When crops fail, famine strikes, or drought occurs, what are your thoughts about God’s involvement in such things?

If you lived back in biblical times, you might think that the gods were angry at you, and that to appease their wrath, you needed to offer a blood sacrifice.

People don’t do this today, but many of us still think that when bad things happen, it is because God has neglected us, or worse yet, is out to punish us for something. So we pray, and tithe, and cry out to God for forgiveness and mercy. Strangely, this response is not that much different from the ancient pagan religious practice of offering blood sacrifices.

In both cases, we think God is mad at us and needs some sort of sacrifice or offering to love us and forgive us and accept us once again.

In this One Verse Podcast study, we look at Genesis 1:11-13 and see that God doesn’t want blood and He doesn’t want tears. All He wants is for us to know how much He loves us.

Stick around to see how Moses teaches this by writing about plants, trees, seeds, and fruit.

The Text of Genesis 1:11-13

Genesis 1:11-13. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.

In this discussion of Genesis 1:11-13 we look at:

* Why Moses wrote so repetitively about plants and trees reproducing after their kind.

* What the ancient Canaanites believed about how plants and trees grew.

* How God’s creation of plants and trees shows us that He is only looking out for our good.

Resources:

* Theology.fm – Helping you and your theology look like Jesus

* Baal Cycle on Wikipedia

* Another version of the creation of the world by Marduk

* Collins, Genesis 1-4 – Amazon or  CBD

* Fretheim, NIB: Genesis – Amazon or CBD

* Hasel Article on Genesis 1

* Johnston Article on Genesis 1

* Kidner, Genesis, Amazon or CBD

* Ross, Creation & Blessing - Amazon or CBD

* Walton, Lost World of Genesis One, Amazon or CBD

* Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.