Thursday, February 7, 2013

Wednesday in the Word 2/6/13 ...a day late


Sorry I am running late posting our weekly notes from the Chronological Bible study.  This week has been just a little off. Anyway, Following are the notes form Genesis 2:19-3:6.

Genesis Chapter 2

V 19-20
.  19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man[c] to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. 
·        Brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: Adam intelligently named all the animals. If he was able to intelligently assign names to all the various animals then the argument that he may have miss understood God's command not to eat if the tree does not make sense.
·        So Adam gave names: We can see that Adam had at least some understanding that he was essentially different from all the animals because he did not name any other animal after himself, calling any other animal “man” or “human.”
·        But for Adam there was not found a helper: It was obvious to Adam that the animals came in pairs and he had no mate. Since God deliberately had Adam name the animals after seeing his need for a partner (Genesis 2:18), God used this to prepare Adam to receive the gift of woman.

V 21-22.  21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

·         The rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman: God used Adam’s own body to create Eve to forever remind him of their essential oneness.  The must never forget that they are essentially one and that they are made of the same substance. They are more alike than they are different.

a.  There is a beautiful Jewish tradition saying God made woman, not out of man’s foot to be under him, or out of his head to be over him, but “She was taken from under his arm that he might protect her and from next to his heart that he might love her.” (Barnhouse)



23 “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’”
·        This is now bone of my bones: By stating bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh Adam recognized that Eve was like him. But then again she was also very different so Adam gives her a name like his woman . . . taken out of man.God could have spoken Eve into begin as he did the animals or He could have formed her from dust as He did Adam but instead he created her from man’s flesh and blood.  

 
V24-25.  24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
·         They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed: Before the fall, Adam and Eve were both naked . . . and not ashamed. The idea of “nakedness” is far more than mere nudity. It has the sense of being totally open and exposed as a person before God and man. To be naked . . . and not ashamed means you have no sin, nothing to be rightly ashamed of, nothing to hide.




V1. 
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
·        The serpent: The text here does not, by itself alone, clearly identify the serpent as Satan, but the rest of the Bible makes it clear this is Satan appearing as a serpent.

a. In Ezekiel 28:13-19 tells us that Satan was in Eden. Many other passages associate a serpent or a snake-like creature with Satan (such as Job 26:13 and Isaiah 51:9). Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 speak of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.
  • The serpent was more cunning than any beast: Satan’s effectiveness is often found in His cunning, crafty ways. We can’t outsmart Satan, but we can overcome him with the power of Jesus.
a. It was the craftiness of Satan that made him successful against Eve: as the serpent 
deceived Eve by his craftiness (2 Corinthians 11:3).

  • And he said to the woman: Apparently, before the curse pronounced in Genesis 3:14-15, the serpent was different than what we know today as a serpent. This creature didn’t start as a snake as we know it, it became one.

a.. The woman wasn’t surprised at the serpent’s speaking maybe because Adam and Eve had free conversation with angelic beings that often appeared in the form of men. If this is true, it wasn’t so strange to Eve that an angelic being might appear to her in the form of a beautiful pre-curse serpent
  • To the woman: Satan brought his temptation against the woman because he perceived she was more vulnerable to attack. This is because she did not receive the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil directly from God but through Adam (Genesis 2:15-17).

  • Has God indeed said: Satan’s first attack is leveled against the Word of God. If he can get Eve confused about what God said, or to doubt what God said, then his battle is partially won. 

a.    From the beginning, Satan has tried to undermine God’s people by undermining God’s Word. He can undermine just as effectively by getting us to neglect God’s Word as by getting us to doubt it.

  • “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Satan took God’s positive command (Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat [Genesis 2:16-17]) and rephrased it in a negative way: “God won’t let you eat of every tree.”
V 2-3  And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ “

·         And the woman said to the serpent: Eve’s first mistake was in even carrying on a discussion with the serpent. We are called to talk to the devil, but never to have a discussion with him. We simply and strongly tell him, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 9)

·         We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Eve’s knowledge of what she should not do is partially correct, but what she doesn’t seem to know makes her all the more vulnerable to deception.
a. Eve does not seem to know the name of this tree; she only calls it the tree in the midst of the garden, instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17).

b. Eve misquoted God’s command to Adam. Her words, “you shall not eat it” and “lest you die” are close enough, but she added to the command and put words in God’s mouth when she said, “nor shall you touch it.” Of course, it was a good idea to completely avoid the temptation; no good could come from massaging the fruit you’re not supposed to eat. But it is a dangerous thing to teach the doctrines of man as if they are the commandments of God (Matthew 15:9).

V 4-5. Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

  • You will not surely die: Satan effectively laid the groundwork. He drew Eve into a discussion with him and planted the seed of doubt about God’s Word, and he exposed Eve’s incomplete understanding of God’s Word. Now he moves in for the kill, with an outright contradiction of what God said.

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