Tale: a series of events or facts told or presented
Story: an account of incidents or events
When I first conceived of the idea for this series, I planned to begin with a short summary of my own story up until this time. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to begin at the beginning.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[mfn]Genesis 1:1, NKJV[/mfn]
Yep. That beginning.
“The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”[mfn]Genesis 1:2, NKJV[/mfn]
The Story
God spoke into this watery, formless chaos and brought forth order. He divided the waters, dried the land, planted vegetation, set lights in the sky, and filled the earth with all manner of swimming creatures, flying creatures, creeping creatures, and crawling creatures. And He declared it all to be good.
Then God stooped and formed His crowning jewel out of the dust of the ground. And when He had created the man and woman, He declared them to be very good.
For a time, all remained perfect. Chaos had been displaced by perfect peace.
The Anti-Story
The serpent, seeing the beauty of God’s creation and growing angrier and angrier by the minute, tempted the woman with a simple question: “Has God indeed said?” When the woman replied with a twisted affirmation of the serpent’s question, he continued, promising her the change to “be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The woman fell for the lie.
Ever since, man has believed he can be like God.
Chaos returned. Brother rose against brother. Tribe against tribe. Nation against nation.
And out of this chaos two conflicting kingdoms emerged, each telling a very different story.
To be continued…