It forms a basis for the rest of the Scriptures. Thanks to Genesis, the world makes sense. There we learn why we have sin, death, illness and suffering. We learn why the world isn't the perfect place that we know a good God would have designed.
Creation was through the direct action of the Creator, as opposed to some naturalistic process. The creation took place at the beginning and was finished and complete. Creation did not extend over an important part of the supposedly vast evolutionary history of the universe. Creation was by the word of the Creator.
Our current culture is confused about the meaning of the word GOD. In today's culture, God could mean a set of moral standards, or an idea, or the universe itself, for an individual like Shirley MacLaine, or even for each individual himself. Therefore, Saturday is not a monument to Creation, but simply a Jewish institution that some unknown but ingenious individual wanted to link to Creation. On the contrary, none of the alternative creation stories believe in the existence of a good and perfect world at first.
They believe that I am misinterpreting Genesis by taking it literally and have therefore adopted a science biased toward literal creationism. A third reason is that the Bible's creation doctrine is integrally linked to its teaching on salvation. Every time the Bible alludes to the story of Creation in Genesis, the Scriptures describe Creation as a reliable representation of the origins of life. Creation is for the glory of God, and human beings have been given the special responsibility to care for God's creation.
