Good morning, friends!
It's time for day two of my 2018 RBY challenge!
Today, I'm reading Genesis 4-7.
So, in chapter 4, we learn that Cain kills Abel because he was jealous that God preferred Abel's offering. I had always been taught that Cain's offering was rejected because it was not an offering of meat. But that's not really what the Bible says.
If you read Genesis 4:3-4 carefully, what it says is that Abel brought the first and best of his flock, while Cain only brought some of his fruits for an offering.
And we are commanded to tithe from the "first fruits," not what is left over.
So, God is displeased with Cain's attitude, Cain gets angry and kills his brother Abel, and God punishes Cain for the sin of murder and lying about it by sending him away. He has sons and one of them is Lamech, the father of Noah. And we all know what happened in Noah's day...
But before we get there, there is a really interesting passage I want to talk about.
Genesis 6:1-2 & 4: And it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose...The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men of old.
And the sons of God are angels. Take a minute for that. It blew my mind. Angels on earth, doing things God doesn't approve of. Which means they're fallen angels who followed Satan from Heaven.
Angels...fallen angels...had relations with women and they bore children.
We discussed this in my Sunday school class one day, mostly because I was confused. Extremely confused. It still doesn't make complete sense to me.
And it came up that this is where giants like Goliath came from.
And my next question was "If all of mankind was wicked and God wiped them out, how is that possible?"
Noah had three sons, who had wives. And where did those wives come from? Were they from a line of people who came from these relations? It's possible. We really don't know. I'm not even sure I found a place in the Bible where they're named.
And so, what we concluded was that it was like a recessive gene.
Disclaimer: This is what we discussed in class. We could be wrong. If you learned something different, I would love to hear it. Please, if I'm ever wrong, just correct me.
I just had to include that passage because it always makes me stop and think.
After that, God sees that there is only wickedness in the hearts of men, and He is grieved that He ever created them.
But Noah found favor in the sight of God.
And so He tells Noah to build the ark and He sends a flood.
But did you know Noah didn't just take in two of each animal?
God told him to take in by sevens (7 male and 7 female) all clean animals and birds, and by twos (2 male and 2 female) of all unclean animals.
So what's the difference?
Clean animals include: chickens, doves, locusts, bison, cattle, etc.
Unclean animals include: bats, buzzards, all non-locust insects, dogs, cats, armadillos, sharks, crayfish, etc.
And this is distinguished for food and sacrificial purposes.[source]
Well, I learned a lot from these chapters. It's always interesting to go back and read what you've already read. If I'd done a blog post on these chapters the first time I read them, all you'd get to see would be questions. Piles of questions. Mountains of questions.
And there are always more questions.
I hope today's post was interesting and you learned something like I did. I hope you join me tomorrow, too. I'll be reading Genesis: 8-11.
Have a blessed day!
No comments:
Post a Comment