Adam & Eve, the Apple, the Snake and the Apartment Kids

And Another Thing . . . The Perished Kingdom

We have started to tell “The Story of God” at church on Sunday and at a local apartment complex on Thursday nights.  We sent postcards to everybody in the complex, around 200 units. I have heard in church-planting circles that such mailings typically elicit a .5% response, which is exactly what happened. One person from the complex showed up. A few of our people gathered with this individual and we had a great conversation. That was week number one.

Tonight was week number two and our lone respondent returned. Then, as we got ready to begin our discussion, one of our crew noticed a bunch of junior high kids playing outside the clubhouse. He invited them to join us—and amazingly, they did. I asked them their names and a little about themselves. Most did not go to a church, some did not believe in God, and most had never heard the Bible story of the creation and the fall.  A few knew about Adam and Eve and a little bit about an apple. One said, “Maybe there was a snake.”

So we told the story. We told about how God created the world, about the garden, Adam and Eve, about the snake—the temptation by the devil. We spent a little time talking about how God immediately promised to send his son to crush the serpent’s head. I was amazed at how many of these kids stayed engaged.

They listened. Asked questions. Wondered if we’d be back next week. 

Oh yes, we absolutely will be back next week. 

In telling this story to kids who had barely or never heard it reminded me of how foundational Genesis 3 is to the whole Christian faith. The seeds of all that will follow are in this story. The beauty of creation is broken. God’s intended kingdom perishes and is replaced by death, pain and lies. The world that humans were created to inhabit is lost. They are exiled from the garden of God. The potency of the adversary’s lie changes the story arc. Man is aligned with a new father. John 8:44 says, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Before we swallowed the forbidden fruit, humans lived in a world of clarity. With the knowledge of good and evil came confusion. Before the Fall, man’s perspective and God’s perspective were one. There was no such thing as doubt. Satan asks, “Did God really say . . .” and doubt emerges into the world. The forbidden tree’s name, “good and evil,” implies choice. With choice comes confusion. When humans separate from God everything gets murky. Paul says, “. . .now we see through a glass, darkly. . . .” Now humans must choose. In a world where lies exist, every truth becomes suspect. 

The good news is that, in Genesis 3:15, God promises that man’s new father, the father of lies, will one day be crushed. The first hint of Jesus entering the world to save lost humans is predicted within minutes of the Fall. God moves immediately to rescue the world he loves. 

When Jesus appears on the scene he challenges Satan’s rule. In John 10:10 he says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” In John 10:15 he says, “. . . I lay down my life for the sheep.” And in John 14:6 he says, “. . . I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Truth is the way to life; the way to the Father. God overcomes the lies of the enemy with the truth of his son sent to crush the serpent’s head. Second Corinthians 5:19 says, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them.” 

God undoes all that Satan did in the garden.

In Genesis 3 God promises to rescue man from the destruction of the Fall. In Revelation, at the end of the story, Jesus declares, "Look, I am making everything new!"

I hope our new friends at the apartment complex will be back to hear the rest of the story. It’s a good one.

And that is all I have to say about that . . . for now!