Introduction: Part 2
I take an unusual approach in this Story of Desire. Christians often begin conversations about desire in much different starting places. Some start with philosophy. Around 1625 years ago Augustine crafted a philosophical framework of disordered loves detailed in Confessions (Books I & II) and City of God (Book 15.22). Augustine reflected upon ordered pursuits of happiness. His philosophical position suggests “disordered love,” is the essence of sin – loving finite things over God. But I want to go further back than that; the Story of Desire without the philosophical influence.
Others start with Paul’s language of “the flesh,” or with James’ vocabulary of temptation and sin. Those are important voices, but they’re not the first voice in Scripture. I want to go back even further. The biblical story of desire begins long before the fall, long before Israel, long before the prophets or apostles. It begins where the whole story starts – in Genesis.
Here’s How I Read Genesis
In Genesis 1-2, Scripture isn’t concerned with explaining how humanity came to be, but rather, who humanity is called to be. The text initially speaks of “human being(s)” rather than a single named individual. Initially Genesis presents humanity as a collective earthling (LOL!) formed from the ground (’adamah – earth, ground, soil ) but eventually called personally (represented by Adam) into a relationship with God. The image of God, then, is less about a biological genetic trait to be located and more about a vocation to be lived. Understand it as a call into relational trust, responsibility, and desire directed toward God and creation. However one understands the processes by which life emerged, Genesis tells truth as a theological story: humans are called into covenant, entrusted with life, and invited to reflect God’s character in the world.
Ancient Desire
Genesis isn’t a modern book. It’s written in the form of stories Israel carried, reflected upon, repeated, and prayed for centuries. Some stories grew out of ancient memories of ancestors whose lives stretched back into the Bronze Age (c 3100 BC – 1200 BC). Others grew through long periods of reflection in Israel’s worshiping community. What we have in Genesis isn’t an ancient collection of myths, nor a scientific explanation of how things happened, but a theological narrative. Genesis is a study of God; Israel’s attempt to tell the world and themselves what kind of God they belong to, and what kind of world they live in.
When Israel told these stories, they lived among cultures steeped in other creation stories; stories where the gods were restless, hungry, impulsive, or violent. In the ancient Near East, only Kings possessed the image of god and the gods didn’t love people; they used them. In those creation stories humans existed to carry divine burdens, feed divine appetites, or help keep chaos under control. That divine world was unstable, and so was human life.
God Steps Into History
But Genesis entered that world as a quiet, steady contradiction.
Instead of gods at war, Genesis opens with a God who speaks.
Instead of creation born from conflict, creation unfolds from blessing – from good to very good.
Instead of humanity created to satisfy divine need, humanity is created to display divine likeness.
This is the first surprise in the biblical story: God doesn’t make humans because He lacks something. God makes humans because He wants them. Creation isn’t an act of divine necessity; it’s an act of divine desire.
And that changes everything.
Here’s the key truth in Genesis. Human desire isn’t a problem to manage but a gift woven into the fabric of creation itself. Humans take their place in a world that God calls good, given work that’s meaningful, and invited into a relationship with a God who delights in friendship. Perhaps you’ve never thought about it but desire appears before sin, before prohibition, before fear. It belongs to the world as a blessing, not a curse.
Desire Before Distortion
And this is how far back I want to go in this series.
If desire existed before sin, then desire itself isn’t the enemy of holiness.
If desire was part of humanity’s original design, then desire isn’t spiritually shady.
If desire predates distortion, then the story of desire isn’t just a story about restraint — it’s a story about relationships.
This two-part introductory series isn’t an attempt to reconstruct the ancient world in detail. But I ask us to listen carefully to the world Genesis addressed before thinking about what the story of desire means for us today. First, when Israel heard these creation stories, they felt the contrast in culture. They recognized that this God isn’t like the gods of their neighbours. This God doesn’t desire to use and abuse His creation; He desires to bless it. And He creates human beings not to satisfy divine hunger but to participate in divine purpose.
Begin With Beauty
Before we consider how desire becomes distorted in Genesis; before we trace Israel’s long struggle with competing desires; before we explore how Jesus reveals what healed desire looks like, we need to sit in the solitude of Genesis 1-2 and notice something often overlooked:
See the birth of desire in the garden.
Understand that desire is part of what it means to be human.
And God introduces desire as something good.
A New Season, A New Series
This is where our journey begins; with the God who desires life, and the world that launches from His will. For the first time, humans wake up in a world of abundance, gifted with meaningful work, and invited into friendship with their Maker. Before desire ever bends toward self-determination or fear, it stands as one of God’s earliest gifts.
In these pages we trace the long story of desire: its origins, its distortions, its renewal in Christ, and its formation in the life of the church today. But before we can understand any of that well, we must start here, in the opening chapters of Scripture – where God’s desire gives birth to creation, and human desire beyond instinct, breathes its first breath.