Friends,
Thanks for all who are continuing to journey together through the first eleven chapters of Genesis!
In this email you can find the audio recording (see above), along with the video recording, slides, a quick recap, our art piece of the week, and a look forward to next week.
Resources
Recap
Genesis 4 is, to me, a study in contrasts. In a sinful world, there are two different paths a person can take. Which one will you take?
First, there’s Cain. When he and his brother Abel come up to offer their sacrifices to God, Abel brings his best, while Cain just seems to bring whatever he has on hand. God rejects Cain’s sacrifice, and accepts Abel’s. Cain is jealous. Cain is angry. God warns Cain about this, and coaches him on what he needs to do. Cain’s response to God is to kill his brother, and then lie about it.
Cain treats Abel like a thing, like he’s dispensable. Cain seems to be the god of his own perspective. Abel gave a better sacrifice; it’s as if that made Cain feel bad, and instead of that inciting him to rise to the occasion and improve his own offerings to God, Cain kills him. Cain gets a punishment, but Cain experiences grace and the patience of God too. But in the end he doesn’t seem sorry - just sorry that he got caught. The story of his descendants in Genesis 4:17-24 (epitomized in Lamech) is but a continuation of these same themes.
So what is the alternative to Cain? I think it’s Eve, who happens to be Cain’s mom. This one is a bit more subtle, so bear with me. At the beginning of Genesis 4 she gives birth to Cain and exclaims, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man” (Genesis 4:1b NIV11). She should probably have a little bit more awe here: Cain is the first conventional human birth in the Bible. Shouldn’t she experience this as a miracle, as a gift of God? Instead she portrays Cain’s birth as something she did (though with God’s help). One wonders whether this inauspicious beginning is reflected in the trajectory that Cain’s life took.
But by the end of the chapter, her tune has changed. In the second to last verse in Genesis 4, Eve bears another son, Seth, and this time she declares, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him” (Genesis 4:25b NIV11). Eve gives the credit and the glory to God here. It seems she might have learned something.
Notice that both Cain and Eve are sinful, flawed humans. But Eve grows as she becomes more and more open to God. Cain and his descendants, on the other hand, do not. Once again, here are two different paths any one of us sinful humans can take: will we grow from grace to grace like Eve, or will we stay put (or spiral downward) along with Cain and his descendants? Will we yield to the One God, or will we insist on being our own (small-g) gods? Will we be children of Eve, or will we be children of the Serpent (Genesis 3:15)?
Art
I was drawn to this image because of how it betrays the difference in attitude between Cain and Abel. Abel brings his very best to God: fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flocks. And Cain? Well, he brought an offering too…
God accepts Abel’s offering because he brought his best. God does not accept Cain’s offering, because he didn’t. This is a bit humbling to me. What am I offering to God?
For Next Week
For next week take a look at the story of Noah’s ark: Genesis 6-7 (we’ll cover chapters 8-9 the following week). Why does God destroy his creation?
In Christ,
Pastor Cabe
