Episode 319: I’m Talkin. . .Beginning

I’m Talkin’, episode 319, for May 26th, 2024.

This is Joel from the I’m Talkin’ microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week we’re talking beginning.

Oftentimes I start with a definition just so we’re on the same page, but beginning is a pretty basic word, but it really denotes things that maybe we’re not all on the same page with, because it might be an origin story.

It could be like a birth, where this is the beginning of a person’s existence, as it were.

It could relate to times.

It could relate to seasons.

It could relate to lots and lots of different things, and therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

You might ask yourself, why beginning, just that simple word, would be a challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

Well, as is often the case, and you can go through the first number of microcasts that I did this year, where we’re looking at what I’ve called church words, and while beginning is not a church word in and of itself, the way we use it as Christians can be very different, and trying to describe the beginning can be difficult.

In general, we’re using it in relationship to time, because when we think of beginning, we think of Genesis, in the beginning, God created.

It’s interesting that we say that, because one of the challenges that we have as Christians is to use common words to describe uncommon occurrences.

So when we say beginning as a Christian, sometimes we mean there is no beginning.

It’s just we don’t know how else to talk about it.

When we talk about eternity past or eternity future, those are very difficult concepts to get across.

If we say this is when something started, then that’s the beginning.

We say the beginning of creation, the beginning of the church, the beginning of lots of things that we say have a beginning, but when we talk about the God we serve, there is no beginning.

There is no ending.

How do we relate to things in that sense?

That’s why using common words like beginning to describe uncommon things like God makes it very difficult to convey.

The one thing that I would challenge us as Christians is to think of the words we use, make sure we understand what they mean, and then as we’re talking to people, to make sure that they understand that that is the best that we know how to present it, but it doesn’t capture all of the thought of the words.

In the beginning, which really had no beginning, God created.

While there is a definite time frame and a definite article there of what and what happened in creation, it’s by a God that doesn’t have a beginning.

It can be confusing, it can be challenging, and as Christians, it’s not a cop-out, but oftentimes we have to say faith because the only way to understand God is through faith.

We will not understand him any other way.

In the beginning could be our Christian walk, could be our marriage, could be a birth of a child, could be lots of things, but in every beginning, we don’t want to forget to include the God who has no beginning.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking Microcast.