God created the family unit. We start out this series by looking at the first family. This devotion examines how God instituted marriage and how sin changed the family dynamics.
Nuggets
- God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit got together and talked about how they were going to create mankind.
- If we look at God’s first blessing, Eve’s punishment makes it a little hairier.
- Many times, it seems we take our sins out on our family members.
This year, we are looking at self-discipline. We are using Vincent’s The Lesson of Ripeness sermon to look at the need to grow in our relationship with God. We morphed learning enough to be a teacher into determining some areas we need to grow so we can be mature disciples.
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We have been looking at solidifying what we believe. When we witness, we need to be prepared to explain what we believe and why we believe it. We have looked at the Scriptures; the Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit); man; salvation; grace; the church; divine ordinances; worship; God’s kingdom; end times; evangelism and missions; stewardship; cooperation; social order; peace and war; and religious freedom. The last category we are going to look at is family.
The First Family
The Ideal Family
The Hopeful Family
In Support of Widows
Instructing Our Children
Who Is the Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?
Let's Put It into Context
Family is, according to the Holman Bible Dictionary, “the basic household unit which provides a person’s central relationships, nurture, and support.”
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Ordinances are an expression of the disciples’ obedience. Marriage is an ordinance.
God Made Mankind
“So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female” (Gen. 1: 27 CSB)
“Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being” (Gen. 2: 7 CSB)
“Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man” (Gen. 2: 22 CSB)
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit got together and talked about how they were going to create mankind. Mankind was created originally in God’s image.
They created men and women. Man was made first, and then woman was made.
Exell detailed why women were created. He wrote,
1. “To develop his intellectual thinkings.
2. “To culture his moral sympathies.
3. “To aid him in the daily needs of life.
4. “To join him in his worship of God.”
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More importantly to our current discussion, Eve was created so Adam would have someone to love and protect. God knew Adam would do better if he wasn’t alone.
Tada. The family unit was born.
Loneliness is not good for us. Marriage is, in part, for companionship. It provides us a support and intellectual stimulation.
I thought it was really interesting how Thomas characterized Adam’s loneliness. He felt it “… was a mark of imperfectness of life.”
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Richards kind of flipped Eve’s creation around. He cautioned that Eve was not just the first woman created in the same sense that Adam was not just the first man created. We have to look at this from the perspective of the family and marriage. When we look at it through the lens of marriage, the whole rib thing makes sense. It strengthens the belief that marriage should not be entered into lightly.
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What God was creating here by the marriage was the family unit. Blaikie listed its needed components.
• Attraction
• Harmony
Blaikie stressed the unity that must be attained to promote the welfare of both. The relationship will be damaged if that is not achieved.
Some family units include children. Blaikie stated that nature generally provides two caring parents to provide for their offspring.
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Smith reminded us that marriage is honored by God. It is through marriage that children are to be conceived, bringing honor to the mother (case in point — Elizabeth in Luke 1: 25).
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The family must be built on love. First, we have to love God. Then, we have to love each other — exclusively at the marriage level.
Punishment as It Applies to the Family
“He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you” (Gen. 3: 16 CSB)
Eve was the first one to take the bite out of the forbidden fruit. Her punishment is just this one verse. (Note: Satan gets two verses; Adam gets three, but his were for mankind regardless of gender.)
Glossary
Brooke put this slant on that. Motherhood completes a woman’s nature. He wrote, “Motherhood permits woman to live her life in another life. It is the likest thing to God’s life.”
Family life completes a mother’s nature more than a father’s nature because men are more selfish. (That is Brooke’s words when you put them in the order how it would be written today. It is not me men-bashing.)
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But if we look at God’s first blessing, this makes it a little hairier. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth’” (Gen. 1: 28 CSB).
Oh, Adam and Eve can still do that. It is just going to be a little more painful. There is going to be a reminder every time that sin had occurred in the way distant past.
Sin Spread throughout the Family
“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.’ Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him” (Gen. 4: 6-8 CSB)
Adam and Eve had two sins that they named Cain and Abel. They raised them to acknowledge and love God.
How do we know that? Both boys offered a sacrifice to God. Cain offered produce, and Abel offered an animal.
The problem was there was something wrong with Cain’s — we don’t know what. Abel’s was okay, but God did not accept Cain’s.
Look at verse 7. “… But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door …” (Gen. 4: 7 CSB).
This is another if/then situation. If Cain would have offered the correct offering with the right attitude, then God would have accepted it along with Abel’s.
The if/then turned into a since/then.
Since Cain’s offering was not acceptable, there was something wrong with it. I would say there was probably some sin attached to it.
Cain reacted by committing a sin. Oh, a whopper of a sin.
Isn’t that what happens? One sin leads to another — and they snowball.
Many times, it seems we take our sins out on our family members. Before you know it, you are attacking your brother, and he is dead.
By then, it doesn’t matter what you intended — unless you did exactly what you intended.
Maclaren made a really interesting statement. He wrote, “Every human deed is immortal; the transitory evil thought, or word, or act, which seems to fleet by like a cloud, has a permanent being, and hereafter haunts the life of the doer as a real presence. This memory has in it everything you ever did.”
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Think about it. Remember, not that long ago we talked about the books that are going to be opened on judgment day. There are going to be books of memory opened. No, God didn’t forget anything that has happened. We are also going to have our personal books.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Ooo, baby. How many times do we think whatever we’ve done is over and forgotten?
But look what God said about it. “If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? …” (Gen. 4: 7 CSB).
I see God is saying, “Don’t put yourself in the situation where you are tempted to sin. It is your choice to sin or not.” God was warning Cain.
Well, isn’t it our choice? Abel didn’t make Cain kill him. Abel didn’t even probably consider Cain when he was getting his sacrifice together. It was all on Cain.
Making the Connections
I bet Satan loves our minds. That is really fertile ground for him in which to work.
Phelps reiterated what I said. He wrote, “Sin tends to develop sin.”
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That is why God doesn’t want us to associate with sin. We slide quickly in our anger and sense of entitlement.
Sin makes us think that the sin is the norm. We can’t get complacent.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
We may be thinking how can our family relationship please God. Oh, it’s a relationship. It is going to take work.
The original sin and the fallout may be confusing to some non-believers. We have to be ready with our explanations.
We’ve been looking at defending our beliefs when we are witnessing. That means we have to be secure enough to convince someone to accept our beliefs.
Our questions should still serve us to determine on what we need to focus.
- What does the Scriptures say?
- What do I believe?
- Why do I believe the same/differently than the Scriptures?
- What are the talking points when witnessing to a non-believer?
Related Links
I have created a worksheet of the questions above. Click on the button below to access it.
How Do We Apply This?
Phelps also wrote that “A foreboding of judicial and eternal retribution is incident to sin.” We have to pay attention.
We’ve got to listen to what God is telling us, not what worldview people are. We want to follow Him.
We can’t be like Cain and blame our equivalent of Abel for something we did or did not do. The choice is ours.
We make many choices throughout the day. We choose how we act and react.
Too often, we do believe that our actions and thoughts are forgotten immediately after they occur. What would happen if we lived our lives remembering our books of deeds will be read on judgment day?
Some of us may be asking ourselves why God created families to be this way. That answer is easy.
He didn’t.
Anger, envy, murder — they all entered when Satan got Adam and Eve to sin. Satan brought them in, not God.
God designed a way we can ask for forgiveness. He sent His Son to die to pay the penalty for our sins. He did that so we could become members in His family.
Father. We want to be members of Your family. We want to live the way You want us to live. Help us to resist temptation. Amen.
What do you think?
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