Without a right understanding of origins, there is no way to comprehend ourselves.

There is no way to understand humanity as to the purpose of our existence and as to our destiny.

If we cannot believe what Genesis says about origins, we are lost as to our purpose and our destiny.

Welcome to what promises to be a fascinating edition of Grace to You.

Today John MacArthur begins one of his most popular studies and it's a look at origins.

What the Bible says about how the universe came to be and the specific reasons God created it.

John calls this study from Genesis 1, the battle for the beginning.

John, maybe a helpful way to begin this study is to set the context.

You've spent the vast majority of your ministry teaching from the New Testament.

What prompted you to commit to an extensive study of the creation account and put together

this series that our listeners are about to hear?

Well Genesis is so critical not only because it's where God begins the Bible,

but because the account of the creation is the most attacked portion of the Bible.

Right.

It is not only attacked by the unbelieving world and by the agnostic world,

the atheistic world, it is attacked by the Christian world.

There's an organization called Biologos.

And they attack the book of Genesis and the creation account,

quote-unquote on the basis of science.

And they will even go so far as to say, if we don't reinterpret Genesis,

according to current scientific theory, we're going to be looked at as buffoons.

We're going to be looked at as low life people, as non-academic, non-scholarship people.

...