Genesis- How not How long

Wednesday, September 16th
 
Read Genesis 5 (yes, I know, it may be a struggle- but what do you notice? What stands out? BTW- don’t worry about pronouncing the names, it doesn’t matter)
 
This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind”  when they were created.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father[b] of Enosh. 7 After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. 10 After he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 After he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 After he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah[c] and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
 
What did you notice? What stood out to you?
 
First quick observation, what do we do with the names and the numbers? There are ten generations from Adam to Noah, on both lines (Cain and Seth). Simply put, there’s no point in doing mathematic gymnastics to figure out dates and times. In part, remember this is a Jewish rendering of the creation story. There were scores of other stories, but one in particular was the Sumerian Kings list, which is the Babylon genealogy of the kings of Babylon and their reign. I won’t get into it all, but if you want to Geek out do a comparison between the biblical genealogies and the Sumerian King list.
 
Truth is, there is a balance between interpreting this passage symbolically and /or actually. People way smarter than you and I are split on understanding how this works. Besides genealogies during that time, in comparison to how we understand genealogies, are different.
 
Which means, we need to go back to the question we’ve been asking along the way, what should get our attention? Two things I want to draw your attention to, first what was consistent with every name? Regardless of their name or how long they lived.
 
They were born and they died. I know, I know some of you are like “duh, captain obvious.”
Pay attention to what we’ve been studying all along.
 
Remember God gave us life and breathed into us, then assigned us to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:7). Simply put, birth = life = blessing. (Hold that thought)
If we keep reading, Genesis 2:17, God’s command was to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if we did, we would surely die. Genesis 3 the evil serpent deceives Adam and Eve, they eat and the “curse” takes place. They don’t necessarily die a physical death, even though there are limitations put on our life, they die also a spiritual death. Simply put, death = curse.
 
The first thing I want you to pay attention to is that within the course of life, we have life and death, blessing and curse, but you already know that. But that’s my push, what do we do with that?
 
How do we respond to both blessing and curses? How do we respond to life and death? How do we respond to ease and challenge?
 
So many times we believe goodness based upon circumstances, versus seeing goodness based in the character of the creator.  How many times do we need to see struggle, not based upon God punishing, or devaluing, or not loving, that hard things (curses in life) are a part of life and it is holding onto God’s character in the midst of those hard things?
 
We will spend a bit more time on this tomorrow, but sit with that struggle of blessing and curse, life and death and how you respond within life.  As you do that, take a listen to this song as well.  Goodness of God