Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

On my third time reading the Bible all the way through, I noticed that there is some description of where the Garden of Eden was located. Due to the fact that Adam and Eve were sent away from the Garden of Eden, it's not something we would be able to find if we went looking for it. However, it's certainly interesting to find out generally where it was located. Let's examine what the Bible has to say about this: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx ...

These days so much has changed since the days of Adam and Eve. To them, today's life and culture would be almost unrecognizable. About the only thing that has not changed since then is nature (in the post-fall period). The sky, mountains, valleys, trees, oceans and seas would be similar. Of course, huge amounts of time has gone by since then, including events like seismic shifts, so the landscape won't be the same. Still though, whenever I see tree leaves against sky, I remind myself that at least this is the same type of thing as what Adam saw. This is one way I have that helps remind me that the Bible is truly relevant to us. We are all human just as Adam and Eve were, and although culture and technology has changed, we are still on the same planet. Another way that makes me feel linked to Adam and Eve is whenever I work in the garden. Planting seeds always reminds me that this is the way things have worked since the days of Adam. God has given us a wonderful environm...

Besides Jesus, there are 3 other people in the Bible I would most like to ask questions of. These are Eve, Lazarus, and the apostle Mark. How I wish that more had been recorded in the Bible from each of these people! But of course I have to remember that the fact that there wasn't more is because it wasn't strictly necessary for us to hear more from them. The Bible is sufficient to generate faith. Eve For Eve, the questions I'd want to ask are not "why did you do it?" because I too disobey God every day. The question of why she ate the apple is exactly the same question we could ask ourselves "Why was I judgmental toward this person?" "Why did I not listen to God about this situation?", "Why did I allow myself to fall into temptation?" and so on. After thinking about it, I knew it would be hypocritical of me to blame Eve for mankind's fallen state ( see my other article about that ). What I would ask is that I would be real...

I am now on my second time around reading the Bible from beginning to end.  I was wondering if I would discover new things that I didn't notice the first time.  This was indeed the case! This time around, the first thing I noticed was that Adam and Eve appeared to be in different states before and after the fall, and I spent some time thinking about this. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were in a more innocent state than we know today: Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 However, Adam and Eve were capable of understanding directions and of choosing to obey or disobey.  In fact, the serpent was able to tempt Eve into eating the fruit of the tree.  Eve knew that this was against God's command: The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.'" Genesis 3: 2...

We live in a post-Fall existence.  We therefore cannot truly imagine what the Garden of Eden must have looked like before the Fall.  However, it must have been a beautiful, comfortable, and low-maintenance place to live.  There were no weeds or thistles, no poisonous plants.  Tending to the plants and obtaining nutrition from these plants was a straightforward business. Adam and Eve had never seen a weed or an unwanted, undesirable plant in their lives. All the plants there were beautiful and/or useful: 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. Genesis 2: 9 Unlike Adam and Eve at that point, we on the other hand, are all too familiar with  weeds.  They spring up much faster than the plants we are trying to cultivate, and will choke their growth and spread their seed quickly. ...

With all the bad things happening in the world, plenty of people find themselves drawn to ask why God created a Universe that can become so chaotic (for example, where volcanos or tsunamis can happen). The answer to that is due to the consequences of Adam and Eve disobeying God and losing the Garden of Eden: 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. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 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.” Genesis 3:17-19 Thus, some of the difficulties of nature that we have to deal with (such as thorns, thistles, weeds) are a direct result of Adam and Eve disobeying God and therefore having...

One of the more difficult theological questions is: Why did God make Adam and Eve knowing that they would fall? Reading the Bible helped me get a little more information on God and on how free will was really important to Him (click here for my earlier post on that topic). But, this is where it got tricky. If God knows everything, then why did he make Adam and Eve, knowing that they would lead themselves into temptation at great cost to them and to the rest of humanity? C.S. Lewis's theological writings offer an excellent perspective on this. He believes that man redeemed through the death of Jesus is somehow intrinsically better than unfallen man . "For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been..." - C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, in Chapter 14 "The Grand Miracle". This viewpoint falls in line with two Biblical readings: So He told them this parabl...

When I was a schoolgirl, a friend of mine remarked "God only knows what would have happened if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the forbidden tree."  I still think this is very true.  Before reading the Bible, I used to get mad at Adam and Eve for snatching away a paradise from us.  Now I realize that attitude is a bit ridiculous, because it implies that I could do better.  When I really asked myself, could I do any better than Adam and Eve? - the asnwer was simple: I don't think so.  To do better than them, I would have to be perfect and resist any and all temptation.  That is not me.  I am an imperfect human being, a sinner.  Furthermore, to do better than Adam and Eve, I would need to resist eating from the forbidden tree for my whole life.  The temptation wouldn't just be a one-time test.  After thinking about it, I realized I almost certainly wouldn't be any better than Adam and Eve at resisting temptation.  To tak...