Some friends and I are trying to read through the Bible this year. I'll be posting comments I make on the passages I'm reading as I read them. I'm following the One Year Bible Reading Plan where you jump around and get a passage of OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs.
1) Eve makes up her own religion in Gen. 3:3. She add's a prohibition of touching to God's command in Gen. 2:16-17 not to eat. We are the same way, at least I am. I produce new rules to relate to God in an effort to 'protect' myself from wrong doing. When I add to God's law, I change what He, in His perfection, has laid forth, and it leads me to eventual ruin like it did Eve.
2) Eve sort of works her way up to the sin in Gen. 3:6. She sees its good for food, that it looks good, and that it will make her wise, and then she dives in. Aren't we the same way? Don't we see a sin and justify it to ourselves slowly but surly to assuage the pain of the sin we our flesh desires us to commit?
3) Adam does nothing to defend his Wife from sin in Gen 3:6. Do I do anything to help my wife? I mean I try to set a good example, but it's not that great. And how do I defend her without being over-bearing and nagging? We don't do any Bible study together or pray together. I'm sure I drop the ball in many other relationships as well in helping to protect my loved ones from sin.
4) God is so merciful to them in Gen. 3:9-24. God promised in Gen. 2, that He would kill them if they ate of the tree. And yet he mercifully doesn't kill them, and instead talks to them. He of course lays out consequences for their actions, but even in the laying of consequences He provides the 'proto-evangelion', the first prophecy of Christ. There is an implied slaying of an animal in Gen 3:21 to make skins to cover their nakedness which does a much better job than the fig leaves they had made for themselves in Gen. 3:7. Another fore-taste of Christ's infinitely better covering of our sins. And He prevents us from living forever in a tainted sinful flesh. I couldn't bear permanent life associated with Sin. He is so kind to us despite ours and our forebears complete lack of deserving. (english major's toss some help to a nerd's poor english on that last phrase...)
Matt. 3:1-6 is a striking display of the call to repent and its affect on people. Such that the call would drive them into the wilderness to be cleansed. Do I have the strength to call people to repent, and help lead them to Christ?
Psalm 2 is such a scary warning of false belief. I pray those who have made new years resolutions have not resolved to oppose God. It will not go well with them.
Prov. 1:7. Being in Afghanistan was a big maturation change for me. I realized while I was there, that if I wanted to become a leader it was time to pick up that mantle and stop messing around. Actually it was John Snow who taught me to 'put the boy aside'. Given that charge, I want to be a wise leader. And to do so, I must fear the Lord above all.
