How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

1 Timothy 4:4 → Genesis 1:31

Allusion

Later text

1 Timothy 4:4BSB

For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,

Earlier text

Genesis 1:31BSB

And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:36

Significance

Paul's assertion that "every creature of God is good" (pan ktisma theou kalon) echoes the refrain of Genesis 1, culminating in 1:31 where God declares all creation "very good" (kalos lian in the LXX). The TSK explicitly links these verses. Paul appeals to the creation-goodness principle to counter ascetic false teachers who demanded abstinence from certain foods. The theological logic is clear: since God created all things good, nothing is to be rejected if received with thanksgiving and sanctified by the word of God and prayer (4:5). Paul grounds his argument not in pragmatic reasoning but in the creation order itself — the same foundational appeal he makes in 2:13-14. This analogical use of Genesis affirms the enduring theological significance of the original creation blessing.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Analogy