As soon as God created the first man, He offered him three gifts: the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8), food (Genesis 2:16), and the woman (Genesis 2:22).

Read Genesis 2:15-17. What is man’s duty toward creation and toward God? How do these two duties relate to each other?

The first duty of man concerns the natural environment in which God has put him: “to tend and keep it” (Genesis 2:15, NKJV). The verb ‘avad, “tend,” refers to work. It is not enough to receive a gift. We have to work on it and to make it fruitful — a lesson that Jesus will repeat in His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The verb shamar, “keep,” implies the responsibility to preserve what has been received.

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The second duty concerns his food. We have to remember that God gave it to humans (see Genesis 1:29). God also said to Adam that “you may freely eat” (Genesis 2:16, NKJV). Humans didn’t create the trees, nor the food on them. They were a gift, a gift of grace.

But there is a commandment here, as well: they were to receive and enjoy God’s generous gift “of every tree” (NKJV). As a part of this grace, though, God adds a restriction. They should not eat from one particular tree. Enjoying without any restriction will lead to death. This principle was right in the Garden of Eden and, in many ways, that same principle exists today.

The third duty of man concerns the woman, God’s third gift: “man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (Genesis 2:24, NKJV). This extraordinary statement is a powerful expression that highlights human responsibility toward the conjugal covenant and the purpose of being “one flesh” (NKJV), meaning one person (compare with Matthew 19:7-9).

The reason it is the man (and not the woman) who should leave his parents may have to do with the biblical generic use of the masculine; hence, perhaps, the commandment applies to the woman too. Either way, the bond of marriage, though a gift from God, entails human responsibility once the gift has been received, a responsibility that rests upon both the man and the woman to fulfill faithfully.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.

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Do we have to believe the biblical account of creation on “blind faith”? Or is there solid scientific evidence for the biblical account? Thomas Purifoy Jr. provides some evidence for you to evaluate in the documentary Is Genesis History?  If you will click on the link, you will find an introduction and overview as well as extra resources below the film. I believe the film is worth the 1 hour and 45 minutes that it takes to watch. So set aside some time for this.

Before you begin, it’s helpful to know that the Seventh-day Adventist view differs from the view presented in a key aspect: We do not believe that God created the whole universe by divine fiat on the “first day” of Genesis 1 – only this earth or solar system. (You decide.) So we are not burdened with having to explain how we can see star light from stars millions of light years away on our young earth. But the video is very good in going over the main lines of scientific evidence and seems suitable both for the average person and the scientifically inclined. I was happy to find this documentary available for free on Youtube and share it with you here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM82qxxskZE]

After you watch the video, we would love to have you post your comments or questions below. 

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You can view an in-depth discussion of The Creation; in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:

With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.

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The creation of humans is God’s last act of Creation, at least in the Genesis account. Humans are the culmination of the whole earthly creation, the purpose for which the earth was made.

Read Genesis 1:26-29 and Genesis 2:7. What is the connection between these two different versions in regard to the creation of humanity?

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That God has created humans in His image is one of the boldest statements of the Bible. Only humans have been created in the image of God. Though “God made the beast of the earth according to its kind” (Genesis 1:25, NKJV), “God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27, NKJV). This formula has often been limited to the spiritual nature of humans, which is interpreted to mean that the “image of God” is understood to signify only the administrative function of representing God, or the spiritual function of relationship with God or with each other.

While these understandings are correct, they fail to include the important physical reality of this creation. Both dimensions are, indeed, included in the two words “image” and “likeness” describing this process in Genesis 1:26. While the Hebrew word tselem, “image,” refers to the concrete shape of the physical body, the word demut, “likeness,” refers to abstract qualities that are comparable to the divine Person.

Therefore, the Hebrew notion of the “image of God” should be understood in the wholistic sense of the biblical view of the human nature. The biblical text affirms that human individuals (men and women) have been created in God’s image physically, as well as spiritually. As Ellen G. White clearly comments: “When Adam came from the Creator’s hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker.” — Education, p. 15.

In fact, this wholistic understanding of the image of God, including the physical body, is reaffirmed in the other Creation account, which says that “man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NKJV), literally, “a living soul” (nefesh), as the result of two divine operations: God “formed” and God “breathed.” Note that the “breath” often refers to the spiritual dimension, but it is also closely tied to the biological capacity of breathing, the part of the man that was “formed … of the dust of the ground.” It is the “breath of life”; that is, breath (spiritual) and life (physical).

God will later perform a third operation, this time to create the woman from the body of the man (Genesis 2:21-22), a way to emphasize that she is of the same nature as the man.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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