Why Genesis?

Mateo's first journeys with Verbum Aeternum take him into the opening chapters of Genesis—from Eden and Cain and Abel to Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel.

Every story has to begin somewhere.

But when I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, that presented an unusual problem.

I had created a twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua. I had given him an enormous ancient Bible called Verbum Aeternum. And somehow, that mysterious book was going to allow Mateo to do something the rest of us can only imagine.

He wouldn't simply read Bible history.

He would enter it.

That opened up almost the entire Bible.

So where should I send him first?

Where Do You Begin?

There were certainly plenty of possibilities.

Mateo could have stood beside Moses as the Red Sea opened.

He could have watched David face Goliath.

He could have seen Daniel enter the lions' den.

Eventually, I hope Mateo will witness many of those moments.

But this was his first journey.

And the more I thought about it, the answer became obvious.

If Mateo was going to enter Bible history, he should begin where Bible history begins.

Genesis.

The beginning.

A World Mateo Had Never Seen

I wanted Mateo's first experience with Verbum to feel almost overwhelming.

One moment he is a twelve-year-old boy in the mountains of Nicaragua.

The next, he is somewhere unlike anything he has ever seen.

Eden.

Imagine what that would be like.

Mateo isn't looking at an illustration of the Garden of Eden. He isn't watching a movie. He isn't listening to someone describe it.

He is there.

He can see it.

Hear it.

Walk through it.

And then he begins to realize that he isn't merely visiting a beautiful place.

He is witnessing the beginning of the story.

Adam.

Eve.

The serpent.

The choice that changes everything.

Suddenly Genesis isn't just something Mateo has heard about in church.

It is happening around him.

But Genesis Doesn't Stay Beautiful

Of course, the story quickly becomes more difficult.

Mateo witnesses Cain and Abel.

That was important to me because I didn't want his journeys through Scripture to become sightseeing trips.

Verbum isn't taking Mateo into Bible history merely to show him spectacular things.

There is something for him to learn.

Something for him to wrestle with.

Something that will follow him home to Miraflor.

And sometimes, what he sees will be difficult.

That becomes part of Mateo's journey too.

And Then Came the Ark

Noah gave me an entirely different opportunity.

Most of us have seen pictures of Noah's Ark since childhood.

But what would it have been like to stand there while it was being built?

How enormous would it have seemed to a twelve-year-old boy?

What would Mateo have thought as the animals arrived?

And what would it feel like when the sky finally began to change and the people who had laughed at Noah suddenly realized that perhaps they should have listened?

Once again, Mateo wouldn't know the story only from words on a page.

He would experience the faith, obedience and consequences behind those words.

And Finally, Babel

By the time Mateo reaches Babel, he has already witnessed an extraordinary amount of human history.

Creation.

The fall.

Cain and Abel.

Noah and the flood.

Now he sees people trying to build their way toward heaven.

Babel gave Book One a natural ending.

Human beings had spread across the earth. Languages were divided. The world Mateo knew was beginning to take shape.

And then Mateo returned to the little mountain church in Nicaragua.

But this time, something was different.

Verbum went dark.

For Mateo, Genesis had ended.

But his adventure clearly had not.

Genesis Was Only the Beginning

Looking back, I think Genesis did something else for the story that I didn't fully appreciate when I began writing it.

Mateo was witnessing beginnings everywhere.

The beginning of creation.

The beginning of humanity.

The beginning of sin.

The beginning of families, nations and languages.

But something else was beginning too.

Mateo's own journey.

The boy who first approached Verbum could not remain exactly the same boy after everything he had witnessed.

And perhaps that is one of the reasons Genesis turned out to be exactly the right place to begin.

The Bible was beginning its story.

Mateo was beginning his.

And, although I didn't know it yet, I was beginning something too.

What started as one book about a boy from the mountains of Nicaragua stepping into Genesis was becoming a much larger journey through the Eternal Word.

Perhaps the real question was never:

Why did Mateo begin with Genesis?

Where else could he possibly have begun?