Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my twenty ninth episode. Tonight I want to lay out Genesis 2 and provide some insights as well as ask you some reflective questions. Please enjoy.
Back in MHB 15 I did a deep dive into Genesis chapter 1. I want to briefly recap what we talked about. There is a controversy in the Christian world over the age of the earth. Some people say 13.8 billion years, some people say 6-10,000 years. I made the case that there is irrefutable evidence which proves both ages. Evidence in starlight and the polar ice caps proves billions of years. Evidence in the heat loss of Jupiter and Neptune, as well as the potency of earth’s magnetic field proves less than 10,000 years. We looked at the text and saw that it does not require billions of years nor does it prohibit billions of years. Then I went on to talk about the parts of the universe we know almost nothing about, such as dark matter. The position I took at the end of the study is that we simply do not know the right answer, and that it’s a bad idea to die on either hill over insufficient evidence. I emphasized the point of importance, which we all agree on, and that is that God created the universe and created us.
Tonight I want to work through Genesis 2. So if you have your Bibles, please open to Genesis chapter 2. I’m going to read the whole thing and then work back through it by sharing ideas and asking you questions. I’m going to answer each question from my own perspective, then I’ll ask you the question again. This should give you time to think about how you would answer. Here is Genesis chapter 2:
So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground – trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. The second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the entire land of Cush. The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates.
The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden – except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 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 to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 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.
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. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “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 explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
First let’s look at verses 1-3:
So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
Here we see God resting from his work. Any time that I feel guilty about taking a break, I remind myself that even God rests. Constant activity and the cultural emphasis on productivity makes it easy for us to fall into the trap of overworking. I think it’s interesting that God is not simply suggesting that we rest, he’s commanding that we rest. We also see Jesus demonstrating this principle in Mark chapter 6, when he and his disciples take a boat to get away from the crowds of people.
My first question for you is this: What are some mistakes that you’ve made which can be traced back to being overworked?
For myself, I tend to lose perspective on the importance of love. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my study that I forget about love. It seems like God is always reminding me that I can do more good by loving Him and loving my neighbor than by trying to solve the deep mysteries of the universe. I’m so thankful for this reminder because I really do believe that a bloodless scholar is worthless. The term bloodless scholar comes from Nietzsche. It’s what he called people who were able to point out the problems but who did not have enough passion to do anything about them.
So the first question is: What are some mistakes that you’ve made which can be traced back to being overworked?
Next I want to look at verses 4-7:
This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Notice how it says God formed man from the dust of the ground. I think this implies that there isn’t anything special about our earthly bodies – at least not in an eternal sense. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves. It just means that our bodies are empty shells until God brings them to life with his “breath of life.” When he removes this breath, our bodies return to the dust from which they came. It’s God’s Spirit that gives us our life and our worth. I think it’s important to remember this when we achieve great works of strength or intellect. We must remember that we are not the originators of these abilities. Sometimes you see athletes pointing up to God after they score goals or touchdowns. We’ve also seen celebrities give their thanks to God during acceptance speeches. Chris Pratt has been very good about that lately.
Now flip that scenario around. There are many people who feel worthless because their abilities do not stand out. It’s equally important for these people to remember that the same breath of life is in them that is in someone like LeBron James. At bottom, our worth and our value does not come from achievements or talents but from the God of the universe. What a mysterious and miraculous gift life is. If everyone valued life as much as God does, how different the world would be.
Now we have verses 8-9:
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground – trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
There are two common views when it comes to the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first is that the trees were real, but symbolic. Eternal life with God was symbolized by eating from the tree of life. The second view is that the trees were real in a literal sense and possessed special properties. So if Adam and Eve would have eaten from the tree of life they would have enjoyed eternity in relationship with God. We should note that the tree of life makes another appearance in Revelation 22, where people are pictured enjoying eternal life with God. There is something interesting about the name of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The name implies that evil already existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. I think we can attribute this original evil to Satan’s fall.
My second question for you is this: Do you think that ignorance is bliss?
Sometimes I wonder. I often think back to when I was a kid and when things were much simpler. When you don’t know about all of the pain and suffering in the world, life doesn’t seem so hard. But then I think about this: pain and suffering are coming for all of us. It’s the one thing we are guaranteed to go through regardless of our worldview. Pain is the one thing that is understood by people from all walks of life. You can even say that you don’t believe in pain, but that doesn’t make the pain go away. And so my approach is, if I can’t avoid pain and suffering then I might as well prepare for it. I think of this like Noah building his ark for the flood. Our floods are coming. We can either be ready with the ark of our Godly habits and biblical understanding or we can drown.
So the second question is: Do you think that ignorance is bliss?
Let’s move on to verses 10-17:
A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. The second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the entire land of Cush. The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates.
The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden – except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
So God has placed Adam in the garden of Eden and tasked him with taking care of it. He’s told him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but he has not tried to stop him from doing it. Adam was given a choice, and Adam chose wrongly. We choose wrongly all the time as well. There is a school of thought that no one ever gets away with anything. The idea is that even if a perpetrator gets away, someone will have to suffer the consequences of his or her wrong decision. Here’s a good one for parents to keep in mind: In effect, all of us are still paying for Adam and Eve’s sin. In a similar way, you might get away with doing something wrong – but that doesn’t mean your children won’t have to shoulder the consequences on your behalf. It’s an amazing blessing to have good parents. On the flip side of the coin, it’s one of the world’s great tragedies that many children will be faced with the consequences of sins that they never chose to bear.
One of the most common questions in this passage is why oh why would God put a tree in the garden and then forbid Adam eating from it. Why put it there at all? I would suggest that he did it because he wants children, not prisoners. You know that the world is full of dangers and temptations for your children. The kinds of traps they might fall into keep you up at night. So why not just lock them away in the safety of your house? Because you don’t want your child to be your prisoner. You consider it better to let them learn and grow and venture into the world. You know that you might have to come to their rescue and you’re prepared to do that, even if that means dying for them. I think that’s how God felt when he was trying to decide whether it was worth it to place the tree within Adam’s reach.
Let’s take a look at verses 18-20:
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 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 to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 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.
Notice here how God says it is not good for the man to be alone. There are a lot of people who claim to prefer solitude and being at home alone. I think introversion is real – in the sense that some people have their energy drained when they are around a lot of people. However, I think prolonged solitary confinement is absolutely fatal to every human being. The next time you’re around people, pay attention to how you use their feedback to determine whether or not you’re still sane. Seriously, the human mind is so complicated that we constantly rely on the reflection of other people to maintain our sanity. This is why fashions become trendy and then fall out of style. It’s why when we’re growing up we’re always comparing ourselves to our peers to see whether or not we’re doing it right. The tragedy is that these mechanisms for gathering information are warped and destroyed by online communication. You can’t sense a person through a laptop screen. You can’t get a full understanding of someone’s flaws through their Facebook page. As human beings, we need contact with other human beings. If you’re curious about that, try locking yourself in your house for a few weeks. Anxiety will come at you fast. Before long you’ll have so much anxiety that you’ll be afraid to go back out and socialize.
My third question for you is this: What is the most valuable part of your relationships that you have here at the church?
For myself, I enjoy the fact that we have a shared interest in Christ. This becomes even more fascinating to me when I see how we all have come to Christ by different roads and from different origins. There’s something about fellowship and collective worship that refreshes my spirit. It’s weird how we can see God doing miracles in our lives but we can also forget how far we’ve come without constant reminders.
So the third question is: What is the most valuable part of your relationships that you have here at the church?
Next let’s look at verses 21-24:
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. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “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 explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
The first thing we notice in these verses is that God chose to make Eve from Adam’s rib instead of making her from the dust the way that he made Adam. I think this points to the idea of man and woman becoming one flesh through marriage. From this view, the goal in marriage is more than just friendship – the goal in marriage is oneness. Men and women have differences that lend themselves to various tasks but all of these tasks are united in the goal of honoring God. The illustration of Eve being taken from Adam’s bone implies that man gives life to woman and woman gives life to the world. The different roles of men and women carry exclusive privileges but neither set of roles is superior to the other.
There are three important points here to notice about God’s design for the union between Adam and Eve. Each of these points hold true today for our own marriages. First is that the man leaves his parents and, in a public act, promises himself to his wife. Second is that the man and woman are joined together and take responsibility for the welfare of each other by loving each other above all other people. Third is that the couple are united into one in the intimacy and commitment of sexual union that is reserved for marriage.
Finally, I want us to notice verse 25:
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
There’s a couple of key ideas here that I want to point out. They say that small children can run around a room full of strangers naked without feeling any sense of embarrassment. It’s like they are not ashamed of their nakedness because of their innocence. In the same way, Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness because of their innocence. It’s not until they took the fruit that the barrier of shame went up between themselves and God. There’s another parallel here for marriage. Ideally, a husband and wife should feel no shame in exposing themselves to each other and to God. Adam and Eve put on fig leaves, and in a similar way we put up barriers in our marriages when we have areas we don’t want our spouse to know about. Lack of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual intimacy in a marriage usually precedes a breakdown of physical intimacy. In the same sense, when we try to keep secret thoughts from God we break our lines of communication with him.
But avoiding embarrassment is not the only purpose that clothes serve. They also protect our vulnerabilities, and that’s a very interesting idea. Think about it: Adam and Eve did not become aware of their vulnerabilities until they acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Consider evil. You only know how to hurt someone because you’re aware of your own vulnerabilities and how you could be hurt. Many people think of the forbidden fruit as only evil – but it’s not a trivial detail that the tree is called the knowledge of good as well as the knowledge of evil. I think we can get at the problem of suffering from this angle. You actually cannot love someone without being vulnerable to them. And so choosing to love someone is also choosing to suffer the loss of that person someday. So why do you do it? Because your love for them is worth it. Why would God create a world full of pain and suffering? Because the love he has for us and the love we have for him is worth it. I very much believe that the supremacies of life: faith, hope, and love, cannot exist without free will. And so they also cannot exist without suffering – at least not in this life.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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