Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #62 Murder, He Wrote

Transcript

#62 Murder, He Wrote · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

0:13
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Tim Wright here with John Burgess,
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Terry taking the week off,
0:20
SPEAKER_00: and you're listening to the Deep Grace Diving Podcast,
0:23
SPEAKER_00: a Bible study where we are looking at the story of Genesis and
0:27
And just a little information about myself,
0:30
and it's true for my wife,
0:31
Jan,
0:31
as well.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: We are huge, huge fans of British mysteries.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: And we love these detective stories.
0:39
And,
0:40
you know,
0:40
when people are murdered and then trying to figure out who did
0:44
the killing.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: We love the books.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: We love the shows.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: None of that would be possible without Genesis chapter 4.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And the very first murder.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, we didn't need Sherlock Holmes, Cirque du Perot.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't need Morse.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't need police to figure out who did it.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't need Jags like John.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: We know who did it.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And we think we kind of know why he did it, but...
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SPEAKER_00: We're going to find out for sure.
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So we are looking today at the first story of murder,
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at least in terms of our Bible study.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And just to remind people again,
1:27
SPEAKER_00: when we look at these stories in chapters 1 through 11 of Genesis,
1:31
SPEAKER_00: we are not reading them as historical stories from a newspaper.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: These are meaning stories.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: These are stories that are told to give us insights into who we are,
1:45
SPEAKER_00: More than that,
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to give us insights into who the God of Israel is and what this
1:48
God is like,
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SPEAKER_00: as opposed to the other gods in the surrounding cultures at that time.
1:54
And we started by seeing that God created the heavens and the
1:58
earth and created them to be good.
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SPEAKER_00: This is a good God who creates out of love and compassion.
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This is a God who created human beings in God's image to have
2:08
relationship with us.
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SPEAKER_00: And then that relationship was disfigured.
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SPEAKER_00: It was...
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SPEAKER_00: broken,
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SPEAKER_00: it was wounded,
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SPEAKER_00: when human beings,
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SPEAKER_00: through the story of the talking snake and the tree and the fruit,
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SPEAKER_00: wandered away from God and God's best,
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SPEAKER_00: and yet God pursued them and clothed them.
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SPEAKER_00: And so now we live in this reality of
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SPEAKER_00: of us running from God and God constantly running to us.
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And the next several stories are really going to take us deeper
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and deeper into
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what it looks like when we choose to live outside of God and
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how God responds.
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SPEAKER_00: And so,
2:51
SPEAKER_00: as I mentioned in our last podcast,
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even though we oftentimes say that chapter three of Genesis is
2:57
the story of the
2:58
SPEAKER_00: fall or the first sin,
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SPEAKER_00: the word sin is never used there.
3:01
It's not until chapter 4,
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when we have a murder,
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that we get the word sin.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: So, John, I'm going to have you in place of Terry today read for us.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: And you know what I'm going to have you do, John?
3:14
SPEAKER_00: I want you to read through verse 17, not 16, but go through verse 17.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Starting with verse 4.
3:25
Now,
3:26
Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve,
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and she became pregnant.
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When she gave birth to Cain,
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she said,
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with the Lord's help,
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I have produced a man.
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SPEAKER_01: Later, she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.
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When they grew up,
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Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground.
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When it was time for the harvest,
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Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.
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Abel also brought a gift,
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the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock.
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The Lord accepted Abel and his gift,
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but he did not accept Cain and his gift.
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SPEAKER_01: This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.
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SPEAKER_01: Why are you so angry?
4:11
SPEAKER_01: the Lord asked Cain.
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SPEAKER_01: Why do you look so dejected?
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SPEAKER_01: You will be accepted if you do what is right,
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SPEAKER_01: but if you refuse to do what is right,
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SPEAKER_01: then watch out.
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SPEAKER_01: Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: but you must subdue it and be its master.
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SPEAKER_01: One day, Cain suggested to his brother, let's go out to the fields.
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And while they were in the field,
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Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
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SPEAKER_01: Afterward, the Lord asked Cain, where is your brother?
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SPEAKER_01: Where is Abel?
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know, Cain responded.
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SPEAKER_01: Am I my brother's guardian?
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SPEAKER_01: But the Lord said, What have you done?
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SPEAKER_01: Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
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Now you are cursed and banished from the ground,
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which has swallowed your brother's blood.
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No longer will the ground yield good crops for you,
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no matter how hard you work.
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SPEAKER_01: From now on, you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.
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cain replied to the lord my punishment is too great for me to
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bear you have
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banished me from the land and from your presence you have made
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me a homeless
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wanderer anyone who finds me will kill me the lord replied no
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for i will give a
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SPEAKER_01: seven-fold punishment to anyone who kills you
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Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try
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to kill him.
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So Cain left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of
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Nod,
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east of Eden.
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Cain had sexual relations with his wife,
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and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.
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SPEAKER_01: Then Cain founded a city which he named Enoch after his son.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: All right,
5:58
just a couple quick things here as a way of reminding us that
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these are not
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SPEAKER_00: historic newspaper accounts,
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SPEAKER_00: but they are stories created using a framework of storytelling to help us
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SPEAKER_00: understand the human condition and God's response to us.
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SPEAKER_00: The first is when Cain kills his brother.
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SPEAKER_00: So all we know, we've got Adam and Eve, and then we have Cain and Abel.
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SPEAKER_00: Cain kills Abel.
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SPEAKER_00: And then he's afraid that no matter where he goes on the earth,
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SPEAKER_00: someone will kill him in vengeance for Abel.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, who are all these people that Cain is afraid of?
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SPEAKER_01: That is a good question.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the second question is, where did Cain's wife come from?
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SPEAKER_00: So the writers know this.
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SPEAKER_00: The storytellers know this.
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And they aren't trying to tell us these historic accounts of
6:56
what happened.
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They are using storytelling techniques to talk about the
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propensity of human beings
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SPEAKER_00: to dehumanize others.
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SPEAKER_00: Either through violence, abuse, murder in this case.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be the ongoing story of the Old and New Testaments.
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We're going to see even the Jewish people guilty of going and
7:23
wiping people out.
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SPEAKER_00: We're going to see the Jews many times attacked.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And of course,
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SPEAKER_00: when they're enslaved,
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we're going to see one conquering nation after another come in
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and try to overpower
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SPEAKER_00: the Jewish people in other nations.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself is living under the oppressive regime of Rome.
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SPEAKER_00: And so over and over again,
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we're going to see that one of the consequences of living away
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from God is the
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SPEAKER_00: dehumanizing of other people created in the image of God.
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whether it's saying that their lesser human beings should be
8:00
enslaved or because of
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SPEAKER_00: the color of their skin,
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SPEAKER_00: they aren't as smart as we are to the point of murdering them.
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SPEAKER_00: And this is a way of sort of telling that story.
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SPEAKER_00: This isn't the first murder to ever take place.
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SPEAKER_00: This is just a story about our propensity to be jealous of others,
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SPEAKER_00: to kill others through words and actions.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what this story is about.
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SPEAKER_00: But as was in the last story,
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SPEAKER_00: It's also a story about how God responds to us.
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SPEAKER_00: And so in some ways, this is a similar kind of story.
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SPEAKER_00: In Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve, in essence, become a bit dehumanized.
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SPEAKER_00: Less than human.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, they weren't less than human.
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SPEAKER_00: They were still fully human.
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SPEAKER_00: But because they chose to live outside of God's relationship with them,
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SPEAKER_00: they weren't fully all that they could be.
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SPEAKER_00: And they ended up blaming each other, right?
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So they blame each other,
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which is a way of attacking each other,
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devaluing the other person.
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SPEAKER_00: And God comes to the garden.
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SPEAKER_00: He said, what happened?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And now we have another story where God's heart breaks.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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So let's kind of,
9:15
let's get in the weeds a little bit here and figure out what's
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going on.
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SPEAKER_00: So what is it that stands out to you?
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well i have two big questions really and i think that you're
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going to love them so
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uh verse six why are you so angry the lord asked cain why do
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you look so dejected
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you will be accepted if you do what is right but if you refuse
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to do what is right
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then watch out sin is crouching at the door eager to control
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you but you must
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subdue it and be its master so because this is not my first
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podcast with pastor tim
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SPEAKER_01: What strikes me about what God is saying there,
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SPEAKER_01: especially is when He says,
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SPEAKER_01: you will be accepted if you do what is right.
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SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a very big if-then statement.
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SPEAKER_01: If you do this, then you will be accepted.
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And that flies in the face of some other teachings that we've
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had and regular
10:13
SPEAKER_01: listeners of the podcast will probably recognize that.
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And then I think a subset of that question,
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Tim,
10:19
would be you must subdue it and be its master.
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Like that's that sounds a lot like if I just try harder and
10:28
think harder and pray
10:29
SPEAKER_01: harder,
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I can conquer this sin and I will be its master and then I will
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have no more
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SPEAKER_01: problems.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: A couple things I would say to that.
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SPEAKER_00: First of all,
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SPEAKER_00: let's remember that this is storytelling and this is not prescriptive,
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SPEAKER_00: meaning that this is not a story where you read this and God is saying,
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SPEAKER_00: okay,
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SPEAKER_00: you need to make sure your sacrifices are better.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to suck it up against sin.
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SPEAKER_00: These aren't prescriptive stories.
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SPEAKER_00: These are descriptive stories.
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SPEAKER_00: And their story is used to make a bigger point.
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So to read theologically into some of this minutiae can get us
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into trouble.
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But having said that,
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let's remember we are in Old Testament territory here.
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SPEAKER_00: And we are in a sacrifice system, which, by the way,
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SPEAKER_00: God never asked for.
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SPEAKER_00: There's nowhere here in this story where God said to Cain and Abel,
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SPEAKER_00: I want you to bring me the first fruits or the first of your flocks.
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SPEAKER_00: They just did it.
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And we're gonna see over and over again in the Old Testament
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that the people,
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SPEAKER_00: let me back up a little bit.
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SPEAKER_00: The other gods,
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The other gods created human beings so that human beings would
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feed the gods.
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SPEAKER_00: And they would do that through their sacrifices.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why they created human beings.
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SPEAKER_00: God created human beings to love on them and to provide for them.
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SPEAKER_00: God never asked for sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: In fact,
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SPEAKER_00: there are times over and over again in the Psalms and in the prophets,
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SPEAKER_00: I never wanted your sacrifices.
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SPEAKER_00: I want your hearts.
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SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
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But there was a human propensity to do like the other cultures
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did and try to
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SPEAKER_00: manipulate the gods through sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: And if I want it to rain, I'm going to do this sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't rain, well, then I got to up my game.
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SPEAKER_00: And pretty soon before you know it, you're sacrificing your kids.
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SPEAKER_00: And the story of Abraham,
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SPEAKER_00: who's about to sacrifice his son,
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SPEAKER_00: speaks against that,
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SPEAKER_00: which we'll get to sometime in 2029.
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So,
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you know,
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part of this is it's using some of the familiar in the
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storytelling.
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The people of Israel hearing this story would say,
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yeah,
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we know about sacrifices.
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SPEAKER_00: The other thing I would say about sacrifices,
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SPEAKER_00: and then we'll move off of them,
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SPEAKER_00: God finally does admit,
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SPEAKER_00: sort of gives in and allows them to sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: But rather than these sacrificing feeding God,
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the people of Israel would do their sacrifices to have communal
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meals to feed each
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SPEAKER_00: other.
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And so their sacrifices always took place around communal meals
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to care for each
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SPEAKER_00: other,
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SPEAKER_00: to build community,
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SPEAKER_00: not to feed God.
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SPEAKER_00: Especially to feed the poor.
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SPEAKER_00: Now,
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SPEAKER_00: all of that is after this story,
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SPEAKER_00: but the people listening to this story,
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SPEAKER_00: the Jewish people,
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SPEAKER_00: they would have had all of this in their minds.
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SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the other cultures, well, they sacrificed their God.
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So at some point,
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maybe we have to do something to make our God happy too.
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SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
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SPEAKER_00: as a storytelling device,
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because the people of Israel would get it and to set up the
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conflict in the story,
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SPEAKER_00: the writer uses sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: All right.
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SPEAKER_00: Actually, what he's using here, John, is jealousy.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what he's using.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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almost every murder that you read of in in these great British
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mysteries and so on.
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SPEAKER_00: It's all about jealousy.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
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SPEAKER_00: So so that's really what it is.
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SPEAKER_00: And the sacrifice sort of becomes the hook for that.
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SPEAKER_00: God always liked you best.
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SPEAKER_00: So you've got these two sacrifices.
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SPEAKER_00: It says, Abel was a keeper of sheep, Cain a tiller of the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: Abel, for his part, brought of the firstlings of his flock.
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So some would suggest here that part of why Cain's sacrifice
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wasn't as well
15:00
SPEAKER_00: received was because he just brought whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: Abel brings the firstlings.
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And as we know from the sacrifice rules as they went along and
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as they developed,
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the people of Israel believed that God wanted the first fruits
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and God wanted the
15:17
SPEAKER_00: first animals,
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SPEAKER_00: the firstborn.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is a theme that carries through.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is a theme that carries through.
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And of course,
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we see that in the Exodus story with the firstborn and so on.
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SPEAKER_00: So it looks like Cain, it just kind of grabbing whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm going to do this and just grabs whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: Abel,
15:37
SPEAKER_00: brings the best.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Somehow,
15:41
SPEAKER_00: and we don't know,
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SPEAKER_00: the story doesn't say,
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somehow they both know that Abel's sacrifice seems to be more
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acceptable than
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SPEAKER_00: Cain's.
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SPEAKER_00: But God's not angry at Cain.
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SPEAKER_00: He didn't punish him.
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SPEAKER_00: There's no real consequence to it.
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SPEAKER_00: Cain just sort of has this sense that God is dissing him,
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SPEAKER_00: and it makes him angry,
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SPEAKER_00: and he's jealous of his brother.
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SPEAKER_00: So God speaks to Cain.
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SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know, what's going on here?
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In the New Revised Standard Version,
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it says,
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why has your countenance fallen?
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SPEAKER_00: Why has your face fallen?
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Which I think is interesting because in the blessing Aaron
16:25
gives the people of
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SPEAKER_00: Israel,
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SPEAKER_00: may the Lord make his countenance to shine on you.
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SPEAKER_00: May the Lord make his face shine on you and smile upon you.
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And here we have a countenance that has fallen,
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that is angry,
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frustrated.
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SPEAKER_00: And God is saying,
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SPEAKER_00: look,
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SPEAKER_00: you've got this thing sitting at your door,
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SPEAKER_00: this anger sitting at your door,
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SPEAKER_00: sin in this case,
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SPEAKER_00: and its desire is for you,
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SPEAKER_00: which is sort of a twist because Eve had the desire for the fruit,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: Well, sin's desire is for you.
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SPEAKER_00: It wants to dehumanize you.
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SPEAKER_00: And you've got to master it.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, again, this isn't proscriptive.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: This is just descriptive.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: This is storytelling.
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As we go through the scriptures,
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we find out that in the end,
17:18
we can't do anything for sin.
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SPEAKER_00: It's something that God has to do for us.
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SPEAKER_00: But that's not the point of this particular story.
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SPEAKER_00: So Cain says to his brother, let's go out to the field.
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SPEAKER_00: And so already Cain's given in.
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SPEAKER_00: He's got ulterior motives.
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When they're in the field,
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Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
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SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Cain, where is your brother Abel?
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SPEAKER_00: Which is similar to what God said to Adam and Eve, right?
17:43
SPEAKER_00: When they were hiding, he said, where are you?
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SPEAKER_01: It was.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: So in this time, it's sort of what, where's your brother?
17:52
And here we get the first sense of the dehumanizing of someone
17:55
else where he says,
17:56
SPEAKER_00: well,
17:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not my responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00: He's yours.
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SPEAKER_00: If you don't know where he is, then that's your problem.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And so,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:06
partly what the story of the Good Samaritan tries to do is undo
18:09
that attitude and
18:10
SPEAKER_00: say,
18:10
SPEAKER_00: no,
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SPEAKER_00: your neighbor is your responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00: You're called to love your neighbor, to rehumanize your neighbor.
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SPEAKER_00: Where Cain here is dehumanizing his brother by saying, I don't care.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not my responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00: And God's story of God is, yeah, we're all responsible for each other.
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SPEAKER_00: And then God says, what have you done?
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And it's that same force that God had when he said,
18:32
who told you you were naked?
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: That same kind of grief, maybe even shock.
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SPEAKER_00: Cain, what have you done?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Not only to your brother, but to yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: What have you done?
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SPEAKER_00: Your brother's blood is crying out from the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: And these are the consequences now.
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SPEAKER_00: Same has happened with Adam.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Adam's son is going to find it's very difficult to work the land.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: In this case, he's going to be a fugitive and a wanderer.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: In some ways,
19:03
SPEAKER_00: the same as his mom and dad,
19:05
SPEAKER_00: because they were banished,
19:07
SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
19:07
SPEAKER_00: from the Garden of Eden,
19:09
SPEAKER_00: had to go out and find a new place to live.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And then that's where he said,
19:16
you have driven me away from the soil and I shall be hidden
19:19
from your face.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: So he knows he's lost.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be this wanderer.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: So you've got this sense of sin being lost, wandering.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: All we like sheep have gone astray.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who meets me may kill me.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the first guy in the biblical story to murder.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's afraid of being killed.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And so what does God do?
19:45
SPEAKER_00: He clothes Cain, a murderer.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: This time with a mark.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: With a mark, yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And that mark is his clothing, so to speak.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: It's his protection.
19:59
Just as the clothes were protection for Adam and Eve and a sign
20:03
of their value
20:04
SPEAKER_00: still as human beings,
20:05
SPEAKER_00: so this mark is God's way of saying,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Cain is under my protection.
20:14
Don't do anything to him because I still cherish this man in
20:20
spite of everything.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: But once again,
20:23
you have a story of this human condition where sometimes we're
20:28
moved by jealousy.
20:29
Our neighbor has something we want and we have to have it and
20:32
we will hurt that neighbor.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: We will devalue that neighbor to get it.
20:36
And we find that in our desire,
20:38
the reality is our desire is controlling us.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: We're not controlling our desire.
20:43
And we sort of find ourselves more and more lost from God's
20:46
best for us to the
20:48
SPEAKER_00: point where we dehumanize each other.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:53
And that's where you've got then the story of Jesus running to
20:57
the prodigal son,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: running to Cain,
20:58
SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: running to Adam and Eve,
21:00
SPEAKER_00: running to the Adam and Eve and all of us,
21:02
SPEAKER_00: and putting that robe around the shoulders,
21:04
SPEAKER_00: the ring of the family onto the finger,
21:06
SPEAKER_00: the shoes of sonship,
21:08
SPEAKER_00: daughterhood,
21:09
SPEAKER_00: onto the feet.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: It's the story of God all the way from the beginning,
21:13
SPEAKER_00: how God does not abandon us even though we abandon God.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think Tim, it's, it's just amazing to me.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: Again,
21:22
SPEAKER_01: we talked about this a little bit in the last podcast,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: how,
21:26
SPEAKER_01: and we talked about consequences and anybody who's listening,
21:28
SPEAKER_01: who's a parent,
21:30
SPEAKER_01: uh,
21:30
SPEAKER_01: knows that consequences are a topic of discussion with children as,
21:34
SPEAKER_01: as you're parenting children for sure.
21:36
And we talked about putting in kind of a healthy construct
21:40
around consequences.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And there's some great examples Tim has in the previous podcast.
21:45
And if you didn't listen to it,
21:46
you should go back and definitely listen to it.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: But what amazes me here again is, is, uh,
21:52
God does not remove all of the consequences from someone's poor
21:57
decision-making,
21:58
but he does act in grace and help out with one of the direct
22:04
consequences,
22:04
SPEAKER_01: just like he did in the previous reading.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: So in this one,
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Cain has a bunch of fear,
22:10
SPEAKER_01: a bunch of,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: what's going to happen to me now that I've done this?
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And that is a consequence of his bad action.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: And in that particular instance,
22:19
SPEAKER_01: God appears to be covering him with grace and saying,
22:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to help you out with the fear issue,
22:25
SPEAKER_01: but I am not going to remove all of the consequences of this action.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: There are things that we live with.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And again, they're not punishments.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: It's really important for us to understand that.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: This is not God punishing us.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: These are the consequences to our actions.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: good or bad.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we make great choices and we have great consequences.
22:52
Sometimes we make great choices and the consequences aren't
22:54
what we had hoped.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: But none of that is God's action on our part.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: That's the way life works.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
23:04
When we're raising our kids,
23:06
when we're raising our grandkids,
23:08
we want to instill in them
23:11
SPEAKER_00: how important choices are.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: The mantra in our family always, well, we all make choices.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: We all make choices.
23:17
And that's usually when I'm trying to just keep myself in shape
23:25
and then I go out
23:26
and I splurge and have a great big hamburger and French fries
23:29
and root beer and ice
23:31
SPEAKER_00: cream and I feel sick the next day and Jan just said,
23:34
SPEAKER_00: well,
23:34
SPEAKER_00: we all make choices.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, God's not punishing me.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: My palate,
23:42
SPEAKER_00: my stomach,
23:43
SPEAKER_00: my system is just saying,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: your body's not used to eating that kind of stuff,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: so stop it.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And I do until the next time.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fair enough.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: And God still loves me, but there are consequences.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: You drink too much, you're going to get a hangover.
24:00
You smoke too much,
24:01
you're probably going to end up with some sort of cancer.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Again, you cheat on a test at school,
24:09
More often than not,
24:10
you're going to get caught and there'll be consequences to
24:12
that.
24:14
And that's partly should be some life lessons for us to say God
24:20
has something better for us.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Better than jealousy.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Better than cheating.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: God wants us to live in goodness and grace and compassion and mercy.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: To care for our fellow human beings.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: And when we live that way, we don't have to hide.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to feel vulnerable or shame.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean everything's going to go perfectly for us.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't promise that either.
24:45
But the God life is a life lived in a sense of doing things
24:51
that are helpful and
24:53
SPEAKER_00: loving and compassionate,
24:53
SPEAKER_00: to love the Lord our God with heart,
24:55
SPEAKER_00: soul,
24:55
SPEAKER_00: mind,
24:55
SPEAKER_00: and strength that our neighbors as ourselves,
24:57
SPEAKER_00: knowing that God loves us to begin with.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: So what we have here then is...
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Really, in a sense, the ultimate expression of living away from God.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's the complete devaluing of human beings.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: In this case, through murder.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Again, it can be through enslaving people.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: It can be through racism.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: It can be through systemic racism.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: It can be through anti-Semitism.
25:22
It can be through policies that hurt the poor,
25:25
policies that oppress people.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Anytime we devalue other human beings...
25:31
SPEAKER_00: We are outside of God's will for us.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: We are not acting as the image of God.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what God wants for us.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And God always calls us back to be fully human and fully loving.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And I,
25:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:54
SPEAKER_01: there's so many,
25:55
SPEAKER_01: there's so many questions that go sentence to sentence,
25:58
SPEAKER_01: but I think you would say that,
26:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:02
pull yourself back and try to look at it from more of a 20,000
26:05
foot view and see
26:07
SPEAKER_01: what is,
26:08
SPEAKER_01: what is the,
26:09
SPEAKER_01: what is the lesson or the picture that's being painted by this?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think it's natural to say, well, why?
26:18
SPEAKER_01: It's really natural to say, why wasn't the gift accepted?
26:21
Because I would like to avoid whatever that person did so that
26:25
my gifts are accepted.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: And then you'll be accepted if you do what is right.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Could you flesh that out?
26:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you just so want a...
26:32
a sticky note there with a small bullet list explaining what
26:36
the right and wrong thing is.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: But I think what you would say,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Tamara,
26:40
you encourage people to just pull back from that a little bit
26:43
and not worry about
26:44
SPEAKER_01: why it wasn't accepted.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Just know that there was the conflict.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: That was the conflict that was happening for whatever the reason was.
26:51
What's important is that that began this process of Cain moving
26:56
farther away from
26:58
SPEAKER_01: God and dehumanizing his brother.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think if there's anything we want to say about the sacrifice,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: and again,
27:06
the narrator is using touch points that the people of Israel
27:10
would have understood.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: But if there's anything we can say about the sacrifice of these two,
27:15
we already know something is wrong in Cain's relationship with
27:19
God and his brother,
27:21
SPEAKER_00: because Cain's sacrifice seems to be leftovers.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: So already something isn't quite right.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And whatever it is he's angry about,
27:34
SPEAKER_00: whatever it is he's jealous about,
27:38
and we can sort of read into that because we find out later
27:41
that's what the problem
27:42
SPEAKER_00: was,
27:43
SPEAKER_00: it just gets exacerbated when his sacrifice,
27:49
SPEAKER_00: which wasn't given wholeheartedly anyway,
27:52
SPEAKER_00: is not accepted.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't to say that God hadn't accepted him.
27:57
And it's not to say that God won't accept his sacrifice the
27:59
next time around,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: but God already intuits something is wrong in Cain's heart.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Desire is after him.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, his desire is to lord it over his brother.
28:11
And again,
28:12
that will be a constant story as well throughout the book of
28:15
Genesis.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So in a sense, we could say, yeah, there was already a problem.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the sacrifice.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: There was something in Cain.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: an anger,
28:27
SPEAKER_00: a jealousy,
28:29
SPEAKER_00: whatever it was,
28:30
SPEAKER_00: there was already something at work in him,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: just as we saw with his dad when his mom,
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Eve,
28:39
SPEAKER_00: was being tempted,
28:42
SPEAKER_00: and Adam didn't do anything to stop it.
28:47
And you've got to ask the question,
28:48
well,
28:49
he knew from the beginning she shouldn't
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't he stop her?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: So what was going on in Adam that kept him from stepping in?
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And so already there was a problem before he even ate from that fruit.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: There was already a problem.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And the same with Cain.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Something was going on, something deep.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's almost always the case.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, when somebody lashes out, you find out it wasn't momentary.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: There was stuff building over a long course of time.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And Cain seems to be out of sync with God, even going into the sacrifice.
29:26
And doesn't really get into sync with God until God has to come
29:30
and sort of redeem
29:30
SPEAKER_00: him from his own actions.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to come back at this stuff.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to,
29:41
we're maybe going to next time we come do a quick highlight of
29:46
chapter five,
29:49
which is a lot of begats because we're going to get now to the
29:54
story of the
29:55
SPEAKER_00: wickedness on steroids or sin on steroids.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: When God gets to the point where God says,
30:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I should have created these human beings to begin with.
30:05
And we're going to see how far humanity has fallen from the
30:08
Garden of Eden.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: As we get to the next several chapters,
30:12
SPEAKER_00: we won't do the whole story of Knowing the Ark in one podcast.
30:16
But now we're getting to where things are getting so desperate
30:20
with humanity that
30:22
SPEAKER_00: God is actually wondering,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: what did I do?
30:25
And we're going to see what that says about God and how that
30:28
continues the story of humanity.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't miss that.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Come on back.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: No.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and tell your friends about it.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And Terry will be back with us next time as well.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm Tim Wright.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, everybody.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: See you next time.