite you to pay close attention to this word and its meaning because this idea of an everlasting promise is crucial to our understanding of the stories in Genesis.

– Natalie Moon

Practice:
For our reflection today, I want to invite you to think about covenant language in your own life. What is a binding promise that we see today? How does that make you feel about God’s promise to us? How do you see God’s promises in your own life? There is a song that we like to sing in the Contemporary service called Promises by Maverick City Music. I want to invite you to listen to this song and reflect on the covenant that appears here in Genesis 6.

Prayer:
God of Covenants,
Thank you for choosing us and never stopping. Amen.

Reflection:
I am really struggling with this chapter because what I most want to talk about is the rainbow that comes in chapter 8… However, we can’t get to that part of the story just yet. Instead, I am left wondering about life inside the Ark. Can you imagine the noise? Can you imagine the smell? Can you imagine how many times Noah must’ve thought “why is this happening?”

One of my biggest gripes with the way our faith works, is that it is a daily requirement. We don’t get any breaks! (Somewhat joking but also it’s true that there are no days off.) God asks for all of us all the time no matter the time or occasion. Then, even while we are doing our best, sometimes it takes years to see the fruit of it all. I can’t help but wonder about the amount of faith it must’ve taken to keep Noah going on this 100+ year adventure of building the ark.


Theology Thursday:
The Ark was a long and slow build just like our life in faith. Stanley Hauerwas is a retired professor from Duke Divinity School. He once talked about how “God’s slow work of the Church and the world’s impatience is always in conflict.” He goes on to say, “peace takes time.” I will forever and always want to rush to the good, positive, and redemptive parts of any story, but the truth is that we are almost always in the middle of the “slow work of the Church.” I want to rush to hear about the rainbow, but life rarely lets us skip the parts we don’t like. However, the long slow build is where faith is built. This is where God does God’s best work. If you feel you are in the long build, may we all be reminded that the rainbow is coming (and for our story that’s tomorrow!)
– Matthew Montgomery

Practice:
Find your rainbow! Look at where you most recently went through the long and slow build. What rainbow came from it?

Prayer:
Patient God,
May we find you in the midst of the long and slow build of our faith. Amen.

Reflection:
The first word in chapter 8 changes the direction of the flood story: HE REMEMBERS. While the Hebrew word zachar can mean simply to call to mind, in the Old Testament it is most frequently coupled with berit or covenant. Here, God isn’t just casually remembering that Noah and the animals are stuck on a rudderless boat. Instead, God is recalling the covenant relationship that was established with creation and later with Noah. God remembers that Noah is an upright man, worthy of being saved in the storm. God remembers that creation is good. God remembers the covenant that binds creator and creation together.

Just as chapter 7 demonstrates that the boundaries set in place at creation could be loosed resulting in chaos and death, chapter 8 walks us back through the reestablishment of these boundaries. The waters from above and below are restrained. The dry land separates from the endless sea. The birds could once again be released into the dome of the sky. New beginnings are once again possible.

Noah sends out birds from the ark to investigate a possible disembarkation time. He sends out a raven that does not return to the ark, giving Noah no clarity. Then he sends out a dove who returns without signs of life. After another week, sends out the dove again, this time returning with an olive leaf, evidence of new life. Each time a bird leaves the ark, Noah is inherently asking the question, does God remember me?

Finally, God speaks to Noah directly and says, open up the doors. God gives Noah the same commandment given to Adam and Eve: be fruitful and multiply. This echo of the creation story is the expressed divine hope that the world might return to its original created state. Noah’s first response to this command is to make a thanksgiving sacrifice, an acknowledgment that God is indeed trustworthy. This God, this Yahweh, is a god that keeps promises.

In the storm, it can be so hard to trust in God’s promise to love and care for us. When the evidence before us is a floating zoo in the storm, it is normal for us to throw open the window and send out a cry, do you remember me, God? But God always remembers. God always brings life from death, beauty from chaos, hope from despair. That is who God promises to be in our lives and in our world.

Eleanor Christiansen

Practice:
Pick one person who is caught in a storm right now and pray for them. Search out a little sign of encouragement, an olive leaf, that you might leave on that person’s doorstep, so that they might be reassured that God always remembers them.

Prayer:
God, I often feel caught in the chaos. Open my eyes to the signs of your presence and promise in my life. I want to learn to trust you more. Thank you for always remembering us. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray, Amen.

Reflection

Hebrew Word of the Week: Create

Here is our first verb in the Bible = bārā’
In the Hebrew Bible, bārā’ is used exclusively with God as the subject. Humans never perform bārā’; only God does.


Welcome back to our daily devos AND welcome to Genesis!!!

I imagine the story of creation is familiar to you, but there is so much in here to enjoy! First and foremost in our Bible, we have the story of God having fun. That is how I like to imagine it at least. God is enjoying creating all things. I feel this way because at the end of each day God calls creation “good.” God likes it, and I like to think God had fun putting the whole universe in motion. 

In these first 19 chapters, we hear how God went about creating the earth, land, water, light, darkness, plants, fruit, and finishing with the sun, moon, and stars. More than just a lovely picture, take a second to think of the complexity of any one of those things. Take a second to think of the creativity needed to imagine it all. Take a second to think about how detailed the plans had to be to make everything fit and work together. Now let’s go further… take a minute to think about the difference in creating an atom compared to creating a star. 
Just a quick google search:
Number of Atoms in a flower = 100 sextillion atoms

– a number I’ve never even heard of in a single flower!


Number of Galaxies in the Universe = 2 trillion!!


The same God who can so delicately put together a flower and also put together a never ending universe… is the same God who created you AND inexplicably gives you nonstop love and attention. We are carefully put together, covered in love, and of infinite worth to God.
As we start this new reading plan, as humanity gets more and more complicated, and as the stories get wild, let us keep in mind this first and most important lesson: God loves us.


– Matthew Montgomery

Practice:
Take some time to stare at creation. Enjoy the complexity of it all, and then take a minute to embrace God’s love for it and you.

Prayer:
Loving God,
thank you for your love. Amen.

Reflection:
There is a little word in the creation story that I have probably read hundreds of times without giving it much attention.
God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”
Not my image. Our image.
There are different ways of understanding that plural language. Christians have long heard in it an echo of the Trinity—the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Biblical scholars also remind us of the ancient understanding of God addressing the heavenly court. But whatever is happening in that mysterious “our,” I love what it suggests about us:
We were never meant to reflect the image of God alone.
God creates human beings in God’s image, and immediately there is relationship. There is an us.
That feels especially important in a world where loneliness is so common and division comes so easily. We are constantly encouraged to define ourselves by what separates us—our opinions, politics, generations, backgrounds, successes, failures, even our churches. Yet Genesis begins with something deeper than all those differences.
Before we are anything else, we belong to God. And when we look at another human being, we are looking at someone who bears God’s image too.
I need that reminder.
Because there are people I understand easily and others I do not. There are people I naturally enjoy and others who require a little more grace. But perhaps part of the gift of community is discovering that other people reflect parts of God’s goodness that I cannot reflect by myself.
Maybe the goal is not simply for me to become the person God created me to be. Maybe it is for us to become the people God created us to be—together.
And after creating this wonderfully diverse human family, God looked at all of it and called it “very good.”
Perhaps we should learn to look at one another with a little more of that same grace.

– Keith Thompson

Practice:
Think of someone you may have overlooked, misunderstood, or simply not spent much time with lately. Reach out. Invite them to coffee or lunch, make a phone call, or simply have a conversation. Listen for something of God in them.
 
Prayer:
Creating God, thank you for making us in your image and for giving us one another. Help me see your image in the people I love and in those I struggle to understand. Give me the grace to listen, the humility to learn, and the love to recognize that we belong to you—and to one another. Amen.

Reflection

Before we get into the second account of creation, we start with REST. The end of the story/song/liturgy from Genesis 1 is the beginning of our story today. If you joined us in the spring for our devotional series, you may remember that we named our Wednesday devotionals “Wesley Wednesdays”. John Wesley viewed the beginning of our passage today as the example that the need for rest is as old as the world itself and that it is our binding duty to engage in holy rest. I don’t know about you but I find that to be a lovely thought.

In verse 4, we get into the second story of creation, the view of a God that gets his hands dirty. In Hebrew, the name Adam is so similar to the word for dirt (Adamah) that the story LITERALLY feels muddy. The author wants us to know that the God of creation is WITH us, in the mire, in the clay, in the DIRT.

I love this account of creation because it reminds me that God is in ALL things. All things are God breathed. As someone who loves music and loves to sing, it feels like that to me, a song. Breath flowing from us to create something beautiful. When we remember this account of creation and we see the trees, when we see the animals, when we see each other, we will be reminded that God is with us and in us.

– Natalie Moon

Practice:
There is a song that I LOVE by Gateway Worship called Always. It reminds us that our Lord God, creator of ALL, the breath of life, is good ALWAYS.

For our reflection today, I want to invite you to think about how you engage with holy rest. Do you agree with John Wesley that it is our duty to find this rest weekly? I also want to invite you to listen to the song Always and think about how God reminds you in everyday life that you and others are “God-breathed.”

Prayer:
Help us to see that all people continue your breath. Amen.

Reflection:
We have come to the first plot twist of the Bible! Chapter 3 is famously known as “The Fall.” It is the point in human history where humanity chooses themselves over God. In much of Christian tradition and history, this is where people point to say, “sin entered the world and we have dealt with it ever since.” It is certainly a pivotal moment that speaks to so much of humanity. When given clear instructions from God, we as a people, often go against those very instructions.
In my life, whenever I hear this story, the moral is usually 1 of 3 things:


A) Just follow God’s instructions and don’t be tempted by the fruit
B) The real crime is how Adam and Eve point fingers and pass the blame
C) The talk is all about sin

My guess is that is how you have most often heard this story as well.
However, let me introduce you to Theology Thursday!

Theology Thursday:
On Theology Thursday, Natalie and I will bring in perspectives from theologians who have impacted our way of thinking. For today, I want to introduce Henri Nouwen. He was a Dutch Catholic Priest who passed away in 1996. He was best known for his writings, meditations, and understandings of God.
Henri Nouwen offers us a different perspective on Genesis 3.

He says, “this story is about more than human mistakes. Every time we mess up, we tell ourselves we aren’t worth love. ‘No one will love someone like me’ we say. But the story God tells is ‘you are so loved by me that you can hear me running to you’”

For me, this is the first story of God’s love in action. When Adam and Eve messed up and they were at their lowest point in their lives, God comes running to them. The CEB says that they could “hear the sound of God’s footsteps” as if to say he was in a hurry to get to them. God did not let them wallow in their mistake alone. God came to them. God didn’t let them suffer in silence. God came and immediately opened up communication. Adam and Eve hid. God came searching. There is so much to be said about this story and about Adam and Eve, but I love Henri Nouwen’s perspective.

– Matthew Montgomery

Practice:
Reflect on your life. When are times God came running to your side when you felt you least deserved it?

Prayer:
Holy God,
Thank you for never letting us sit in our shame alone. Thank you for chasing us down and reminding us of your presence in our lives. Amen.

Reflection:
We have come to the first of what will be many difficult passages in Genesis. The Story of Cain and Abel very closely parallels the story of Adam and Eve in the previous chapter.


a) There is a big mistake

b) God seeks out the guilty party
c) God asks a question and gives the party a chance to answer for themselves 
d) God tells them what will happen next and tells them of the consequences of their actions

The big difference in this story, is that Cain did not tell God what happened. Cain deflected. God then responds in a interesting way. On top of listing the consequences, God protects Cain from retaliation with a mark. The mark of Cain has gotten a lot of attention in biblical study. There isn’t enough in our story to know what this mark is, but it seems to me that God does not want the cycle of violence to continue. God comes in and puts a stop to more violence.

This story is also the start of a larger theme in Genesis where God chooses the younger brother. It will appear time and time again throughout Genesis: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Issac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. While the older brother is favored in the rest of life, God likes to prove that God does not follow the same social rules we do. God rarely chooses the obvious option. It is often a mystery, but a mystery filled with grace. I wonder how many times God has chosen us to do a good work we didn’t feel we were ready for? I wonder how many times in our life we were sent and didn’t even know it? Lastly, I wonder where and to whom God is sending us next?

Matthew Montgomery

Practice:
Find an unexpected way to share God’s grace!

Prayer:
Thank you for not following our social rules. Thank you for believing in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves. May we go spread your grace today wherever we are sent. Amen.