Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents
Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation
[Bible references: Gen 3:1-7]
To be creatures designed in the image of the transcendent creative, loving God, we needed the kind of independence that could allow us to choose who or what to love – or not love – and to be free to imagine and create wildly new and different things as proper for God’s image-bearing creatures. We were free to do this in a place where everything was very good and designed so that we could flourish. However, that very freedom which gave image bearers the possibilities of independent thoughts, also gave those image-bearers the opportunity to also confront temptation.
While the image-bearers were given the opportunity to meet with God and to walk with him in a specially designed garden, they were also allowed the opportunity for questions. They could even question the motives of the God who made them:
- Was something good being withheld from them?
- Were they being deprived of some power?
- What would be available to them if they violated the restriction?
- Would they actually die?
- What special knowledge were they being deprived of – particularly this knowledge of good and evil?
- Everything they had encountered had been good, why would their thinking about violating this one restriction not be good?
- Was the Creator so good anyway?”
Reflect
It seems to be part of human nature, to be suspicious of those things or those people who are different than us. The question is, when does doubting someone else’s motives become an act of sin?
Observe
Read Genesis 3:1-7.
What did the woman choose to trust when she chose to eat the forbidden fruit?
Dancing In The Kingdom 