Lessons on Genesis 1 for Teenagers

How do you teach Genesis 1 to teenagers? The first chapter of the Bible is filled with amazing ideas, but it has also been the source of much controversy. What should we include? What should we exclude? And how should we order our lessons for high school students?

Ultimately, what you do should be influenced by your students’ level of understanding so I wouldn’t incorporate everything below with every class. With that said, here’s my tentative order of lessons on Genesis 1. (Click on the links for more information.)

Lesson 1: Repetition in Genesis 1

Genesis 1 contains many repeated words and phrases. Repetition shows emphasis. Have students analyze this chapter by finding the repetition. (See this post for more details.)

Lesson 2: The Days of Genesis 1

This is where the controversy begins, but don’t get lost in it. Point out the basic structure that the days provide— forming and filling—then give a summary of the different views of the days. (See this post.)

Lessons 3-4: Revolutionary Ideas in Genesis 1

Try to get students to relate with ancient people and their view of the world, perhaps by writing a journal entry for an ancient person who encounters one of the revolutionary ideas below. 

• There’s only one God, Creator of everything. This conflicts with polytheism—the belief in many gods—that permeated the ancient world. Starting with verse 1, Genesis rejects all other gods and confronts us with an all-powerful God. In addition, many ancient accounts convey a theogony, or a birth story of the gods. In contrast, Genesis 1 simply asserts God’s existence without referencing God’s origin. (For more on Genesis 1:1 see it’s scope and relation to the rest of Genesis 1. You may also want to consider showing or teaching the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1.)
• God’s word is powerful and creative. While other ancient creation stories describe the origin of the world as a battle between the gods, the God of Genesis creates by merely speaking. “And God said” begins each of the six days of creation. In contrast to Genesis, consider Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story that comes from 1200 BC or earlier. Here’s an overview of the Babylonian creation story. (Students can draw this in cartoon form, act it out, etc.)

Apsu and Tiamat have children

• • The gods of the water Apsu (male) and Tiamat (female) give birth to other gods. Here are the first few lines:

1 When the heavens above did not exist,
2 And earth beneath had not come into being —
3 There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
4 And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all;
5 They had mingled their waters together
6 Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to he found —
7 When not one of the gods had been formed
8 Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed,
9 The gods were created within them:

Ea kills Apsu

• • The children (gods) liked to party and stay up late.
  • Apsu grew tired of their noise so he planned to kill them. Tiamat didn’t agree with his plan. 
  • The oldest son Ea knew about Apsu’s plan so he killed his father. 
  • The gods Ea and Damkina become the parents of Marduk.

Tiamat plans to kill her children

• • The god Kingu tells Tiamat to kill her children because they killed her husband.
  • Tiamat agrees.

Marduk kills Tiamat

• • Ea was afraid and asks his son Marduk for help.
  • Marduk agrees to help as long as he would become the king of the gods.
  • Marduk attacks the army with his thunder and storms until he and Tiamat were left alone.
  • Tiamat opened her mouth to devour Marduk, but Marduk filled it with the wind.
  • While Tiamat could not close her mouth, Marduk shot an arrow down her throat, piercing her heart and killing her. 

Marduk creates the world from Tiamat’s body

• • Marduk split Tiamat’s body in half to create the heavens and the earth.
  • He placed the stars and moon in the heavens, and grain, fields, and animals throughout the earth.

Marduk kills Kingu

• • Marduk made the defeated gods work in the fields.
  • The gods complained so Marduk killed their leader, Kingu.
  • Humans were created from Kingu’s blood, clay from the earth, and spit from the gods.
  • Humans were made to relieve the gods of their work. 

*For more detail, read the full text of Enuma Elish here.

• God made everything and it was all “very good.” God didn’t make a mistake, nothing was made accidentally, and nothing was originally created evil. Much of the ancient world embraced dualistic ideas, which differentiated between good and bad aspects of creation, but Genesis begins with the idea of original and universal goodness. (Sin is not original to creation.)
• There’s a distinction between the Creator and creation. We shouldn’t confuse the two by worshiping the sun, trees, or human beings. This was a revolutionary idea in the ancient world where, for example, the sun or the king was identified as a god. (There are many good YouTube videos on how the sun, moon, and stars were formed. Also make sure to emphasize the pervasiveness of sun and moon worship throughout human history.)
• Humans were created to rule. Unlike some ancient creation stories, humans were not created to be slaves of the gods. They were designed to exercise dominion on Earth.
• Men and women have the same status—both created in God’s image. Throughout human history women have been viewed as inferior to men, but Genesis 1 affirms that both have the same dignity—created in the image of God.

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)

Lesson 5: The Image of God

Place students in groups and have them show three ways that humans are unique or special in comparison with other creatures. (They can do skits, use the whiteboard, etc.)

Being made in God’s image means:

• We are replicas of God, and therefore, we represent God on Earth. Ancient rulers made statues of themselves “in their image and likeness.” In a sense, God made a statue of himself and placed it in the garden. This means we have a special connection with God.
• We are God’s appointed rulers on Earth. This doesn’t mean that we should rule with an iron-fist and destroy creation. Rather God wants us to be caretakers of creation, bringing it to its full potential. As it says in Genesis 2, God “took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (v. 15). Note the references to ruling in Genesis 1:26-28:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, 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 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.” (NIV)

• However, we must be careful with the idea of being made in God’s image. This concept has been used to demean various people groups—those of a certain race, those lacking intellectual or physical abilities, those lacking socioeconomic status. When the image of God is identified with a particular human trait, those who don’t have that trait are denigrated as lacking God’s image. (See the book Dignity and Destiny for more detail.) But this is a misinterpretation of the Bible and a failure to make a key distinction: we were made in God’s image, but Christ is God’s image.

• • “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Col. 1:15)
  • “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor. 4:4)

Since Christ is God’s image and he is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8), God’s image is unchanging and secure. And it is in that image in which we were made. As John says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (1:3). Christ, then, is our origin; the blueprint of our existence. Since God’s image is the unchanging Christ, the divine image is not affected by human variation or human sin. Additionally, Christ is our destiny so we are in the process of being conformed or transformed into his image. Thus we were made in God’s image, but we have turned away from that image so we must be recreated or reshaped to conform to the original pattern. In this way, the blueprint plans are being realized. Paul says it this way:

• • “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29)
  • “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18)

Lesson 6: The Challenge of Day Two 

Verses 6-8 create a special challenge for modern interpreters, at least they do for me. (See this post.)

Lesson 7: Genesis 1 and Modern-Day Science

This is more advanced. I wouldn’t present all of the information below to every middle school class, but I think it’s appropriate for high school classes.

• Five Views on the Origin of Life
• The Six Days and the Age of the Earth
• Three Christian Views on the Creation of Humans

Lesson 8: Quiz and Additional Details

• Create a quiz from the information in Lessons 1-7.

Additional Details

• • Genesis 1 asserts that water originally covered Earth. Scientists agree that water covered most or all of the planet and without earthquakes and tsunamis it would continue to do so.
  • “According to their kinds” – God created things with distinctions. Some use this as support against God-directed evolution. Others note that God created living creatures out of the land so new things came out of existing matter, which they believe corresponds with the process of evolution.
  • “Great sea creatures” (v. 21) – The Hebrew word is tanninnim. Some believe it is better translated as “sea monsters” or “big reptiles” or even “dinosaurs.” Others believe dinosaurs are not mentioned in Genesis 1 because they roamed the earth long before humans and the story is focused on humans. Scientists believe dinosaurs lived on earth around 250-65 million years ago and probably became extinct as a result of an asteroid colliding with Earth.
  • Vegetarians? (v. 29) – God gave the humans and animals green plants for food. What does that mean for eating meat? (See Genesis 9:1-5 for a reference to meat eating.)

Lesson 9: Reflection and Activity

• Ask reflection questions and have students draw or write a poem related to Genesis 1. For example,

• • What are the big ideas in Genesis 1?
  • Why do we need a beginning?
  • How do you feel when you miss the first ten minutes of a movie?
  • What do you like about Genesis 1? Why?
  • What do you dislike about Genesis 1? Why?
  • If you could witness one of the days of creation, which one would you choose? Why?
  • How does Genesis 1 make you feel? Why?
  • Take 5–10 minutes and draw anything in Genesis 1. (Or look at famous works of art on Genesis 1 online.)

[These lessons have been revised and included in my Guide for Secondary Bible Teachers.]