Genesis 3: Bible Storying for Muslims: Dr. Cashin Lecture
Dr. David Cashin delivered a series of lectures on chronological Bible Storying for Muslims during a CIU course. Here, Cashin presents the second lesson on chronological bible storying of Genesis 3 with Muslims.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. David Cashin Lecture:
The following is lesson 5 in chronological bible storying for Muslims. Today, we wanna look at our second passage that we will be studying as we move through the Scriptures with our Muslim friends. So this is really study number 2 from the Bible that we want to do in our chronological Bible story. And we’re gonna be looking at Genesis chapter 3 verses 1 to 13. I would encourage you if you want, you can put this on pause just for a minute and take a minute or 2 to read through that passage.
It should be very familiar to you. I’m not going to read all of it. That would take a lot of time and I really just wanna be going through some of the high points here and pointing out specific verses, that you should be paying attention to. So take a moment if you will, put this on pause, read through Genesis chapter 3 verses 1 to 13, and then, start this up again and you can have a look at my interpretation of this passage as specifically applied to the kinds of questions that our Muslim friends will have. Really the story of Genesis chapter 3 is the story of broken 1st of all, the broken relationship of humankind, that is men and women to God, and then secondly the broken relationships of men and women as their own fellowship is broken down, as the bonds of trust and of obedience that are necessary to a good relationship, are destroyed.
Let’s take a look at the temptation of Satan as it’s found in the first, 5 or 6 verses of Genesis, chapter 3. First of all, in verse 1, Satan questions what God has said. He he says quite quite bluntly, has God said such and such? As if somehow humankind has not fully understood God’s purpose. And, then in verse 4, he lies to them, saying, oh, no.
No. No. You shall surely not die. But what will happen if you eat of this fruit? Well first of all, you’ll be like God, I.
- You’ll have power. Now remember that one of the key elements of the stories of creation, power, and destiny is first of all they explain where we came from and our purpose for being and then it explains how we obtain power or success in this life and then ultimately what our destiny is. Now what Satan does here in chapter 3 of Genesis is first of all to cause human beings to get a different focus for power. In the faith that the Bible teaches, power flows out of right relationship.
When people put the power itself first, that becomes manipulative religion. And in many ways, I see Satan’s temptation here as the beginning of all folk religious ideas, I e power doesn’t flow out of your relationship to God. Power flows out of your being able to do special rituals and practices that will empower you and enable you to be successful in this life. And so basically Satan is saying to Adam and Eve, you can be like God. You can have power apart from relationship to God.
And he also talks about this hidden knowledge. You will know good and evil. You see somehow you’ve missed out on something. You’ve missed out on some secret stuff that God has kept hidden from you, but you can know good and evil if you’ll eat of this fruit, disobey God, and, seek if seek for this new knowledge. By the way, you’ll notice that all other religions are shot through with ideas of obtaining occult knowledge, secret stuff, special rituals, manipulative religion by which you can obtain power.
And, and this is the core of all folk religious ideas. It’s laying aside the reality of intimate relationship with God in favor of secret rituals and knowledge relating to the spirit world, relating to power beings through which we become empowered and are successful in life apart from relationship with God. And Islam has shot through with this this idea. Sufism is very much built on the idea of a cult special knowledge by which you become powerful and are able to control your circumstances apart really from relationship to God. Well what happens when we break the bonds of trust that are foundational to relationships?
Well, first of all, Eve is tempted by the beauty of the suggestions as human beings always are tempted by the occult. Witness the fascination in our own culture with the occult today, whether it be the vampire Buffy the Vampire Slayer or whether it be, these various witch or occultish type programs. They’re very very because they don’t involve relationship. They involve power and manipulation apart from the accountability that comes through relationship. And so Eve takes these suggestions.
She takes of the fruit and she gives to her husband. Generally speaking, we don’t know where this is leading us like the fellow in the picture here who perhaps has some sense of where this temptation is leading him. Adam and Eve didn’t realize what they were getting into. As they disobey, they create distrust of God. Most importantly because the trust relationship is broken down now.
They’ve questioned what God has done. They’ve questioned the efficacy and the rightness of it, and they have rebelled specifically against his, rules for them. Actually just a single rule. And secondly, their mutual encouragement to disobey sows the seeds of distrust between people as well, and we’ll see that played out as we come to the next part of Genesis chapter 3. So So the consequence is what?
Broken relationships. That’s the whole point of the Bible. Broken relationship with God, broken relationship with each other. We see that first and foremost in the area of shame in verse 7. They desire to cover their actions and cover their nakedness.
By the way, Muslims really understand and are spoken to by this point particularly. Westerners will tend to focus on a verse that comes later that indicates guilt, because we have a guilt based culture, in the West. But in fact, the Bible teaches both shame and guilt, and Muslims come from a culture that’s much more shame based. They’re much more a cue, have much more acumen or understanding for this aspect that shame and the desire to cover up your actions, becomes a real expression of the reality of sin and broken relationships. So don’t hop over verse 7.
It’s very important to talk about this whole area of shame. Secondly, there’s separation in verse 8 as they hide from God in the forest. Why are you hiding? God has to come and say, where are you? What happens when we break relationships?
Well, that shame causes us to run away, to hide, to break off our relationship. And then finally, fear in verse 10. They fear the consequences of their actions. They’re afraid, they say, when God speaks to them because they were naked, and of course God goes right to the point of saying, why are you fearful? Why are you full of shame? Genesis 3
Have you eaten of that fruit that I told you not to eat? And so in verse 11, they have to face the guilt as well, and this is where westerners will tend to focus on verse 11 and the reality of guilt for the sin that they’ve accomplished. But God, causes them to face up to their actions, both their guilt and their shame, confronts them about what they have done, and notice immediately that they play the blame game. Verse 12. Adam, what have you done?
Oh, it’s the woman. She’s the one who made me do it. And Eve, what have you done? Well, it was the serpent the are broken. So the vertical relationship with God is broken.
The horizontal relationship between humans is also broken. These are the consequences of sin and we see it in the world all around us. And this is a point at which many Muslims will be able to relate fully. We’re not talking about original sin here because Muslims as well as even our own Western culture seem to think that original sins means that we’re all as bad as we can possibly be, you know, which is a misunderstanding of the Calvinistic idea of total depravity. As John Stott once put it, and I think he put it very well, the original sin of man has nothing to do with us being as bad as we can possibly be, but that none of us are as good as we should be, and when we fail, as we all do, it breaks relationships. Genesis 3
And one of the great questions that the rest of the Bible really is about is how do we reconcile to each other and how do we reconcile to God. Well, God makes a promise of restoration. But before we get to that promise of restoration, let’s also talk about this area of the law because Muslims think that God has created us for testing to, see if we will keep his laws and be acceptable to him. Well, we like to argue at this point that the law was not meant to restore relationships. The law is only a litmus test of the relationship.
It cannot restore us. And so we’ll often say if God created us just to keep the law, well how many laws did he give to Adam? Well, just one. Was he able to keep it? No.
And when he broke it, was he able to avoid the consequences despite all of the other good things he might have done in walking with God? According to Muslim tradition, he walked with God for 380 years before the fall. How is it that all those other good things that he might have done were not able to outweigh even this one sin? Well it’s simple. Sin breaks relationship, and when the relationship is broken you just can’t come back with a pot of flowers like a husband who’s offended his wife and say, see honey, I brought you flowers.
Now, aren’t you gonna accept me again? Well, frankly, something has to be done about the broken relationship. Adam was not able to keep that one law and he could not avoid the consequences of breaking it. Something else has to be done in order to restore us to right relationship to God. And that’s why you find the promise in verse 15 that an offspring, a seed of the woman, would come who would bruise the serpent’s head, someone who would crush Satan’s, actions in leading humankind into sin.
And we always wanna finish with that because beginning at verse 15 of chapter 3, we begin to see God’s promise of redemption, his promise of a restored relationship with himself. And really, that’s what redemption is about. It’s about God restoring us to right relationship with himself and he promises here in verse 15 that he will some send someone who will crush Satan’s head, who will defeat what Satan has done in terms of separating humankind from relationship with God. So these are the main points that you will be covering in Genesis chapter 3 as you study with your Muslim friends, and, it will be very interesting to hear what kind of questions they raise at this point. And again, remember you can get in touch with me at my email dcashindcashindcidot edu and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have or you can also call me at 803 807-5326.
That’s 803 area code and then 80753 26. Blessings on you as you continue in this work.