‘In the beginning God.’ The first four words of the Bible are more than a way of launching the story of creation or introducing the book of Genesis. They supply the key which opens our understanding to the Bible as a whole. They tell us that the religion of the Bible is a religion in which God takes the initiative. The point is that we can never take God by surprise. We can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always there ‘in the beginning’. Before