The Chapter-A-Day thread.

Andrea411 · Feb 20, 2014

graciesings said:
Ok, it looks like it's February 20th now. Today's chapter is Genesis 4. You can find a link here: Genesis 4 NASB - Cain and Abel - Now the man had - Bible Gateway

I pray that God will lead today's discussion!

Grace

.pride. Cain was humiliated (his pride hurt) that Abel's offering was acceptable and his was not so instead of accepting correction he hated Abel killing him.
I could only surmise that Cain knew what offerings would be acceptable to the Lord bc the scriptures do not elaborate. Only that the result was death and abandonment.
Pride is an ugly thing, the root of many a fall and something we need to bring before the Lord always.
God bless, andrea

~Anastasia~ · Feb 20, 2014

graciesings said:
Ok, it looks like it's February 20th now. Today's chapter is Genesis 4. You can find a link here: Genesis 4 NASB - Cain and Abel - Now the man had - Bible Gateway

I pray that God will lead today's discussion!

Grace

Genesis 4

There had been no instruction about offerings before this, had there? So Cain really may have had no reason to know Abel's offering would be better. (Although it does seem Abel brought the best, and Cain only brought an offering so perhaps he should not have been surprised.) Yet God encourages Cain that he could improve?

And even though Cain is the first murderer, and receives punishment, God also gives an allowance to protect him when Cain says the punishment is too great. Mercy just on the reason of asking for it, from the beginning.

I had never appreciated how close the connection was with God still at that time - Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (and had obviously been communicating clearly with Him).

In v. 25 Seth is born - another offspring in place of Abel. If these verses from Cain leaving the presence of the Lord until here represent in time order (and they may not, but the last verse says "Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord" so I think too they may be) but if they are in order, then one of several cases must be.

Either a whole family of generations was born to Cain before Eve had another son

Or Seth was something special, and Eve saw in Seth something meant to replace Abel, whom Cain slew. After Seth's son Enosh was born, men began to call on the name of the Lord so is there something special about Seth?

Completely speculative, but Noah (and so later Abraham, and everyone) descended through Seth. Is it possible Seth is some replacement for Abel? Perhaps it would have been generations of Abel that survived.

All of this is JMO.

graciesings · Feb 20, 2014

Interesting ideas, yall! I'm afraid I was too busy studying to comment on Genesis 4, I'll have to do better today

It's February 21st now. Today's reading is Genesis 5, Genesis 5 NASB - Descendants of Adam - This is the book - Bible Gateway

God bless you,
Grace

bcmom · Feb 20, 2014

Hi all, I'd like to join in if that's possible. I will make an effort to read the Word every day and comment but I will be honest and say that's not going to be possible.
God Bless

Andrea411 · Feb 20, 2014

graciesings said:
Interesting ideas, yall! I'm afraid I was too busy studying to comment on Genesis 4, I'll have to do better today

It's February 21st now. Today's reading is Genesis 5, Genesis 5 NASB - Descendants of Adam - This is the book - Bible Gateway

God bless you,
Grace

5 This is the written account of Adam and his descendants.

When God created humans,
he made them in the likeness of God.
2 He created them male and female.
He blessed them and called them humans
when he created them.

They were made both equal and both in His likeness and they were blessed. Its important to note that God did not curse Adam or Eve, the only thing cursed in Genesis was the in Gen 3 the serpent

graciesings · Feb 20, 2014

bcmom said:
Hi all, I'd like to join in if that's possible. I will make an effort to read the Word every day and comment but I will be honest and say that's not going to be possible.
God Bless

We would love to have you! just remember the best you can

graciesings · Feb 20, 2014

Andrea, I always figured we got both ends of the deal. We were cursed for our sin (or our sin cursed us) and blessed by God's mercy.

What stood out to me in chapter 5 was how long people lived. Does anyone have a good theory why people lives to be 900 years old back then?

brinny · Feb 20, 2014

Chapter 4:

What stands out for me is Cain, and his offering to God. What comes to mind is that Cain appeared to want to bring his "own" righteousness before God....he and Abel both were taught of their parents what a proper sacrifice was. The first sacrifice was when God Himself killed an animal (or two) to cover Adam and Eve after they sinned. This sacrifice for sin would've been passed on to Adam and Eve's children. What we have here, is Cain's wickedness in his heart, before even the wrong sacrifice and before he killed his brother. His heart was wicked. He neither feared nor loved God. He was offended that God was not flattered by his "gift" even though he knew the correct one to bring before God and was blatantly disobedient. He was then "jealous" of his brother and pre-mediated his brother's death by his own hands. My hunch is that God allowed Cain to live so that his generations after him would come about.

brinny · Feb 20, 2014

Chapter 5:

What i find most interesting is that Cain is not mentioned in the generations of Adam in this chapter.

~Anastasia~ · Feb 20, 2014

graciesings said:
We would love to have you! just remember the best you can

I just joined based on an invitation you posted somewhere in CF, I hope that was ok.

Gen 5 - I can see now why Seth was special, and how he seemed to replace Abel.

Perhaps it would have been Abel's line that God would preserve, but instead it came through Seth.

With the long lives, what amazes me is that almost everyone born before the flood would know Adam, and all their other fathers/grandfathers as well. That's pretty amazing! Imagine what they could learn.

It's also very interesting to me that some of the names have their meaning listed, and have prophetic significance. I kind of wish I could know the meanings of everyone's name through the Bible. It could be interesting, maybe. (Or then again, maybe we are told the important ones.) Because the ages are given, it makes me wonder if there can be some significance there.

As far as why they lived so long - some have proposed that it was due to the climate being so different pre-flood. Whether that factors in or not, God did say that "His spirit would no longer strive with man" and He limited man's days

Andrea411 · Feb 20, 2014

graciesings said:
Andrea, I always figured we got both ends of the deal. We were cursed for our sin (or our sin cursed us) and blessed by God's mercy.

What stood out to me in chapter 5 was how long people lived. Does anyone have a good theory why people lives to be 900 years old back then?

I always figured it was bc we were intended to live forever the longer we get away from the beginning, our lives are relatively short. Look at how much trouble we'd get into??

graciesings · Feb 21, 2014

Interesting idea! It could be something with the second law of thermodynamics and us having less usable energy to live longer with? I don't really see the people-living-shorter-lives idea in the past thousand years of history, but it's a good thought.

graciesings · Feb 21, 2014

Kylissa said:
I just joined based on an invitation you posted somewhere in CF, I hope that was ok.

Gen 5 - I can see now why Seth was special, and how he seemed to replace Abel.

Perhaps it would have been Abel's line that God would preserve, but instead it came through Seth.

With the long lives, what amazes me is that almost everyone born before the flood would know Adam, and all their other fathers/grandfathers as well. That's pretty amazing! Imagine what they could learn.

It's also very interesting to me that some of the names have their meaning listed, and have prophetic significance. I kind of wish I could know the meanings of everyone's name through the Bible. It could be interesting, maybe. (Or then again, maybe we are told the important ones.) Because the ages are given, it makes me wonder if there can be some significance there.

As far as why they lived so long - some have proposed that it was due to the climate being so different pre-flood. Whether that factors in or not, God did say that "His spirit would no longer strive with man" and He limited man's days

This is great! I was hoping that invitations everywhere would bring more people I over here

That would be cool to know my great-great-great grandfather. I only have one grandparent alive.

And God probably needed them to live that long in the beginning. If these guys were able to have children from 20 to 600, that would fill up God's huge world a lot faster!

bcmom · Feb 21, 2014

Two things stood out to me as I read Genesis 5: the length of time people lived and that actually walked with God. I don't have any theories on why people lived so long then. But I was thinking to walk with God, literally not just spirtually, must have been a beautiful experience. So beautiful that our infinite minds can't even truly imagine it. We'll know that on the day that Christ returns and we go to heaven That's all I wanted to say. God Bless.

brinny · Feb 21, 2014

bcmom said:
Two things stood out to me as I read Genesis 5: the length of time people lived and that actually walked with God. I don't have any theories on why people lived so long then. But I was thinking to walk with God, literally not just spirtually, must have been a beautiful experience. So beautiful that our infinite minds can't even truly imagine it. We'll know that on the day that Christ returns and we go to heaven That's all I wanted to say. God Bless.

Yes, that is a beautiful meditation.......reminds me of the verse in Micah about what God requires of us.

This is a delightful meditation. THank you for sharing it.

bcmom · Feb 21, 2014

Thanks for having me in your study

graciesings · Feb 21, 2014

Ok, I'm a little late saying this - oops - but it's February 22nd now. Todays reading is Genesis 6. Here is a link to it: Genesis 6 NCV - The Human Race Becomes Evil - The - Bible Gateway Usually, I post a link to a more conservative translation, but this time I used a more "modern, easy to understand" translation. Why? Because most Bible translations keep measurements in cubits, but I get a lot more out of the Noah's ark story if the measurements are in feet.

If you are reading this out of your own Bible or are KJV only, I would encourage you to look up the measurements and find out how tall the ark would be in feet, yards, or meters. Whatever measurement you would use to measure your living room or back yard.

brinny · Feb 21, 2014

Chapter 6:

What loomed out at me in this chapter is God's intent, and from what is written, His intent was to wipe off the face of the earth all living creatures that had breath, including man, except for those (man and beast) on the ark. This brought to mind what i have seen and read regarding it being a "partial" flood. Sounds like a was a big-time flood that did as God said He intended, wiped out every living creature and man, except who and what was on the ark. This would not have happened with a partial flood.

Another interesting piece is in verses 1-2 where it seems to differentiate between "men" and "sons of God"......

and in verse 3, i wonder if the shortening of the years of men has anything to do with the beginning of verse 3 where God says that His Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: then He shortens man's years to 120 yrs. When God speaks of His Spirit, i wonder it ties into His Spirit being absent from man, and consequently His years are shortened, maybe indicating God's grace was removed or had been removed, from man.

daughter of man · Feb 22, 2014

Firstly sorry I've not posted in a couple of days but I read the chapters and your thoughts on them so thank you everyone. I thought brinny's post was really interesting so I'm going to attempt a quote for the first time ever

brinny said:
Chapter 6:

What loomed out at me in this chapter is God's intent, and from what is written, His intent was to wipe off the face of the earth all living creatures that had breath, including man, except for those (man and beast) on the ark. This brought to mind what i have seen and read regarding it being a "partial" flood. Sounds like a was a big-time flood that did as God said He intended, wiped out every living creature and man, except who and what was on the ark. This would not have happened with a partial flood.

Another interesting piece is in verses 1-2 where it seems to differentiate between "men" and "sons of God"......

and in verse 3, i wonder if the shortening of the years of men has anything to do with the beginning of verse 3 where God says that His Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: then He shortens man's years to 120 yrs. When God speaks of His Spirit, i wonder it ties into His Spirit being absent from man, and consequently His years are shortened, maybe indicating God's grace was removed or had been removed, from man.

I feel really sorry for God that He wants to destroy man at the beginning of the chapter. It's like his plan to give people free will has gone wrong though He mut have known it was going to happen. In fact it describes our struggle today of trying to please God but never being able and being led astray, thankfully today we have Christ to help us with that.

In my copy of the Bible the 'sons of God' are translated as three possible meanings, either that or 'gods' or heavenly beings. Probably like many others I think of them as angels but it does seem odd that as you say they are differentiated from humans. I suspect that wasn't the original meaning. I also wondered if the 'old legends' that they are said to inspire are for example ancient Greek myths like Hercules or maybe the dates are wrong.

Still it's a fascinating chapter and Noah did really well to build that ark.

graciesings · Feb 22, 2014

I wasn't sure about the "sons of God" either! I guess they could have been demons, but have wondered if they might be some kind of giants that are extinct now (thanks to the flood.) Maybe archeologists haven't found them yet or maybe we mixed them up with dinosaurs!

I have an interesting question as we look at this chapter and tomorrow's chapter. Were there fish on the ark?

I have heard some people say that salt water fish might not have survived with that much rain (fresh water) and have also heard people say fresh water fish might not have survived because of the salty seawater being mixed with the rain. Also, there's a chance the water would have been pretty dirty. So feel free to guess: Were there fish on the ark?

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Andrea411

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