Genesis 3-5
Man, front and center here: I’m astounded at Adam’s passivity.
Relevant side factoid: God’s command about the Tree was given to Adam… before Eve was created (Genesis 2:16).
So when Eve gets this wrong (3:3), with Adam sitting there watching her (3: 6), well, shame on him! What’s more, she doesn’t call it the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (which was what God had called it, and the serpent echoes) so I’m wondering just how good of a job Adam had done in communicating this bit of theology to her in the first place. Her understanding of the tree and the rules thereof are quite a bit more garbled than what God had told Adam.
Worth noting that God also says Eve was deceived, and puts the whole blame for this on Adam.
The last we hear of Eve is 4:1, and again in v. 25, and I think this is an encouraging note for her story to end on. After the fall, the curse, the ejection from Eden: Eve finds herself with child, and gives the glory to God.
Also, 4:25, “at that time people began to call on the name of Yahweh.” Something not immediately obvious in English translations, but God’s name was no secret from the beginning. Humanity knew His name.
Mark 2
Jesus “has authority on earth to forgive sins.” I thought this was interesting, that the scribes are more impressed by healing—all gave glory to God (v. 12)—but the reality here is Jesus’s authority to forgive sins is much more impressive. And the scribes have a point: who can forgive sins but God alone?
For some reason, what shot through my head was how often people assure others that, oh, God will forgive you for X. We take forgiveness so lightly. God is a forgiving God. He knows you didn’t really mean to sin. Etc.
But it was those little sins and those big sins and all the sins in the middle that Jesus was here on earth to pay for. He had the authority to forgive sins—He was there to die for their/our sins.
I always really enjoy this little bit in 2:19-20:
Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. But the time will come when the groom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
We are the people in the fasting day. But, oh, one day we will have the Groom back, and we will feast again as the disciples did! We are the people who live in sober austerity with an insatiable longing for feasting on the presence of God.
The Sabbath is a point I’ve blogged much, I think, but briefly: this idea that man was not made for the Sabbath is huge. If the Sabbath is an inseparable part of our worship of God, if the Sabbath is about worshipping God in obedience, then man surely was made for the Sabbath. If God established it at creation as a special day for man to spend honoring Him, then man was made for the Sabbath.
But Jesus says no. Jesus says the Sabbath was created for man. The Sabbath is a gift, not a burden, and Jesus puts it on a level with the temple showbread—if you’re needy and hungry, forget the rule and eat the bread. If you’re needy and hungry, forget the Sabbath rule and pick some grain.