Table Talk Volume 1 - Devotions: Bible Stories You Should Know

By Carl Frazier and Ben Simpson

Complementing Table Talk's Volume 1 programs, this selection of devotions brings the message home and allows participants to apply the session's message to their own lives.

Volume 1 presents the stories of Creation, The Fall, The Flood, Father Abraham, Ten Words, and The Great Commandment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781426766466

Carl Frazier

Carl Frazier is the Lead Pastor at First United Methodist Church in Cary, North Carolina. He previously served as the Superintendent for the Elizabeth City District of the United Methodist Church. His senior pastorates have included Saint Luke United Methodist Church in Sanford, Hay Street United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, and Saint Francis United Methodist Church in Cary. He has served as a Delegate to the General Conference and Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church, and currently serves on the United Methodist Publishing House Board of Directors. Carl’s passion in ministry centers around preaching and teaching the Scriptures, vision casting with a congregation, and sharing with others on their faith journeys. His hometown is Cary, North Carolina.

Book preview

Week One

CREATION

Genesis 1:1–2:4a

I. BRINGING FORTH BEAUTY

When God began to create the heavens and the earth—the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God's wind swept over the waters—God said, Let there be light. And so light appeared. (Genesis 1:1-3)

The Genesis 1 Creation story states this historical fact: God shaped and formed the world, and brought it into being. But the story is first poetry, declaring universal truths about God's why behind the text. As Robert Frost wrote, The utmost of ambition is to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of.² In Genesis 1, we have just such a poem.

Verses 1-3, quoted above, tell us that God brought order from chaos. God spoke, and it was so. The word of God is a powerful thing. Just as we anticipate what God brings forth when we read the Genesis 1 narrative, we wait for that moment when the Word speaks to us, and takes the mess and muck of our struggles to bring forth beauty and wholeness and peace.

The power of God's creative word, expressed at the beginning of Genesis and repeated throughout this poetic description of the Creation, inspires awe. Who knew that such a God exists, a God who creatively crafts our world according to divine purposes, loving and caring and expressing concern for all we encounter? The story declares there is a God who has created in order to be in relationship to the world that was shaped and formed from darkness, chaos, and nothingness. With a word, God has brought forth all that is, including you.

Creator God, provide me the grace I need to recognize when you are at work. Take the raw material of my life, send forth your Spirit, and put me together. Help me to look to you as the one who brings order and wholeness, completeness and peace. As you brought forth light with a word, cutting through darkness at the beginning of your creative work, place and call forth your light within me, that I might shine before others, bringing glory to you.