The God File - Sample

THE OLD TESTAMENT FILES

GENESIS

ILE THE GENESIS F WHEN THE ACTION HAPPENED: Between the beginning of time and 1800 bc (approximately)..........................................................

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: In Genesis you get to find out

how the world began, how things went from good to bad, why God kick-started the special nation of Israel and what happened after that...................................

EXODUS

WHO WROTE IT? Most people think it was Agent Moses.......

WHERE THE ACTION HAPPENED: The Garden of Eden (location

WHAT’S WITH THE NAME? Genesis means ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’, which is why it’s at the very start of The God Files................................................................................................

AGENTS OF GOD TO LOOK OUT FOR: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Joseph.............................................

HIGHLIGHTS (check them out!): • • • • • • •

God makes the world’s first human being.

Genesis 2:5-7.

A flood destroys the whole world (probably a lowlight!). Genesis 7:11-24.

Abram gets sent on a mahoosive mission.

Genesis 12:1-3.

A miracle baby is born. Genesis 21:1-7.

Jacob fights with God. Genesis 32:24-25.

Joseph gets an impressive promotion.

Genesis 41:39-43.

The Israelites move to Egypt. Genesis 47:1-6.

LEVITICUS

unknown), Mount Ararat (in modern-day western Turkey), the plain of Shinar and Ur (both in modernday Iraq), Canaan, Egypt, Sodom (at the Dead Sea), Haran (in Syria) and a few other places you’ll find out about as you read this file..............................................

GE N E SI S 1 : 1 The beginning In the be­gin­ning God cre­at­ed the heav­ens and the ­earth. 2 Now the ­earth was form­less and emp­ty, dark­ ness was over the sur­face of the deep, and the Spir­it of God was hov­er­ing over the wa­ters.

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3 And

God said, ‘Let t­ here be ­light,’ and t­ here was ­light. 4 God saw that the ­light was good, and he sep­a­rat­ed the ­light from the dark­ness. 5 God ­called the ­light ‘day’, and the dark­ness he ­called ‘night’. And ­there was eve­ ning, and t­here was morn­ing – the ­first day.

6 And God said, ‘Let t­ here be a v ­ ault be­ tween the wa­ters to sep­ar­ate wa­ter from wa­ter.’ 7 So God made the ­vault and sep­a­rat­ed the wa­ter un­der the ­vault from the wa­ter ­above it. And it was so. 8 God ­called the v­ ault ‘sky’.

And t­here was eve­ning, and t­here was morn­ing – the sec­ond day.

9 And God said, ‘Let the wa­ter un­der the sky be gath­ered to one p ­ lace, and let dry ­ground ap­pear.’ And it was so.

10 God ­ called the dry g­ round ‘land’, and the gath­ered wa­ters he ­called ‘seas’. And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, ‘Let the land pro­ duce veg­e­ta­tion: seed-bear­ing ­plants and ­trees on the land that bear ­fruit with seed in it, ac­cord­ing to ­their var­ i­ous ­kinds.’ And it was so. 12 The land pro­duced veg­e­ta­tion: ­plants bear­ing seed ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds and ­trees bear­ing ­fruit with seed in it ac­ cord­ing to ­their ­kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And t­ here was eve­ ning, and t­here was morn­ing – the ­third day.

14 And God said, ‘Let ­there be ­lights in the ­vault of the sky to sep­a­rate the day from the ­night, and let them s­ erve as ­signs to mark ­sacred times, and days and ­years, 15 and let them be l­ ights in the ­vault of the sky to give ­light on the ­earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made two ­great ­lights – the great­er ­light to gov­ern the day and the less­er ­light to gov­ern the ­night. He also made the

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Old Testament ­stars. 17 God set them in the ­vault of the sky to give l­ ight on the e­ arth, 18 to gov­ern the day and the ­night, and to sep­a­rate ­light from dark­ness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And ­there was eve­ning, and ­there was morn­ing – the ­fourth day.

20 And God said, ‘Let the wa­ter teem with liv­ ing crea­ tures, and let ­ birds fly ­above the ­earth ­across the v­ ault of the sky.’ 21 So God cre­at­ed the g­ reat crea­tures of the sea and ev­ery liv­ing ­thing with w ­ hich the wa­ter ­teems and that moves about in it, ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds, and ev­ery ­winged bird ac­cord­ing to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God ­blessed them and said, ‘Be fruit­ful and in­crease in num­ber and fill the wa­ter in the seas, and let the b ­ irds in­crease on the ­earth.’ 23 And ­there was eve­ning, and ­there was morn­ing – the ­fifth day.

24 And God said, ‘Let the land pro­ duce liv­ing crea­tures ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds: the live­stock, the crea­tures that move ­along the ­ground, and the wild an­i­mals, each ac­cord­ing to its kind.’ And it was so. 25 God made the wild an­i­mals ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds, the live­stock ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds, and all the crea­tures that move ­along the ­ground ac­cord­ing to ­their ­kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, ‘Let us make man­kind in our im­age, in our like­ ness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the ­birds in the sky, over the live­stock and all the wild an­ i­mals, a and over all the crea­tures that move ­along the ground.’

27 So God created mankind in his own

image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

28 God ­blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruit­ful and in­crease in a 26 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see Syriac); Masoretic Text the earth

The Pentateuch

ASSIGNMENT

ACTIVATION Genesis 1:31 says that ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.’ It’s easy to see how God’s number one enemy has spoiled the wonderful world God created. Many people are hungry, sick, lonely or feeling unloved, which wasn’t God’s original plan. Is there something you can do to make the world a better place for someone else? Maybe talk to an adult about this as well as getting on your Hotline to Heaven to ask God what you can do.

num­ber; fill the ­earth and sub­due it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the ­birds in the sky and over ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture that ­moves on the ground.’

29 Then God said, ‘I give you ev­ery seed-bear­ing ­plant on the face of the ­whole ­earth and ev­ery tree that has ­fruit with seed in it. They will be ­yours for food. 30 And to all the ­beasts of the ­earth and all the ­birds in the sky and all the crea­tures that move along the ­ground – ev­ery­thing that has the ­breath of life in it – I give ev­ery g­ reen p ­ lant for food.’ And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And t­ here was eve­ning, and ­there was morn­ing – the ­sixth day.

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2 2 By

GENESIS 2 :14 Thus the heav­ens and the ­earth were com­plet­ed in all t­ heir vast ar­ray. the sev­enth day God had fin­ished the work he had been do­ing; so on the sev­enth day he rest­ed from all his work. 3 Then God b ­ lessed the sev­enth day and made it holy, be­cause on it he rest­ed from all the work of cre­at­ ing that he had done.

Adam and Eve 4 This is the ac­count of the heav­ens and the ­earth when they were cre­at­ed, when the Lord God made the ­earth and the heav­ens.

5 Now no ­ shrub had yet ap­peared on the ­earth a and no ­plant had yet ­sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the ­earth and ­there was no one to work the ­ground, 6 but ­streams b came up from the ­earth and wa­tered the ­whole sur­face of the ­ground. 7 Then the Lord God ­formed a man c from the dust of the g­ round and ­breathed into his nos­trils the ­breath of life, and the man be­came a liv­ing be­ing.

8 Now the Lord God had plant­ed a gar­ den in the east, in Eden; and t­ here he put the man he had ­formed. 9 The Lord God made all k­ inds of t­rees grow out of the ­ground – ­trees that were pleas­ing to the eye and good for food. In the mid­dle of the gar­den were the tree of life and the tree of the knowl­edge of good and evil.

10 A riv­er wa­ter­ing the gar­den ­flowed from Eden; from t­here it was sep­a­rated into four head­wa­ters. 11 The name of the ­first is the Pi­shon; it ­winds ­through the en­tire land of Hav­i­lah, w ­ here ­there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aro­­mat­ic res­in d and onyx are also ­there.)

13 The name of the sec­ond riv­er is the Gi­ hon; it ­winds ­through the en­tire land of Cush. e 14 The name of the t­ hird riv­er is the

a 5 Or land ; also in verse 6 b 6 Or mist c 7 The Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for ground (adamah) ; it is also the name Adam (see verse 20). d 12 Or good; pearls e 13 Possibly south-east Mesopotamia

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GE N E SI S 2 : 15

Old Testament

AGENT ESSENTIALS DON’T LISTEN TO THE LIES The Genesis File tells us about two big mistakes which Agents Adam and Eve made. What were they? Well, first they listened to the lies of the snake (otherwise known as the devil), which resulted in their second mistake, disobeying God. All agents of God need to make sure that they shut their ears to the lies of God’s number one enemy and always obey what God says. To read for yourself God’s strict instructions to Adam and Eve, head to Genesis 2:16-17.

Ti­gris; it runs a­ long the east side of Ash­ur.

And the ­fourth riv­er is the Eu­phra­tes.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Gar­den of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God com­ mand­ed the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the gar­den; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowl­edge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will cer­tain­ly die.’

18 The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be a­ lone. I will make a help­er suit­able for him.’

19 Now the Lord God had ­formed out of the ­ground all the wild an­i­mals and all the ­birds in the sky. He ­brought them to the man to see what he ­would name them; and what­ev­er the man ­called each liv­ing crea­ture, that was its name. 20 So the man gave ­names to all the live­stock, the b ­ irds in the sky and all the wild an­i­mals.

But for Adam f no suit­able help­er was ­found. 21 So the Lord God ­caused the man to fall into a deep s­ leep; and w ­ hile he was sleep­ing, he took one of the m ­ an’s ribs g and then c­ losed up the p ­ lace with fl ­ esh.

22 Then the Lord God made a wom­an from f 20 Or the man g 21 Or took part of the man’s side

the rib h he had tak­en out of the man, and he ­brought her to the man.

23 The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman”, for she was taken out of man.’

24 That

is why a man ­leaves his fa­ther and moth­er and is unit­ed to his wife, and they be­come one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both na­ked, and they felt no shame.

The fall Now the snake was more ­crafty than any of the wild an­i­mals the Lord God had made. He said to the wom­an, ‘Did God real­ly say, “You must not eat from any tree in the gar­den”?’

2 The wom­ an said to the snake, ‘We may eat f­ ruit from the ­trees in the gar­den, 3 but God did say, “You must not eat ­fruit from the tree that is in the mid­dle of the gar­den, and you must not t­ ouch it, or you will die.” ’

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h 22 Or part

The Pentateuch 4 ‘You will not cer­tain­ly die,’ the snake said to the wom­an. 5 ‘For God k­ nows that when you eat from it your eyes will be ­opened, and you will be like God, know­ ing good and evil.’

6 When the wom­an saw that the f­ ruit of the tree was good for food and pleas­ing to the eye, and also de­sir­able for gain­ing wis­dom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her hus­band, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were ­opened, and they re­al­ ised that they were na­ked; so they ­sewed fig l­ eaves to­geth­er and made cov­er­ings for them­selves.

8 Then the man and his wife ­heard the ­sound of the Lord God as he was walk­ing in the gar­den in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God a­ mong the ­trees of the gar­den. 9 But the Lord God ­called to the man, ‘Where are you?’

10 He an­swered, ‘I ­heard you in the gar­ den, and I was a­ fraid be­cause I was na­ked; so I hid.’

11 And he said, ‘Who told you that you were na­ked? Have you eat­en from the tree from which I com­mand­ed you not to eat?’

GOD’S NEMESIS God’s number one enemy goes by the name of Satan or ‘the devil’. He is represented by the snake in the Garden of Eden. But he’s not God’s equal by any means. He was originally a top angel called Lucifer but he got too big for his boots and wanted to be worshipped like God. His rebellion resulted in God throwing him out of heaven and he ended up on planet earth. He’s been trying to get his revenge ever since by trying to spoil the wonderful world God created. Agents of God have no need to fear the devil because Jesus defeated him on the cross and God’s angels are always protecting us.

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GENESIS 3 :19 12 The man said, ‘The wom­an you put here with me – she gave me some ­fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’

The wom­an said, ‘The snake de­ceived me, and I ate.’

14 So the Lord God said to the snake, ‘Be­cause you have done this,

‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!

You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring a and hers; he will crush b your head, and you will strike his heel.’

16 To the wom­an he said,

‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’

17 To Adam he said, ‘Be­ cause you lis­ tened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree ­about ­which I com­mand­ed you, “You must not eat from it,”

‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,

a 15 Or seed b 15 Or strike

LAW G�N�S�S� E�O�U�, L�V�T�C�S� N�M�E�S� D�U�E�O�O�Y HISTORY J�S�U�, J�D�E�, R�T�, 1 S�M�E�, 2 S�M�E�, 1 K�N�S� 2 K�N�S� 1 C�R�N�C�E�, 2 C�R�N�C�E�, E�R�, N�H�M�A�, E�T�E� POETRY J�B� P�A�M�, P�O�E�B�, E�C�E�I�S�E�, S�N� O� S�N�S MAJOR PROPHETS I�A�A�, J�R�M�A�, L�M�N�A�I�N�, E�E�I�L� D�N�E� MINOR PROPHETS H�S�A� J�E�, A�O�, O�A�I�H� J�N�H� M�C�H� N�H�M� H�B�K�U�, Z�P�A�I�H� H�G�A�, Z�C�A�I�H� M�L�C�I

OLD TESTAMENT

GOSPELS M�T�H�W� M�R�, L�K�, J�H� HISTORY A�T� PAUL’S LETTERS R�M�N�, 1 C�R�N�H�A�S� 2 C�R�N�H�A�S� G�L�T�A�S� E�H�S�A�S� P�I�I�P�A�S� C�L�S�I�N�, 1 T�E�S�L�N�A�S� 2 T�E�S�L�N�A�S� 1 T�M�T�Y� 2 T�M�T�Y� T�T�S� P�I�E�O� OTHER LETTERS H�B�E�S� J�M�S� 1 P�T�R� 2 P�T�R� 1 J�H�, 2 J�H�, 3 J�H�, J�D� PROPHECY R�V�L�T�O�

NEW TESTAMENT

W�R�H�P If you’ve ever been to a Sunday meeting at an Agent Outpost, you’ll know that there’s quite a lot of singing! The God Files calls this ‘worship’ and it’s all about singing songs to God to tell him how great we think he is, to thank him for what he’s done and to remind ourselves that he’s always with us. Different Outposts will do worship in different ways. Some will have a full band of musicians and others might have an organist or a choir. Traditional songs are called hymns but songs that were written more recently are often called worship songs. Here are some examples:

A H�M� This is a verse from a very old hymn called ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’. It was written in 1747 by Charles Wesley, a famous agent of God. Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down, fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown.

Jesu, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.

A W�R�H�P S�N� A popular worship song of modern times is ‘How Great is Our God’ by Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves and Ed Cash.

It’s actually based on Psalm 104 which begins with these lines: ‘Praise the LORD, my soul.

LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendour and majesty.’

W�Y D� W� W�R�H�P� It might sound weird to sing songs to God but it’s really no different from the pop songs that people sing about someone they love. Worship is simply a way of expressing how we feel about God. Probably the most famous worshipper in The God Files is Agent David but he wasn’t the only one. Check out the song Agent Miriam sang (in Exodus 15:19-21) after God had rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians.

H�W T� W�R�H�P It’s great to worship God with other agents at your Agent Outpost, but did you know that you can worship God wherever you are? In your bed (maybe read a psalm of praise to God before you go to sleep), in your bathroom (thanking God that he is always with you) or on your way to school. Wherever you worship, make sure it’s a part of your everyday life.

ARE YOU READY TO BECOME AN AGENT OF GOD? Making Jesus number one in your life (and being one of his amazing agents) is the absolute best thing you could ever do. But before you go on any missions for Jesus or do anything for him here’s what you need to know.

He’ll always love you.

He’ll never leave you.

He’s on your side.

He’ll protect you.

He’s got good plans for your life.

He thinks you’re amazing.

Who wouldn’t want to serve a God like that? So, if you think you’re ready to give your life to Jesus and become an agent of God, turn the page to find out how.

AGE N

T

OF G OD

WEL�O�E� If you prayed that prayer, congratulations! You’re now part of God’s family and you’re also an agent of God, on a mission to tell the world about Jesus.

If you know another agent of God (a Christian) tell them about the exciting decision you’ve just made.

They can help you begin your new life with God by suggesting a good Agent Outpost (church) where you can meet other agents of God and learn more about him (that’s if you’re not part of one already).