In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Because of the great response I have been getting from reading through the whole Bible in our women’s Bible study, I thought I’d give this style of Scripture reading a shot. Getting to read through the major stories of the Bible, learning about the characters, and hearing God’s Word from the beginning to the end.
Why are we doing this? The first reason is because God’s Word is our guide. Psalm 119 verse 105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” The second reason is that I believe we can no longer assume any of us really knows the stories of Scripture. This is not an insult on your intelligence. All of us are capable of knowing Scripture, but when do we ever read big chunks of Scripture anymore? When do we ever get taught the Bible from beginning to end? It is very rare.
So, we’re going to give it a shot. My hope is that you will fall in love with Scripture. That God’s Word will jump out and surprise you. I hope it captivates you and motivates you to want to know and learn more. I hope that you will hear the good news of the Gospel, and not just from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I hope that when God was making promises to our ancestors in faith way back in the Old Testament times you’ll hear good news there, too. And I have a secret hope that as we get going you won’t want to miss out on church because you’ll be so excited by hearing the Bible this way in worship that you can’t wait until next week; but I’ll leave that up to God. So, invite your friends to church so they can share in this journey, too.
With all of that said, we have to start somewhere. The best place to start is at the beginning. But actually there are two beginnings, or two stories of beginning anyway. Genesis 1 has the story of the creation of all that exists. And Genesis 2 zooms in and talks about the creation of human beings in the Garden of Eden and how God cares for this silly, but special part of creation.
So, we’re going to give it a shot. My hope is that you will fall in love with Scripture. That God’s Word will jump out and surprise you. I hope it captivates you and motivates you to want to know and learn more. I hope that you will hear the good news of the Gospel, and not just from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I hope that when God was making promises to our ancestors in faith way back in the Old Testament times you’ll hear good news there, too. And I have a secret hope that as we get going you won’t want to miss out on church because you’ll be so excited by hearing the Bible this way in worship that you can’t wait until next week; but I’ll leave that up to God. So, invite your friends to church so they can share in this journey, too.
With all of that said, we have to start somewhere. The best place to start is at the beginning. But actually there are two beginnings, or two stories of beginning anyway. Genesis 1 has the story of the creation of all that exists. And Genesis 2 zooms in and talks about the creation of human beings in the Garden of Eden and how God cares for this silly, but special part of creation.
“On the day the LORD God made earth and sky—the LORD God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life.”
Now, I wish I could teach you all Hebrew so you could catch the beautiful word play happening in those two verses. I’ll do my best to explain it to you without being boring. The word for “land” in Hebrew is adamah; and the word for human is adam. We call the first human “Adam” from the Hebrew word for human being, adam. So, from the very beginning human beings are connected with the soil.
In a farming community, you should know all about this, right? We farm the land here and we somehow become deeply connected to it. Every thing that happens, weather, pest, moisture, all of those things tie us to the land we farm.
At the very beginning of Genesis 2, the connection is much deeper than farming. Farming doesn’t come until verse 15. The connection first is that God formed the man from the dust of the earth, from the topsoil of the fertile land. Remember on Ash Wednesday, when we draw the ashes on your forehead and we proclaim that you are dust and to dust you shall return? Well, here it is. Genesis 2:7. Man and soil, adam and adamah, connected more deeply than we’ll ever quite know.
So, God forms, fashions, creates the man from the topsoil of the fertile land. But the man doesn’t have life yet. Life is something that must come from outside of ourselves. We get life, we’re given life, life is a gift. So God breaths life’s breathe into Adam’s nostrils. And Adam comes to life. With the breath of God, God’s Spirit, comes life. Life is God’s gift…and as we’ll find out in Easter, new life is God’s gift as well. But we’ll have to wait awhile for that.
Now that Adam has life, he’ll have to have some work. Working, or vocation as we should really call it, is God’s second gift to human beings. Life first; work second. But we are not talking just any work; we’re talking real, meaningful work, work that is rooted in the gifts of creation. Work that is joyful and expected.
When God has finished giving Adam life and work, he moves on to giving Adam a commandment, actually two of them if we listen closely. These laws are God’s third gift in this series of events. The first commandment is to eat his fill from all of the garden’s trees. The second commandment is to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The second commandment comes with a consequence: eat of that tree and you will die.
Our reading skips another, precious gift of God, a partner for Adam in the garden, and moves us straight to one of the major themes of all of Scripture: sin. And we are talking about sin with a capital “I.” Most of us know the story, but we should point out some details. The snake was an intelligent animal, and he spoke. Or at least the snake spoke in the garden.
What happens next could be the entire outline of all of Scripture: the snake speaks, the humans listen to the snake’s words, and God deals with the humans mercifully.
What we should notice especially is what the snakes says. Chapter 3, verse 4, “The snake said to the woman, “You won’t die!” But just up in chapter 2, verse 17 God said, “…you will die!” Who will you listen to? Do you listen to God’s Word, or some other word? This is the outline for all of Scripture and the constant human problem; humanity’s original sin. Listen to God or listen to someone or something else?
The woman already seems to know a good thing when she sees one, “The woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food.” But now, listening to the snake, she takes some of the fruit, eats it, and gives some to, “…her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Enough of the blame game, we’re all guilty.
Human beings, male or female, choose to listen to all the other voices in the garden other than God. It’s our fallen nature. It’s our dis-grace. We have wandering ears and wandering hearts.
Our reading for today ends with what human beings would rather do when God discovers that they have listened to someone other than him: we like to hide. We are ashamed. Our wandering ears and hearts are discovered by our God who gave us the gift of life, and work, and companionship, and the law. And when we break the law, we’d rather hide than face the good and gracious God who made us.
In our confession and forgiveness at the beginning of worship, we seek not to hide from God, but to confess our sins before God our creator. And then we receive with grateful hands the grace of God’s forgiveness. In this Christian service of worship we do not act as the first human beings, hiding from God. But facing God knowing that Jesus Christ has died so we can have forgiveness in his name.
And so we’ll have to see what God is up to next week when he starts making big promises to some of Adam and Eve’s descendants, Abraham and Sarah.
Now, I wish I could teach you all Hebrew so you could catch the beautiful word play happening in those two verses. I’ll do my best to explain it to you without being boring. The word for “land” in Hebrew is adamah; and the word for human is adam. We call the first human “Adam” from the Hebrew word for human being, adam. So, from the very beginning human beings are connected with the soil.
In a farming community, you should know all about this, right? We farm the land here and we somehow become deeply connected to it. Every thing that happens, weather, pest, moisture, all of those things tie us to the land we farm.
At the very beginning of Genesis 2, the connection is much deeper than farming. Farming doesn’t come until verse 15. The connection first is that God formed the man from the dust of the earth, from the topsoil of the fertile land. Remember on Ash Wednesday, when we draw the ashes on your forehead and we proclaim that you are dust and to dust you shall return? Well, here it is. Genesis 2:7. Man and soil, adam and adamah, connected more deeply than we’ll ever quite know.
So, God forms, fashions, creates the man from the topsoil of the fertile land. But the man doesn’t have life yet. Life is something that must come from outside of ourselves. We get life, we’re given life, life is a gift. So God breaths life’s breathe into Adam’s nostrils. And Adam comes to life. With the breath of God, God’s Spirit, comes life. Life is God’s gift…and as we’ll find out in Easter, new life is God’s gift as well. But we’ll have to wait awhile for that.
Now that Adam has life, he’ll have to have some work. Working, or vocation as we should really call it, is God’s second gift to human beings. Life first; work second. But we are not talking just any work; we’re talking real, meaningful work, work that is rooted in the gifts of creation. Work that is joyful and expected.
When God has finished giving Adam life and work, he moves on to giving Adam a commandment, actually two of them if we listen closely. These laws are God’s third gift in this series of events. The first commandment is to eat his fill from all of the garden’s trees. The second commandment is to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The second commandment comes with a consequence: eat of that tree and you will die.
Our reading skips another, precious gift of God, a partner for Adam in the garden, and moves us straight to one of the major themes of all of Scripture: sin. And we are talking about sin with a capital “I.” Most of us know the story, but we should point out some details. The snake was an intelligent animal, and he spoke. Or at least the snake spoke in the garden.
What happens next could be the entire outline of all of Scripture: the snake speaks, the humans listen to the snake’s words, and God deals with the humans mercifully.
What we should notice especially is what the snakes says. Chapter 3, verse 4, “The snake said to the woman, “You won’t die!” But just up in chapter 2, verse 17 God said, “…you will die!” Who will you listen to? Do you listen to God’s Word, or some other word? This is the outline for all of Scripture and the constant human problem; humanity’s original sin. Listen to God or listen to someone or something else?
The woman already seems to know a good thing when she sees one, “The woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food.” But now, listening to the snake, she takes some of the fruit, eats it, and gives some to, “…her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Enough of the blame game, we’re all guilty.
Human beings, male or female, choose to listen to all the other voices in the garden other than God. It’s our fallen nature. It’s our dis-grace. We have wandering ears and wandering hearts.
Our reading for today ends with what human beings would rather do when God discovers that they have listened to someone other than him: we like to hide. We are ashamed. Our wandering ears and hearts are discovered by our God who gave us the gift of life, and work, and companionship, and the law. And when we break the law, we’d rather hide than face the good and gracious God who made us.
In our confession and forgiveness at the beginning of worship, we seek not to hide from God, but to confess our sins before God our creator. And then we receive with grateful hands the grace of God’s forgiveness. In this Christian service of worship we do not act as the first human beings, hiding from God. But facing God knowing that Jesus Christ has died so we can have forgiveness in his name.
And so we’ll have to see what God is up to next week when he starts making big promises to some of Adam and Eve’s descendants, Abraham and Sarah.
Amen.
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