Fathers in the Bible: Cain – A Sweet Father

Fathers in the Bible: Cain – A Sweet Father

Fathers in the Bible: Cain – A Sweet Father And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of…

Fathers in the Bible: Cain – A Sweet Father

And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. – Genesis 4:17

Interestingly, we are starting the fathers in the Bible series with Cain, a bitter and murderous individual who killed his own brother for no good reason and was thus banished by God.

It is important to refresh our minds about the objectives of this particular diet of Daily Dew, it is primarily devoted to highlighting the persons and entities in the Bible by spotlighting their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and vices, their good and bad sides, so that we can appreciate their humanness and, perhaps, learn from their examples.

By beaming the searchlight on the good and the bad sides of biblical characters, we infer that no one is absolutely perfect, without their fair share of flaws, and that no one is absolutely wicked, without some good attributes to them. Hence, the case of Mr. Cain, who was the first person to build a city and the first father to immortalize his son.

From the reference passage above, even after being punished by God and being condemned to a life of fugitiveness and vagabondage, Cain still did something worthwhile with his life. He built a city. He did not just build this city, which he was not destined to live in for long before being harassed to vacate it (remember he was now a fugitive and a vagabond), he also named the city after his son, Enoch. Now, isn’t that sweet?

Cain obviously still has many critics today who would call for his head for the heinous act of murdering his innocent brother. However, even with the weight of his sin, the guilt and the verdict of God upon his shoulders, he still gave himself no excuse for indolence but went ahead to build a city!

While getting land to build a city in his days must have been easier than today, building a city in his era, using crude tools in the absence of modern tools and equipment we have today, must have been a harder endeavor. This challenge, notwithstanding, Cain was still able to build a city, and he showed his affectionate and sweet side as a father by naming the city after his son, and not after himself.

No matter what we think of him, that surely represents a challenge to any of us who may want to play the judge over him. Perhaps, we may not have enough ground to denigrate this his achievement unless we have a better result to show, pointing at what we have built compared to what he did, even with the limitations he had to contend with.

Selah!

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Women in the Bible: Eve and the Paradox of Sharing

Women in the Bible: Eve and the Paradox of Sharing

Women in the Bible: Eve – A Woman that Shares So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and…

Women in the Bible: Eve – A Woman Who Shares

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. – Genesis 3:6

Our lesson from Eve today will focus on her sharing quality. She was a giving woman who did not hoard from her husband. How was that good? Please read along.

It takes love to give (John 3:16) and it takes a good heart to share what you could have kept for yourself alone. Eve demonstrated her love for her husband, Adam, by sharing the fruit she ate with him rather than kept it to herself alone.

Hindsight has helped us to know that she really did not do well by eating the fruit in the first place. However, without the benefit of knowing the consequences of her action, one can see the good heart of Eve as she demonstrated her affection for her husband by giving him the fruit to eat.

How is this so? The Bible says she ‘saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise’. These are all positive features that she decided to share with her husband instead of holding back. No matter what we think of her, she meant well by sharing what she thought was good stuff with her husband.

If the whole fruit-eating scenario had turned out well and hadn’t boomeranged on she and her husband’s faces, she would have been commended for her good nature. But because it did not end well, it is easy to castigate and blame her. However. the fact remains that she meant well for her husband by sharing the good, pleasant and desirable fruit with him, rather than kept it for herself alone and be helping herself to it secretly.

Another point is that, knowing that the said fruit would result in enlightenment, as it would make her wise and help her know what was good and what was evil, she wanted this for her husband as well, and that was why she shared it with him, so that they would both be wise and enlightened together. She could have opted to be the enlightened one in the family alone while the husband languished in ignorance. But she did not choose such privilege for herself alone. She wanted it for herself, and she desired it for her husband as well.

For a heart like that, you cannot fault much.

Selah!

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