According to the Bible, what is wrong with the world is not a lack of better government, education, or technology.
The Bible is unapologetic in its claim that what is wrong with this world is
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But here we'll explore broken relationships as one of the consequences of sin in depth.
One of the most profound consequences of our rejection of God is in our relationships.
Having worn so many different masks before different audiences, we eventually find ourselves asking:
as we come to see that there is
Even as we succeed in impressing others with our well-managed image, our inner
We hide behind carefully
– each fitted for different social settings.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
The moment Adam & Eve rejected God, their conscience caused an uneasiness that they could not resolve.
Their awareness that they had violated something fundamental brought a
regarding themselves, experienced as a shameful sense of “nakedness.”
Suddenly they found it necessary to
with fig leaf coverings that protected them from the gaze of God and even from each other.
We experience this too as a general sense of
We know that our true selves must be disguised. Like Adam and Eve, we can also feel the need to put together "fig leaf coverings."
How much can you relate to this?
Not only do we become alienated from ourselves, but we find it hard to relate to others.
After the Fall in Genesis, the once loving Adam points the finger of blame at Eve, triggering the note of discord that will only get louder and louder in the coming generations.
In the very next generation, Adam’s son Cain kills his brother Abel.
Read an excerpt of the story of Cain and Abel below.
Cain spoke to Abel his brother.
And when they were in the field, Cain
ROSE UP AGAINST
his brother Abel and
KILLED HIM.
And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
So Cain was
VERY ANGRY
and his face fell.
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground
and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore
CAIN...
And again, she bore his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.
Cain spoke to Abel his brother.
And when they were in the field, Cain
ROSE UP AGAINST
his brother Abel and
KILLED HIM.
Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
So Cain was
VERY ANGRY
and his face fell.
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground
and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.
I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.
And again, she bore his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore
CAIN...
Where is Abel your brother?
I do not know.
Am I my brother's keeper?
What have you done?
The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
Like Cain, we too
with others...
...sizing each other up to see who is taller, prettier, stronger, wittier, or smarter.
We can’t simply rest before others but must either feel superior or inferior.
We do not find it easy to adjust to other people. We tend either to despise them or to envy them, to have either superiority or inferiority feelings… Sometimes we are full of self-pity, at other times of self-esteem, self-will or self-love. […] All this is due to man’s sin. We cannot trust each other. We need protection against one another. It is a terrible indictment of human nature..
This competition fuels our world.
Wanting to be special or better than others, it's easy for us to lose sight of each other's humanity. Instead, people begin to be reduced to their externals.
Most of us have at some point seen that there is something fundamentally wrong with our world. Moreover, when we are honest, we can sense that there is something not quite right with ourselves.
For centuries, reformers have tried to fix our world.
SOLUTION #1
discoveries have lengthened our life spans.
SOLUTION #2
continues to expand with the hope that better-informed people will behave better.
SOLUTION #3
The past century saw unprecedented increases in
but it was the same century that witnessed more war and destruction than all of the previous centuries combined.
It is encouraging to feel that progress is making us automatically every day and in every way better, and better, and better—but does history support that view?
War, poverty, inequality... the list goes on
According to the Bible, what is wrong with the world is not a lack of better government, education, or technology.
The Bible is unapologetic in its claim that what is wrong with this world is
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was a victim of the terrors of the Soviet prison camps, expressed this very idea:
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being
Our trajectory began when we dethroned God from our lives. It began in the Garden of Eden but has been repeated in each and every human life born thereafter.
It’s your story and my story.
We peer into what the Bible is depicting and, in a sense,
We, too, find it intuitive to live as if we created ourselves. We are naturals when it comes to playing the role of "god" in our lives.
In our world today, it's much easier to assume, without much investigation, that the world is devoid of anything spiritual or supernatural, that God is not there, and if He is, He is remote and unknowable.
The personal sovereignty we won from God, however, turned out to be a mixed blessing.
we're left with an unmet inner yearning to be known and loved. In walking away from a relationship with God, we can feel like orphans in this world.
And yet, as we look, it seems we have arrived here by our own choice.
This picture of being spiritual “orphans” is sobering and bleak. Perhaps that’s why so many of us find it uncomfortable to reflect on topics like this.
And yet the Bible calls us to consider these weighty issues: life, death, our spiritual condition. Someone once likened our modern lives to Christmas trees.
People live as if the ornaments are what deserve all of our attention and efforts.
All through our short lives, we “decorate” ourselves with the ornaments we hope others will admire.
What is your personal response to this week’s material?
For further reading, a PDF version of Chapter Two can be found here. For more, please see below for stories of people on how they experienced the consequences of sin.
