Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 28, and God bless them.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens

and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

This is a pretty remarkable verse when you think about it.

So God has created the heavens and the earth, and in the pinnacle of his creation, he creates.

Man and woman in his image as a reflection of him.

That's verse 27. God created man in his own image. And the image of God he created him, male and

female, he created them. Men and women created to uniquely reflect God in a way that nothing else

in all creation reflects God in the same way,

that we relate to God in a way that is totally different from everything else in all creation.

And then verse 28 says, God bless them, just see, this is the pure, unadulterated blessing of God, goodness of God, just

flowing toward man and woman. And God says to them. So his blessing is then followed by

instruction, command, be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth. So get the picture. God says, I've created you in my

image. Now, fill the earth with my image, with this unique reflection of my grace and my glory.

I want my blessing spread throughout the earth in this way. So this is the,

in a sense, the creation mandate. And obviously, the implications are physical, a man and woman in

marriage, and they're to multiply and fill the earth. But as we go throughout scripture from

this point, we realize that this, this picture

from the very beginning of the Bible is God's continual desire all throughout the Bible.

He wants his blessing, his grace and his image bearers known all throughout the earth.

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