Episode Details

Prayer

Lord God, I thank and praise you for this new day. Thank you for the gift of sleep that you gave to me last night. As the new dawn rises, I look to you for light and hope. You are the only reason I have to live, and without you I have nothing. As I open your word now, may you feed my soul, may you enlighten my eyes. I pray that you may so form my mind as to see the world in a new way – to live with the full and deep conviction that this is your world, and to experience this world as a continuing and unfolding revelation from you. I want to serve you, I want to be like you, but I have so much sin remaining in my heart constantly working against that goal. And I am so weak and frail even were my will wholly devoted to you. Please meet me know in this place of weakness, please pardon my many sins, and help me to walk in blameless in your ways. Have mercy upon me, O God. This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Reading

Gen 1:20-23.

“And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.”

Meditation

The first lesson we learned from day five is that God’s purpose for animals is that God made and uses them to instruct, teach, and help us. In addition, as we exercise dominion over them part of our calling is to learn about them. In light of these insights, the common lesson that we gather from the creatures of day five is that God calls them to multiply. However, there is more for us to see here. And so here is the next thing I want us to pay attention to as we consider the creatures of day five. Notice another obvious lesson: God makes different kinds of animals. We see this very clearly in the text. Now the question is: what is the significance of this insight?

Throughout history, different people at different times have had different ways of classifying animals. We use categories like: warm-blooded or cold blooded; we have marsupials and monotremes (and for those of you who like reading about animals, a monotreme is actually a marsupial that lays an egg – I believe that platypus and echidna are the only known marsupials that do this). In biblical thought, however, the basic division of the animals is in keeping with the environment in which God places them. There are creatures of sky and sea (day five), and then also there are land animals created on day six. Earth, sky, and sea. So here’s the next principle I want us to take note of here: God defines creatures by their environment.

Building on this, we see furthermore that the purpose of the creatures is also specifically related to their environment. Fish aren’t commanded to fill the air – they’re commanded to fill the waters. There is a God intended link between animals and their environments. Can you see that? He put the fish in water and birds in the air, and usually the two kinds do not break those boundaries. We addressed this link earlier in our studies as well when we considered the parallel between the first three days and the second three days. Day one gives us light, day four gives us the lights of the heavens; day two gives us sea and sky, day five gives us fish and birds; day four gives us land, day six gives us the creatures of the land. There is a God-intended link between creatures and their environments.

Now, let’s tie this all together – we’ll start by considering the relationship between fish and water. What can we learn here? And how would God have this to benefit u