Bible Study Genesis Part 37-Naked and Afraid

The moment Adam and Eve eat the fruit, they do not feel powerful, enlightened, nor free. They feel exposed. They panic. And they hide. We slow way down in Genesis 3:6-8 to ask why “the knowledge of good and evil” immediately produces shame, fig leaves, and fear of the Lord’s presence and voice, and why that ancient scene still feels painfully modern. 

Along the way, we wrestle with the strange line “they knew that they were naked” and why it might be more than a simple clothing issue. We also talk about how to ask honest questions of the Bible without turning speculation into doctrine, and why real curiosity about Scripture is not trivia, it is a sign that you believe God is real and His Word has bearing on your life. If you are not “there yet,” we also address how to pace yourself so growth stays steady instead of overwhelming. 

Then we pivot to a bigger discipleship issue: the thin version of Salvation that stops at “I’m saved.” We argue that Salvation has a purpose, to glorify God by shining a light on what He is truly like, and we connect that to 1 Peter 3:15 and the call to be ready to give an answer for the hope within us. We also point to John 16:13 and the Holy Spirit’s role in guiding believers into truth, pushing us from milk to meat so we can mature and actually help build the kingdom. 

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Transcript

Why God’s Word Comes First

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Resurrection Week And Real Priorities

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That's why some of the more evangelical, Bible-believing churches won't even use the word Easter. They'll use the word resurrection Sunday or something similar to that. Anyways, whatever you want to call it, I hope you spend some time thinking about Jesus this week, thinking about what he's done for you, thinking about what where you would be without him. Because let me tell you, it's a scary thought. That's why you should only think about the word of God. And well, what about all those social issues? What about all those things going on? What about all the injustice? Believe me, if Christ is in everyone's heart, we'll have none of that. That is the truth. Teach them how to love Christ, and loving each other will just be a result thereof. All right, that's the end of my soapbox.

Reading Genesis 3:6-8

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Let's get to our Bible study. We're still in the book of Genesis. We're in the third chapter. Right now we're sort of stuck on the sixth verse. Let's do it again. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, let me switch my screen here. Hang on a second here. And the woman, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Verse 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife had hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Can you imagine how tragic that was for them? They used to love to hear his voice coming. They used to love the thought that they would have fellowship with him. Now sin stood in their way. Tragic. There's no other word for it. Again, as I said before, we could preach on these two verses for months and we just might. It seems like we can't get off of them. But let me just point out a few more things. One

Knowledge Gained Through Disobedience

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thing we can be sure of is that the moment they ate of the tree, they did indeed receive the knowledge of good and evil. Not a surprise like we said last time, because it's right there in the name. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yep, that's exactly what happened to them. So they now have the knowledge of good and evil. And let me repeat this also. This was something God did not want for his children. God did not want for us to know the difference between good and evil. Can you imagine the peace? The peace that we would have not worrying about good and evil? Just think about that. That's what God wanted for us. Now, here's the ironic part of this story. They receive the knowledge of good and evil by doing something evil. That's always how it is. The only way we can procure something that God did not intend for us is through sin. Never think that Genesis has nothing to teach you. This ancient book that's written about ancient times feels very modern. I think we're discovering that more and more as we go through this intense study, at least I hope we are. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They distrusted him. And so the first thing that comes to their now open minds, the first thing that occurs to them now that they know good and evil is that they're evil. The first thing they realize about good and evil is that they're evil. Probably not what the what they expected. They thought they were going to feel like gods. But the thing their newly expanded minds seemed to be most aware of was that they did something wrong. Something evil, not a good start. And they reacted as exactly as you and I, non-gods, would act. They

Panic After Seeing God’s Goodness

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panicked. Now, why did they panic? Now listen to this. Because the second thing they learned, the thing they learned after realizing they were evil is that God isn't. Nearly at the same time that they discovered that they themselves were evil, they discover that God is good. And any true knowledge of good and evil reveals, especially to those that are evil, that good will always conquer evil. It has to. The two cannot coexist. And the fact is, good is more powerful than evil because God is good and the devil is evil. That also happens to be the hierarchy of power. First is God, second is the devil. Therefore, good is more powerful than evil. Therefore, good will conquer evil. And since God's goodness is so pure, it naturally prevents the approach of any amount of evil. Now that they know they were evil, now that Adam and Eve knew they were evil, now that they knew good would always conquer evil, they assume they were a marked target. Back to the story. Their

Nakedness And The Fig Leaves Question

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eyes were open. That just means their minds were open. Some say their conscience became activated. I'd probably agree with that. Their eyes are open and they immediately sense that they were naked. Now, what does that mean? Of course, we all think it means they perceived that they had no clothes on. Well, what's sinful about that? God created them without clothes. He had them walking around without clothes. Would God insist that his children do something that was inherently sinful, whether they know it is sinful or not? I really have a hard time believing that. There has to be more to this than just a sinful lack of clothes. Yes, I know they reacted to their guilty conscience by trying to make something to cover themselves, but was that because they thought they were sinning or by being naked, or thought they were sinning by being naked, or just that their appearance seemed naked to them and they wanted to cover up? It's a very odd thing when you think about it. What's wrong with being naked when there's only the two of you and God around? He certainly shouldn't care that they were without clothes. Again, that's how he created them, and that's how he intended them to be off into the future, right? At least that's how it would seem. They shouldn't have been embarrassed to be around each other naked because they were both naked. It's by definition a no-judgment zone when you're both in the same condition. I gotta tell you, it once again seems like we're not getting the whole story. This intrigues me a little. Is there something else going on here? It just seems like a lack of clothes is not the real issue.

Asking Hard Questions Without Pretending

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And by way of warning, since we aren't getting the whole story, if we're going to try to analyze this, anything else we come up with from here on out is speculation. It's not biblical and it should not be counted on as truth. Well, you may then be thinking, why bring it up? Well, that's a good question, and this is really my only answer. In general, when something tickles our fancy, it means we want to know more about it, and we only want to know more about the things we believe in. I don't really want to know more about Bugs Bunny than is presented to me on Saturday mornings, and I love Bugs Bunny, always have. But to be honest, even I'd feel a little silly asking questions about a cartoon rabbit. All of the Looney tunes are about fictional characters, and there's no other information about them than what's presented to us on the screen. There's no backstory to these things because they aren't real. And we all know that. We're not going to go after more information in things we don't know. And even if there is a backstory, that too is fictional and therefore unimportant to me and you and every other living being. Asking intriguing questions about scripture means you care about it and you want to know as much about it as you can. And we only have and we really only have a drive to do that for things that are real and have some bearing on us. This isn't a G Wiz curiosity. Nobody really thinks this is G Wiz information. If this is not fascinating to you, then it's momentously boring. There's nothing in between. People are not just casually interested in the Bible. It's either you want to know every single bit or you don't want to hear anything. This isn't, as I said, gee whiz. This is a vested interest. And so we should be asking probing questions about the Bible. Scripture is important to us and it has a tangible meaning in our lives. But John, someone may say, I'm really not there yet. I can barely understand what's there now. How am I going to grasp anything more than what I've already been told? First of all, I get that. Not everyone is eager to know more when they're still struggling to learn what they've only been introduced to. It's okay. Pace yourself. But trust me, if you keep at this, if you're not afraid of the information, if you practice making this real to you, the curiosity will come. As your love for God grows, you're going to want to know more about Him. Pretty soon you're going to hunger for every tidbit you can get. And your response may be well, I already love the simple truth of the gospel, and that's all I can handle. And really, that's all I want.

If You Love God You Want More

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For those of you that don't know, my wife is always with us when we're doing these Bible studies. She's of vital importance to me in my personal life. I simply love her. I love being married to her, and I love the relationship we have. So I'm going to ask her, honey, how would you feel if you came up to me and started telling me something very important from your life that I didn't know already? And I said to you, now, please, please don't tell me anything complicated about yourself. I just, I guess I want to know your name and where you were born and how good you are at cooking vegan lasagna. I'm not, it's not that I'm not interested in you. It's not that I'm uninterested in you. I mean, I love you, but I don't really want to burden myself with too much knowledge of who you are. I'm completely satisfied with what I do know. And if there's anything else, well, I'll just ignore that because it's not important to me. I know what I know, and that's all I want. If I said that to you, how would that make you feel? You'd be hurt, wouldn't you? You'd be offended. In fact, you'd probably question whether I really loved you. I mean, based on my response, it appears all I got into this relationship for was for your ability to satisfy my whole food plant-based meal needs.

Salvation Means Glorifying God

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I would say the number one problem that the rank and file Christian has in our day is their complete lack of understanding as to the meaning of life. And more specifically, their complete lack of understanding as to the meaning of salvation. Most people think to be saved only means they can go to heaven. Some may say to avoid hell, but I don't think a lot of people worry about hell anymore, which is also a big mistake and also a result of a lack of understanding, but maybe that's a subject for another day. So back to my point or my subpoint. I actually am a bit confused myself. Anyways, we'll work our way back. Most people have the wrong idea as to the purpose of their salvation, and because of that, they aren't really interested in learning anything other than the mechanics of how to be saved. That's one of the reasons why this ministry has never had more than a handful of followers at any given time. You know, you can hop on YouTube and look at the statistics of some brain-dead makeup expert and see that they have millions of people who hang on their every word. And then make your way over to our sorry page and see that we only have 24 followers. I had 25 in my notes. For some reason, we've lost one since then. We have only 24 followers, and of those, zero check in more than once every two months. And listen, I know I'm not a dynamic speaker. I know I'm not a great speaker, but I don't believe that's the reason we're not well received by the world. It's our content. For some reason, the deep things of God are just not important to the vast majority of people out there, and that includes the most church-going Christian you know. I hate to say it, but most of you who visit here with us live or otherwise follow this Bible study, don't move do much more than hang out with us on Wednesday nights from 7:30 to 8. And I'm thankful for that. Don't get me wrong. But a half hour a week is not going to get much of the kingdom's work done. Now, I know I don't normally get like this here, and I know we're trying to get our way through the book of Genesis, but I'm hoping that I can challenge you to take a good long look inside and see how much you really do love your Savior. I mean, how much do you really know him? What do you know about his father? Is he is he talking about me? I feel like he's talking directly to me. Listen, look inside. Ask yourself, ask yourself these questions. What do you know about your place in the kingdom? Have you ever asked God what you could do for him? Now, judging from what I see, most of you are just happy hearing a verse or two of Bible teaching every once in a while, and not much more than that. John, why are you being so mean tonight? I don't know. But all I can say is you can gauge the depth of someone's love for another by how much they're interested in who that person is. What does God mean to you? What does your salvation mean to you? But more importantly, what does your salvation mean to God? What did he get when he chose you? Someone he can count on, or someone who he has to constantly motivate to do something, anything. What's your point, John? There is a reason for your salvation. You were saved to glorify God. And what are you doing to meet that responsibility? Well, what does that mean? What does it mean to glorify God? Well, at its most basic, as it's used in the Bible, glorify means it comes from a word that means to shine a light. When you want to see something clearly, you shine a light on it. When you want someone to see what's going on over there in the corner of the room, you shine a light on it. When you glorify God, you're shining a light on him. When we are glorifying God, we are presenting to the world and to the heavenlies what God is truly like. When we glorify him, we're showing forth his qualities. That's our responsibility. Well, how are you going to fulfill that obligation if you know nothing about him? Now, I'm going to argue that part of our duties as God's servants, as the slaves of the Most High God, as children of the Father, is to prepare ourselves for realizing and executing our purpose. And the only way to do that is to get to know God. 1 Peter 3:15. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. That means dedicate a place in your heart that God deserves, not the smallest corner, not the darkest corner, the part that He is worthy of. Dedicate it in your heart. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Now that this is going on much longer than I intended it to, and I was hoping we could talk about the Adam and Eve's condition, but I don't think we're going to get to it. That's fine, I'm finishing.

The Spirit Prepares Us To Answer

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When God saved you, his plans for you started to take effect. Though he had been doing so all your life, once you entered into his family, he really stepped up his efforts to prepare you for your purpose. One of the ways he's equipping all of us for our mission is sending us his spirit, which we receive immediately upon salvation. Remember, Jesus described it. Jesus himself described that to us, and at the same time gave us the reason as to why he did so. He said in John 16, verse 13, howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. Why would he do that? Why would the Spirit go to that much trouble? Why is he going to come down off of his throne? Because we have to, and I'll quote it again, 1 Peter 3:15, we have to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear. And the Holy Spirit is directly involved in helping us do that. In fact, he's the one that does do it. But we must not push them away. We cannot be obstacles to the work of the Holy Spirit. We have to be out there ready to do what he asks us to do, what his mission says he must do and we must do. Listen, there's no way you're going to be able to build up the kingdom if all you can say is that you're saved. I'm saved. What does that mean? If you have no answer, you're not helping anyone. You must go beyond the basics to be useful to God, to be prepared for your life's mission.

Moving From Milk To Meat

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Paul called the basics of the gospel the milk. You know, babies can't handle any food that's too strong. You can't plop down a T-bone in front of a baby. They can't digest complicated nutrition until their body is ready for it. But when they are ready to handle it, they must move on to what Paul called the meat. You see, the milk will get you started. Listen to me, but the meat will help you to grow. No one can contribute until and unless they grow. Listen, babies are cute, but not much more than that. You can't learn from them. You can't count on them to contribute to the well-being of the family. And if you do, if you do expect those things out of them, well, you don't have a very clear view of your own role. Getting off track, let's circle back. The facts of your salvation are wonderful. It was a glorious event. The truth of the gospel came to you and gave you life. It's why you were born again, but now the baby has to be strengthened so that he can make something of that new life. Every one of us parents looked at our newly born children, and we immediately started formulating all these plans for their lives. We want them to be healthy. We want them to have good manners. We want them to go to school and discover the wonders of the world they've been born into, head to college, build a career, raise a family of their own. What would you think if your four-year-old son or daughter came up to you and said, Mom, Dad, I just want to stay exactly as I am right now. The way I am right now, I want to stay that way. I don't want to go to school. I don't want to learn what it means to be a good citizen. In fact, don't even bother putting in an effort to raise me. I'm not interested. I'll be in my room staring out the window, watching the world go by. But please keep the milk coming. That's all I need. Can you imagine? Of course you can't, because it's ridiculous. Then why do we think we can get away with that with God? Well, you're something else tonight, John. Had a bad day. Not much more to say? Except that I hope you get the point. There's a responsibility for each of us. And our job with respect to that responsibility is twofold. Number one, find out what it is. Number two, do everything you can to be effective in it. We'll get back to Genesis 3 next time. See you then.

Closing And Ways To Stay Connected

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We hope this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.