Finding interesting things in a boring chapter

Genesis 5. Oh great. A lineage chapter. A list of daddies, ages, and death. I’m sure you’re sarcastically thinking, “Oh, fascinating.” But there is more here than you think. Sidenote: When googling “Genesis 5” in an images search to find a picture for today, I found out that there is a Christian comic book with teen superheroes called The Genesis 5. We have to admit that Christian pop culture is not as good as regular pop culture…

This chapter reiterated that we are made in the image of God. Here, it says that man is in the likeness of God. Biblical genealogies are not always complete, because sometimes generations are skipped. If you are attempting to count backwards and see how old the world is based on these lists, you’re out of luck.

One of the first  things that jumps out in this chapter is how old these people lived to be. Did they look old at the age of 60 or did their youth last longer? Did they only start looking 60 at 300? Yeesh. Adam was 130 when he had Seth. Note that these guys still die after these long lives. That’s still where it ends and what everyone has to face.

The descendants of Adam are listed and the list stops to point out that one in particular, Enoch, “walked with God.” This means he had a friendship relationship with God, he had faith, he walked in the light, and he went with God’s will. Then the Bible says that God “took” Enoch and the Septuagint says that he was “not found.”

Hebrews 11:5 says, “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found, because God had taken him; for before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God.” We can please God? It’s clear hear that we can only do it through faith that leads to walking with him.

There are hints as to what prompted Enoch’s faith. First, The text says, “After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God.” I always look up Biblical names in commentaries because they always shed extra light on the parents’ mind states. The name Methuselah means “when he is dead, it shall come.” When his son was born, Enoch got a revelation from God about an coming judgment.

 Jude 14 tells us that Enoch was a prophet. He said, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Enoch decided to make the most of his life with God, rather than waste it and contribute to the evil that demanded judgment.

The oldest recorded life is Methuselah’s. He lived 969 years. Apparently no one made it to 1,000. This is why it’s funny to call really old people Methuselah. They don’t like it though, especially if they don’t get it. As the meaning of his name indicates, Methuselah’s death prompted the flood. God kept Methuselah alive as long as possible so that the people could have that time to repent.

Lamech gave Noah his name because Noah would bring relief out of the cursed ground. Noah’s appearance would bring relief to the hard work and painful toil that was his family’s life…Somehow. Finally, Noah had Shem, Ham, and Japheth as sons.

It must have been an interesting time, what with all the people living that long. Adam would have gotten to know lots of his descendents. How much power and influence could a man have in his community in 800 years? We see that God is doling out prophecies and walking with men. These are a spiritual people doing the best they can, even without the Jewish law or Jesus.

It’s a shame that we don’t get more details about their way of life and this point in history. The long lives alone would have changed the way society operated in contrast to today. Some people think the long lives are not literal or that they are counted in months, not years, but I think they really lived that long. The environment was different back then. Later in the Bible, God decides to decrease the lifespan. It’s not unbelievable to me to think that God decided to speed up the deterioration process.

I didn't kill my brother, but I can be kind of a Cain

Genesis 4: Now, here’s where I brag to everyone about how that will never be my siblings and me. We have a ton of fun hanging out and love each other. Part of it is because neither of our parents showed favoritism, ever, at all. My brother and I were talking about how much it's gonna suck when either of our parents die.I said, "At least us three siblings might get closer." My Brother said, "We can get closer? If we got any closer, that would just be weird." This is true. My sibling relationships are some of the only ones that I’m sure I haven’t completely messed up. There is a quote that says, “Your siblings are your strongest link to your childhood and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.” I wholly agree. I’d throw myself in front of Voldemort’s wand for my little brother. How could Cain kill his? That’s a headspace I struggled to get into, until I wrote this post.

Here, sex is mentioned for the first time in the Bible, although this should not indicate that this is the first time A/E had sex. Sex is good, so they probably had it in Eden. I love the way the word for sex here is “knew.” Even though it is merely a polite term for sex at the time, it defines sex’s nature. Instead of a crass or technical term like we today would substitute, the Bible uses a term with more juice, putting a high level of value on sex.

Eve started making babies. How freaked out would she have been when this started happening? Did she wonder why they came out so small? I looked it up, and Cain means “I’ve got him” or “Here he is.” Eve was promised descendants from God and now she has them. Did Adam and Eve think he was the promised Messiah that would crush the Serpent with his heel? Did they put way too much pressure on Cain to be great?

    

Cain and Abel both do the right, religious thing. Why was Cain’s offering rejected? Many people point out that Abel brought the first of his flock, which does show that Abel was ready to give his best to God, no matter the unforeseen cost. But I prefer to look at Hebrews 11. Verse three says, “By faith Abel offered up a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” This shows that Abel had real faith and was really seeking God. This also shows that faith requires more than just belief in God or being sure that he is real. Cain knew God was real and conversed with him.

But there was no trust. Cain’s offering was likely done out of religious obligation or to prove to God how good he was. God is looking at the heart, not deciding he likes meat better than fruit (although that sounds perfectly reasonable, haha). In rejecting and accepting the offerings, did God use heavenly fire or lack thereof to manifest these decisions to the men? Was it public? Were their parents watching Abel receive approval and Cain, the supposed Messiah, get dissed? Or did Cain’s life just start to go downhill, while Abel prospered?

Cain is ticked. God lovingly says, essentially, “Now son. Suck it up and do better next time.” God warns Cain that sin desires him, but he should rule over it. Sin is crouching at Cain’s door and the MORE sin he does, the more of a force in his life it becomes. You lose control of how much the sin permeates your life in mind, until it has complete control and is running you. Cain kills Abel out of jealousy. I believe jealousy comes from a pride/lack of love. It’s lack of love for yourself, your own life, God, and the person you are jealous of.

God questions Cain. Again with the questioning to this family, when you know that God sure isn’t looking for information. He’s teaching. He knows we need to figure things out for ourselves and that we need an opportunity to confess sin. Cain says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Yes, Cain. You are. As the oldest, it was your responsibility to protect and nurture your brother. Der. Poor Abel. Jesus came with Abel's same faith-filled attitude, and the Cains killed him too.

God says that Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground, which is repeated in Numbers when the blood of unpunished murders defiles the land. God wants justice and everything in nature cries for justice. Violence leaves a stain on the very land. That’s why I would hesitate to visit places like Rwanda or a Holocaust site. That kind of violence just doesn’t leave, spiritually, until there is justice. Cain is concerned about the violence of others and he also gets a wife. I think the easiest explanation for this is that God created more people after A/E. God gives A/E Seth after this, and Seth is the ancestor of the Messiah. Who told A/E that Cain killed Abel? Did they both disappear? Was the body found? Did Cain fess up? Did God tell A/E?

Cain has a descendent, Lamech, who is vengeful and violent. He was also the first practitioner of polygamy recorded. Later in the Bible, we will see that polygamy usually has negative consequences. There is a difference between what the Bible records and what the Bible approves of. We also see the first sign of music and the arts here, as well as metalworking. Then we hear that “At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord.” What a cool-sounding verse. This is the first spiritual incline and revival after spiritual decline.

So, getting into Cain’s headspace: Cain is living life right, under high expectations. He is doing the religious thing and looking for approval for it, but no matter what happens, he isn’t succeeding. Wow. That sounds familiar. My family didn’t expect me to be the Messiah, like Cain’s did, but expectations and standards were  high. As a child and in high school, I lived a moral life, never fornicated, didn’t drink, didn’t rebel, went to church, volunteered, gave to charity, didn’t lie, didn’t cheat, lost weight, did everything the adults asked of me, didn’t curse, read all the old books, succeeded academically, had all the “right” political beliefs and knew the Bible better than most adult Christians. I was a pretty good Pharisee, bringing my sacrifices and fearing rejection.

Despite all my efforts, I struggled to convince adults that I was a good, caring person. Growing up, my brother and sister were the sweet, complimentary, social charming ones, and I was (gasp!) introverted, slightly oblivious to social cues and norms, and direct. I was always getting criticized for my personality, and it didn’t help that I was homeschooled for a while and often truly didn’t know when I said the wrong things. There were no introverts or nerds in my family until one of my cousins was born and an uncle married into the family. (Sidenote: they are the BEST)

This is not just a social temperament to many Christians; it's a character defect. At first, I tried to change and realized I couldn’t. I mocked my siblings to placate myself, calling them “fake.” I was jealous and angry, and I get why Cain was so upset. Later, I stretched into what all the personality quizzes call an “ambivert,” meaning that I'm pretty extroverted now, but I still have some introvert characteristics. It depends on the people I'm with.

I'll never win over certain people. For everyone who thinks I'm awful, there are other people who don't. You can’t control who likes or understands you. You have to trust that even if you never get it right, your security and joy are in God, not your own performance or pleasing others. Paul says in the New Testament that he does not judge himself and that others cannot judge him either. It’s truly an audience of one. 

You should only be concerned with what God thinks, and since Jesus’ righteousness applies to you and God loved you enough to make and die for you, those questions are answered. Abel lived out of gratitude to and worship of God, and Cain was trying to earn approval. You have nothing to work for.  In this story, success and failure hinged on the heart. Also, it was about the ability to take rejection and criticism without letting them devastate you. Mostly, it was about doing every good deed with total faith and trust in God.

Check out this article about the Blue Like Jazz movie. It's interesting: http://donmilleris.com/2012/03/21/the-christian-movie-establishment-vs-blue-like-jazz/ I especially agree that there is nothing wrong with airing our "dirty laundry."

After the Fall

Genesis 3:7-24. There is so much interesting stuff here, you guys. The first thing Adam and Eve (A/E) experience is shame, hiding their bodies and hide from God. Sin is already separating them from God. Pastors suggest that A/E covering themselves mirrors the way we hide our true selves from other people, which is a self-protection mechanism. We naturally want to maintain power and control in relationships, and it likely started here. This shows that sin is already separating A/E from each other and ruining humanity’s future ability to connect. Finally, Tim Keller points out that their nakedness is like our sense that something is wrong with us, our shame, our psychological dislocation, and our lack of ease with who we are. Keller says, “When our relationship with God was severed, our relationship with ourselves was severed.”

We try to cover ourselves with the fig leaves of success and good deeds. I’m so guilty of this, both in action and in fantasies. People have to love me because I’m the U.S. President, attractive, famous, funny, wealthy, heroic, honest, moral, intelligent, or a people pleaser! It’s all fig leaves compared with the glory of God that covers through Jesus. Shame was the symptom and the disease is sin, so the fig leaves didn’t work to hide A/E’s shame. They still had to hide from God, knowing deep down that their attempts were inadequate. You can’t fix low self-esteem by treating it, because that will just result in us gathering more fig leaves. Low self-esteem is a symptom. You have to go right to the real diseases (pride, measuring yourself against others, self obsession, not knowing who you are in God, and obsession with success). The cure is knowing God and becoming obsessed with looking at him over analyzing yourself and your failures. It’s seeing yourself and others through God’s eyes and trusting him.

When I was a kid, I thought that this passage meant human bodies are intrinsically shameful or dirty, and that earlier, A/E just didn’t know that. But it’s more a symptom of their spiritual nakedness and desire to not be known in their sin. Psalm 104:2 says that light is God’s garment. In Matthew 17, Jesus’ clothes became as white as light. Was God’s light clothing A/E before the fall, because they were made in his image? One commenter suggested that humans pass sin through sexual reproduction and that’s the reason we think the genital areas require more modesty and covering.

As usual, God goes looking for his humans and calls to them. John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 6:16 both say that no man has ever seen God. Was this Jesus then? When confronted, Adam blames Eve for everything. As noted last week, it is possible that Adam ate the apple out of a romantic impulse toward Eve. But he threw her under the bus before God, so if there was romance, there was no real love, which is unselfish and takes the blame (as we know from Jesus). His blaming Eve accused God as well, because God gave Eve to Adam. This one is defective, God! Obviously, it’s best to own up to things when you do wrong, like David did in 2 Samuel 12. It comes off as more mature than excuses. I’m still working on this.

God curses the serpent first, and watching the snake slither away on its belly must have freaked A/E out. It still freaks people out today, and we’ve seen it before. God told the serpent that it would eat dust. This is literally true for the animal, but it is also true for Satan, because eating dust is a picture of defeat in other parts of the Bible. Satan will always work really hard to top God and make us miserable, but in the end “light trumps dark every time.” (Quoting a shaman, haha).

Then there is the prophecy where the snake is crushed by a man’s heel. According to Keller, “The picture is of a family and into the midst of them comes a snake, quickly. It’s venomous and one man goes after the snake and stamps on it. Finally, he crushes the head and saves the family. In the process, the snake bites and kills him. The snake represents evil. One of the descendants of Eve is going to destroy sin and death itself but get a fatal wound in the process….The sword represents the wages of sin, the justice of God. The wages of sin is death. You can’t get to paradise unless you go through the sword. Jesus did.”

It’s possible that the prophecy about the snake points to the virgin birth, because it only mentions the savior coming from the woman and not the man. Does the sin curse only pass through man? God cursed the woman with multiplied sorrow, and this makes sense with how women were treated in society for thousands of years after that. As a gender, women had the choices of a common animal, but Christianity came into society and helped a bit by saying that women and men were equal before God (an idea Gnostics rejected, so can everyone just let the whole Gnostic thing go already? They sucked!).  

Also, God says that a woman’s desire will be for her husband, implying that while men desire women, women desire men in a different way. Is this the first part of girls committing to men more easily and men using women just for sex? It’s man’s turn, and he gets hard work. We know from God giving Adam work earlier and from God doing some work in creation that work is not evil, but before the curse, the ground only produced good things. After, there are weeds and it’s harder to get the good stuff. Work is less satisfying, more meaningless, and more tiring.

This was just supposed to be a man curse, God! I’m getting enough of it in law school. It’s like I get both genders’ curses. No fair, lol. With the fall, sin entered the world. Sin is a force, rather than just bad things people do. It’s a darkness that permeates everything and spreads like a disease, ruining everything it touches and bringing death. I’m not clear on whether these curses are added punishments from God or whether God was just describing what the effects of the fall would be. It ruined our relationship with nature too. Natural disasters and sickness are consequences.

God guarded the tree of life from A/E. God was probably being merciful in saving them from immortality as sinners. I know that would be a horrible fate, because I’ve read Anne Rice vampire novels. This life had been spoiled and tainted by the fall, but God had already planned the next realm and allowed death to run its course, for now. But death is wrong and we know it. It’s not supposed to happen. It’s not a natural thing, like in The Lion King where they sing The Circle of Life and dance around. No way. It’s evil. It’s evil when the dead person is 90 years old and it’s evil when they are children, and we all know it when we arrive at the funeral or face it. But death will taste dust too.

Why did God have this happen at all? I think it’s because a man who sought after God, learned through struggles, rejected Satan, and fought for God through life is better than an innocent man who doesn’t even know that without God he is naked. A man who has been saved and transformed by grace and has his eyes fully open to those implications is preferable to a creature who doesn’t know that this is the kind of God who can redeem anything. God is also a fan of free will, and we needed to have choices in order to have it. No one lived a full life without free will in the Bible.

I used to think God was too harsh in this passage, but you can see the New Testament God here. Notice that God questions A/E, despite knowing everything, but not Satan. He is teaching them. When they need clothing to protect them from the environment and their own shame, God still takes care of them, killing an animal in the process, which points to a sacrificial system. God clothes the poor and also hints that this is what his followers should do. It's agonizing to think about how it would feel to walk with this God and then not get to anymore.

Some people say the clothes indicated that A/E were saved because God promised a savior and them covered their same through a sacrifice. It may be a stretch, but I wouldn’t put it past God to redeem them right on the spot. We also see parallels to Jesus here (sorry, spoiler alert). A commentary points these things out: Sin brought pain to childbirth, and we were born again through Jesus’ pain. Sorrow was multiplied and Jesus was described as a man of many sorrows. The fall brought thorns, and Jesus wore a crown of thorns. The fall brought sweat through work and Jesus sweat blood before the cross. Finally, Jesus died, lost his human relationships, and was cut off from God, enduring the brunt of the curse.

The Temptation of Eve

Genesis 3:1-6. There is just too much in Genesis 3 to comment on the whole thing in one post. I will split it in two. 

How do we know that the serpent is Satan? From the rest of the Bible (Ezekiel 28:13-19, Job, Isaiah, Revelation). One of the best ways to interpret the Bible is to use the other parts in the Bible. Satan really identifies with the snake and uses it a lot. Snakes aren’t innately bad; God created them. There was a pre-curse snake. I think snakes are sweet when they aren’t the biting, poisonous kind. Satan twisted the snake, like he does many good things, when he chose to use it. Serpents used to have legs, but God made them legless after this incident, presumably so they would be creepier, haha.

One time I heard the objection, “Snakes don’t have the anatomy required to vocalize words.” You see in several other Biblical passages that spirits are able to possess human and animal bodies. Satan picked the serpent and either whispered in Eve’s thoughts or made the voice appear to come from the snake, which isn’t that unbelievable if you believe any other miracle in the Bible. It wasn’t weird to Eve. She didn’t say, “Whoa, A TALKING SNAKE. I’M RICH.” Adam and Eve already walked and talked with God and possibly encountered angels or other spirits in the garden. We can’t know, obviously.

We see in Genesis 2:15-17 that Adam heard the command against eating from the tree directly from God, which would be powerful. Because Eve heard the command secondhand, from Adam, it had less punch to begin with. Then there is the possibility that Adam left a few words out of the “don’t eat it” discussion. Notice that when the serpent asks Eve what God commanded, her words are different from what God said to Adam. She doesn’t seem to know the name of the tree. It kind of sounds like Adam might have said, “Don’t touch that tree or you will die.” Perhaps if Eve had all of the information in God’s words, Satan would not have gotten that foothold when he said, “You won’t die.” The more you know about God and what God has said, the fewer footholds can be gained.

The foothold in the mind was followed by desire, as we will see. Lots of wars are first won in the mind. In Jane Eyre, Jane is being tempted to commit adultery with Mr. Rochester. He is questioning her about her feelings because she is very in love. She chooses to do the right thing, saying, “I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now.” This is a great quote about the way the truth sometimes doesn’t feel right, due to your desires messing with your resolve. What you believe about God will define how you will act. Eve believed the devil subtly accused God of lying about whether Eve would die. Rather than cling to the belief that God was good and not in competition with her, Eve chose to believe that sinning was harmless and God was bad (which never happens nowadays, lol). It’s useful to us today to remember who God is (good and Holy) before we toss off commands due to our new, mad logic.

 Another mistake Eve made was even carrying on a discussion with Satan in the first place. I talked to an exorcist one time who told me that Rule #1 is not to talk to evil except to tell them to go pounds sand. Rebuking is all that’s useful. The way these entities work is that they tell a lie wrapped in truth, so you believe the whole thing. Look at those psychics who are total charlatans. They find out your birth order, tell you things that are true for all youngest children, and then you believe whatever they make up, because they seem to know you. Satan said, “Your eyes will be open” to Eve, which was true. Of course, he lied about the other stuff and left out the fact that her eyes would be open to things that SUCK. Still, the best lies have truth in them, and the devil knows just what truths and lies will work on your ego and desires perfectly. Does this extend to human beings who lie or want you to believe something you don’t think is true? Possibly to an extent. If a false teacher really knows how to manipulate, you should use discretion and think about your personality/mind before you hang out with him, if at all.

The snake then throws in the temptation to become God. This is controversial because most religions, in some ways, teach that we will one day either become like God or become Gods ourselves. There is a way to become like God that is bad and then there is a way that is good. Christianity, for example, tells us to be perfect as God is perfect. We have the Holy Spirit inside us. We are supposed to become like God. In some New Age circles, we are all little mini gods, equal to God. Etc. We get background on Satan in Ezekiel 28, which tells us that Satan was kind of a big deal among the angels. Isaiah 14 says that Satan wanted to be God or be greater than God. I think the line between bad and good is whether you become like God through obedience/following him or through following your own will. You don’t want to be in competition with God and you don’t want there to be any pride in your pursuits, like there was with Satan and Eve. 

When you seek to be like God, you have to know that 1) God is good, 2) he wants what is best for you, and 3) you are designed by him to fit with certain universal laws. In the Ten Commandments movie, Charlton Heston says, “You can’t break the law; you can only break yourself against the law.” You were made for these laws like a fish was made for water. When you rebel against God and try to create your own laws, you find yourself unable to thrive and breathe in the new laws you created. You wither and die, purpose unfulfilled. You have to realize that the reason you want to be more like God is so you can be closer to God. The best possible thing for us as we were created is to know God, not compete with him. Also, spoiler alert: we would lose. Double spoiler alert: Satan will too.

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Jesus resisted a similar threefold temptation from Satan in one of my favorite Biblical passages. 1) Food, 2) emotions/desire, and 3) a pride issue. We see that Adam was with her. The New Testament tells us that Eve was deceived, but Adam was standing right there, had all the facts, had known God longer, was not deceived, and ate it either out of rebellion or romantic love for Eve. Possibly both. Either puts something above God and is wrong.

Some people say, “Man, it’s all Adam and Eve’s fault. If they hadn’t eaten the apple, we wouldn’t have all this suffering in the world or Nazism or anything.” But if you look through that pitch to Eve carefully and honestly, you might be able to point out times in your life when you fell for the same lies and appeals to your desires. If we do it now (let pride make you break God’s law), we’d probably do it in the garden, especially pre-Jesus and Holy Spirit. It’s all part of the big plan anyway.