Imago Dei

The Bible Project produced an excellent video on being made in the image of God to go along with today's Bible reading. If you'd like to watch it, you can find it in the Read Scripture app or on YouTube.  

Watching that video also reminded me of this passage in Hannah Anderson's Made for More. The whole book explores the theme of being made in God's image, but these few paragraphs from the first chapter summarize her main point nicely:

"For centuries, philosophers and theologians have used the brief Latin phrase imago dei to communicate a hefty truth. Literally translated, imago dei simply means 'in the image of God.' But in reality, imago dei means so much more. Imago dei means your life has purpose and meaning because God made you to be like himself. Imago dei means that your life has intrinsic value, not simply because of who you are as an individual, but because of who he is as your God. Imago dei means that your life is sacred because he has stamped his identity onto yours.

When Genesis teaches that we are made imago dei, it is doing more than simply explaining how we came into existence or offering an argument for why we should respect and care for one another. By revealing that we are made in God's image, it is revealing how we are to exist, how we are made to live, and what it means to be human. Being human means sharing God's nature in some way...living as he lives and doing what he does. 

Because you are made in God's image, you exist to reflect and represent him on this earth. Because you are made in God's image, you are made to proclaim what he is like by doing what he does."

(If you'd like to hear more from Hannah, you could check out this episode of the Mere Fidelity podcast, where she talks about imago dei and a few other interesting topics.)