The Trekkers Bible Blog

Genesis 3
Reading this passage, the following thoughts stike me:

• Crafty Serpents (1) - this indicates me that we are dealing with myth and fable. This doesn't mean I dismiss the passage, but that I have to read it more carefully to pull out the message, to find out why it was written.
• The woman is very clear on the boundaries, even if she is unclear on the consequences. - (2-3)
• What would it be like to not know the difference between good and evil, I find it hard to think of this in a positive way (5)
• Sinning look appealing! (6)
• They acted together (7), but as soon as there was blame to apportion, the man tried to blame the woman (12). Is he blaming the woman "She gave me it" or God "You put her here"
• Man knows the difference between good and evil (22) - but our own self interest stop us from acting upon this knowledge

What else can people draw out from this chapter?

Tim

Just a note about today's service download.
You can download the mp3 here.

God's Love is Like... Clare Hooper and Graeme Fancourt. 2 June 2007. Graeme and Clare look at some fun ways to help us visualise what God's love is like.

I was away at my niece's Christening today, so I'm looking forward to listening to it while I do a little ironing.
Tim

Hi Trekkers

Today is the first day of our 21 days through the Bible.

Genesis 1 and 2

It's easy to read these two chapters as a science text book, to spot things in them that are obviously wrong from our modern-day perspective, and to dismiss them as out of date. But these chapters are not written as a text book, it is an ancient text written by an ancient people trying to understand our relationship with our creator, and it covers some amazing themes:

• When God created us, He created us to rule and he blessed us. One of the first things that God does in the bible is to bless us! If we are created to rule the Earth, what sort of rulers are we called to be?
• God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Do we still see it as holy? What does that mean practically? Does that limit what we should or shouldn't do on a Sunday?
• God didn't just place man the Garden of Eden as a holiday home, He placed man there to work and take care of if. How does that affected our attitude to work and to the environment? Sometimes our work is in conflict with the environment.
• By the end of chapter 2 God has come up with marriage, the bible, the original authors of the passage, and God who is controlling the writing consider it important enough to be mentioned in the chapter 2 of the bible. Today people consider it so important that otherwise normal people spend ten or fifteen thousand on a single wedding day, but we often spend more time maintaining our cars than our marriages! What does this passage teach us about marriage?

Loads of questions today. I'll be interested to hear what people think. Any major themes I've missed? I'm sure there are, I can't do it all for you!

Speak to you all soon.

Tim