just thinking

[patricia1]

So you definitely do not think that what God had intended was not stolen away from Him. Thats okay I do not think the walks God enjoyed with them ever were the same again, The animals That God created now had to die....cain coming from thier line may have never killed Able if the knowledge of good and evil would not had been known to them. I do believe in a ripple effect that still today plaques us. <br />Their sin was disobedience, and lack of taking responsibility. But I am trying to look at what God has endured since as well. Men do rob God. Sorry.

Will a Man rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say "how have we robbed thee?" In tithes and offerings. Malichi 3:8

[Openly Curious]

So you definitely do not think that what God had intended was not stolen away from Him. Thats okay I do not think the walks God enjoyed with them ever were the same again, The animals That God created now had to die....cain coming from thier line may have never killed Able if the knowledge of good and evil would not had been known to them. I do believe in a ripple effect that still today plaques us. <br />Their sin was disobedience, and lack of taking responsibility. But I am trying to look at what God has endured since as well. Men do rob God. Sorry.

Will a Man rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say "how have we robbed thee?" In tithes and offerings. Malichi 3:8

Nobody is disputing the doctrine of tithes and offering. I am saying that I do not agree with you that the sin that took place in the garden was the sin of robbing God it was a simple fact of disobedience. In addition nobody was denying that there was consequences for their sins.

You have been saying all along that Adam and Eve robbed God in the garden. That has nothing to do with tithes and offerings.

You use the scripture in Malichi 3:8 that I brought into the thread earlier that once again showed that it was not in effect in the garden of Eden. It's just trying to make a doctrine out of something that is not there.

OC

[patricia1]

I know I understand.. No I am not saying that was their sin. LOL no wonder you are thinking one way...I am thinking another.. Sorry about that. No it was not in effect in the garden but thier sin did rob God. No?

[Openly Curious]

I know I understand.. No I am not saying that was their sin. LOL no wonder you are thinking one way...I am thinking another.. Sorry about that. No it was not in effect in the garden but thier sin did rob God. No?

You are not making sense as in your very last sentence you say, "No it was not in effect in the garden (speaking of tithing) but their sin did rob God. (meaning that Adam and Eve robbed God) then you turn around and say, No? with a question mark how is one to answer that?

What Adam and Eve did was transgress God's law they in no way robbed God as you are saying. Give me scriptures that will back up your theory that Adam and Eve robbed God in any way and not in Genesis where it talks about Adam and Eve transgressing God law.

It just seem like double talk to me is all.

OC

[Reuben Hick]

I was wondering if the tree of knowledge that adam and eve were not to eat of also signified the fact they also took from God what belong to Him and Him only?

Thus also a issue of tithing can be made as well?

what do you guys think?

Genesis 1:29 "See, I have given you every herb that yields sees which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed..."

Genesis 2:16 "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat..."

Those two passages answer your question. The first shows that God gave everything to Adam, that would include the Tree of Knowledge.

When you get to 2:9 we read that every tree was pleasant to the sight and good for food. This is confirmed by Eve in 3:6.

So we go to the second passage and we see that the only thing that made this tree different from the other trees is, not that it was God's, but that God simply said "Don't eat of this tree".

Without going into what it meant to not eat of the tree, it is sufficient to note that this passage cannot be used as a passage regarding titheing because God didn't lay claim on tree, only on Adam's behavior. God isn't so much interested in things, rather He is interested in our obedience.

In terms of titheing, it is well covered under the Mosaic Law, with the foreshadowing of it with Abraham and Melchizedek. Furthermore, titheing was based on a percentage (Lev 27:30-33) the production of the land and the money was collected for the operating expenses of the priests and the temple (Nu 18:21-32). Jacob vows to tithe all of the increase that God would give him. (Ge 28:20-22). Dt 12:5-19 tells us that the tithe was to be taken to the the place where the Lord would cause His name to dwell and no where else. Here is the kicker: It was to be eaten, with rejoicing, by the household of the one bringing the tithe. (vv 7,12,18) Do you see a conflict here with the Tree in Eden?

I don't see a doctrinal connection with the tree in the garden.

For extra credit I submit that the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was the fig, and this time of year is an excellent time to say it!

[patricia1]

Very good...I lost this question for a while... God did not lay claim to the tree...you are right...That is the answer I am looking for ....Yet the kicker is a wild one.

One would say that titheing actually did not come into being until after sin took place?

openly curious what I meant to say is that there was not a command to tithe while in the garden...I just would have though it would be automatic....I got it and thanks about all replies....I take everything into account and always need to understand more and better. I am not very knowledgeable...

[Ovedya]

For extra credit I submit that the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was the fig, and this time of year is an excellent time to say it!

I could not have been a fig. Figs are common in the Middle East, so naturally we would have to presume that the tree of knowledge was allowed to reproduce. Read your Bible. God blocked the way into the garden so that the tree of life could not be eaten. Obviously since the tree of life was blocked, so also was the tree of knowledge.

I've read up on this a little. It was at one time believed that the fruit of the tree of knowledge was the tomato. People superstitiously believed that tomatoes were "the fruit of the devil," and so would kill the plant wherever it was discovered. Then it was believed that the apple was the fruit of the tree of knowledge. People superstitiously believed that the "Adam's apple" was a bit of the fruit which stuck in Adam's throat and so men inherited the lump as a sign of Adam's disobedience. It was this superstition that led to the apple being featured as a tool of evil in various fairy tales, like Snow White, for example.

The fact is, we don't know what the fruit of either tree looked like. It is likely that neither fruit resembled anything which we know today, and personally I don't care what they look like. The significance of the tree of life is Christ, who is the reality of that shadow. Today Jesus Christ is the tree of life. In Him we have life.

[Guest]

Amen!

[Reuben Hick]

For extra credit I submit that the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was the fig, and this time of year is an excellent time to say it!

I could not have been a fig. Figs are common in the Middle East, so naturally we would have to presume that the tree of knowledge was allowed to reproduce. Read your Bible. God blocked the way into the garden so that the tree of life could not be eaten. Obviously since the tree of life was blocked, so also was the tree of knowledge.

Was it the species of the tree in the garden, or was it the particular tree in the garden? If the species of the tree, or the fig or that manner any particular fruit, was the problem, then we would have told that any tree of that species was sinfull. Yet that was not the case. That one particular tree which we have no other direct knowledge of otherwise, was the forbidden tree.

Point Two. I have read my Bible too and I stumbled across this interesting thing in Chapters 7 and 8, we effectionately call "The Flood". What is particularly relevant about this event to our discussion, is that it completely and totally wiped out the earth and changed the landscape so that it was unrecognizable (think: Pangaea). As a simple exercise, ignore the names that English translators have given to the rivers in Ge 2:10-14 and identify that formation where one river feeds into and breaks into four rivers. (The Hebrew names have no correlation with the English names)

I've read up on this a little. It was at one time believed that the fruit of the tree of knowledge was the tomato. People superstitiously believed that tomatoes were "the fruit of the devil," and so would kill the plant wherever it was discovered. Then it was believed that the apple was the fruit of the tree of knowledge. People superstitiously believed that the "Adam's apple" was a bit of the fruit which stuck in Adam's throat and so men inherited the lump as a sign of Adam's disobedience. It was this superstition that led to the apple being featured as a tool of evil in various fairy tales, like Snow White, for example.

Wow. So what is your point? The fig is used symbolically in Scripture to represent sin and the fruit of the fig represents death (Luke 13:6-9; James 3:12) - where do we find the tomato and the apple used for anything in Scripture?

The fact is, we don't know what the fruit of either tree looked like.

I agree, we don't know since we aren't directly told, neither was any living witness there.

It is likely that neither fruit resembled anything which we know today.

Let me get this straight, you admit that you don't know what fruit it was, but whatever fruit it was it couldn't be anything we have today. And you base that "fact" on.... ?

The significance of the tree of life is Christ, who is the reality of that shadow. Today Jesus Christ is the tree of life. In Him we have life.

Hmm... where does it say in Scripture that Jesus is the Tree of Life?

In Proverbs 15:4 the wholesome tongue is a tree of life. In Rv 2:7 To him that overcomes the LORD will give to eat from the tree of life which is currently located in the midst of the Paradise of God.

I mean if you need to liken Christ to a plant, we have His statement that He is the Vine and we (the redeemed) are the branches.... (Jn 16:1,5)

I made the association to the fig tree in Mark 11 to the Tree of Knowledge in a thread about Mark 11. Hey, its speculative ! And if the fig tree was indeed the tree in question in the garden, then the withered fig tree example in two of the gospels makes plenty of sense.

[patricia1]

Interesting......