Worshipping God on Our Own Terms? Thinking Christian about the Cain and Abel Narrative

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. Today is our weekly devotional and we're going to be looking at Genesis 4. Genesis 4 is normally referred to as the Cain and Abel narrative, and many of us are probably familiar with this narrative. We know the story. We understand what's going to happen, and so it becomes easy, I think, to misread some of these narratives. And in fact, I would say that the heading in my Bible that I'm looking at right now says Cain and Abel. And I think that's probably a misnomer. It's a very traditional way to refer to this passage. But I think if we really look at what the tension is in this narrative, it's not anything between Cain and Abel. Abel is normally what's referred to as an agent in this narrative. He is there. He's necessary to advance the storyline, but he really has no particular characterization. We don't get to hear from Abel, for instance. He has no speaking part. The only thing that we really know about Abel is his profession and that he brings an appropriate sacrifice. Then he's killed by Cain. But if we look at the way the interchanges work in the narrative, it's almost always Cain talking with God. And so I'm going to suggest that we think about this narrative in terms of Cain and God, not Cain and Abel. Now, the narrative is going to flow, and a lot of times what we hear about this narrative is that Cain was jealous of Abel. I wouldn't deny that there may have been some jealousy between Cain and Abel. I mean, Abel does offer the appropriate sacrifice. Cain's sacrifice is rejected, and so maybe there was some jealousy that sprouted up there. But I think that if we read this just in terms of jealousy, we're really shorting the narrative in a lot of ways. It doesn't explicitly say that Cain was jealous in Genesis 4. And so what I'm going to argue is that there's different motivation here, that Cain is trying to do something other than get past his jealousy. This is not a fit of rage for Cain to kill his brother Abel, you know, or a fit of jealousy. It's not that. And so as we read this narrative, what I want us to do is to think through some of the interpretive difficulties and then ultimately to come to a conclusion that maybe we can think about how does this apply to our lives. So we're going to begin with Genesis 4.1 here, and we're going to see that it gives us a few different background elements that are going to come in handy as we interpret this narrative. We're going to need to know some things about these characters and really understand how this narrative is trying to connect everything together for us. So it begins with, now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And so there's this recognition, number one, that Cain is a child that has been given to Eve from the Lord. Now, if we remember back in Genesis 3, what we see is that part of the curse that comes after the fall is that there will be toil and difficulty in childbearing. And so probably what we're seeing here is a reference sort of back to that and recognizing that Eve is acknowledging the difficulty here and that this is something of an appreciation and attribution to God that he is still with this human couple even after the fall and that in recognizing that God has given her this gift of a son, that's really important to this narrative. And we'll see it come back again later. So we won't do much more with it right now, but it will come back again toward the end of the narrative. And then in verse 2, and again, she bore his brother Abel. So they have two children, Cain and Abel. Now we get to hear what these two brothers do with their lives. Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. Now, when we get to these two different professions, Cain being a worker of the ground and Abel being a keeper of sheep, there have been a lot of people who suggest that the offerings that the two brought have to do with, you know, what it is that they're doing, their profession. So Cain brings the... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. You know, some of the fruit from the ground that he's brought up, he brings a plant offering, and Abel is going to bring a meat offering. And some people have pointed to that and said, look, this is the problem, that Cain gets stuck with the ground, Abel gets the sheep. God likes the meat better than he likes the plants, and so this is the problem. I'm not suggesting that their professions aren't significant in the narrative. I think they probably are. And yet, I don't think that's the reason they're significant. So when I look at Hebrew narrative, one of the things that I think about is the fact that it is fairly brief. You know, if we were reading English literature or even ancient Roman poetry like the Iliad, we would expect to have pages and pages worth of detail. We would understand what these characters looked like, what they were thinking, their upbringing. We would have a lot of detail because that's the sort of literature it is. These other periods of literature really do provide a greater depth of detail. But Hebrew really doesn't. Hebrew narrative is fairly terse. We have no idea what these characters look like. We don't know how tall they are. We don't know what color hair they are. We don't know a lot about them. And so every detail is fairly significant. So what we have here is what these two men do. Abel is a keeper of the sheep. Cain is the worker of the ground. Now, when we see in verse 3 that they're going to bring an offering, I think it's important for us to recognize the terseness or the general lack of detail in Hebrew narrative and the way that these two offerings are described. So it says in verse 3, in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. That makes sense. Cain is a worker of the ground. And so it makes sense that he's going to bring God something out of the ground. This is not an inferior offering in and of itself. It's not inferior simply because he brings it from the ground, in other words. It just makes sense. That's what he does. That's what he's going to bring. And then in verse 4, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. That description of the offering, I think, is important because it offers greater detail into what that offering was. Cain's offering, all we know is that he brought some from the fruit of the ground. But Abel's, we know that he brought from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat portions. And so we get greater detail there. It's like one is in standard death and one is in high death. And so I think that that difference, the difference in the description of the two offerings, is actually what the problem here is. It's not that Cain brings from the ground. That makes sense. He's the worker of the ground. And it's not that Abel brings meat, a meat sacrifice, because Abel would bring a meat sacrifice. He has sheep. The difference is that Cain just brought some from the fruit of the ground and Abel brought from the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. And we find out in the back half of verse 4 that the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So in other words here, what we've got is we've got these two men bringing an offering. One brings an appropriate offering, one that is honoring to God and recognizes that all he has is from the Lord and brings the best of what he can possibly bring. And then the other man bringing just some of the fruit of the ground. In verse 6, we find that the Lord is going to talk with Cain now. Cain is frustrated that he's not, his offering isn't accepted. And so what does the Lord say to him? He says, well, Cain, why are you angry and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Now, let's just take a minute and think about this interchange. It's not really an interchange, I suppose. Cain doesn't answer back. His answer comes when he kills his brother Abel. But what we

He does know how to do well. He does understand how to bring an appropriate sacrifice. He just didn't bring one. And then God goes on and says, and if you do not do well, so if you do what you know you're not supposed to do, then sin is crouching at your door and its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. So what I think the real tension here is this. Cain wants to worship God on his own terms. Abel is willing to worship God on God's terms. And so Cain has choices now. God's choice that he gives to Cain is to say, listen, if you just bring the right sacrifice, if you bring the sacrifice that is on my terms, not on your terms, it'll be accepted. Nothing against you, nothing against the, you know, the fruit of the ground. Just bring the offering that you know to be appropriate and on my terms, not on your terms. You worship me on my terms. That's what God is really saying here to Cain, I think. Cain is looking at it and he's saying, well, God, yeah, those are my two options. I have to either worship you on your terms or continue worshiping you on mine. And, you know, you continually dismiss my offerings, but maybe there's a third rail. And what I think Cain is doing here in relation to Abel is he's eliminating the competition for the sacrifice. He wants so much to worship God on his own terms that he ends up killing Abel, who is the other person who is offering sacrifice so that God no longer has an option. In other words, if God has these two men who are bringing him offerings, one appropriate, one inappropriate, God loves the appropriate one, hates the inappropriate one. Well, if I can eliminate the appropriate one, I'm in good shape. God's only got one choice left and he'll take whatever I give him. And so this is why I think this narrative is about Cain and God. Cain is trying to manufacture a situation where he can worship God on his own terms. And so in verse 8, we see him take action on this. Cain spoke to his brother Abel and that when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. So again, we have this return of the ground in relation to Cain. Cain is a worker of the ground. Now Abel's blood is coming from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground in verse 11. So again, the ground features in this problem that Cain has created for himself because it has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. It will no longer yield its strength to you. You no longer have a profession. What you had before, what you wanted to hold to yourself, what you decided not to bring me, what you wanted to bring me just some of, that's all gone now. You're not going to get the strength of the ground for yourself. And then he says, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And so Cain's, I think Cain's plot here, what he's trying to do is to squeeze God into accepting his offering. What we find here is that Cain loses everything in trying to do that. So no longer, not only does he lose his brother, which he's not overly concerned about, he is now banished. He can no longer really worship the Lord. He's not going to be a proximity to the Lord. He's going to be banished from the ground. He's going to be banished from the land. The ground loses all its strength. What he had going for him, he no longer has anymore. And in trying to worship God on his own terms, in his desperation to continue that, he's lost more, far more than he ever would have lost if he'd just given an appropriate sacrifice. And so this is the oddity of the Cain narrative. Now it continues, and God is going to give a mark to Cain. Now this mark of Cain, you may hear people talk about this in a lot of different ways. What I would just say is, no one knows what the mark of Cain is. My tendency, if I had to take a real guess at this, it probably has something to do or is similar to some of the things we see with the tefillin in Deuteronomy where people are going to wear these frontals on their head. The priest wears something on his forehead. You have something similar happening in Ezekiel where people are marked and they're marked out as not to be punished. You have these sort of different markings. And so it's some sort of visible sign that was intended to mark Cain off as under God's protection to a degree. God doesn't want Cain just to be murdered. And he promises Cain that if someone does murder him, that he will take vengeance sevenfold. And so the Lord puts this mark on Cain and then Cain goes off away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod. That away from the presence of the Lord is where I'm getting that idea that Cain really is no longer in a position to worship God at all anymore. In trying to worship God on his own terms, he oversteps and is now driven away from the Lord's presence. And so we see this in Genesis 3 where the human couple no longer can commune with God in the same way that they used to. They have to leave the garden. There's a disbursement away from the centralized presence of the Lord. We're seeing something very similar here with Cain. Now in verses 17 through 24, we actually see a little bit of what happens to Cain. Cain gets married. He bears some sons. And we get down to a gentleman named Lamech. And Lamech is, we're told, has two wives, Ada and Zillah. And he ends up with this little poetic song in the middle of this. And what I think 17 through 24 is really doing is it's showing the degradation of Cain's line. In choosing to try to worship God on his own terms, Cain loses more generationally than he gains. And so what we find with Lamech is that this sort of crescendo of what's happening with Cain's line. Because he says that he's killed a young man for wounding him, a young man for striking him. That's verse 23. And then he says if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77 fold. And it's this sort of boastful moment where he is taking on God's protection and taking pride in killing these people. But really, it's just a boast. And so Cain's line ends with Lamech, not technically, but in this narrative. It ends with Lamech who has two wives, which is sort of a signal that he's not living right. And he is claiming that he is far better or far more innocent than Cain ever was and will be avenged 77 fold. And so we're seeing this degradation, this downward spiral of Cain's line. Now, verse 25, we circle all the way back. And what we find in verse 25 is sort of something of a mirror image of what we saw in 4.1. In 4.1 again, it was now Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And I said we'd circle back to this. And so as we're reading verses 25, what we see is this. And Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, where Cain killed him. Now again, what I'm arguing for is that this narrative is really about Cain and God. That this is about Cain trying to eliminate his competition, Abel, so that he can worship God on his own terms. There are a number of reasons, and as we get into the application phase of our devotional this morning, we'll talk a little bit about this. But what I think really sends this interpretation home for me is verse 25. Is that Abel is replaced. What Cain was trying to do in killing Abel, he doesn't accomplish. God is not going to be squeezed into a, you know, accept my offering or get no offering sort of a situation. God has no limitations. And so the obstacle that Cain tried to put in place, God just overcomes. He gives Adam and Eve another son. And more than that, it says in verse 26, to Seth also was born a son and he called his name Enosh. And at that time people...

and to call upon the name of the Lord. And so unlike Cain's line, now Seth has Enosh. He replaces Abel, has Enosh, and people begin to call on the name of the Lord. And so we see a true replacement for Abel, who was the one who brought the appropriate sacrifice, who was truly trying to honor the Lord. Now his replacement, Seth, is a true replacement who, at least in this short genealogy, this little generation that we have here, we see the beginning of people calling the name of the Lord. So overall, in this narrative, I'm arguing that Cain is not jealous of Abel. That's not the basic problem that we face here. The basic problem we face here is that Cain wants to worship God on his own terms. And he wants to do that so badly that he's willing to kill his brother to do it and try to manipulate God into accepting his offering because God has no other options, no other choices. And what we see here is almost a cautionary tale to say, no, God will be worshiped on his terms or he will not be worshiped at all. God is not concerned about getting rid of Cain. He's not concerned about getting squeezed into, you know, he's not going to come back to Cain and be like, hey, you got me. Good one. You killed your brother. He was the one who's offering the appropriate sacrifice. I guess I'll take yours now. That's never going to happen. And so this narrative reminds us, it reminded the Israelites before us, but it reminds us as well, that God is only ever going to be worshiped on his terms. And he doesn't need us to try to redefine what it means to worship him. He's given that to us. We know what it means to worship the Lord. We know what it means to glorify him and we're consistently trying to do that. But a lot of times we do try to address God on our own terms. We want God somehow to conform to our conception of what it means to be. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty. More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579 right? We want, as I'm kind of prone to say, we want God to live in our world as opposed to us living in his. We want to define what's right. We want to define what's just. We want to define what is appropriate and inappropriate. We want to do all that. And then we want God to conform to that. But that's getting it exactly reverse. We want to be conforming to God's image. We want to be conforming to the image of his son. We want to be worshiping God on his terms. And so that means that these desires that we have that aren't aligned with God's word, we're constantly trying to drop those off and adopt the desires of Jesus Christ. That's what it means. And so we can make in some small way the mistake of Cain in thinking that we can squeeze God somehow into allowing us or accepting worship on our terms as opposed to accepting worship on his. And so we need to be careful about that. We need to make sure that we are addressing God on his terms, that we are consistently trying to conform to him as opposed to trying to make him conform to us. Because I can guarantee that when God starts to look more like us, we are creating a God that doesn't exist. Yes, I think that creation points to God. I think that we point to God. We reflect the glory of God into creation. But that does not mean that God should conform to our image. Not at all. It means that as we're reflecting that glory, we're posturing ourselves. We're adopting a posture that is really defined by God. He is the one who is saying, no, these are my terms. When you position yourself like this in the world, my glory will reflect off of you. But what we often want to do is we want to say, I positioned myself now, Lord. You should make your glory shine off me. We get into those little bubbles sometimes and we have to make sure that we're trying not to do that. This is the story. This is the lesson, I think, that Cain and the Cain and God narrative, Cain and Abel narrative, is really trying to teach. It's trying to teach us that if we are going to worship the Lord, it always happens on his terms. And so as we try to think Christian, I mean, this podcast is called Thinking Christian. And part of my conviction is that our minds should be not formed by a logic, in other words, a logic of the world, but by a theo logic, by a way of thinking that consistently seeks to honor, point to and glorify the triune God. And a lot of times that happens when we set aside what conventional thinking sort of suggests that we should do and instead obey God. And this comes at the heart of what Paul talks about when he says that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. And so we have to start thinking these things through. But the ploy that Cain tries to pull off here is a great picture of the way that sometimes we try to squeeze God so that he will support what we want him to do as opposed to looking at God and saying, I should just do what you want me to do. So as you go through this week and you're thinking about this passage, maybe maybe come back and reread it. But just think about the dynamic between God and Cain. God is giving him an out to make an appropriate offering and Cain refuses it because he's so committed to worshiping God on his terms, on Cain's terms, that he's unwilling just to do right by God. And there are areas in my life. I'm sad to say that I think I do this sometimes. And so we need to examine ourselves and really think about where is it that I'm trying to force God to meet me on my terms as opposed to setting those things aside and me meeting him on his terms. Thanks, everybody, for being here this morning. Please check out some of the resources we have at useful to God dot com. Be on the lookout for some of the free pieces that we're going to be offering in an upcoming campaign. We've got one on making decisions, making everyday decisions for God's glory. That'll be coming out here either in August or September. We've got a great piece on the website right now called Becoming Useful to God. And we've just added several other courses that you all should check out if you're interested in growing spiritually. I think we've got some really great content from myself and from several other academics who have taken the time to sort of pull these things together so that people can understand the Old Testament, the New Testament and these various other topics that we've got our courses on. All of that is available at useful to God dot com. And also just encourage you to subscribe to the podcast if you will take the time to do that. And if you want to leave a positive review on Apple or one of the other platforms that helps us out a tremendous amount. So thanks for being here this week. Let's end in prayer and we'll be back with episodes on Tuesday and Thursday and probably a bonus episode on Friday. Let's pray. Lord, thanks for your word. Thanks for the time that you give us to study. We ask, Lord, that we would approach you on your terms and not on our terms so that we may be conformed more closely to the image of your son. That is our desire because we know that we are to point to and glorify the triune God with all we are and have. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Take care, everybody. We'll see you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to LifeAudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. In a world where relationships are easily broken and often discarded, the Rebuilding Us Marriage Podcast is your lighthouse guiding the way to hope, restoration, and transformation in Christ. I'm your host and marriage coach, Dana Shea. Join me as we discuss the necessary tools for rebuilding marriages from adversity, betrayal, and disconnection. It's time to reignite love as we rebuild marriages from the ground up. Listen to the Rebuilding Us Marriage Podcast on LifeAudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.