Shaelagh said recently on Facebook that she’s trying to condense Genesis down to 15 studies. She’s doing that for her next ITEA project, which will also be part of our church’s sermon/teaching series this fall when we get back. She was telling me about the first lesson a few days ago. It’s going to focus a lot on the importance of our being made in God’s image. Humankind, as the image of God on earth, was placed in a garden, a garden which is described a lot like a temple. We, humanity, were meant to be the representation of God in his temple, the Creation. But instead, we gave up that role and built temples to other gods and made other, lesser images of those other, lesser gods.

Which, interestingly, is basically what Paul says in Romans 1. Aside from logistics, correspondence, tech support, and stay-at-home dad, Romans is my project for the summer - not because I’m writing about it, but because it’s a hard book, and important, and people are starting to ask questions about it that need answers. And I don’t just mean people out there in books and blogs, but people I know personally who want to understand, for example, how Paul really felt about “the law” and how we should feel about it, and how much we should live by it. One tool that I’ve been leaning on to help sort some of that out is Christopher Wright’s claim that the Bible is above all a missional book, and that keeping that in mind can help us make sense of lots of things that are initially unclear. I’m not sure yet what that approach will yield in Romans, but it seems like a good tool to start digging with.

Which reminds me of Annalise’s summer project. She found her uncle Jason’s dinosaur books at my parents’ house. Why are there just bones? Where did they come from? Why do they look like that? At this rate, I don’t doubt that she’ll have Genesis and Romans figured out before I do.