Welcome! I have been teaching lessons from the Bible for more than 70 years (I started young!) and the awe and thrill of speaking His Word is more real today than ever before. I do not intend to give you all the answers because I have found that God chooses to reveal answers in His time and by His methods, but I do pray I can stir in you the questions that will deepen your relationship with Him.

Questions are our important stepping stones in the Great Adventure of arriving at God's goal for us. Genesis starts out with some very important questions. The first came from Lucifer, "Did God really say....?" The second came from God, "Where are you?" When we listen to the first question which comes to everyone, we must heed and ask ourselves the second.

So I am going to ask, "What is Covenant?" and this is going to lead to many questions and a quest that I have been on for many years. I still have not found all the answers but my quest has lead me to questions I never would have known to ask without the Spirit leading me deeper into this awesome subject.

There are clues to covenant all through the book of Genesis, starting in the first chapter. Our first introduction to covenant language comes in Genesis 2:18. ".....I will make a helpmeet suitable for him." Many have changed that word to helpmate not understanding the old English meaning for helpmeet as "one who answers to". We see Adam's verbal response to the lovely creature God presented to him was in covenant language and so we know that for however long God chose to teach Adam in his solitude, covenant was one of the lessons.

I see God's method of revealing Himself to man for man's approach to Him has three distinct characteristics almost equally divided into three. The first two thousand years God deals with a family line. Family is the main characteristic of this first period. Two things we see God gives man as a response to Him is covenant making and city building. These are such important responses to God that He uses them as a foundation for His purpose in creating man. And this brings us to the heart of our first lesson.

God has a purpose in all He does. God chose to make man and time and a creation to satisfy His desire expressed in Genesis 1:26. "Let Us make man in Our image..." This desire began way back in eternity long before there was creation as we know it. The "oldest" portion in the Bible is described in Proverbs 8:22-31. Wisdom is the oldest of God's "creations". Wisdom is the first entity God set aside, out of Himself, to be the guiding Light in this journey (or process) of making man in God's image. I see it as an architect having a vision of what he wants to have built. He sees it clearly but he needs to not only produce it but to protect his vision. So a blueprint is drawn, precisely and with complete detail to even a picture of the finished project. This blueprint will control and instruct. It will protect not only the vision of the Artist/architect, but the people who will be involved with the project. It will outline not only the building project but the cost and the outcome.

When we set out to build a house, I learned a great deal from the experience of how covenant works. I began to see covenant response in a new light. The blueprints took on a life of their own. Proverbs 8 became a new chapter to me. I saw the importance of God setting Wisdom as an entity alone--outside of God. God is so complete, so awesomely perfect and holy and full of wisdom and power and majesty, that the creation could not respond to Him without being destroyed. God created angels (after He declared to make man!) in all levels but they are just that--created beings. Man is created to change. He is created with a will to change. We have a choice to be what God wants and so develop in Him according to the path laid out in the blueprint, or go our own way to darkness.

Wisdom created covenant as the protection for both God and man in this process. God will have what He desires but covenant is the guide to the process.

That is enough (!) for our first lesson. If it creates questions in you that is my goal. Feel free to ask not only in this blog but in your private moments with your Creator. He loves your questions and your searching.