Im Back!

Hey everyone! I’m back. I know I know, it’s been like 3 months since I’ve blogged. But here’s the thing, I have decided to rededicate myself to blogging by keeping myself on a very strict schedule. From now on, at a minimum, I will be posting something new (and hopefully interesting) each and every Friday. I could do more through the week, but Friday will be the standard day for the blogs.

This time, I’m back with purpose. I’m helping Harvey answer some of the questions that were texted in during the service last weekend. Here are some of your questions and my answers.

Q: Does the tree of life, as well as the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, maybe refer to an analogy of some sort?

A: First I have to be sure that I understand the question. If you are asking if the tree’s are not actual but analogous in nature – then the easy answer is no. The trees are real, and we know that because the text gives us no reason to believe otherwise. Many have said that these trees sound mythological so they must be, but the Great Wall of China doesn’t sound realistic either and we all know that it exists. Come on, a wall that big that can be seen from space, I don’t believe it!

If you believe that the trees are real but are asking if they double as analogous to something else – Maybe, but that’s surely not the point of the trees. They are actual trees that serve an actual purpose in the designed plan of God, and their purpose is very clear in Scripture.

Let’s look at another one.

Q: If man has a sense of God in them, then doesn’t that contradict total depravity?

A: I’m not sure how it would. By “sense” I assume you’re referring to the image of God in man. The image is broken by the fact that we are born totally depraved, but the image is not removed completely. Keep in mind, there is a difference between “total depravity” and “utter depravity”. We are born totally depraved in that we are not righteous on our own because of sin and we need God’s righteousness (Romans chapter 3). But we are not born utterly depraved, which is the idea that man can do nothing good. We do things that are good as an extension of being made in God’s image even thought the image is broken.

Next question.

Q: Adam and Eve’s kids have to have sex with each other to multiply the population?

A: Yes. It is repulsive today to marry siblings, but God did not make a law against it until the time of Moses. The issue of deformities of the children would have been a non issue because the reason that some children of sibling parents have deformities is because those siblings have the same genetic defects that they received from their parents, and the defects then become magnified and passed on. This early in the line of this family genetic defect would not be an issue because Adam and Eve didn’t have any. It takes many generations for defects to gain potency.

It is impure today to have such incest – but since there were no moral, legal, or genetic problems in the days of Adam and Eve, and since this was the only option, this has to be what happened.