The Creation Accounts

The two creation accounts can be found in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. The first of these creation accounts has the world made in 6 days. There is an order to the creation process. It is interesting that the creation order is similar to the evolution process. Vegetation leading to water and sky animals before becoming land animals and then humans.

Humans are made last in the process. They are the pinnacle of God's creation. They are made in his image. And unlike every other animal that is made, they are given specific responsibilities and instructions. They are told to rule over the animals and subdue them. They are told to be in charge of all the other creatures. They have been put at the top of the creation order. They are also told to be fruitful and increase in number.

You might be asked to explain these instructions. This means you would need to be able to explain what they meant and how they would be implemented. You might also be asked about the character of God. You could use words like powerful, creative, omnipotent, commanding, mighty etc.

• God is powerful

Creation happened at God's command. He spoke things into being. He said 'Let there be' and there was.

• He was pleased

At the end of every day God saw what he had made was good. He was happy with the perfect creation he had made.

• He made something from nothing

At the beginning of the account the earth was dark and formless. At the end he had made the most incredible world which was teeming with life

The Second Creation Accountis completely different. Here only the Garden of Eden is spoken about. God creates Adam at the beginning and places him in the Garden. He then creates the different rivers: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates. He plants two trees: the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man had complete freedom. Apart from not being able to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had to look for a helper. But one could not be found amongst the animals. So God put Adam into a deep sleep and made Eve for him, out of his ribs. The man and the woman were both naked. But they were not ashamed.

Ideas

• The relationship between man and woman

Instead of being made at the same time, in this case Eve is described as Adam's helper. She is made for him, because he was lonely. Helper is an interesting word. It is one which is used about God in Psalms. He is described as mankind's helper. But sometimes people take the comment here to mean that woman is second to man.

• The relationship between man and God

Everything made in the Garden of Eden is made for Adam. God gives him a beautiful garden to live in and he has lots of animals and food to eat. He then makes him a companion because he cannot find one. We get an idea of the closeness between Adam and God. This is very different to the first creation account where the focus is on God. Adam and Eve only feature at the very end. Adam and Eve have complete freedom, apart from the one rule they have to follow to not eat from the tree.

• How did creation happen

In the first creation account God creates something out of nothing. Here, he is creating something out of something. He makes the dust from the ground, and Eve from Adam's rib.

The Rich young man

We have been talking this week about the Rich Young man. This passage can be found here. In this passage Jesus meets a man who is very rich. We learn the this man thinks that God will think very highly of him due to his great wealth. At that time rich people were thought to be very close to God.

We also learn that this man thought getting into heaven was all to do with the commandments and things that you did. He thought that following the rules made you good. Remember that Jesus focuses with him on the commandments which are to do with your actions. Not to do with your faith. The man was so busy trying to be good that he had not maintained a faithful relationship with God.

It could be argued that this passage teaches it is impossible to be rich Christian. But actually Jesus says that nothing is impossible with God. It is possible, just very hard. As hard as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The reason this man went away sad was because he had great wealth and he was not willing to give this up in order to follow Jesus.

We see that he did not recognise how important Jesus was, he calls him merely 'Good teacher.' He does not recognise or realise that Jesus is the Messiah.

Do you think it is possible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

Cain and Abel

Here is a copy of the passage of Cain and Abel. Make sure you know the details of the passage really well.

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.[b] She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

But the Lord said to him, “Not anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

From the NIV bible. You can find this passage here

Questions to be thinking about for this bible passage are:

• Why does God punish?

What does this passage teach about human nature?

What do we learn here about the character of God?

What does this passage teach us about how God punishes?

Punishment

We watched a video in the lesson which is a useful resource for considering the death penalty.

I hope that you could discuss these different arguments in an essay.

What is the reason for punishment?

God punishes Cain. He sends him away to the Land of Nod and his crops will not grow.

The reasons to punish someone are:

To deter - stop them from doing it again.

To protect - protect everyone else.

To reform them - make the person who did it suffer for what they did, and the hope is that they will never do this again.

Examples of punishments: Hanging/death penalty, paying a fine, having something taken from them eg. lose their driving license, house arrest, prison, community service, ASBO, electronic tagging.