Genesis 2:1-25
Heaven and Earth Complete, Yet No Shrub or Plant and No Rain
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus is Tested by the Evil One in the Wilderness
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
When I first read the Bible, I knew that the world had problems, but I did not know where they all originated...In fact, even after reading the Bible the first time, I did not grasp what eating the fruit in Paradise had done to our world, in terms of problems...After all, God created a Paradise for Adam and Eve...A Perfect Plan from a LOVING Creator...And Adam and Eve would rule over His Creation...And as we read the first chapter of Genesis, we can get the sense that earth is complete, but is is not...God did make the earth and the heavens....Yet, no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up yet during the six days...God had not sent rain down to the earth yet...God saw that there was no one to work the ground...But He did have streams coming up from the earth which watered the whole surface of the ground...So God would complete things on earth...God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being...So we still have no rain or plants and shrubs coming up...Now God had planted a Garden in the east, a most beautiful of gardens in Eden; and there He put the man he had just formed....One who could work the ground of this newly planted Garden...And in this Garden, God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were very pleasing to the eye and good for food....The food, of course, would be for Adam...And right in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...And the tree of knowledge of good and evil, would be forever remembered because of it importance to life and death...God told Adam before He created Eve that he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from this particular tree you will certainly die....This tree would be a source for many of the world's problems...
The world has, and it cannot be understated, many problems...I have read many, many articles about how humanity is broken, that humanity needs fixing, that there is this great despair in humanity, and the problems of humanity and being human...To sum this up the world is broken and it needs fixed...From murder, to pain, to suffering, to cancer, to all sickness, to suicides, to all diseases, to robbery, to tornadoes and hurricane destruction, to climate change, to death -is all caused and explained in this single chapter in the Bible, Genesis chapter three...The standard Christian answer to all these situations and problems of the world can be related back to the fall of man... In this relative short chapter three in Genesis, we have man falling from grace and having to leave the Paradise of Eden, that God had specifically built for Adam and Eve...We can blame, if one wants to put blame something or someone, all the world's most simple to the most complex problems of the world, on Eve and Adam's disobedience with God in this chapter...All the world's problems are at the start of eating this forbidden fruit from this one particular tree...I found Genesis chapter three quite interesting, and now very, very sad...Possible it is the saddest chapter in the Bible...Chapter three is like the opening of Pandora's box...There is this sense of dread since we have eaten the forbidden fruit, that we were told not to eat...And this dread has not left us since the beginning of man...Believer's believe Genesis chapter three is why humanity and the world is in the shape that it is in...
So, because of all the issues that have been going on since the fall of man, it would have been nice, I think, if Moses would have went into much more detail in outlining the more of what was coming down the problem pike, and all the problems of the world, and what eating the forbidden fruit was going to cost us in terms of evil, pain, sufferings, and just the overall troubles...We had opened Pandora's box, and we still cannot get it closed...We want to get back to the Garden, but we cannot get back to Eden...I wonder if Eve (as well as Adam) would have eaten the fruit, if they knew all that was going to happen later, with all their grandchildren, and great-great-great grandchildren...All these different plights of the world has man regular questioning, why would a LOVING God full of grace and truth would allow such things?...And basically, we have Genesis chapter three to read about our first sin and all the problems it has caused in the world...
It seems like that we can assume that Adam and Eve were naive and innocent, when God created them...I am sure they were very happy in Eden...But that would all change with one bite of fruit...Maybe their eyes and minds were closed to the plights of the world...Maybe there were no troubles in their world before that... But when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of the fruit and ate it...Eve also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he also ate it...Then the eyes of both of them were opened after they ate this fruit, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves...Possibly for the first time in their lives they hid from their Father, their Maker...They hid from God among the trees of the Eden...But God called to Adam, “Where are you?”...Adam answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”...And God said, “Who told you that you were naked?...Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”...We became disobedient, and hid from God...We sinned for the first time...
Eve found evil that was even in paradise, and she does not seem to resist it too much...Adam knew what he was doing, but he did not seem to need much coaxing to eat the fruit...God would now make Adam and Eve leave Eden, after eating this one piece of fruit...God had planted the trees in Eden for them, now Adam and Eve would have to leave their home...A home where beauty and food were prevalent and available...Now God told Adam that cursed be the ground because of him eating the fruit...And now through painful toil you must work the earth...Then you will eat food from it all the days of your life...It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field you work and toil over your food...It will not be easy...By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return...Paradise was gone, seemingly forever...The problems of the world had just started...
But in God's speaking to Adam, Eve, and the serpent, He gives us hope...God told the serpent that cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!...You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life...And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel...And in these words many believe that a Man will come to crush the head of the evil one...And a Man did come to earth and gives us hope for this broken world, who overcame the temptations of the evil one in the wilderness...A Man tempted many times by the evil one...A Man who would be injured, tortured, and die on the cross for our sins...All the sins humanity has ever done would be forgiven...The only Man who can save the world, the only Man who can bring hope to the world...God would send a Savior, His Son to save the world...Jesus is the only One who can get us back to the Garden...