Campbell Markham has been a pastor in the Australian Presbyterian Church for over twenty-two years and lives in Perth, Western Australia. He blogs at Campbell Markham: Thoughts and Letters. His article “God Can Handle Chaos—Including Yours” is below (original source – https://www.beautifulchristianlife.com/blog/god-can-handle-chaos-including-yours)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. — Genesis 1:1-2

If we are going to get anything out of Genesis, then we must prepare ourselves. 

Basil of Caesarea (330-79) said at the beginning of his Hexaemeron, a series of sermons on Genesis 1,

How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him!

And John Calvin (1509-64) said in his commentary on Genesis, “The world is a mirror in which we ought to behold God.” “If my readers sincerely wish to profit with me in meditating on the works of God, they must bring with them a sober, docile mild, and humble spirit.”

So remember that the author of these words, Moses, saw an appearance of God at the burning bush, and God spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exod. 33:11; cf. Num. 12:6-8). And don’t forget the power of these words, “which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).

The Hebrew word for “beginning” is ראשׁית (rēshīt), which may also mean “starting point” or “first,” and is closely related to ראשׁ (rōsh), which means “head.” The word God translates אלהים, Elōhīm, which may be the plural for אל (el), the generic word for god. The plural does not in itself teach the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is one God and three persons in the godhead, but is more likely a “plural of majesty.” God is not just god, he is GOD. Elōhīm. GOD! The very sound of this word, naming as it does the Creator of the universe, should fill us with awe, dread, and love. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Before there was an earth and atoms, life and light, time and tide, there was God. He is eternal, which does not mean that he is very old, but that he had no beginning. He always was, is, and will be. Many have mockingly asked, “What was God doing before he created the world?” In his Commentaries on Genesis, Calvin relates a humorous answer he had read to this question:

When a certain impure dog was in this manner pouring ridicule upon God, a pious man retorted that God had been at that time by no means inactive, because he had been preparing hell for the captious.

We cannot speak reasonably of what God was doing “before creation,” because before creation there was no time as we know it—there was no “before.” Certainly there was nothing that brought God himself into existence.  

The Hebrew verb for create is ברא (bārā); it is only ever used with God as the subject. What did God create? The “heavens and the earth.” Heaven, שׁמים (shamayīm), also means sky. Earth, ארץ (erets), also means land and ground. These words do not have a special meaning in Genesis 1:1; but when put together like this, “heaven and earth,” that is, “sky and ground,” “everything that’s up and everything that’s down,” they emphasize that God made everything. Only God himself is not made.  

There are no time indications in these first two verses. The earth (erets) was formless and empty. There is some lovely alliteration here in the original, the earth was תהו ובהו, tōhu va bōhu. These words are neither “good” nor “bad” but are exceedingly and perhaps unpleasantly bland. Tōhu can refer to a barren wasteland, “a barren and howling waste” (Deut. 32:10; also Job 6:18). It can refer to futility (1 Sam. 12:21) and meaninglessness (Isa. 29:21). Bōhu appears only three times in the Old Testament. Isaiah 34:11 describes how “God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation,” and Jeremiah uses just the same phrase as Genesis 1:2: “I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty (tōhu va bōhu); and at the heavens, and their light was gone” (Jer. 4:23). We will return to Jeremiah’s hugely significant phrase in a moment.

Darkness was over the surface over the deep.

Creation at this point was empty and black. The same word describes the penultimate plague over Egypt: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days” (Exod. 10:21-23).   

This blackness was over the surface of “the deep.” תהום, tehōm, refers only to “deep waters.” The Septuagint reads ἀβυσσος (abyssos, “abyss”). The Old Testament talks about God leading Israel through “the depths of the sea” (Isa. 63:13, Ps. 106:9) and Pharaoh’s army being drowned in the “depths” (Exod.15:5). In Deuteronomy 8:7, it refers to subterranean water.

So here is our first look at God’s creation: formless, empty, black, and watery. Light was yet to be created. The water was yet to be put into its place. Solid ground for living and walking on had yet to be exposed. The celestial mirrors of God’s light had yet to be fashioned. God’s life had yet to break out on the earth. Humanity was yet to be fashioned and enlivened in the delightfully different forms of male and female.

Calvin calls creation at this moment “the seed of the whole world,” and Basil “the foundation of a house, the keel of a vessel.” These are pleasing and correct analogies, for it is neither beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant. It is full of potential.

The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The Hebrew word for Spirit in verse two, רוח (ruach), is a wonderfully rich Old Testament word that can refer to wind, breath, or a personal spirit. Exactly the same range of meaning applies to the NT πνευμα (pneuma, from which we get such words as pneumatic and pneumonia). Ruach (elohīm, Spirit of God) always refers in the Old Testament to a person, God the Holy Spirit.  So the Spirit was near to his creation, but not just near. He was hovering—fluttering is probably a closer translation—like a mother bird flutters over her young. Basil describes the early Syrian Christians’ delightful interpretation of this: “The Spirit cherished the nature of the waters as one sees a bird cover the eggs with her body and imparts to them vital force from her own warmth.” And in his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) John Milton sang:  

Darkness profound
Covered the abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outstretched,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,
throughout the fluid mass.

“Hovered” is used by Moses again almost at the end of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) to describe God’s intense care of Israel his people:

In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. (Deut. 32:10-11)

Whatever we might think about God’s formless, empty, lifeless, black, and watery creation, the Spirit of God loved it and sustained and upheld it (John 3:16); for as Psalm 104:29-30 says: “When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath (ruach), they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit (ruach), they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”

Why didn’t God complete creation instantaneously?

The burning question is this: “God is omnipotent and omniscient, so why would he not bring about a fully developed and complete creation instantaneously?” If the universe’s greatest good is that God glorify himself, then we can know that it was more glorifying for him to develop his creation over six days, to allow his great power and wisdom to unfold over this time. Moreover, by creating the world in this way, God taught the world that he can rescue us from darkness, lifelessness, and chaos, and that when he rescues us, he does it not instantaneously, but in a way that unfolds his omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence step-by-wonderful-step.  

For although I have said that Moses’ description of initial creation in itself is neither beautiful nor ugly, similar words were used in different contexts to describe God’s people in distressing circumstances. As I mentioned above, Jeremiah uses this kind of language in the sixth century BC to describe Judah in a state of godless apostasy, who were about to face the fierce judgment of God by the hands of the brutal Babylonian army:

My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good. I looked at the earth, and it was formless (tōhu) and empty (bōhu); and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger. (Jer. 4:22-26; cf. Isa. 34:11)

Moreover, the very first readers of Genesis, the Israelites who had just emerged from centuries of brutal slavery and death in Egypt—slavery to Pharaoh’s building projects and slavery to the false gods of Egypt—would also have seen their situation mirrored in what was “formless and void,” black, and chaotically watery. Indeed, as we’ve already seen, God would rescue them from the “deep” (Ps. 106:9).

Perhaps these adjectives describe your own situation.

Confused. Empty. Lifeless. Dark. Chaotic. You are not yet a Christian, and you don’t know why you are on this planet and what is the meaning and purpose of your life. There is spiritual blackness and obscurity, and everything is immersed in chaos. Or you are a Christian, and the chaotic trials of life are pressing on you, and even the darkness of despair. You feel the “waves and breakers” crashing over you (Jon. 2:3).

Whoever you are, and whatever the depths and agony of your trials, God is hovering over you: he loves you, he is near to you, and he can rescue you. We see a living picture of his rescue unfold in the subsequent six days of creation.  

God does not stand aloof from the world in all its chaotic agony. His caring, brooding presence is very near, and he is at work.

Genesis 2:4-9

Article “Taking Genesis at Face Value” by Dr. John MacArthur – original source: https://thinking-biblically.masters.edu/posts/taking-genesis-at-face-value/

I realize, of course, that some old-earth creationists do hold to the literal creation of Adam and affirm that Adam was a historical figure. But their decision to accept the creation of Adam as literal involves an arbitrary hermeneutical shift at Genesis 1:26-27 and then again at Genesis 2:7.

If everything around those verses is handled allegorically or symbolically, it is unjustifiable to take the description of Adam’s creation and fall in a literal and historical sense. Therefore, the old-earth creationists’ method of interpreting the Genesis text actually undermines the historicity of Adam. Having already decided to treat the creation account itself as myth or allegory, they have no grounds to insist (suddenly and arbitrarily, it seems) that the creation of Adam is literal history. Their belief in a historical Adam is simply inconsistent with their own exegesis of the rest of the text.

But it is a necessary inconsistency if one is to affirm an old earth and remain evangelical. Because if Adam was not the literal ancestor of the entire human race, then the Bible’s explanation of how sin entered the world is impossible to make sense of.

Moreover, if we didn’t fall in Adam, we cannot be redeemed in Christ, because Christ’s position as the Head of the redeemed race exactly parallels Adam’s position as the head of the fallen race: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19). “And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45; cf. 1 Timothy 2:13-14; Jude 14).

So in an important sense, everything Scripture says about our salvation through Jesus Christ hinges on the literal truth of what Genesis 1-3 teaches about Adam’s creation and fall. There is no more pivotal passage of Scripture.

What “old-earth creationists” (including, to a large degree, even the evangelical ones) are doing with Genesis 1-3 is precisely what religious liberals have always done with all of Scripture — spiritualizing and reinterpreting the text allegorically to make it mean what they want it to mean. It is a dangerous way to handle Scripture. And it involves a perilous and unnecessary capitulation to the religious presuppositions of naturalism — not to mention a serious dishonor to God.

Evangelicals who accept an old-earth interpretation of Genesis have embraced a hermeneutic that is hostile to a high view of Scripture. They are bringing to the opening chapters of Scripture a method of biblical interpretation that has built-in anti-evangelical presuppositions. Those who adopt this approach have already embarked on a process that invariably overthrows faith. Churches and colleges that embrace this view will not remain evangelical long.

Article by Chris Gibbs, Pastor of Denver Baptist Church, Denver, NC

(original source: https://missionbeforeme.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-man-found-him-there.html

In Genesis 37 we read about the well-known story of Joseph, who is the 11th son of the old patriarch Jacob, whose father was Isaac, whose father with Abraham. We are told that Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son, which doesn’t sit well with his brothers. In fact, the text says that after Joseph was given a “robe of many colors” that his brothers “hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.” 
Joseph didn’t help improve relations with his brothers by telling them about a couple of dreams he had. The first involved seeing all these sheaves of grain bundled up and laying in a field. Joseph’s sheaf stood up, and his brothers sheaves bowed down before it. His brothers clearly understood the message–Joseph thought that one day he would rule over them.
The second dream didn’t sit any better with them. Joseph told them that he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars bowing down before him. Eleven stars represented his eleven brothers, the ones who already hated him (except for the youngest, Benjamin). This dream even upset dear old dad, who “rebuked him” for elevating himself as someone that even his parents would bow down to. 
If you know the rest of the story, then you know that it was to be true. What Joseph saw in those dreams actually happened. One day Jacob sent Joseph out to visit with his brothers, who had traveled some distance away to pasture the flock and herds. He wanted to know how things were going, so he sent Joseph to get a report and bring it back to him. When Joseph showed up the anger of his brothers showed out and they threw him into a pit. They debated whether or not they should kill him, but eventually decided to sell him into slavery when a caravan of Ishmaelites passed by. Say goodbye, Joseph, to your robe, your dreams, and your spot as dad’s favorite. 
The brothers watched Joseph ride off towards Egypt, then returned home with a mangled robe that they smeared with goat’s blood. Jacob mourned the “death” of his son, thinking a wild animal had torn him to pieces. 
Years later a severe famine would hit the land, and Jacob’s family would find themselves in a dire situation. Word had come that there was grain in Egypt, so off the boys went. You know how the story plays out–Joseph had been favored by God, risen to second in command, and put in place a savings plan that allowed there to be plenty of grain stored up when the famine hit. One day he notices his brothers, hoping to buy grain, and guess what? They eventually bow before Joseph, who in time reveals that he is their brother. Instead of killing them for their betrayal, he forgives them and  says, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”
The small band of Israelites are saved from destruction, eventually move to Egypt and grow into a flourishing nation. From there they make it to the Promised Land, which God had promised their father Abraham when He made His covenant with him earlier in Genesis. Fast forward a few thousand years and another covenant promise is kept when Jesus, the “offspring” of Abraham comes on a mission to save sinners from another kind of destruction through His death and resurrection. In Him, Jesus, all the nations would be blessed, just as God had promised. 
It is a familiar story. But there is one event in Genesis 37 that is easy to overlook or quickly read past without thinking much about it. As I re-read this chapter, I sat on these words for a while, pondering them and wondering why they made it into the story. Here they are, from Genesis 37:15-17…

15  A man found him [Joseph] there, wandering in the field, and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16  “I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing the flocks?”
17  “They moved on from here,” the man said, “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

Right in the middle of the story an unnamed man shows up and points Joseph in the right direction. Apparently he had been around his brothers earlier, close enough to hear them discuss their travel plans. 
Why is this little, seemingly insignificant event a part of this story? Who is this nameless man? What is the point? Those were the questions I rolled over in my mind as I read this chapter. I think I found the answer by asking some other questions: what if Joseph gives up looking for his brothers and goes back home? What if he is never sold into slavery and never winds up in Egypt? What if his family perishes during the future famine? What if the young band of Israelites is destroyed?
See, that little random, nameless man matters. He reminds us that the God we worship is a God who keeps His promises and accomplishes His plans. He had made a covenant with Abraham and He intended to keep it. There is young Joseph, wandering around in some field. Then suddenly this man shows up and points him in the right direction. It is possible that Joseph may have been sitting in the bottom of that pit, which his brothers overhead eating their lunch and plotting his demise, thinking, “I wish I had never met that man in the field.”
That encounter in that field wasn’t some random, lucky meeting. It was a weapon of war. Ever since Genesis 3:15, when God promised the serpent that he would be crushed by the seed of the woman, who is Jesus, that serpent had been trying to derail the redemptive plan of God, to wipe out God’s people so that the One promised never arrives. This happens over and over again in the Old Testament. Pharaoh orders all the Israelite baby boys thrown into the Nile. Goliath, dressed in armor that looks like snake scales, threatens to rip apart young David, from whom the true King would come. Haman tricks the king into passing a law that all the Jews should die, which sprung Queen Esther into action for “such a time as this.”
You really can summarize the redemptive story of the Bible with three phrases: Satan rages, God laughs, and Jesus wins. 
Satan doesn’t want God to keep His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because he knows that means his ultimate defeat. He wants God’s promises to fail, so he rages against God’s people and wars against them. So, see Joseph scratching his head in that field as a pivotal moment in this spiritual war. “Go home Joseph,” the snake may have whispered. 
But God laughs. “He who sits in the heavens laughs…” (Psalm 2:4). He laughs in the face of anyone who thinks that they can diminish His glory or thwart His plans. Everything is under God’s control, including every little detail in the universe. Satan can rage and plot all he wants to against Jesus. He can stir up kings and generals to plot against those who follow Jesus. He can convene councils, lead rebellions, even possess people and lead them to act against the glory of God. He who sits in the heavens laughs. Why? Because nothing can stop Him from fulfilling His plan to rescue sinners, to defeat the devil, to exalt His Son Jesus Christ in all the earth. Nothing and no one can derail the sovereign plan of our all-powerful, all glorious, all gracious, holy, righteous, just, magnificent God!
In the end, Jesus wins. Like Joseph, Jesus was uniquely loved by His Father. He was also hated by His brothers, who rejected the idea that He would rule over them. Like Joseph, Jesus was also sent to His brothers by His Father, and those brothers conspired against Him, falsely accused Him, and handed Him over to Gentiles. Like Joseph, Jesus is sold for the price of a slave. He, too, is stripped of His garments and condemned to die. Like Joseph, Jesus is numbered with transgressors even though He was faithful amid temptation and was innocent. And also like Joseph, Jesus is exalted through humiliation, forgives those who betrayed Him and uses His power to save them.
But Jesus is unlike Joseph in one important way–his brothers only threatened to kill him but instead sent him away. Jesus’ brothers made good on their threats and actually put Him to death. Joseph can only offer grain to hungry people, that they may go and make bread; but Jesus is the bread come down from heaven. His body, represented at His table by bread, was broken for us. The blood of a goat is sprinkled on Joseph’s garment and presented to his father, which was a cover-up for their sin; but Jesus, the Lamb of God, presented His own blood to the Father as an offering for our sin. 
Just as people bowed before Joseph, the Bible says that one day “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” Joseph’s brothers found favor with Pharaoh because of their relationship to Joseph; today we find favor with God because of our relationship to Jesus. Joseph was called a “savior” in his day for saving his people from physical death; but Jesus has done something greater–He has delivered us from spiritual death in His cross and resurrection and has been given a name is the exalted above all names. Jesus wins.
Be encouraged that if God has gone to great lengths to keep His promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, He will keep His promises to you. Nothing can stop His plans from coming to pass. He is orchestrating every event of this universe to accomplish His desires–whether it is sending a nameless man to a field to direct Joseph, or some other event of history. 
So, fill your heart with hope today! Rest in His promises to you! Rejoice in the victory of Jesus! Be faithful to Him and His mission until He comes for you. Endure suffering, knowing that a day of deliverance has been promised for you. Stay the course, knowing that one day you shall see Him. Though Satan may rage, Jesus will not fail.