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Genesis 1:26 LSB “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea…”
I originally was going to do the daily reading in the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), but one of the benefits of using an app like YouVersion is that you have access to multiple different translations; so I ended up doing the initial reading looking at the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), which is a newer translation based off of the 1995 New American Standard, and for the first time I saw Genesis 1:26 in a new light where God giving man dominion, or having man rule over, creation was tied to the fact that we are created in God’s image. The other translations I looked at (NKJV, ESV, CSB, NASB 1995, & NASB 2020; all translations I will reference beyond the LSB in my daily readings) didn’t explicitly tie together these two concepts like they were in the LSB.
We often ask, “What is God’s will for my life? What is it that God wants me to do?” However, how often do we also take the time to reflect on what it means to be made in God’s image and how that relates to what we are tasked to do? I mean, for myself, usually when I reflect on being made in God’s image it is more in the theoretical and hypothetical abstract concept for how I should view and treat others and not in any way regarding to my vocation. So, it was interesting to see how God not only told to rule over the earth, but was made in God’s image so that he can rule over the earth. Where because we are made in God’s image we are to serve as His representative/ambassador/steward to His creation.
Let me leave you with this thought to ponder as we go through this next year, “Do my actions, thoughts, and speech present God in a favorable light? Do they present a God that when creating the world, called everything “precious;” or do they reflect poorly on who God is?”