Genesis 2:8-17

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TALKS FOR GROWING CHRISTIANS

The Garden of Eden; the Test of Man’s Obedience

BACKGROUND NOTES



DOCTRINAL POINT(S)

  1. In the beginning, God gave man paradise with responsibility.

  2. In the beginning, God gave man work without sweat.

  3. In the beginning, God gave man freedom within limits.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

  1. Let God design the perfect place for you.

QUESTIONS

  1. What two things does the description of the garden of Eden challenge us to remember?

  2. Read Genesis 2:8-9 and Ezekiel 28:13. After reading these verses, how would you describe the Garden of Eden?

  3. Should we expect to find the long-lost Garden of Eden?

  4. What were the two areas of responsibility given by God to man?

  5. When did work become laborious and difficult?

  6. When will the curse be removed? Will it be like it was before the curse?

  7. Were the trees in the Garden of Eden real trees or symbolic trees?


ANSWERS

  1. a) The Garden of Eden existed before the flood in Noah’s Day
    b) Moses, the inspired author of Genesis, wrote this account in about 1500 B.C., a good 2500 years after the Garden of Eden.

  2. It is a wonderful place. It was the Garden of God, designed and planned by God for man’s pleasure.

  3. No, because the world-wide flood of Noah’s day was a global catastrophe, and the earth’s topography and geography would have drastically changed.

  4. a) To tend and keep the garden
    b) To obey his Creator.

  5. Man was designed by God to be active, to work and to serve. But after the fall of man, the work became difficult. Before the fall of man the garden was not threatened by thorns and thistles and weeds. But after the fall, part of the curse was that there would be sweat associated with work. Man would have to toil and labor to subdue the earth.

  6. When the Lord returns there will be no more curse. See Revelation 22:3. When the curse is removed there will be service, but no sweat. That’s the way it was in the beginning and that’s the way it will be when the Lord returns.

  7. They were real trees.

DISCUSS/CONSIDER

  1. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the midst of the garden. Which tree was off limits to man? Why did God put this tree off limits?

  2. Eating from the forbidden tree was an act of disobedience. What were the results of this disobedience?

CHALLENGE

  1. Let God design the perfect place for you. God prepared the Garden of Eden, a perfect place for man to live in and to work in. God designed it specifically for Adam, knowing all about him. God knows all about you - your strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. He knows the best location, the best job, the best friends, the best of everything for you. Are you letting God design the perfect place for you? In what ways may you be hindering His design?

KEY VERSES

  • “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” Genesis 2:8

  • “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded him, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17

Genesis, Old TestamentRon ReidGENESIS 2:8-17