My church has been working its way through the first few chapters of Genesis in recent weeks, and I have been particularly struck by the theme and nature of life-giving in the first two chapters.
The life-giving mandate
Genesis 1 is an explosion of life as God speaks the world and all its abundance into being. Genesis 2 continues this theme as Adam and Eve imitate their life-giving Creator and are tasked with bringing life from the ground and from each other. Yet all this life-giving in the first two chapters is contrasted with the death-bringing words of Satan in Genesis 3. His deceitful conversation ushers in a world where pain, sorrow and death itself are now realities.
Even though the Fall didn’t change the life-giving mandate issued to Adam and Eve, it did mean that life-giving would be costly. The curses in Genesis 3:14-19 make that clear. From Genesis 3 onwards, any form of life-giving is going to involve pain, suffering, sweat, tears, change we may not like, and toil we may resent.
Our life-giving words
Consider the way Proverbs describes one form of life-giving: our words. “The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit” (Prov 14:4). Or Proverbs 18:21, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” The words that leave our lips have the capacity to build up, edify, encourage and bring life. Perhaps we know that firsthand. Perhaps we have been on the receiving end of words that have lifted our spirits, brought comfort, renewed our joy, and redirected our gaze to Jesus.
But speaking those life-giving words can be incredibly costly. Sometimes it means refraining from saying the rash, harsh, gossipy or cruel thing when doing so would feel so good in the moment. Sometimes it means breaking the silence – and all the consequences of doing so – in order to bring life into a situation that desperately needs it. Life-giving words can mean saying the true thing, the hard thing, to a person who is not going to welcome it. It can even mean parting with financial resources and time in order to be better equipped for life-giving conversations.
The cost of life-giving
There are so many ways we can be life-givers in our families, our friendship circles, our churches and our communities. We so often want that life-giving to come free of cost. But Genesis 3 reminds us that in this fallen world, sacrifice in some form is often required to bring life to another.
Of course, that points us to the little seed of hope tucked into Genesis 3:15. There we see the first promise of the gospel – that God would send his Son to pay the greatest cost to secure our eternal life. Jesus knows what it is to be poured out for the sake of another. He knows even to the point of his own body being marred and scarred, even to the point of his own blood being shed, just how costly it can be to be a life-giver.
As people who have been bought by that price, we still get to participate in this life-giving. We can speak those life-giving words that point a friend to Jesus. We can cultivate the veggies in our garden, love the little image-bearers in our lives, nourish the body by dropping off a meal, and a thousand other ways that bring life to those around us. And whatever form of life-giving we are participating in, it will cost us in some way. It will require sacrifice. Sometimes we will bear the physical or emotional scars of life-giving, and it will hurt.
But even in our hurt, we can rejoice in knowing that our experiences of costly life-giving are little echoes of God’s costly, life-giving grace shown to us in Christ Jesus.
At BCUK, we are passionate about equipping people to grow in life-giving conversations as one tiny outworking of this theme in Scripture. If you’d like to consider how you might develop in this area, perhaps exploring some of the different ways you can get involved in BCUK’s training would be a feasible next step. Or if you’ve already completed the Certificate Programme, why not consider making an application to the Church-based Intern Scheme in January 2026?
However and wherever the Lord has given you the opportunity to bring life, may you know much of his life-giving grace as you imitate him.
