The story so far...
God has created the world and created a man. And that's pretty much it for now.
In today's episode...
God adds a woman and gives them (Adam & Eve) one simple instruction: Don't eat the fruit! (from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is - any other fruit is fine). The serpent tempts them and they get booted out of the garden. They have kids (Cain & Abel). Cain kills Abel.
Thoughts...
In yesterday's episode God created stuff and "It was good". Now suddenly everything is going badly wrong. Why? Because human beings think that going their own way is better than going God's way. When we do that, greed and selfishness follow.
For some more thoughts on this, check out the official site. The first half is mainly about the New Testament passage, which we are not reading this year, so you can fast forward to 4 minutes 30 seconds on the video and start from there.
Other important stuff...
Marriage (Genesis 2:24): A man and a woman become one person. It is a life-time commitment. Its not just someone you hang around with for a bit, or for as long as it is fun.
Temptation (Genesis 3:1): Temptation always starts with a small bending of the rules. Satan (shown as a serpent here) says "Did God really say..." and starts to make God's rules seem stupid (God didn't actually say don't eat from any tree, but by saying that, he got Eve to question what God actually said).
Anger & Jealousy (Genesis 4:7): God warns Cain that sin is crouching at his door. It wants to have him and if he gives way to his anger (which he does) then sin will have beaten him. Instead, he needs to chill out, back off, do the right thing and go with God and that way he will master the sinful desires and defeat them. Something for us to think about when we are tempted to act in anger or jealousy.
The prediction that Eve's offspring will crush the serpents head (Genesis 3:15) could refer to a natural dislike of snakes by humans. But it is traditionally viewed as an early prophecy of the defeat of Satan by Jesus.
Trivia...
The Fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is traditionally depicted as an apple. But actually, it is just described as 'fruit' in Genesis.
When God calls the man and the woman on their disobedience, the woman blames the serpent and the man blames both the woman and God (because God put her there!).
The Bible in Tweets...
