OUTTAKE: In the Beginning
“In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the
foundations of the earth, and the
heavens are the work of Your hands.”
HEBREWS 1:10
In the Beginning
Prissie grabbed her Bible and climbed into her bedroom’s windowseat. There were things she wanted to know. About her new friend in particular. About angels in general. But she wasn’t sure where to start. Although she’d been encouraged to read her Bible from the time she was young, she’d never studied a single topic before. “Am I supposed to start reading at the first page and watch for angels to come up?”
Asking an empty room wasn’t much good. With a small shrug, Prissie flipped to Genesis 1 and settled in to read. To her surprise, she ran into her first angel by chapter three. She was just rereading the verses when someone knocked. “Is that you, Koji?” she called.
“It is.” The boy opened the door and leaned through. “May I join you?”
“Please.” Prissie self-consciously lifted the Bible. “I was only reading.”
The young Observer climbed onto the wide seat and leaned close. “Did you make a discovery?”
“How did you know?” He only shrugged, so she pointed to the passage she’d found. “I didn’t remember that there were cherubim in the beginning.”
Koji read Genesis 3:24 aloud.
“After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side
of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword
flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”
“Doesn’t that mean that Adam and Eve knew about angels?”
“Indeed.”
Running her thumb along pages edged in gold, Prissie asked, “How many more verses about angels will I come to if I keep reading?”
“There are more than two-hundred and fifty references.” Koji lightly touched her arm. “Perhaps if you began with the concordance …?”
Turning to the very end of the book, Prissie checked the index. There weren’t hundreds, but her Bible listed nearly forty verses about angels. “So I should start with these?”
“Please.” Koji gazed at her with earnest expectation.
It wasn’t hard to figure out what he wanted. “Now?”
His smile was all the answer she needed.
♦♦♦
Look into these things …
“Even angels long to look into these things.” –1 Peter 1:12
♦ Where do you do like to your Bible reading?
♦ Have you ever done a word study through the Bible, looking at one particular theme? Do you use Bible studies or workbooks?
♦ What’s the difference between Bible reading and Bible study? What can you gain from each?
