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(click on a study, copy and paste it---and it's yours)The Story of the World (and Us) Part 2: Disaster!
Notes:
- The Bible does not talk a lot about the origin of the evil and violence now present in God’s world. It focuses most of its attention on:
- what disastrous things evil does to God’s good creation,
- what God decided to do about them.
- Genesis 3 does not ultimately explain the origin of evil, for who can really explain why Adam and Eve listened to and followed the advice of a wild animal rather than God? (Why do any of us listen to and follow other people’s advice rather than listen to God?)
- Genesis 3 is not a story about snakes that talk, but rather a story that tells us that evil was not here in the beginning, but “invaded” God’s good creation. Evil is an attack against what God has made. Evil seeks to undo what God has done. While God created life, evil seeks to impose its opposite—death.
- Genesis 3 also tells us that we human beings played a large role in allowing evil to enter God’s good earth and destroy so much of it.
- We human beings were created to live in four “directions,” or in four complimentary relationships:
- toward/with God
- toward/with our self
- toward/with other human beings, and
- toward/with nature
A. Genesis 3:1-6 Temptation
f.
- What does the serpent ask Eve? -Gen. 3:1
- What was it making Eve do by asking that?
- How does she respond? -Gen. 3: 2-3
- What does the serpent say then? -Gen. 3:4
Is it telling the truth? - Whom do Adam and Eve believe, God or the snake?
Why would they believe it? - How would you define “sin?”
B. Genesis 3:7-19 The effects of their sin
- The first effect of their sin was on themselves, individually.
a. What was it? -Gen. 3:7
b. What does that mean?
- The second effect of their sin was on their relationship with God. -Gen. 3:8-10
a. What was God doing in the garden?-Gen. 8
b. Why?
c. What did Adam and Eve do? -Gen. 3:8
d. Why?
e. What was God’s question? -Gen. 3:9
f. Why would he ask that question?
g. What was Adam’s reply? -Gen. 3:10
h. What does his reply say about his relationship with God?
- The third effect of their sin was on their relationship with one another -Gen. 3:12-13, 16
a. Whom does Adam blame? -Gen. 3:12
b. Whom does Eve blame? -Gen. 3:13
c. How is their relationship affected by sin?
- The fourth effect of their sin was on their relationship with nature -Gen. 3:17-19
a. What might “cursed is the ground because of you” mean? -Gen. 3:17
b. What else has changed? -Gen. 3:16-19
c. Can you give examples of how nature no longer is our “friend?”
C. Genesis 3, 4, 5 & 11 The consequences of sin
- Separation from God —Gen. 3:22-24
a. Why is this expected?
b. Why is this necessary?
c. What does this mean?
- Death —Gen. 2:17; Gen. 3:4
a. A brother kills a brother (Gen. 4:1-8)
- Why was Cain angry?
- What does God tell him? (Gen. 4: 6-7)
- Does Cain listen to God?
- What does he do instead? (Gen. 4: 8)
- How does God respond? (Gen. 4: 9)
- How does God refer to Abel? (Gen. 4: 9, 10, 11)
- What reasons does Lamech give for killing people?
- What happens to people on this list?
- God had said that if Adam and Eve disobeyed him, they would die. The snake said that, No, they wouldn’t die. Who was right?
- Is there any exception to the people whose lives end by death?
- What might that mean?
- The list continues in Genesis 11:10-32
- While people in chapter 5 lived 900+ hears, now they are living 600, 438, 239 years. What is happening?
- What is Sarah’s condition (verse 30)?
- What is the relationship between blessing and infertility?
- What does that say about her future?
b. A man kills at will (Gen. 4:19, 23-24)
c. Death becomes a reality (Gen. 5:1-31)
D. God’s reaction to our sin and to the evil invading his creation
- God provides clothes for Adam and Eve: -Gen. 3: 21
What does that mean?
- God makes a promise to the snake -Gen. 3:15
What is it?
- When will it be fulfilled?
While justly angry, God did not turn his back on a world bent on destruction; he turned his face to it in love. With patience and render care he set out on the long road of redemption to reclaim the lost as his people and the world as his kingdom. Although Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and their work was burdened by sin’s effects, God held on to them in love. He promised to crush the evil forces they unleashed. Contemporary Testimony, 19-20