You say I was created in the image of God, What does that mean?

The Christian faith and worldview is predicated on a set of nonnegotiable truths. One of these is that human life is inherently valuable. Christians have articulated and acted upon this transcendent understanding of human dignity throughout history, whether opposing infanticide and child abandonment, fighting against chattel slavery or engaging in civil disobedience to protest segregation. The powerful idea that every single person has inherent value is rooted in the image of God, a doctrine expressed in the opening chapter of Genesis.

Although “image of God” has become ubiquitous in Christian literature and conversation in recent years, it has not been robustly defined. Perhaps this is due to the lack of agreement throughout church history on what exactly constitutes image of God, which no doubt stems from the fact that Scripture declares but does not elaborate on the axiom in detail.  

But much can and should be said. The fact that human beings are created in God’s image shapes the Christian worldview and affects how we see God, the world and one another. It informs how we understand the rest of the Bible’s story and provides a theological foundation for ethics and engagement. In short, a proper understanding of the image of God should animate everything we do, and as a result, we should endeavor to define it biblically; this will enable us to then survey what issues Christians should care about.