Genesis 2 – What is the Source of Our True Value?

God finished His work that He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and made it Holy because on it God rested from His work that He had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth.

With no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground. A mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. The Lord God planted a Garden in Eden in the East and there He put the man whom He had formed.

Out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that it is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the Garden. They divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon. It flowed around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold and the gold of that land is good. Bdelium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. Its the one that floats around the whole land of Kush. The name of the third is The Tigress, which flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man saying, “you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Then the Lord God said, “it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God has formed every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all livestock, to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept took one of his ribs, and closed up its place with flesh. The rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.”

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife. They shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was more craftier than any other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “did God actually say you shall not eat of the tree in the garden?”

The woman said to the serpent, “we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the Garden, but God said, “ you shall not eat of fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the Garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”

But the serpent said to the woman, “you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened. They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the Garden, but the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

He said, “who told you; you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?”

The man said, “the woman, whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “what is it that you have done?”

The woman that said, “the serpent deceived me and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent, “because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”

To the woman He said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” Remember that. “And he shall rule over you.” That is not a good thing.

In this reading and discussion of Genesis, chapter 2 Brandon delivers a message regarding human value, among other topics.  What is the source of our value?  Listen to the full message…