Year 4, Day 4: Genesis 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: People of Peace, Octagon

• People of Peace: A person of peace is someone whom God has prepared to hear God’s message through you.  God does all the work of preparing that person for your presence in their life. Because of this preparation, these people will like you.  They will listen to you.  They will serve with you as you live out God’s calling for your life.

In this passage, I believe we see two examples of the person of peace principle.  One of them is a negative example.  The other is very much a positive example, although it is quite a generalized one.

Let’s take the negative example: Cain.  Cain killed his brother.  He was guilty of impiety (v. 3), anger (v. 5), deception (v. 8), murder (v. 8), falsehood (v. 9), self-seeking (v. 13), and self-alienation from God Himself (v. 16).  Of course, we all sin.  So Cain isn’t really guilty of anything more than I am guilty or even that Adam and Eve were guilty.   So here is where the Person of Peace mindset comes in. 

We see that when their children are born, Adam and Eve still give praise to God.  In spite of their sin and being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve recover and continue to have a relationship with God.  Cain, however, is not prepared to learn from their example.  At any point Cain could have admitted his sin, accepted the consequences, repented, and turned back to his relationship with God.  But he does not do so.  He is not willing to receive that testimony out of his parents’ lives.  So his sin divides him from God because he does not allow God to prepare his heart.

However, at the end of the chapter we hear that Seth is born to Adam and Eve and Seth himself has a child.  At this time other people begin to call upon the name of the Lord.  Adam and Eve – in spite of the failure of Cain – are not hindered by that scenario.  They continue to look for people that they can teach to see the value of having a relationship with God.  They continue to look for the people who are open and in whom God has prepared their hearts.  The result is great.  People begin to call upon the name of the Lord.

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