Sw - Session 4

crisis

What Has Gone Wrong with the World? The Breakdown of All Relationships Session 4

article: the fall of lucifer: rebellion in the heavenlies e Story goes like this: Before the creation of humankind, when God created the heavens, he also created a divine society of spiritual beings, called angels or gods, existing beneath Yahweh and above humankind. ese spiritual beings, like human beings, clearly had a mind and will of their own. ey could choose to work for God and his vision of Shalom or against him. ey were, like human beings, morally responsible. Hence their decisions affected others, for better or for worse. Among them there was a powerful god-like being – apocryphal texts call this being Helel ben-Shahar or Lucifer in Latin – the captain of the vast legions of angelic hosts. e most beautiful, the most powerful of them all. e commander of the armies of God. e guardian of the glory of the Lord. “Son of the morning.” Glorious as the sun. Unequaled among his noble peers. Here is where the Story takes its first tragic turn – in the heavens! Pride entered Lucifer’s heart (Ezekiel 28:17). Instead of trusting God’s goodness he began to circle the idea that: “God is holding out on us!” Lucifer didn’t merely want to play a noble role in the story; he wanted the Story to be about him. He coveted the throne; he wanted to be the star. He wanted the worship and adoration and glory for himself. He rebelled against God and attempted to make himself like God (Isa. 14:12) and in so doing, he destroyed his relationship with his Creator and alienated himself from everything that was good, loving, just, caring, kind, respectful, The Integral Mission of the Church



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understanding and passionate. He alienated himself from anything akin to Shalom and became deceitful, disrespectful, hating, evil, unjust, corrupt and out to destruct everything good. rough treachery and deceit, he drew to his side one-third of the angels, and they rose up in arms against their sovereign Lord. And there was war in the heavenlies. And God had to take sides against a part of his creation which he had considered good and squelch the rebellion. On the basis of this opposition to God and his consequent opposition toward God’s special creation – human beings – he also got to be called “an adversary” (Hebrew for ‘satan’). is angel who had the greatest potential for good, who could have administered God’s loving plans for the whole cosmos, now functions as the supreme architect for everything contrary to God. His evil intentions pollute everything.

scripture study one: the essence of sin Scripture Study 1: e Essence of Sin In chronological order, study the following Scripture verses and discuss the questions as a group. Be prepared to share your answers with the entire group: Read Genesis 2:16-17 Here we have one of the first commandments that God ever gave to humans. What is the commandment that God commands? Look carefully at the text, noting exactly what is being said to whom, where, and when. So what does this first commandment tell us about who God is? Did God set up any advance charges or requirements for eating of the trees? If the only information we had about God was this first command, what would this call to ‘eat of every tree in the garden’ tell us about him. If this is how God reveals himself in this first commandment, how, then, are we to understand this second command: “You must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you it of it you will surely die”?

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Read Genesis 3:1-3 It is important that we understand who God is as portrayed by Genesis 2:16-17 if we want to understand what happened next. • • • • • • •

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Who is present in these verses? Who does the serpent represent? Who do the serpent and the woman talk about? According to the serpent, what was God’s first command to the humans? So how does the serpent perceive God? What do the serpent’s words and depiction of the Lord’s command tell us about the serpent’s image of God? How is God, according to the serpent? So what do you think of the woman’s response? How did she answer the serpent? Did the woman answer the serpent rightly? Read her response carefully! Sometimes, as we read the Bible, we need to pay attention to what a key character doesn’t say or do. e silences in the text (what the text does not say) are sometimes as revelatory as what the text does say. For example, in verse 6 further down, we read that the man was standing beside the woman as she was having the theological conversation with the serpent. Yet, he remained silent. So what do you think of the man’s response? Did the man answer the serpent rightly? Do these two responses sound familiar?

Read Genesis 3:4-5 Look at how the serpent responds to the woman’s theology. • How does the serpent depict God, according to these two verses? • Have you ever experienced or been witness to seeing how lies, gossip, and slander were used to separate a lover from the beloved, or a people from their leader, or a friend from another friend? • Does the serpent’s theology sound familiar to you? What of the serpent’s theology have you heard or believed? Read Genesis 3:6-7 Answer these questions. • What do you think finally led to humans’ first transgression? How do you see sin depicted? What is sin? • Doesn’t it almost seem like the first injustice ever committed was the one committed against God and that this same injustice continues to be committed against him again and again?

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group study two: the holistic scope of sin In chronological order, study the following Scripture verses and discuss the questions as a group. Be prepared to share your answers with the entire group: Read Genesis 3:7-13 • What did the man and woman do after they ate from the fruit? What does this tell us about their emotional, spiritual and ethical well-being? Why would they become ashamed of themselves? • Did the serpent’s promise come true? • Why did they hide from God? Why were they afraid? • Why would God call them? What is his questioning all about? • How do you see God portrayed in v. 11? As an angry judge, trying to pin down the defendant with a rhetorical question? Or as a caring parent, inviting the man to trust and giving him the possibility to openly and trustingly express what happened and return into relationship with God? Read Genesis 3:14-19 Was human’s relationship with God the only relationship that was broken because of this event? Take a sheet of paper and a marker. At the top, write, “relationships broken in the fall.” en read and list each of these verses. Next to the verse, write the kind of relationship broken because of sin. (Example: human’s relationship with the environment). • How is humans’ distrust and disobedience towards God affecting the relationship between: • serpent and humans? • man and woman? • humans and their work? • humans and the environment? • humans and self? • humans and God? • What did this event do to the relationships that God had created for humans? • How would you say have the relationships in each of these areas been distorted by sin? Group Reflection and Discussion Personal Evaluation: Evaluate brokenness in your own live—physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally. Discuss with your group members how sin has affected your own life and how many areas of life have been broken. The Integral Mission of the Church



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Community Evaluation: ink about brokenness in your communities— physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally. On a piece of paper list the broken relationships in your communities. Discuss with your group members how sin has affected your community’s life and how many areas have been broken.

article: the holistic dimension of sin Introduction e effect of sin, manifested in distrust and disobedience, ensured that human identity and all dimensions of human relationships would be marred. e scope of sin proved very broad – very holistic if you will. It touches every aspect of human life: marriage and sexuality; birth and death; work and food; human and nonhuman. In all of these areas, one could speak of death encroaching on life. Disharmony reigns supreme. It led to widespread deception, distortion, and domination in all forms of human relationships – with God, with one’s self, with one’s family, community and between others, with the environment, and with the systems and structures. So the formerly inherent goodness of all relationships was destroyed, evil entered the Story, and God’s own heart has been called into question. Let’s look more in depth at each of the relationships outlined in the graph on the left. How would you say have the relationships in each of these areas been distorted by sin? Humans and God Prior to the Fall, humanity’s relationship to God was one of open trust, but after the Fall it was one of fear. It is amazing to see how the image of God has been distorted over and over again and how many idols humanity has created to replace God. e image of God who created humans and sustains their life is distorted by an inadequate knowledge of who God is and what God wishes for all humankind. Let’s just list a few idolatries to make our point: Communism lasted almost a century and was one idol that claimed the lives of millions of people. Science, capitalism and technology continue to demand our faith and allegiance, claiming to save us from poverty and lead us to prosperity and well-being. Some people have elevated family as their God: upholding and defending the family’s honor and wealth is seen a person’s sole life purpose. en there are the tens of thousands of local idols – ranging from statues, to stones, to pictures, to animals, to plants etc. – in whom people place their trust. In his book, “Taking on the Gods” psychotherapist Merle Jordan states that misconceived perceptions of who God is, often lead to a distorted selfimage. When a person takes his or her identity from that which is less than God, then the sense of self becomes distorted. is kind of idolatry, The Integral Mission of the Church



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then, lies at the heart of most pathology and depression. Estrangement from God and his plans for them and the world, then, makes many people loose their sense of purpose and understanding of God’s vision for this earth Humans and Self (including their Work) We know we are not what we were meant to be. Most of the world’s religions concur on this point. It’s not just the obvious evils like murder and racism and betrayal. Each of us is fraught with fears and suspicions and petty jalousies. We are, above all else, self-centered – the very opposite of how the Trinity lives. You have loved God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength? You have loved your neighbor as yourself? Neither have I. In fact, humanity’s alienation from God has led to low self-images and self-destructive behavioral patterns on the one hand, and distorted or bloated self-images, God-complexes and arrogant behaviors on the other hand. For the poor their relationship within themselves is diminished and debilitated as a result of the grind of poverty and the feeling of permanent powerlessness. When people believe they are less than human, without the brains, strength and personhood to contribute to their own well-being or that of others, their understanding of who they are is marred. For the non-poor their relationship with themselves is diminished and their identities are marred by their willingness to dehumanize themselves for economic, political, educational or other gain. When the non-poor play god in the lives of other people, they have stopped being who they really are and are assuming the role of God. In terms of humans and their work: Instead of using our gifts to establish Shalom and bring about well-being for ourselves and others, work has been corrupted. It can be toilsome and frustrating. Work has become a commodity, something we sell and buy with the temptation to reduce the human being to an economic asset, a living machine. Work has become a tool for greed, and even an idolatry whereby one makes a name for oneself. Production and growth have become pathologically obsessive in many parts of the world. Covetousness has replaced contentment. e effect of the fall was that the desire for growth became excessive for some at the expense of others, and the means of growth became filled with greed, exploitation and injustice. e result of this pathology is the systems of poverty that keep hundreds of millions of people poor. Humans and Community/Others Prior to the Fall, the man’s relationship to the woman was one of unashamed acceptance, but afterwards their relationship was characterized by shame. We could cite multitudes of other examples to show how sin – i.e. mistrust – has destroyed the relationship between humans and Others! Just to name three examples: For one, instead of being considered equal to

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man, the fall brought about the gradual decline of the place of women in society as sex roles became increasingly rigid. Sexism and gender discrimination, which are so rampant in many societies, are a direct consequence of the fall. Considering the value of women as less than men is not biblical, it is sin. Secondly, broken relationships are a major cause of poverty: e poor are largely poor because they live in networks of relationships that do not work for their well-being. eir relationships with others are often oppressive and disempowering as a result of the nonpoor playing god in the lives of the poor. eir relationship with those they call “Other” is experienced as exclusion, since corruption, discrimination and injustice work hard at keeping them in their place. irdly, isn’t it distrust and destroyed relationships that are at the bottom of a plethora of wars and disputes which lead to the death of people (physical, emotional, spiritual and moral)? Humans and the Environment Instead of shared resources, land and natural resources have become a universal cause of strife and violence. ey are hoarded by some and squandered, abused and polluted by others. Land and natural resources have become the counters in games of domination and oppression. Claims of ownership over land and natural resources are privatized and made an absolute, ignoring the claim of God on all things in creation or the responsibility each has for the well-being of the larger community. Environmental degradation and economic inequality are the results. Another consequence is that nature no longer always reveals God’s will and person. Natural catastrophes etc. now have dominion over us. is is important to see, because if we accept nature as God’s will (hurricanes, sickness, death, crop failures, Tsunamis, earthquakes etc.) this will fatalistically lead us to identifying nature and God, creature and creator. Looking to nature, we encounter both a deterministic and a capricious God. Humans and the Systems Often, in their analysis of the fall, pastors, theologians and Bible teachers stop at this point. It is to our demise, however, since we need to understand the next point, in order to really make sense of all of the dimensions of evil on earth. Sometimes, evangelicals get so focused on the impact of the fall on the individual that they forget that the impact of the fall was on the whole of human society as well. Remember that the nations and their corresponding social institutions were part of the creation narrative. So let’s also look at the impact of the fall on human society, its systems and structures. e thrones, dominions, and powers, which Paul says were created by God – these social systems and structures (economic, political, religious) were profoundly distorted by the fall. e

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result of the Fall therefore is much more far-reaching than just impacting individuals. e spiritual nature of the nations and its human institutions, business, church, family, and government, all created for good, become increasingly anti-life, anti-kingdom, and evil. e people, embedded in these distorting, deceiving, and dominating systems, themselves become exploiters of each other. eologian Walter Wink says, “Human misery is caused by institutions, but these institutions are maintained by human beings. We are made evil by our institutions, yes; but our institutions are also made evil by us.” He goes on to say: “An institution becomes demonic when it abandons its divine vocation – that of a ministry of justice or a ministry of social welfare – for the pursuit of its own idolatrous goals,” usually by serving the powerful in the name of self-preservation. Distorted by the fall, people occupying positions of influence within the economic system, for instance, now act more often as owners and less as stewards. ey skew the system to enhance and protect their own selfinterest and insulate themselves from the impact of these distortions from the less fortunate. As a result of the fall, the political system becomes captive to the economic order and begins to serve the powerful; its ministries of justice cease being either ministries or just. Finally, the religious system too often colludes with the fallen political and economic systems. e prophets, priests, pastors and teachers of a nation’s values and spirituality are gradually seduced by money, power, and prestige – gradually becoming silent. When human institutions and systems are permeated by sin, taking on an evil life of their own, we call that structural sin. Conclusion God had intended that humans would use the attributes of his image to serve others and creation. Indeed, God created a beautiful world destined for Shalom, and it was always his intention that human beings should look after it on his behalf. Instead, humans acted selfishly. ey did what they wanted, rather than what their Maker had purposed. Humans distorted the image of God, and this distortion has continued through human history, leading to untold suffering, oppression, exploitation and control.

homework Read “God’s Initial Rescue Efforts Continued” and study the Scripture Study 1 within it as homework. Can’t find this document.

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application journal

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endnotes BASICS Wholistic Discipleship: e Image of God BASICS Wholistic Discipleship: e Image of God Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer, 12-13

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