Week 28, Day 2: The Garden of Eden

Today’s Reading:  Genesis 2:1-25

Some thoughts from the reading…

I like to garden.  I live in a small house in the middle of town, with not much space in the yard, but I still plant a small garden.  We have a few vegetables in there, which do better some years than others.  I am constantly learning, trying to make my garden produce better than it has in the past.  I have to put a lot of work into the garden if it is going to grow.  Often, when I am in the garden, I think of what it must have been like to be in the Garden of Eden.  In Genesis chapter 1, we saw how everything that God made was good.  Everything grew, everything produced.  Adam and Eve had the perfect environment.  Conditions had to be perfect!  I am sure that they didn’t have lime their soil to get their garden to produce better.  They didn’t have to make sure that they had the right amount of fertilizer, and they didn’t have to make sure that they watered everything properly.  Don’t forget that God did give Adam instruction on how to “tend and keep” the garden, so Adam had to work.  But, it had to be a much different environment than what we have today.  I know that I don’t keep the weeds out of my garden like I should.  I had to dig out huge rocks from the soil to be able to till it up and grow crops.  I wonder how perfectly deep brown (almost black, perhaps?) the soil was when Adam and Eve were in Eden?

And yet, with all the perfection given to them, Adam and Eve still were disobedient to God!  We are getting a bit ahead of ourselves, and we will talk about this more later, but I think it is important for us to realize what they had available to them when they were disobedient to God.  This seems to indicate that people are always looking for something better, no matter what they have!  Adam and Eve had perfection in the Garden of Eden.  It doesn’t get any better than that!  And yet, they were willing to walk away from it all on the promise of something that they perceived to be greater.

Not only was there perfection in the Garden, but there was innocence.  This concept is conveyed in Genesis 2:25.  Adam and Eve were naked, but they were not ashamed.  It was not until their innocence was taken away by their sins that they were embarrassed by their nakedness.  They had the only opportunity to live in a sin free world.  The world will never be as perfect as it was in those first few days following the creation.  But, that perfection (and far greater) will be realized when we are able to make it to heaven and enjoy the reward that God has prepared for us!

We see in our reading (Genesis 2:16-17) one of the first commands given by God to man.  As we progress our study into chapter 3, we will see that this is the beginning of the downfall of man into sin.  The rest of the Bible story will be the redemption of mankind from the results of his disobedience.  Sin enters the world, and God spends much time and effort to redeem man from that sin.  Tomorrow, we will discuss in further detail the sin of Adam and Eve.

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