Good Morning! So Anna woke up at 5:30am SCREAMING!!! I quickly ran into her room and nursed her and luckily she fell back to sleep...then it was time to decide to get up or go back to sleep...oh, tough call, but I did decide to get up and read! I actually got both the devotional and Bible read this morning in about 15 minutes! Here are some of my thoughts for today:
From the Devotional Book, I liked how after Adam and Eve sinned, God "responded with loving action and careful punishment rather than heavy-handed vengeance". I need to be more like God when it comes to discipline with my children...not that I'm "heavy-handed", but I need to practice more responding to loving action and careful punishment...
From my Bible reading this morning I liked how each day of creation God said "it was good" except on the 6th day, when he created man and women, "it was VERY good". It helps me realize how much God really loves us and wants to spend time with us!
I also found it interesting in Gen 1:24, that God created tame animals and wild animals...in a different version of the Bible it talked about livestock (tame animals?) and wild animals...
The other thing that spoke to me this morning was even after Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God - God still "made clothes from animal skins" for them. (Gen 3:22). Even after they disappointed God, He still provided for them!
Finally, I don't know much about the Bible and had to ask Mark about this one - maybe some of you have some thoughts too - Gen 3:24 says how God forced humans out of the garden and He placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed in every direction on its eastern border to keep people from getting to the tree of life - So what happened to the Garden of Eden? I mean, Adam and Eve were out of the Garden and they were on the same Earth we are on - so what happened to the Garden of Eden and the "angels and a sword of fire" guarding it? Mark said that some people believe it was washed away with the flood...have any of you read/heard what happened to the Garden of Eden?
Here is more I found on what happened to the Garden of Eden (Google searches are great!)
The only thing the Bible tells us concerning the Garden of Eden’s location is found in Genesis 2:10-14, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold…The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” The exact identities of the Pishon and Havilah rivers is unknown, but the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are well known.
If the Tigris and Euphrates mentioned are the same rivers by those names today, that would put the Garden of Eden somewhere in the Middle East, likely in Iraq. It cannot be mere coincidence that the Middle East region is where the planet was most lush—the place where the Garden of Eden was placed. If oil is, as most scientists believe, primarily decayed vegetation and animal matter that has decomposed, then this is the area where we might expect the greatest deposits of the substance we call oil. Since the Garden was the epitome of perfection, it stands to reason that the decomposition of the earth’s most perfect and lush organic materials would produce vast stores of the earth’s best oil.
People have searched for the Garden of Eden for centuries to no avail. There are various locations that people claim to be the original location of the Garden of Eden, but we cannot be sure. What happened to the Garden of Eden? The Bible does not specifically say. It is likely that the Garden of Eden was completely destroyed in the Flood or that it lies decomposing into oil buried beneath centuries of sand deposits.
I had always understood that the garden was taken to heaven before the flood. But now I couldn't tell you where that idea came from. And that the tree of good and evil and the tree of life still exist in heaven.
What I wondered about was how God had to guard the tree of life so that Adam wouldn't eat of it anymore and live forever? How could that be, if the wages of sin are death?
So I've been looking around for an answer for you, Staci, and I came across this: (I found it at this website http://yhwh.com/Garden/garden6.htm)
One nagging issue remains: the Tree of Life. Why did God make it impossible for Adam and Eve to have access to it? If the Tree of Life could give everlasting life to Adam and Eve, why didn't God allow them to eat from it? In other words, since the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought death to them, wouldn't the Tree of Life heal them? Wasn't this, in fact, the antidote for the poison in their soul that we referred to earlier? It seems incredibly cruel for God to deny them this Tree, if it could have solved their problem.
The Tree of Life is life itself. Ever growing. The source of all living things. It is rooted in the spiritual world, in that life is much more than a collection of chemical processes. Being a spiritual reality, not bound by its manifestation within time or space, it is eternal. Whatever touches or "eats" from this Tree becomes immortal.
Therefore, if God had allowed Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Life, their knowledge of good and evil, and all the suffering it begat, would have become immortal and everlasting!
To use the illustration of the poison once again, this would be like little Adam convulsing and retching in pain forever and ever and ever and...... But God is love, and He would never let such a thing happen to His children. He loved them, and wanted to protect them from harm. Remember, that in His act of creation God manifested only goodness. Through the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve gained knowledge of evil, all those potentials God sought to avoid. (Hopefully this point has been well made by now.) Had these nonmanifest potentialities been touched by the Tree of Life, they would have been given manifest, positive reality. At which point evil, instead of being a knowledge of what is not, a delusion, would have become a created/manifest existence of equal status with the rest of the universe.
So He sent them from Eden, placing an angel to "guard the way to the Tree of Life", to certify that they could not accidentally stumble upon it and immortalize their knowledge of evil. Paradise lost. But not forever. ON SIN AND DEATH
"The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) "The soul who sins will die." (Ezekiel 18:4) Knowledge of good and evil is deadly. Souls sickened with this disease have been barred from the Tree of Life. Hopefully it is clear by this time that God has set things up this way as a manifestation of his love and concern. Life is good. Knowledge of evil brings pain and suffering. If sin could touch the Tree of Life then the suffering would be everlasting. In his goodness God saw to it that all suffering from sin would be limited and temporal.
So, all sin must die. Will die. Not as a punishment or retribution, but as a natural result (wage). For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. For every sin there is death. We see this in two important ways:
1) Directly, death of the sin. Hatred must die. Enmity must stop. Strife will end. Darkness will give way to light.
2) Indirectly, death of the part of the soul that is attached to the sin.
This last idea is quite important and must be expanded. I'll use an example. Let's say that little Adam is perfect in every way except one: he hates the x!@. It has plagued him throughout this entire writing, and by now he is sick of it. He hates, loathes and despises it. This hatred, with all of its ugly and unpleasant feelings, cannot be allowed to continue forever. It must stop. Adam must cease his hatred. This sin must die. So, that part of Adam's soul which is attached to the idea of hating the x!@, those thoughts and feelings, must die. That part of Adam's soul must repent, turning away from this sin.
All of our thoughts, feelings and desires are a part of us, of our soul. That part of us that is polluted must be healed. The cancer must be killed. The part of our soul that is diseased with sin must die. Not the whole soul, just the part that is sick! The CUG (#11) would have us believe that due to one sin, one time, Adam eternally lost communion with God; that this one act of disobedience so angered God's sense of justice that he could never, ever tolerate to see his children again.
This belief is a manifestation of evil. It is wrong. Once again it ascribes to God the most atrocious of acts and motivations. Back to the example of the x!@ again. Adam's parent said "don't touch it." But Adam did. What kind of human filth would be so angered that he/she would never, ever speak to Adam again? In fact, is there anything at all that your child could do that would cause you to disown them forever? For a loving parent the answer is "no!" Though the parent may rightly renounce the act, the parent will always care for the child. "Hate the sin but love the sinner."
So too with God! Any sinful act must simply be repented of; it is not necessary for the entire soul to die.
However, there is a deeper problem: the knowledge of good and evil still remains. This is the state of sin, which will continue to generate acts of suffering. The state of sin can be likened to cancer, which in turn attacks different organs in the body. We can eradicate the cancer from each organ, but until the body stops producing new cancer cells, it is not really healthy.
Yay...I found a few minutes when both my kids were sleeping at the same time! I really enjoyed the reading and feel so encouraged, since everyone is right there with me, too.
From my Devotional guide reading, I really liked the summed up message: "This all-powerful God, who created your earthly home, is also all-loving." It's just amazing to think that this all-powerful and amazing God knows and loves each one of us, and cares enough to respond with "loving action and careful punishment." I agree with Jen, and hope to work on being more like God with my children's discipline.
I have always wondered, as well, if our time and God's time are the same- if the world was created in 7 literal days, or maybe a day to us is equal to ten days, a hundred days, or even a thousand years to God...?
Things are kind of chaotic in our house with getting a husband off to work and daughter off to school by 7:25 so I didn't get to read until Chris's naptime.
I really enjoyed reading the comments and really resonate with those about disciplining our children in love as God deals with us. I'm finding that it helps if I can talk with a smile and friendly tone even when I want to scream!
Hey, Erin Ritland, hope this helps...I found it on the what Adventist believe website: (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main_stat55.html)
1. We strongly endorse the document’s affirmation of our historic, biblical position of belief in a literal, recent, six-day Creation. 2. We urge that the document, accompanied by this response, be disseminated widely throughout the world Seventh-day Adventist Church, using all available communication channels and in the major languages of world membership. 3. We reaffirm the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the historicity of Genesis 1-11: that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week; and that the Flood was global in nature. 4. We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world. 5. We urge church leaders throughout the world to seek ways to educate members, especially young people attending non-Seventh-day Adventist schools, in the issues involved in the doctrine of creation. 6. We call on all members of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist family to proclaim and teach the church’s understanding of the biblical doctrine of Creation, living in its light, rejoicing in our status as sons and daughters of God, and praising our Lord Jesus Christ—our Creator and Redeemer.
So Jenni - if you have any secrets on how you are able to "talk with a smile and friendly tone even when you want to scream!" Please let me know...I'm not a bigger screamer, oh but Owen can really, really push me sometimes! :-)
Hi everyone! I don't have the book yet so for now I'm just reading the passages. I like reading passages that I think I know very well because there are always things that I touch me that I never noticed before. It is so amazing to think that even though the Bible describes creation so briefly it is so incredibly complex. I'm taking a microbiology class right now and it blows my mind to think of all the millions of different kinds of living things there are in this world. And every little thing has its place and purpose. It would take such an amazing mind to create our world so that it works together the way it should. And that reminds me that I have absolutely no right to question God because He can see so much more than I can.
I agree, Janelle...it seems I quickly read through the creation story without truly understanding the complexity of what really went into creation! Thanks for sharing! :-)
It is late, so this will be short. I was impressed by the first few verses how the Earth was "nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness" (my regular Bible was upstairs so I read the Message) and look what God made of that! Just think of what He could do with me or you...
Ok, so since I am not a morning person and I have know time during the day, I have decided to read at night before I go to bed and when I actually have a moment to myself.
I just read everyones comments, which were so awesome! I love to hear everyones ideas and thoughts on everything. Isn't it amazing how just in three verses we have already had so much to talk about and learn? Gods word is amazing!
So I did all my reading and also read alot of the extra stuff that is in my Bible, which was really interesting too. I have the Life Application Study Bible and it really has lot of other good thoughts.
One of the main things it mentions is how Genesis really sets the stage for the entire Bible. It not only explains the beginning of creation, but goes onto show us everything else that is to come. They do this by identifying 4 key points. 1.) It shows us the Person and Nature of God (Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Redeemer) 2.) The value and dignity of human beings (Made in Gods Image, Saved by Grace, used by God in the world) 3.) Tragedy and Consequences of Sin (The fall, seperation from God, Judgement) 4.) Promise and Assurance of Salvation (Covenant, Forgiveness, Promised Messiah) I really liked this because again it outlines Gods plan, and shows that there always has been a plan for us.
Some other notes I have written down were in Genesis 1:26 "Let us make Man in our Image". Even in the beginning the Trinity is evident in the words "us" and "our".
Like some have already mentioned, I had alot of thoughts on Genesis 3 when he disciplines Adam and Eve. I read the words, but I still wonder what that really looked liked. What did Gods face look like when they told Him what they had done? What did His voice sound like when He gave out the punishment? I so wish I could have been their so I could understand and emulate perfect discipline.
Another thought I really liked from the devotional was women as mens helpers. I think that the way she described it was great. I like how she said the form of the word helper is also used to describe power, and God as a helper. We give our husbands support, reassurance, guidance, love,etc. All these things help to Empower them to be better men. My husband has always told me that I give him strength and that I make him a better man. I guess maybe thats what God intended me to be. When you think of it, to be a helper to our husbands is a blessing from God.
Ok, I really need to go to bed now, but I also wanted to say that I remember from my 8th grade bible class the pastor saying that the Garden of Eden was taken up to heaven before the flood, but I can't remember where he got that.
A day late, I realize, but I received this information from Doug Batchelor's Amazing Facts website:
There were two special trees in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). The tree that Eve ate from which caused so much trouble was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But there was also the tree of life that they ate from to sustain their immortality. After Adam and Eve sinned they had to leave the garden and the tree of life was protected by angels (Genesis 4:22-24). Now the tree of life is in heaven as described by John in the book of Revelation (Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14). We could probably assume, then, that the garden was taken up to heaven. Since it was the paradise of God, it was probably taken away some time before the great destruction created by the flood.
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Good Morning! So Anna woke up at 5:30am SCREAMING!!! I quickly ran into her room and nursed her and luckily she fell back to sleep...then it was time to decide to get up or go back to sleep...oh, tough call, but I did decide to get up and read! I actually got both the devotional and Bible read this morning in about 15 minutes! Here are some of my thoughts for today:
From the Devotional Book, I liked how after Adam and Eve sinned, God "responded with loving action and careful punishment rather than heavy-handed vengeance". I need to be more like God when it comes to discipline with my children...not that I'm "heavy-handed", but I need to practice more responding to loving action and careful punishment...
From my Bible reading this morning I liked how each day of creation God said "it was good" except on the 6th day, when he created man and women, "it was VERY good". It helps me realize how much God really loves us and wants to spend time with us!
I also found it interesting in Gen 1:24, that God created tame animals and wild animals...in a different version of the Bible it talked about livestock (tame animals?) and wild animals...
The other thing that spoke to me this morning was even after Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God - God still "made clothes from animal skins" for them. (Gen 3:22). Even after they disappointed God, He still provided for them!
Finally, I don't know much about the Bible and had to ask Mark about this one - maybe some of you have some thoughts too - Gen 3:24 says how God forced humans out of the garden and He placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed in every direction on its eastern border to keep people from getting to the tree of life - So what happened to the Garden of Eden? I mean, Adam and Eve were out of the Garden and they were on the same Earth we are on - so what happened to the Garden of Eden and the "angels and a sword of fire" guarding it? Mark said that some people believe it was washed away with the flood...have any of you read/heard what happened to the Garden of Eden?
Here is more I found on what happened to the Garden of Eden (Google searches are great!)
The only thing the Bible tells us concerning the Garden of Eden’s location is found in Genesis 2:10-14, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold…The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” The exact identities of the Pishon and Havilah rivers is unknown, but the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are well known.
If the Tigris and Euphrates mentioned are the same rivers by those names today, that would put the Garden of Eden somewhere in the Middle East, likely in Iraq. It cannot be mere coincidence that the Middle East region is where the planet was most lush—the place where the Garden of Eden was placed. If oil is, as most scientists believe, primarily decayed vegetation and animal matter that has decomposed, then this is the area where we might expect the greatest deposits of the substance we call oil. Since the Garden was the epitome of perfection, it stands to reason that the decomposition of the earth’s most perfect and lush organic materials would produce vast stores of the earth’s best oil.
People have searched for the Garden of Eden for centuries to no avail. There are various locations that people claim to be the original location of the Garden of Eden, but we cannot be sure. What happened to the Garden of Eden? The Bible does not specifically say. It is likely that the Garden of Eden was completely destroyed in the Flood or that it lies decomposing into oil buried beneath centuries of sand deposits.
I had always understood that the garden was taken to heaven before the flood. But now I couldn't tell you where that idea came from. And that the tree of good and evil and the tree of life still exist in heaven.
What I wondered about was how God had to guard the tree of life so that Adam wouldn't eat of it anymore and live forever? How could that be, if the wages of sin are death?
So I've been looking around for an answer for you, Staci, and I came across this: (I found it at this website http://yhwh.com/Garden/garden6.htm)
One nagging issue remains: the Tree of Life. Why did God make it impossible for Adam and Eve to have access to it? If the Tree of Life could give everlasting life to Adam and Eve, why didn't God allow them to eat from it? In other words, since the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought death to them, wouldn't the Tree of Life heal them? Wasn't this, in fact, the antidote for the poison in their soul that we referred to earlier? It seems incredibly cruel for God to deny them this Tree, if it could have solved their problem.
The Tree of Life is life itself. Ever growing. The source of all living things. It is rooted in the spiritual world, in that life is much more than a collection of chemical processes. Being a spiritual reality, not bound by its manifestation within time or space, it is eternal. Whatever touches or "eats" from this Tree becomes immortal.
Therefore, if God had allowed Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Life, their knowledge of good and evil, and all the suffering it begat, would have become immortal and everlasting!
To use the illustration of the poison once again, this would be like little Adam convulsing and retching in pain forever and ever and ever and...... But God is love, and He would never let such a thing happen to His children. He loved them, and wanted to protect them from harm. Remember, that in His act of creation God manifested only goodness. Through the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve gained knowledge of evil, all those potentials God sought to avoid. (Hopefully this point has been well made by now.) Had these nonmanifest potentialities been touched by the Tree of Life, they would have been given manifest, positive reality. At which point evil, instead of being a knowledge of what is not, a delusion, would have become a created/manifest existence of equal status with the rest of the universe.
So He sent them from Eden, placing an angel to "guard the way to the Tree of Life", to certify that they could not accidentally stumble upon it and immortalize their knowledge of evil. Paradise lost. But not forever.
ON SIN AND DEATH
"The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) "The soul who sins will die." (Ezekiel 18:4) Knowledge of good and evil is deadly. Souls sickened with this disease have been barred from the Tree of Life. Hopefully it is clear by this time that God has set things up this way as a manifestation of his love and concern. Life is good. Knowledge of evil brings pain and suffering. If sin could touch the Tree of Life then the suffering would be everlasting. In his goodness God saw to it that all suffering from sin would be limited and temporal.
So, all sin must die. Will die. Not as a punishment or retribution, but as a natural result (wage). For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. For every sin there is death. We see this in two important ways:
1) Directly, death of the sin. Hatred must die. Enmity must stop. Strife will end. Darkness will give way to light.
2) Indirectly, death of the part of the soul that is attached to the sin.
This last idea is quite important and must be expanded. I'll use an example. Let's say that little Adam is perfect in every way except one: he hates the x!@. It has plagued him throughout this entire writing, and by now he is sick of it. He hates, loathes and despises it. This hatred, with all of its ugly and unpleasant feelings, cannot be allowed to continue forever. It must stop. Adam must cease his hatred. This sin must die. So, that part of Adam's soul which is attached to the idea of hating the x!@, those thoughts and feelings, must die. That part of Adam's soul must repent, turning away from this sin.
All of our thoughts, feelings and desires are a part of us, of our soul. That part of us that is polluted must be healed. The cancer must be killed. The part of our soul that is diseased with sin must die. Not the whole soul, just the part that is sick! The CUG (#11) would have us believe that due to one sin, one time, Adam eternally lost communion with God; that this one act of disobedience so angered God's sense of justice that he could never, ever tolerate to see his children again.
This belief is a manifestation of evil. It is wrong. Once again it ascribes to God the most atrocious of acts and motivations. Back to the example of the x!@ again. Adam's parent said "don't touch it." But Adam did. What kind of human filth would be so angered that he/she would never, ever speak to Adam again? In fact, is there anything at all that your child could do that would cause you to disown them forever? For a loving parent the answer is "no!" Though the parent may rightly renounce the act, the parent will always care for the child. "Hate the sin but love the sinner."
So too with God! Any sinful act must simply be repented of; it is not necessary for the entire soul to die.
However, there is a deeper problem: the knowledge of good and evil still remains. This is the state of sin, which will continue to generate acts of suffering. The state of sin can be likened to cancer, which in turn attacks different organs in the body. We can eradicate the cancer from each organ, but until the body stops producing new cancer cells, it is not really healthy.
Yay...I found a few minutes when both my kids were sleeping at the same time! I really enjoyed the reading and feel so encouraged, since everyone is right there with me, too.
From my Devotional guide reading, I really liked the summed up message: "This all-powerful God, who created your earthly home, is also all-loving." It's just amazing to think that this all-powerful and amazing God knows and loves each one of us, and cares enough to respond with "loving action and careful punishment." I agree with Jen, and hope to work on being more like God with my children's discipline.
I have always wondered, as well, if our time and God's time are the same- if the world was created in 7 literal days, or maybe a day to us is equal to ten days, a hundred days, or even a thousand years to God...?
Hi, All!
Things are kind of chaotic in our house with getting a husband off to work and daughter off to school by 7:25 so I didn't get to read until Chris's naptime.
I really enjoyed reading the comments and really resonate with those about disciplining our children in love as God deals with us. I'm finding that it helps if I can talk with a smile and friendly tone even when I want to scream!
Hey, Erin Ritland, hope this helps...I found it on the what Adventist believe website: (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main_stat55.html)
1. We strongly endorse the document’s affirmation of our historic, biblical position of belief in a literal, recent, six-day Creation.
2. We urge that the document, accompanied by this response, be disseminated widely throughout the world Seventh-day Adventist Church, using all available communication channels and in the major languages of world membership.
3. We reaffirm the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the historicity of Genesis 1-11: that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week; and that the Flood was global in nature.
4. We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.
5. We urge church leaders throughout the world to seek ways to educate members, especially young people attending non-Seventh-day Adventist schools, in the issues involved in the doctrine of creation.
6. We call on all members of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist family to proclaim and teach the church’s understanding of the biblical doctrine of Creation, living in its light, rejoicing in our status as sons and daughters of God, and praising our Lord Jesus Christ—our Creator and Redeemer.
So Jenni - if you have any secrets on how you are able to "talk with a smile and friendly tone even when you want to scream!" Please let me know...I'm not a bigger screamer, oh but Owen can really, really push me sometimes! :-)
Hi everyone! I don't have the book yet so for now I'm just reading the passages. I like reading passages that I think I know very well because there are always things that I touch me that I never noticed before. It is so amazing to think that even though the Bible describes creation so briefly it is so incredibly complex. I'm taking a microbiology class right now and it blows my mind to think of all the millions of different kinds of living things there are in this world. And every little thing has its place and purpose. It would take such an amazing mind to create our world so that it works together the way it should. And that reminds me that I have absolutely no right to question God because He can see so much more than I can.
I agree, Janelle...it seems I quickly read through the creation story without truly understanding the complexity of what really went into creation! Thanks for sharing! :-)
It is late, so this will be short. I was impressed by the first few verses how the Earth was "nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness" (my regular Bible was upstairs so I read the Message) and look what God made of that! Just think of what He could do with me or you...
Ok, so since I am not a morning person and I have know time during the day, I have decided to read at night before I go to bed and when I actually have a moment to myself.
I just read everyones comments, which were so awesome! I love to hear everyones ideas and thoughts on everything. Isn't it amazing how just in three verses we have already had so much to talk about and learn? Gods word is amazing!
So I did all my reading and also read alot of the extra stuff that is in my Bible, which was really interesting too. I have the Life Application Study Bible and it really has lot of other good thoughts.
One of the main things it mentions is how Genesis really sets the stage for the entire Bible. It not only explains the beginning of creation, but goes onto show us everything else that is to come. They do this by identifying 4 key points.
1.) It shows us the Person and Nature of God (Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Redeemer)
2.) The value and dignity of human beings (Made in Gods Image, Saved by Grace, used by God in the world)
3.) Tragedy and Consequences of Sin (The fall, seperation from God, Judgement)
4.) Promise and Assurance of Salvation (Covenant, Forgiveness, Promised Messiah)
I really liked this because again it outlines Gods plan, and shows that there always has been a plan for us.
Some other notes I have written down were in Genesis 1:26 "Let us make Man in our Image". Even in the beginning the Trinity is evident in the words "us" and "our".
Like some have already mentioned, I had alot of thoughts on Genesis 3 when he disciplines Adam and Eve. I read the words, but I still wonder what that really looked liked. What did Gods face look like when they told Him what they had done? What did His voice sound like when He gave out the punishment? I so wish I could have been their so I could understand and emulate perfect discipline.
Another thought I really liked from the devotional was women as mens helpers. I think that the way she described it was great. I like how she said the form of the word helper is also used to describe power, and God as a helper. We give our husbands support, reassurance, guidance, love,etc. All these things help to Empower them to be better men. My husband has always told me that I give him strength and that I make him a better man. I guess maybe thats what God intended me to be. When you think of it, to be a helper to our husbands is a blessing from God.
Ok, I really need to go to bed now, but I also wanted to say that I remember from my 8th grade bible class the pastor saying that the Garden of Eden was taken up to heaven before the flood, but I can't remember where he got that.
A day late, I realize, but I received this information from Doug Batchelor's Amazing Facts website:
There were two special trees in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). The tree that Eve ate from which caused so much trouble was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But there was also the tree of life that they ate from to sustain their immortality. After Adam and Eve sinned they had to leave the garden and the tree of life was protected by angels (Genesis 4:22-24). Now the tree of life is in heaven as described by John in the book of Revelation (Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14). We could probably assume, then, that the garden was taken up to heaven. Since it was the paradise of God, it was probably taken away some time before the great destruction created by the flood.
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