Monday, May 26th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 21-22, Psalm 104, Acts 15

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 3:1-7

Genesis 3:1-7

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Accompanying Bob Deffinbaugh sermon: The Fall of Man
Accompanying John MacArthur sermons: What is Sin?, The Breadth and Depth of Sin, The Origin of Evil,  The Fall of Man Part 1 and Part 2.

MacArthur defined sin this way: Sin is any personal lack of conformity to the moral character of God, or the law of God.

This manifests itself in several different ways.  We sin when we think evil, when we speak evil, when we do evil, and when we do not do good.  Commission and omission are both sin.

Obviously, in order to know what the moral character of God is, and to know what the law of God is, we need to know His Word.  God alone sets the standard for good and evil.

Sin is defiling, it's rebellion, it is ungrateful and presumptuous, it is wearying because it is all-consuming, it's incurably fatal.

God created every good and perfect thing, but God did not create evil.

I liked MacArthur's explanation....

God is not evil.  God does not do evil.  He cannot be tempted to do evil.  He never tempts anybody else to do evil.  God is not responsible for evil.  The source of evil, the source of sin is outside God.  When God created angels and God created humans, He gave them intelligence, He gave them reason and He gave them choice. And there is a sequence.  I put those words in that order for a purpose.

Intelligence gave them the ability to understand things. Reason gave them the ability to process that understanding toward behavior and choice gave them the freedom to determine that behavior.  Intelligence, reason and choice...bottom line, with what they knew and with the ability they had to process that information, they would be brought to a choice and whether angels or men, they would have the choice either to obey God or not to obey God.  Listen to this, to disobey God was to initiate evil.  Evil is not the presence of something, evil is the absence of righteousness.  You can't create evil because evil doesn't exist as a created entity.  It doesn't exist as a created reality.  Evil is a negative.  Evil is the absence of perfection.  It's the absence of holiness.  It's the absence of goodness.  It's the absence of righteousness.  Evil became a reality only when creatures chose to disobey.  Evil came into existence initially then in the fall of angels and then next, in the fall of Adam and Eve.

Just put it this way in your mind.  Evil is not a created thing.  Evil is not a substance.  Evil is not an entity.  Evil is not a being.  Evil is not a force.  Evil is not some floating spirit.  Evil is a lack of moral perfection. God created absolute perfection.  Wherever a lack of that exists, sin exists.  And that cannot exist in the nature of God or in anything that God makes.

Evil comes into existence when God's creatures fall short of the standard of moral perfection.  Now let me take it a step further.  God did not create evil, He did not author evil, He did not make evil.  But listen carefully, very important, God did decree to use evil as a part of His eternal plan

God was not surprised by evil.  He did not create it, but He does use it for His purposes in several ways.  It gives Him the opportunity to receive glory by demonstrating His grace, love, and mercy through the salvation of sinners. it gives Him opportunity to receive glory by demonstrating His holiness, wrath, and perfect judgment. And He allowed sin so that He might destroy it forever.

The source of evil is not God.  The source of evil is the creature.

Evil first began when Lucifer wanted to become like God and instead became as much unlike God as it is possible to be.  And then, knowing that was the result, tempted Adam and Eve to do the same.

The results of Lucifer's and Adam's choices to sin were different.  Lucifer disobeyed God and convinced a third of the angles to do likewise, and it affected only them.  Adam disobeyed God and all of mankind fell with him.

How does Satan work?  Through deception.

MacArthur: Disguising himself as a speaker of truth, he is a speaker of lies. He is a liar and the father of lies, it says inJohn 8:44. And what he wants to do is to get people to believe that God doesn't tell the truth, to get people to believe they have a right to question God and they have a right to doubt that God has told them the truth. He really solicits people to believe God lies and he tells the truth.

Notice the exact words that God says to Adam...
“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

I highly recommend you read MacArthur's last sermon on this passage, it was fantastic and really gave me a much better idea of exactly what happened, and what should have happened.  I'm going to try to summarize it, but if you have time, it's an excellent sermon.

At first Satan just brings up the conversation of eating from any tree in the garden and questioned Eve about what God actually said.  The assumption is that you have a right to some sort of human judgment on what God commands and provides.  At this point, Eve should have reiterated exactly what God had instructed them to do and been emphatic that they would honor and trust God.  Satan gets Eve to talk about the prohibition God had placed on them, implying that God was restrictive, narrow, even cruel, while Satan is generous and loves freedom.

But Eve adds to God's prohibition and includes "Neither shall you touch it".  We don't know for sure if Adam told her that to keep her away from the tree, or if she simply makes it up herself, but either way, it's making God appear more harsh.

She should have defended God's wisdom and goodness.  Instead she's being drawn down a slippery slope - thinking that Satan is more devoted to her joy, freedom, fulfillment, and satisfaction than God is.  The very same lie we buy into when we sin.

when you sin you believe that you will get greater joy out of your personal fulfillment by violating God's law then you would get if you obeyed it...which means you believe the lie....

As soon as one does not completely, unreservedly and wholeheartedly trust in the wisdom and absolute goodness of God, as soon as one does not believe that the purposes and the commands of God are for our best and highest joy, sin has entered the heart.

And then Satan goes past subtleties and outrightly accuses God of lying.  And Satan accuses God of lying about judgment.  That's exactly what Satan wants the whole world to believe - that there is no absolute authority and therefore, no judgment.

So that's how Satan works. First you question God, then you question God's goodness, then you believe that the real satisfaction is in the sin. And then you begin to hedge on the absolute character of Scripture as its authority, and then you begin to hedge on the fact that you're going to have to pay a consequence for your sin. And Eve made all those wrong choices. They're the same wrong choices that you make today when you sin.

Why would God be so restrictive?

what he's saying to her is the reason God doesn't want you to do this is not because He's a good God and He wants to protect you from death. The reason God doesn't want you to do this is because He's a bad God and He's jealous and He doesn't like rivals and He doesn't want competition. See that would be Satan's personal testimony. After all, he tried to be the rival of God, tried to compete with God as we learn in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, he tried to compete with God and got thrown out of heaven for it. So it sticks in his craw that God will not tolerate a rival. And so there's a certain amount of truth in this. But from Satan's viewpoint, it's not because God is all glorious and holy, it's because God's character is flawed.... Doesn't want you to eat that fruit because you know what? That fruit is not only not going to kill you, it is so good, not only will it not kill you, it will make you like God....

on the surface that's a good thing. After all, we're all trying to be like Christ. The Holy Spirit is trying to make us like Christ. That's a good thing. So there's a certain half truth and that's the way Satan usually operates. But for Eve to be like God in Satan's scheme, she has to disobey God. For us to be like God, in God's scheme we have to obey God. So he's got the thing completely reversed. ....And he says you're going to be like God, you're going to know good and evil.

Now that's a half truth. They did know good and evil, Adam and Eve did, that's right. Over in chapter 3 verse 22, "Behold, the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil." But as I said last time, they didn't know good and evil the way God knows evil. They knew good before but they began to know evil not the way God knows it, God knows it like the physician who offers the cure to the cancer victim. They know evil like the cancer victim who is dying from it. They knew evil experientially. It wasn't that they knew evil...Oh, now I understand what evil is. It wasn't that, it wasn't some kind of cognitive thing, it wasn't some rational thing. They knew evil by doing it....

 The Fall already came before she even ever took the fruit. And I remind you, there's nothing magic about the fruit....This isn't the Aesop Fables. There's nothing magic in the fruit. It was not that that brought about some change in her nature. It was the moment that she first distrusted God that catapulted her into sin. ... So they knew evil when they distrusted God's character. And the evidence that they distrusted God's character in the heart came when they disobeyed His Word by taking the fruit...

It goes from the mind to the emotion. It goes from thinking to feeling. Now in her mind, now follow this, her goal has changed. Now this is a monumental change. Up to this time the goal of Eve in life was to glorify God, right? ....There was never any thought about self-fulfillment. There was never any thought about personal pleasure, personal gain. Those thoughts didn't exist. Now there is a new thought in her mind, it is this...self-fulfillment....

It isn't the glory of God any more. It isn't the honor of God any more. She is being seduced by her physical appetite. She looks and she sees this as good for food.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you think she was hungry? Think she was starving in the garden? No. There was plenty of food. There was food all over the place. But she had come to believe that there was something satisfying in this food that she had never enjoyed in any other. And this is lust....Secondly, she not only sees that it's good for food, but she also sees that it's a delight to the eyes.... there's a third element. She also saw that the tree was desirable to make her wise...

These are the same three approaches that Satan still uses...still uses them....First John 2, listen to this, 15, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Now here is verse 16, 1 John 2:16, listen to this, "For all that is in the world...here it comes...all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world."

....the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It all fits in there somewhere. The lust of the eyes, the pride of life, the lust of the flesh...

"She took from its fruit and ate." Are you surprised? I'm not surprised, not...not knowing where she is by this time, it went from the mind to the emotions and the emotions overpowered the will and the will produced the behavior. She took from its fruit and ate. A simple act, very simple act with massive impact, massive impact. And then it simply says, "She gave also to her husband with her and he ate."..

you say, "Does Adam have less guilt?" No. In fact, whenever you look at the Scripture in other places, the Scripture always holds Adam accountable, not Eve, right? First Corinthians 15:22, "As in Adam all die..." Eve has immense guilt, no question, so does Adam. Eve was deceived by the serpent through the whole process. Adam just joined in the sin for reasons or explanations we don't know. But both of them disobeyed God. God did say don't eat, and they disobeyed God. And that's sin.

You say, "Well then why doesn't it say as in Eve all died?" Because there's a principle of headship in the Bible and it starts with Adam and it never ends. And it works in marriage just as well as it works in the trinity as it works in the church. There's a principle of headship. And the husband is the head, right? First Corinthians 11, "The husband is the head of the wife as God is the head of Christ." And so he then becomes the responsible one. By God's design, headship is in the man. Man then bears the responsibility...

So the one that God had given to Adam to be his helper became the instrument of his disaster and death.....

 the sin of Adam as the head is how sin enters the world. And it enters the world and with it comes death, spiritual death, physical death and eternal death. And that death spread to all men because all sinned. You say, "Well how in the world did we all sin?" We all sinned in the loins of Adam...we were all there....We were all there and when he was corrupted, then everything he produced was corrupt....

Somebody asked the question...Well, it's not fair. How can we be held responsible for Adam's sin when we weren't there? How can we sin in Adam when we weren't there?

Well, ask yourself this. How can we die and rise in Jesus Christ when we weren't there?

Or you say, "How can we be held responsible for what Adam did?" On the other hand, how can you be saved by what Jesus did?

Well the answer is because that's the way God designed it. That's how God designed it for His glory. God allowed this in order that sin might come, in order that He might destroy it so that it wouldn't any more be a possibility, it would become a reality and He would destroy it and in the process He would save sinners who believed and judge sinners who did not. And therefore He would put Himself on display as to His power, as to His grace and as to His justice. And He couldn't display His power and He couldn't display His grace and He couldn't display His justice in that way if there weren't sin. So God allowed it. Just as we fell in one man, we rise again in one man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ...

 verse 7, "The eyes of both of them were opened," immediately bang, their eyes were opened. What did they see?... They were aware of their wickedness. They knew they were naked. They had been naked for who knows how long. They knew they were naked, all of a sudden, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings....

They were in the same garden, looking at the same spouse, in the midst of the same creatures, under the same sky, but all of a sudden into their pure world of relationship, into their sexual innocence came perverse evil thoughts. And sin clung to their innocence. And they felt it strongly and they felt exposed and they felt shameful about feelings they had never felt before. Their purity was marred. They were shocked by thoughts that were wicked and impure. Even that pure gift of marriage was so polluted as to make them feel that they needed to hide their loins from God and from each other. That very part of their body which was the source of joy and the source of life because a source of guilt and a source of shame and they were embarrassed to be naked. And they did an appropriate thing. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. This is a feeble effort to cover their shame and to cover their guilt....

They could cover their bodies. It was a nice try. It was reasonable, it was a good thing to do. But they couldn't really hide their sin.... 

in order for God to make them a garment of skin, what did God have to do? Kill an animal, that's the first time. And the little analogy that I would make here, you can try to cover yourself with your own fig leaves, but in the end you can only be covered by God in a sacrifice. In the end, that's for God to do, to cover sin....

Like Lucifer, Adam and Eve fell so far there was nothing good in them. They fell so far that they were absolutely embarrassed and full of shame. They fell and an avalanche of sin was loosed that would never stop. They pulled a stone from the mountain and were horrified to discover that the fatal rock slide would bury all humanity and its environment in the dirt and rubble of sin. Satan had done his work and he disappeared from the garden. And they were left to face God. 

Sorry, I ended up having to quote a huge chunk - it was just so good!

I often think, if only Adam and Eve hadn't sinned.  If only!  But God had purpose even in this.  Now that evil had risen to the surface, God would continue His plan to eventually destroy it completely. And it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when. There's no sense in looking back before the fall and wishing for what never was when we have the promise of what's guaranteed to come.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Genesis 3:8-13

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 23-24, Psalm 105, Acts 16

Friday, May 23rd

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is  2 Samuel 15-16; Psalm 103; Acts 14

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 2:18-25

Genesis 2:18-25

English Standard Version (ESV)

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Accompanying Bob Deffinbaugh sermon:  The Meaning of Man: His Duty and His Delight
Accompanying John MacArthur sermon: The Creation of Woman

In today's passage we see more detail about the sixth day of creation.

Deffinbaugh:
The garden, with its pleasures and provisions for food and meaningful activity was not sufficient unless these delights could he shared.
God brought the animals to Adam for him to name - giving him the opportunity to see that each animal had a mate, and that he didn't.

And after giving Adam the opportunity to see his need, God created a helper for him.  Deffinbaugh gives some insight into this word helper - ezer.

Adam’s mate was to be a very special creation, a ‘helper, suitable for him’ (verse 18). She was to be a ‘helper,’ not a slave, and not an inferior. The Hebrew word ezer is most interesting. It was a word that Moses obviously liked, for in Exodus 18:4 we are told that this was the name he gave to one of his sons.

And the other was named Eliezer (El=God), for he said, ‘The God of my father was my help (ezer), and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh’ (Exodus 18:4).

The other three times ezer is found used by Moses in Deuteronomy (33:7,26,29), it refers to God as man’s helper. So also in the Psalms (20:2; 33:20; 70:5; 89:19; 115:9; 121:1,2; 124:8; 146:5).

The point of the word as it is most often employed in the Old Testament is that the help given implies no inferiority whatsoever. In a way consistent with its usage, God is helping man through women. What a beautiful thought.
And when God presented Eve to Adam, he broke out into poetry.
In this expression there is a mixture of relief, ecstasy, and delighted surprise.

Deffinbaugh has this to say about v24...
Man is to leave his parents, not in the sense of avoiding his responsibility to them (e.g. Mark 7:10-13; Ephesians 6:2,3), but in the sense of being dependent upon them. He must cease to live under their headship and begin to function alone as the head of a new home.

The woman is not commanded similarly because she simply transfers from one head to another. While she once was subject to her father, now she is joined to her husband. The man, however, has the more difficult transition. He, as a child, was dependent upon and submissive to his mother and father.

When a man marries he must go through the more radical transition from a dependent, submissive son to an independent (from a parents) leader, who functions as the head of the home.

As many have observed, the husband-wife relationship is permanent while the parent-child relationship is temporary. Even if the parents are unwilling to terminate the dependent relationship of son to parents, the son is responsible to do so. To fail to do so is to refuse the kind of bond necessary with his wife.

Now, perhaps, we are in a position to see the relationship of this command to the creation account. What is the reason for its mention here in Genesis? First of all, there are no parents to whom Adam or Eve have been born. Eve’s origin is directly from her husband, Adam. The union or bond between Adam and his wife is the union of coming from one flesh (Adam’s) and of becoming one flesh (in physical union). This bond is greater than that between parent and child. A woman is, of course, the product of her parents, as the man is of his. But the original union involved no parents, and the wife was a part of the flesh of her husband. This first marriage, then, is evidence of the primacy of the husband-wife relationship over that of the parent-child relationship.
He has this to say about v25...
a sexual side of this relationship was a part of the paradise experience. Sex did not originate with or after the fall. Procreation and physical intimacy were intended from the beginning (cf. 1:28). Also we see that sex could be enjoyed to its fullest in the divine plan. Disobedience to God did not heighten sexual pleasure; it diminished it. Today the world wishes to believe that they have invented sex and that God only seeks to prevent it. But sex, apart from God, is not what it could or should be.

Ignorance, if you will forgive me for saying so, is bliss. In our generation we are cool, if you prefer, sophisticated, only if we know (by experience) all there is to know about sex. “How naive are those who have never had sex before marriage,” we are led to believe. There are many things it is better not to know. Sex was never enjoyed so much as it was in sweet ignorance.
MacArthur adds that Adam and Eve were originally naked and unashamed because they had no knowledge of evil, therefore they had no capacity for shame. And it is so sad that knowledge of evil created shame between Adam and Eve, who originally had the purest husband/wife relationship there ever was.  In the beginning it was not that way.
MacArthur:
In the beginning in the perfect environment there was perfect love, there was perfect rapture with each other. And the perfection of wondrous creation by God. It was a shameless love that God gave these two. They had that kind of union that God has designed to be the pinnacle. Peter even calls it the grace of life. One man, one woman leaving their parents; cleaving together in a strong bond for life becoming one flesh.

And of course becoming one flesh means coming together as one and that is certainly manifested when children are born, children being the very symbol, the very reality of the one flesh because they bear the life of both the father and the mother. So woman was made for man and there is where relationship begins. And folks I want to tell you this is the purest and greatest and most blessed and wondrous relationship that God has ever given. That's why Peter calls it the grace of life.Day 6 not only included the creation of man, but of marriage.  And God has defined marriage as a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman.  Homosexuality, adultery, fornication are all excluded from God's design. Sex, when used with the parameters set by God, is a beautiful gift.

The glorious perfection of a pre-fall world is beyond our imagination - but is something we can look forward to experiencing for all eternity on the New Earth.


Monday's scripture focus:  Genesis 3:1-7

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 17-18
Sunday's passage: 2 Samuel 19-20
Monday's passage: 2 Samuel 21-22, Psalm 104, Acts 15

Thursday, May 22 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 13-14; Psalm 102; Acts 13

Today's scripture focus is  Genesis 2:8-17

8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Bob Deffinbaugh is one of my favourites.  He never fails to point out something that wouldn't have ever occurred to me.  Following is an excerpt from The Meaning of Man:

God created the garden, which was to be the place of man’s abode, and the object of his attention. It was well-supplied with many trees which provided both beauty and food.

And out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9).

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2:16-17).

It is interesting that seemingly Adam, alone, is told by God that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil must not be eaten. One can only conjecture as to how effectively God’s command to Adam was communicated to Eve. Could this explain Eve’s inaccurate appraisal in 3:2-3?

Into this paradise,43 man was placed. While he was surely to enjoy this wonderland, he was also to cultivate it. Look again at verse 5:

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground (Genesis 2:5).

When placed in the garden, Adam was to work there: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).

Adam’s creation is described more fully in 2:7 than in chapter one. He was formed44 from the dust of the ground. While this is a humbling fact, it is also obvious that man’s origin is not from the animal world, nor is man created in the same way as the animals. In part, Adam’s dignity stems from the fact that his life breath is the inspiration of God (verse 7).

Here was no mythical garden. Every part of the description of this paradise inclines us to understand that it was a real garden in a particular geographical location. Specific points of reference are given. Four rivers are named, two of which are known to us today. We should not be surprised, especially after the cataclysmic event of the flood, that changes may have occurred, which would make it impossible to locate this spot precisely.

I find it most interesting that the Paradise of Eden was a place somewhat different from what we envision today. First of all, it was a place of work. Men today dream of paradise as a hammock suspended between two coconut trees on some desert island, where work is never again to be contemplated. Furthermore, heaven is thought of as the end of all prohibitions. Heaven is frequently confused with hedonism. It is very self-centered and pleasure-oriented. While Adam’s state was one of beauty and bliss, it cannot be thought of as unrestricted pleasure. The forbidden fruit is a part of Paradise, too. Heaven is not the experiencing of every desire, but the satisfaction of beneficial and wholesome desires.

Servanthood is not a new concept in the New Testament. Meaningful service provides fulfillment and purpose for life. God described Israel as a cultivated garden, a vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-2ff.). Jesus spoke of Himself as the Vine and we as the branches. The Father tenderly cared for His vineyard (John 15:1ff.). Paul described the ministry as the work of a farmer (II Timothy 2:6).

While the church of the New Testament may be better described as a flock, nevertheless the image of the garden is not inappropriate. There is a work to be done for the child of God. And that work is no drudgery, no duty to begrudgingly carry out. It is a source of joy and fulfillment. Many today have no real sense of meaning and purpose because they are not doing the work that God has designed for them to carry out.

Food for thought.

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  Genesis 2:18-25

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  2 Samuel 15-16; Psalm 103; Acts 14

Wednesday, May 21st

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 101; Acts 12

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 2:4-7

Genesis 2:4-7

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Creation of Man and Woman

4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Accompanying Bob Deffinbaugh sermon: The Meaning of Man: His Duty and His Delight
Accompanying John MacArthur sermon: The Creation of Man

Starting from this passage, and continuing on through Chapter 2, God gives us more details about Day 6 and the creation of man.
Deffinbaugh: If chapter one is laid out in chronological fashion—that is in a sequence of seven days, chapter two is not chronological, but logical. Of course the events of chapter two fit into chapter one’s order, but the chapter is laid out differently. If chapter one is creation as seen through a wide angle lens, chapter two is viewed through a telephoto lens. In chapter one man is found at the top of a pyramid, as the crown of God’s creative activity. In chapter two man is at the center of the circle of God’s activity and interest.

And what this passage is reminding us is that God created Adam and Eve in a pre-fall environment.  There was no rain yet because rain and the withholding of rain is a blessing and a judgement - a post-fall event.  Vegetation had already been created, but there were no crops because there was no need for man to plant, till, water, or weed.  Everything was watered perfectly, not by rain, but from within the ground which was constantly, consistently, perfectly irrigated through subterranean springs.

Can you just imagine the perfection of Earth at that moment?  How glorious it was?

And that was the state of the world when God created man.

We were created out of the dust of the ground (not monkeys), and God Himself breathed the breath of life into Adam and he became a living creature.  God breathed life into everything that lived, including animals, fish, and birds.  But God took the physical form of man whom He had made out of chemical components, and He breathed into man specifically, a living soul.

MacArthur:  man became nefesh, like other living things but much higher because it was life in the image of God. 

And that is what gives human life it's worth.


Tomorrow's scripture focus: Genesis 2:8-17

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 13-14, Psalm 102, Acts 13

Tuesday - May 20 - Tiffany

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 9-10; Psalm 100 ; Acts 11

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 2:1-3

The Seventh Day, God Rests

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. ² And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

 

 

I love the title the ESV Bible gives this scripture: The seventh day, God rests.

 

I don't know who you are in life, you who are reading this, but I know who I am. I'm a wife of an extremely busy pastor, the mom of 3 kids with unending amounts of energy (especially the 3 year old), I'm a Pepsi addict, only as I age, the caffeine keeps me awake, I am one of infinite projects and ideas.....

 

God RESTS.  Doesn't that sound lovely? I love rest. I love sleep. I love doing nothing.

 

And God blessed a day, made it holy, specifically so we would rest. And rest in Him. Exodus 20:8-10 says "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

This means not just veg out in front of the TV, but reflect on Him, worship Him, once again hand our lives over to Him, focusing on resting in him.  For as Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30 " ²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

I find it hard to remember. Our Sundays are often full, so my husband takes Fridays as his personal Sabbath. I find it hard to find a day to set aside for God. I'm busy, life is hectic, and I run run run from job to job.

But Jesus says his yoke is easy, his burden is light. If we would just take the time to rest in Him, I'm pretty sure everything else will fall into place.

 

So when you find yourself exhausted, repeat this verse:

Be still and know that I am God. (psalm 46:10a)

 

 

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Genesis 2:4-7

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 101; Acts 12

Monday, May 19 -by Pamela

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 7-8, Psalm 99, Acts 10

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 1:24-31

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man^[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Don't you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all of your "to-do" list of what you expect to do in a day? Maybe this comes from seeing all that God can accomplish in a day...we very quickly realize we are just mere humans. ;)

MacArthur says that acknowledging God as the creator (and master of the universe and everything in it) is am important part of our faith.

Christianity does not begin with accepting Jesus Christ as Savior. It begins with accepting God as creator. And the real problem, folks, of the twentieth century, the real problem of a post-modern world is not that they reject Jesus Christ, it's that they reject God as creator. Consequently they don't even know who Jesus is or how He fits in. And if you reject God as creator, that, I believe, is the cause of all human lostness. It's the cause of vagaries in human thought. It's the cause of all the meanderings of philosophy.

On the other hand, when you believe that God is the creator and He created exactly as He revealed in Genesis, that establishes the foundation for all truth, for then God is sovereign and all truth and authority flows down from God about everything.

God is the Creator. God is sovereign. God created everything according to His purpose. His final creation-man-was his intention all along.

MacArthur explains:

Then God said everything is ready now. The whole universe has been created for the purpose of man to live in it and to see the hand of God declared through all of it, through the firmament and through the beasts of the field which will give Me glory as the prophet Isaiah said. God has created a whole world, a whole environment for man so that man can see the wonderful creative genius of the mind of God and God can demonstrate His beauty, His order through all the created world and God can provide an environment which puts His glory on display.

This is long but an awesome explanation of why man, created in the image of God, is so important:

Now what does it mean to be made in the image of God? It means you're not an animal. It means you're not a higher animal. It means you didn't evolve from a monkey, or a gibbon or a baboon, or any other thing. From the very outset man was created on a divine pattern, made on a divine pattern rather than a material earthly pattern only. And, by the way, he is the only living being in the time/space universe made on the divine pattern. Man is transcendent. The truest part of man cannot be reduced to any chemical formula. the truest part of man cannot be seen in DNA. It cannot be found in the chromosomes. It cannot be found by dissecting his brain. It cannot be found by cutting open his heart. It cannot be found by tinkering with his nervous system.

You can take all of the scientific experiments you want on the anatomy of a human being and never will you discover the true part of man, which is that intangible reality that he is a transcendentbeing which has no chemical constituents. Man is distinct from every other created creature. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 11, a wonderful statement is made. "He has made...speaking of God...everything appropriate in its time, He has also set eternity in their heart." What a great statement. He has set eternity in their heart. That's true only of man. Down in verse 21 of Ecclesiastes 3, "Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth." The writer is saying...man, his spirit goes up, any other created being upon death, his spirit goes down. Goes into the ground, as it were, out of existence because God has set eternity in our hearts. You can take away our body and we will live forever.

So the image of God isn't talking about some kind of physical form. The image of God indicates attributes, not shared at all by animals. And the bottom-line word I gave you was personal...man is a person, personhood. These are his distinctives...self-consciousness. Animals are conscious but they're not self-conscious. They're conscious to their environment, they react to their environment, but they don't know they're reacting to their environment, it's merely instinctive. But man is conscious and he reacts to his environment and he knows how to react cause he reacts cognitively. Man has reason rather than instinct. Man has the capability to think abstractly. Man has the ability to appreciate beauty, to feel emotion, to be morally conscious. And above all, as we pointed out last time, man has the capacity and the need to personally relate to others, to other people and especially to God, being able to love Him and worship Him. That's personhood.

Man has the ability to love. Man has the ability to fellowship, to converse, to commune. Man is the only creature in existence in the time/space world that has language. Now all of that points to the trinity and that's why, as I told you last time, verse 26 indicates, "Let us make man," for the first time God is introduced here as more than one because He's making man in His image and man is made for personal relationships. God discloses the fact that He Himself is a trinity as we well know and as unfolds throughout the rest of Scripture, particularly the New Testament, so that God in the relationships of the trinity establishes the pattern for man's relationships.

Now that's sort of the ontological essence of man. The ethical essence of man, he has the capacity for moral behavior. He has the capability to be holy and righteous. He has the ability to be sanctified. He has the ability to obey God. He has the ability to receive divine and eternal salvation. Man created in the image of God, and that's just a brief review of what we saw last time, primarily indicating personhood and therefore relationships.

Now let's look at the three remaining features that are described here of man. Number two, man is not only made in the image of God, man is the king of the earth. He is the king of the earth. We look at that in verses 26 and 28. In verse 26 after saying "Let us make man in our image according to our likeness," God said, "And let them rule...and let them rule." And then He went on to describe everything, the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Down in verse 28 it says, in the middle of the verse, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Man was designed by God to be the sovereign of the planet, to be the king of the earth. Verse 26, let them rule. Verse 28, subdue it and rule.

³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

It was very good. God's design. God's plan. God's creation. It was very good.

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  Genesis 2:1-3

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 9-10, Psalm 100, Acts 11

Friday, May 16th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 2 Samuel 1-2; Psalm 98; Acts 9

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 1:20-23

Genesis 1:20-23

English Standard Version (ESV)

20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Accompanying John MacArthur sermon: Creation Day 5

MacArthur points out a neat parallel in creation....
 On day one God created light, on day four He created the stellar bodies to be the light givers. On day two He created the seas and the heavens, and on day five He populated the seas and the heavens. On day three He created the earth and its vegetation, correspondingly on day six He created the animals and man to populate the earth and to consume its vegetation. So the parallels run consistently through.

God created fish and all other sea animals, including the great sea creatures of v21, sometimes translated sea monsters.  That is included in the Bible because of the mythological sea creature gods, and here God is refuting that.  There are simply another natural creation of God`s, nothing more, nothing less.

He also created all the birds of the air.

Not only did He create them, He gave them reproductive abilities to ensure their permanence and propagation.

I found a fascinating video about this as well - it`s a bit long, but even if you only watch part of it, you will be amazed at our Creator.


Also, I love this video made with clips from Planet Earth and set to the song Creation Calls.



Glory to God!


Monday's scripture focus: Genesis 1:24-31

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Samuel 3-4
Sunday`s passage: 2 Samuel 5-6
Monday`s passage: 2 Samuel 7-8, Psalm 99, Acts 10

Thursday, May 15 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 1 Samuel 31; Psalm 97; Acts 8

Today's scripture focus is Genesis 1:14-19

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

Psalm 19:1a - "The heavens declare the glory of God."

Here is a video I found on youTube talking about the universe, the sizes of the different celestial bodies, etc.  It's 6 1/2 minutes long, kind of slow, but very interesting, and from a Christian perspective.  I hope you enjoy it.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Genesis 1:20-23

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  2 Samuel 1-2; Psalm 98; Acts 9