Well, we had our first meeting this week and I'm pleased to report that it went really well. We looked at the character of God revealed through Adam. After comparing Genesis 1 and 2, we dwelt on Gen 2:18, which teaches us that God wants us to be in fellowship. While it's true that we all have 'A God-shaped hole', we also have a 'people-shaped hole.' The crisis of man being left alone is as big a crisis to God as crises like 9/11 or the credit crunch are to us. We checked out John 11:44 for a New Testament picture of the importance of fellowship.
Going back to Adam, we spent time imagining what it would have been like for Adam and Eve in the garden, from before sin, through their temptation and disobedience, to God chucking them out and killing an animal in order to clothe them and put them right with him... hang on - God killed an animal? Yep. Genesis 3:21 can be so easily missed, but we spent time really examining the fact that those animal skins didn't come out of thin air. Something had to die, blood had to be shed; basically, a sacrifice of an innocent animal was made... all so that Adam and Eve could be put right with Him. Sound familiar? Yep - we looked at that, too. Jesus' sacrifice was foreshadowed even as early as Gen 3. Hmmm... left us all really thinking...
