In the (Other) Beginning

Genesis 1 and 2 tell the same creation from two angles—not contradicting but completing each other. The first shows us who we are: image-bearers of God, every life stamped with infinite worth, no graded scale, no ordinary people. The second shows us what we do: formed from dust and placed in the garden to cultivate and to keep. Those two verbs become the rhythm of every relationship—with God, with creation, and with the person right across from us. We're called to work and to guard, to give and to hold, to develop and to protect—and the moment we stop trusting God's good design, that sacred balance spoils into greed, lust, and exploitation. The invitation of Genesis is to live as people who both bear the image and tend the garden: to cultivate and to keep.