These passages contain the first recorded encounters between human beings and God outside the Garden of Eden. In chapter four, there are alternating accounts of human sin (4:3-5; 4:8-10; 4:23-24) and God’s actions of grace, judgment or justice, provision, and salvation (4:6-7; 4:11-15; 4:25).
God created one part of his creation in his image and full of his breath. Human beings were given the capacity to create, to make decisions, to think, to love, to have relationships, and have dominion over the rest of creation. This included the choice to obey or disobey God’s command to avoid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disobedience damaged God’s entire creation.
After creating them, God looked and saw that each part of creation was good (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). As he looked at everything together as a whole, he saw “it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Human beings were given the responsibility to tend, care for, and exercise dominion over the rest of creation, not to own or exploit.
In Babel, motivations of self-glorifying arrogance and fear of insecurity and isolation prompted the building of a tower. Instead of trusting in God for his provision, they chose to “play god” or become like God, as in the Garden of Eden (3:5, 3:22).
Bangkok, Thailand – Twenty-four young people from the Eurasia Region joined more than 200 other developing Nazarene leaders from all six regions for the Third Wave conference in Bangkok, 3-8 January.
