First Lesson: Genesis 3:8-19

Theme: Changing images of God

Exegetical note: God is portrayed here as anthropomorphic, finite in knowledge (those are not rhetorical questions!), excessively punitive (penalizing unborn generations), jealous of divine prerogatives (knowledge and life), and perhaps even deceptive, in that the predicted consequences of the eating the tree - sudden death - did not result: as the serpent had rightly predicted, the man and woman did not die in that day, but instead got the knowledge of good and evil. Freed from doctrinal presuppositions, modern sensitivities will feel at least some aversion to such a view of God.

Call to Worship
Leader: We gather to worship a God beyond imagination, whose majesty exceeds our minds’ abilities.
People: IN EVERY AGE, THE FAITHFUL …