For New ChristiansThis forum is for new Christians to ask questions and be encouraged by other Christians. Here you can post your questions and talk about issues relating to new believers.
I am taking a class at a church and the class is called Starting Point. I guess you can say it's where you start if you want to learn about God. We started with Genesis and today we talked about Adam and Eve. I had lots of questions for the leader, but have more. I'm curious about a few things.
If God is all knowing, then God must've known that when he made the rule "don't eat from that tree," that Eve and Adam would break it. I supposed he may have wanted them to choose "wisely" and not eat from it, but he had to have known that the serpent was going to tempt them.
Was it some kind of test of free will? Was it wishful thinking on God's part, i.e., that man would choose to follow the rules even when faced with temptation? Did God make man to see how well he would do with rules or free will? Did God get really sad when he saw that man was weak?
God threw them out of Eden then. He didn't seem angry.........more dissapointed because he gave them clothes to wear to protect their bodies.
I know none of us have an answer to what was God thinking, but it just seems so odd that God would do that. Create man, set man up for potential failure knowing Satan was around to trip them up, and then show them mercy while giving them consequences for their action.
The leader said that he really thought that Eve wouldn't have even given the tree a second thought if the serpent wasn't around to tempt her. He said that since time can be 2 days or 2 centuries, we really don't know if Eve lived for a long time in Eden before she was tempted. He said that God gave Adam and Eve rules as a parent gives rules to a child.......to protect them. But if God already knew that the serpent was going to tempt them and that Eve and Adam would give in, then why did God set up the whole tree test to begin with?
It's all confusing.
I was also wondering about how God felt towards Adam and Eve after he threw them out of Eden. Did he still love them after they sinned? Does God still love us after only one sin? Does God still love us after the hundreth or thousandth sin? Or does God say "enough is enough" and give up? I make movies a lot about God. I made a movie about sins. It's called "I'm Sorry, God," and it's the hope that God forgives even after I keep sinning over and over (like Adam and Eve) It's on the top right of this page Lifewanderer .....The Effects of Abuse - Lifewanderer I tried to just upload the video but it's not working. If anyone wants to watch it, you have to turn the page music off before watching the video.
I would really like some views of people who know a lot about God because I'm trying to learn.
Just wondering about all this if anybody has any ideas.
Cindy
__________________ Who I am does not depend on your opinion of me. Sorry. You might try the next guy.
A barrel of monkeys is not fun at all.........in fact, the thought is quite horrifying.
Last edited by lifewanderer; 18th October 2009 at 09:01 PM.
Those are good questions. It's too bad there is never time in a meeting for everyone to express their thoughts.
How I see the garden situation -- God knew, but He is showing us what He really desired for us. It can echo through the rest of our life, that His ideal for us is comfort and provision, beauty and walking freely with Him. But our nature pushes to find more, try more, see what we might be missing, blame others for denying us things.
I don't see the Bible as starting out with a slap on the hand, but a model of what could have been. What His kingdom aims for.
Think about churches that stir up all sorts of programs, and panic to have notoriety or filled seats. The church might have been fine when humming in a relaxed relationship with God and each other, but when they started thinking peace with God and man couldn't be enough, people start sabotaging each others' input and it all caves inward.
I will dig up some verses on God's love and forgiveness, because that's an important question to resolve.
I enjoyed your videos! What a sense of humor you have. Does God still love us after the hundreth or thousandth sin? Or does God say "enough is enough" and give up?
There is never a point that He gives up -- it is us who make the choice to desert him.
The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed...The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children - with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
. RE: if God already knew that the serpent was going to tempt them and that Eve and Adam would give in, then why did God set up the whole tree test to begin with?
Not only did Man’s creator know full well ahead of time that Adam would disobey, subsequently culminating with the incarceration of countless millions of human beings in the reservoir of liquid flame depicted at Rev 20:11-15, but He also pre-planned to put Christ up on the cross since the Bible says that Christ was in creation’s blueprints before the first atom of the cosmos was even manufactured. (1Pet 1:19, Rev 13:8)
Christ’s crucifixion can be thought of as emergency response teams and vehicles not dispatched to a train wreck, but already parked and in place; set up waiting for the wreck: on time and at the exact spot where it's anticipated to happen.
It's very tempting to regard the Bible’s God as an evil genius who invents sadistic ways to amuse Himself at our expense. But even if so; what can anybody do about it? He’s holding all the aces; and the human race isn’t even permitted to question its creator about this.
†. Rom 9:19-21 . .Well then, you might say: Why does God blame people for not listening? Haven't they simply done what He made them do? No, don't say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to criticize God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it: Why have you made me like this?
I was saved in 1968, and for the past 41 years spent many, many hours in Sunday schools, sermons, books, classes, lectures, seminars, prayer meetings, and systematic Bible studies and to date no one yet has been able to come up with a satisfactory answer to your question. People tend to wax very philosophical with this mystery; but it’s all just rhetoric, bombast, and the substance of locker-room bull sessions since nobody yet has succeeded in getting an answer straight from the horse’s mouth.
†. Deut 29:29 . .The secret things belong to Yhvh our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may observe all the words of this teaching.
C.L.I.F.F.
/
Last edited by Webers_Home; 19th October 2009 at 12:05 PM.
Thank you heron and Webers_Home for listening and offering some answers. And thanks heron for the video compliment :-) I'm still very confused by it all. There is so much to learn and so much to trust. Yes, trust is definitely something in the way of listening. Sigh.
__________________ Who I am does not depend on your opinion of me. Sorry. You might try the next guy.
A barrel of monkeys is not fun at all.........in fact, the thought is quite horrifying.
What an interesting question. The only right answer to this question will have to come from God Himself.However I will offer my opinion."If God is all knowing, then God must've known that when he made the rule "don't eat from that tree," that Eve and Adam would break it. I supposed he may have wanted them to choose "wisely" and not eat from it, but he had to have known that the serpent was going to tempt them."God knows our lives from the time of birth to death. When He created man He gave him free will to choose between right and wrong. Within those paths lies the blueprint of our life. Eve had a choice within her own free will. If she had utilized her will of righteousness to uphold what God had commanded, which by the way was not a rule, we may be looking at a different way of life. The path of righteousness thinking would have changed everything concerning her life and only God knew from the start to the end what it was comprised of. However since she exercised her free will to choose the the path of unrighteousness, which was to go against what God had commanded, she set into order and brought about every circumstance that was ordained to happen in that path.Of course God knew the outcome either way just as He knew the outcome of the betrayal of Christ by Judas however Judas always had a choice by freewill not to exercise the unrighteous path.Did God still love Adam and Eve after they sinned? Of course! GOD IS LOVE and there is no evil in Him. His Grace and Mercy is everlasting and everlasting means just that, everlasting. When my children to wrong and sometimes they do wrong very well, I am upset with them and they receive chastisement for what they have done but I still love them. God is no different to us for He is the Father of Love.Does God still love us after only one sin? Does God still love us after the hundreth or thousandth sin? Or does God say "enough is enough" and give up?The Word of God gives us the answer to this question.Matthew 18:21-22"Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." Everything that God commands us to do it is part of His own character and He does the same in respect to us. God does not operate outside of His will, it is impossible.
I am taking a class at a church and the class is called Starting Point. I guess you can say it's where you start if you want to learn about God. We started with Genesis and today we talked about Adam and Eve. I had lots of questions for the leader, but have more. I'm curious about a few things.
If God is all knowing, then God must've known that when he made the rule "don't eat from that tree," that Eve and Adam would break it. I supposed he may have wanted them to choose "wisely" and not eat from it, but he had to have known that the serpent was going to tempt them.
Just wondering about all this if anybody has any ideas.
Cindy
Cindy, it is basically 'there in everyone's face'. It is really common sense, it is like handing someone a box with a big red button saying, 'do not touch'.
Of course God knew.
To say otherwise is to insult God's intelligence.
So, now what? We are saved by faith. Faith is very easy if the world is obviously full of goodness, but it isn't...
God is a little more complicated then people think -- ever been on a plane? As high as the Heavens are, God's ways are higher then man's ways...
Linear Mode
