Where Did God Come From?
Habakkuk 3:3-4, Psalm 139:1-12
I hope that you are enjoying this series on topics you would like to hear taught. The suggestions I received have been very interesting and thought-provoking for me as well. Next Wednesday I’m combining several questions people had from Genesis into one group and I will be talking about the “Mysteries of Genesis.” There are some strange passages in the book of Genesis that always raise questions.
Tonight’s topic is “Where did God come from?” This is probably one of those questions most people have pondered at one time or another. Let me turn the question back to you before I share my thoughts? Where do you think God came from? We have such a hard time wrapping our minds around the concept of what God is about that historically people have come up with all sorts of strange ideas to try to make sense out of who God is and how God came to be.
If you want to be a literalist, the Bible actually gives us an answer to the question, “Where did God come from?” It is found in the writings of the prophet Habakkuk.
So where is Teman? It is actually another name for Edom, which was a tribe of people who lived in the land that the ancient Hebrews came to after their time in Egypt.
A literal translation is not very helpful. Instead we need to think about how we imagine God in the context of time? Did God exist before creation? Our questions about the origin of God often reveal our assumptions about God. If we think of God as a being we assume there must be a beginning and end. If we think of God as a “reality” then we begin to understand that God exists when we love, show compassion, care about our neighbor, or repair an injustice. Therefore God is both within and outside of time, within and beyond a personal experience, captured within and greater than individual human acts. We get a better understanding of this idea when we read Psalm 139. Listen to these words with the idea of God being the reality we experience rather than a being limited by time or place. (Read vs. 1-12)