Genesis begins in wonder and glory as all of creation comes to order. The first sense of gloom comes in 2:17 when God warns not to eat of the this one tree in the middle of the garden “for when you eat of it you will surely die.” I so want the next verse to be this: “and they did all the days of their life.” Of course that is my fantasy and not what actually happened. Death comes, pain comes, the curse comes. The serpent loses his legs, women gains more pain in childbirth and will desire her husband. Lastly, man gets pain in work. The ground is cursed because of man and thorns and thistles enter the world. So much for my fantasy.
But, immediately after the curse something really intriguing happened: “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” I find this odd. Before this moment God was cursing man and after God banished man from the garden and grieves that he made man. Yet, God covers man with animal skin. Why? What does this mean?
Let me suggest a couple things. Man is made in the image of God. God took an entire day and set it apart for man. So to begin, God cares for man. Even though they disobeyed, are cursed and will taste death, God loves his creation.
Second, this act reveals God’s personality. This act of kindness shows God’s profound grace. Could this be a sign of what is to come? Does this not show us what he would do through his son? God sacrificed an animal to cover Adam and Eve’s shame. God also sacrificed his Son to cover the sin and shame of all mankind. These two express the hope of man. That God has the heart to save man from death.
But the consequences of sin are real. This act of kindess reveals that sin and shame are an intense reality that is not over yet. Yes, there is hope but every time we see death, every time we see pain, abuse, tragedy, violence, it is all because of sin and the fall of mankind. We live in a world of sin. It’s broken. BUT! If that depresses you, then look to the hope that comes from God. The hope that he still cares, that he is still working. His kingdom is coming and his will is being done. He is the perfect Creator who is making all things new and it all started with this one kind act in the midst of the fall: “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
For His Kingdom 
Spencer
September 15, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Hmm, well this is interesting because I am actually studying a book by the Native author Thomas King I’m sure you won’t agree with what he is saying about creation but there is one line from that book that rings true.
The beginning of the world as we know it started with the fall of a woman. In Christianity it destroys perfection, in the Native legends it creates. i might be just rambling because of a long day at class but give it a read and tell me what you think : The Truth about Stories by Thomas King
B Crain
September 16, 2011 at 9:32 am
Spencer: This is a great observation. The only difference is I wouldn’t pin the fall completely on the woman.
I read the premise the the book and love the premise. Stories are probably the only real way in understanding mankind. That’s what I love about scripture. It’s an intense story of God and mankind. It’s a story of their falling out and coming back together again. Long days of classes provoke many thoughts. Keep them coming.
Spencer
September 16, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Thomas King’s thesis in this chapter is that stories are about passing on information. He says ” I know a story”. He is the story teller, obviously, and he is about to give us (the readers) information. We know that the point he is trying to make is definitely about knowledge because of what his story is about. “It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle”. The way he uses the word “how” shows he is trying to explain, it shows he is trying to teach.
But!…. It’s not just about stories. Or lessons. It’s also about him. It’s about his story. It’s about teaching us through his experience. The whole chapter is filled with his life story, with his childhood, and with his adulthood. He says “when I was a kid” and “when I was fifty-six or fifty-seven”.
The reason why he uses the aboriginal story of creation is because that’s his story of creation. It was told by his ancestors in their own tounges. It’s a story by and from his own people, not the story that was forced onto him by circumstances of history. He writes ” As for stories such as the Woman Who Fell from the Sky, well, we listen to them and then we forget them, for amidst the thunder of Christian monologues, they have neither purchase nor place”. By this he means that with our current society, and the way many are raised, our culture has adopted a “paradigm”. We look at the world in a certain way because that’s what is mainstream.
This doesn’t only apply to natives, or Canadians. Isn’t that what happened to the English too? When Rome took over? I wonder what traditional paradigms were overshadowed there. How is it that a religion originating in the middle east thousands of years ago affects our paradigm here? The world is a strange place.
Spencer
September 16, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Also Mankind is nothing but stories, where we came from, how we live our lives, what faith we follow. It’s all a story. The center of the Earth is a story. The center of our lives are stories. The truth about stories is it is all we are. Myths, legends,bibles, how can you put your faith in something that is only a story? Just another story to fix a problem for a story that has caused that problem.
B Crain
September 17, 2011 at 8:06 am
Thanks again for your thoughts Spencer and for telling more of King’s thoughts. I also really love your question, “How can you put faith in something that is only a story?” I am not sure if it is rhetorical or not and cannot tell from your comment if you believe in the creation event according to King and his ancestors or what your beliefs are. What I am getting in the end is that your not sure you can believe anything that is a story and everything is simply a story. Is that correct?
Spencer
September 17, 2011 at 12:05 pm
It’s not that they are stories, but rather stories that can be hard to believe. It’s like how there is always two sides to every point of view, one is not always right. So what if the bible is wrong? What if it is missing the evidence to justify the claims within the book. The people Jesus met the people god condemned surely their point of view will never be considered compared to something so permanent that is the answer to all things. What if God isn’t always right, what if there is no such thing as God? The bible could be made up of lies and slander for all we know. It’s not set in stone there is no historical proof that say the bible is right. And who is old enough to really know? What if God was something invented by mankind way back in the BC time period to solve all of their problems.
There is a “condition” out there. I’m not sure what it is called because I’m a Graduate student in Philosophy not Psych. But there is something out there which relates to history. A person tells a lie, then in order to make the lie believable he has to convince others that it is true by showing falsified information. Soon he is so good at convincing, that he himself forgets it is a lie and believes it completely. Is it possible that this has happened with the bible? Is everything we have based ourselves off a lie?
B Crain
September 19, 2011 at 9:04 am
These are all legitimate questions that need to be asked. I am currently in a series that give archaeological reliability to the bible. The evidence is pretty convincing. There are documents and artifacts that verify scripture as a reliable source, like the code of Hammurabi. This proves it is true in that it is a legit document. These sources verify place names, social practices, price of slaves, and the list continues.
Then there is the testimony of experience. Experience is an argument that has been thrown out by many philosophers (and you know more of this than I do), but some have come back to it. Even if it is not an argument, it’s a reality. When people come to believe in God and Christ and give their life to him, they experience life change. This happens time and time again. I am not saying these things to “convince you,” but simply to show you there is more evidence to consider before throwing it out.
Spencer
September 19, 2011 at 5:55 pm
I realize this. But have you ever heard of the saying. ” Do as I say not as I do” There are people out there who could have created this higher power the same way that someone creates a poem. Just for fun, to make a statement. It’s like a rumor, you think its a good idea and the time but then it spreads and you can’t call it back. Stories warp over time by being told by different tellers with different biases and perceptions, they could have easily slipped in a lie and it could have been taken as truth. You can’t trust these things even if the Bible says they are true. Seeing is believing. Then you factor in coincidence and circumstance. Then where does “God” belong then?
B Crain
September 19, 2011 at 6:16 pm
In the end it comes down to conviction. One who sees holes in everything and questions everything at all times has little hope. But, the one who believes in nothing still knows they exist and that happened in one way or another. The question comes down to, How did it all happen? We can either choose to ignore this question and continue with life or we have a conviction about something and follow it. I choose the God who doesn’t leave things up to chance and circumstance. Chance and circumstance are an illusion because we cannot see the big picture. The funny part is that I am not sure we are suppose to see the entire picture. This is where faith comes in.
mennoknight
September 21, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Spencer and Brandon,
It’s interesting to stumble across the blog of a pastor from Vegreville and hearing the same questions being asked in Vegreville as I hear in Vancouver.
Spencer, you cannot possibly believe that all stories are equally valid or equally questionable.
Spencer, do you know the statement “seeing is believing” is true because you SAW that it was true (with your physical eyes), or because someone told you that “seeing is believing” was true and you simply trusted the truthfulness of their words and only their words?
You also cannot possibly suggest that the Bible is made up. That would insinuate that 66 books, written by over two dozen authors across several nations over a period of 1,500 years, somehow came together with a consistent message that has withstood the scrutiny of both educated and angry men for two millenia. That would insinuate that people who told a lie actually died for the lie that they KNEW was a lie. That would insinuate that somehow, though we have tens of thousands of ancient documents from multiple continents from which we can verify the meticulously preserved message of the Bible, many of which weren’t discovered until the last century or two, people somehow made changes to those documents.
If you think that the Bible is made up, the most likely option is that you aren’t too studied up on the actual history of the Bible.
Brandon, I’d echo your sentiments with a slight clarification.
When it comes to the big questions of life, like “how did it all happen”, we can do one of 3 things:
1. Ignore the questions and go about our lives.
2. Face the questions and ask ourselves for answers.
3. Face the questions and ask someone else for answers.
If we ignore the questions, have fun.
If we face the questions and ask ourselves for answers, we come up against the limits of our knowledge REALLY quick since empirical science doesn’t work on origins questions (origins questions address issues that are non-repeatable and non-observable) and we have no reasons to think our philosophy of science applies to origins questions (i.e. what were the laws of physics before the universe existed [from which we learn the laws of physics]?)
If we face the questions and ask someone else for answers, we come up against the limits of the religions of mankind. Most oriental religions either don’t believe in a beginning at all (and ignore the question) or give metaphorical answers that are completely opaque (like stories involving trees, turtles or gods fighting and killing each other). Most other non-Christian religions don’t offer much in the line of answers to the origins questions, and all other religions are simply rip-offs of Christianity (i.e. Islam, Mormonism, JW’s, etc.).
Of those first three categorical groups, they are either:
a. Internally self-contradictory to the point of being unable to actually be true.
b. Directly opposed to the currently observable facts about the universe (i.e. the earth isn’t currently riding on the back of a giant elephant).
All other competitors to Christianity simply implode in on themselves.
The Bible offers the only internally consistent account of the origins of all things that claims to actually come from God and be an eye-witness account. The Bible offers the only serious answer to the question of origins at all.
I have faith that God is not a liar when he reveals himself and the truth about the beginning of all things in the Bible, but that faith isn’t in spite of, or at odds with, ALL the facts at hand.
That faith is a gift from God to actually believe the truthfulness of the scriptures, as well as the implications of the Biblical account (i.e. since God is my creator he has the authority to tell me what to do…).
May the Lord bless you both.
mennoknight
September 21, 2011 at 9:26 pm
I stumbled across this blog, so I have to re-post to get follow up notification.
Please comment after THIS post so I can come back for any interaction.
B Crain
September 23, 2011 at 10:21 am
Thanks for your comments. I look forward to reading more in the days to come.