Session 2
how God provided for Adam.
7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground
and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed.
9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Contrast how God created Adam (2:7) and how He created other animals (1:24-25).
24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so.25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind;
and God saw that it was good.26 Then God said,
"Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Talk about what this says about the value God placed on people compared to animals.
Refer to verses 8-9 to explain how God also demonstrated His care for people by serving as the Source of provision for everything Adam needed.
Tree of life
This was one of two significant trees mentioned in the garden of Eden.
Although listed first in the Genesis account, the tree of life was secondary to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The name of this tree apparently derived from the effect it had on the one eating its fruit.
The fruit of the tree of life was the source of life in the garden.
readers should understand that this life came not from the fruit itself, but from the Creator of the tree.
The tree of life is also mentioned in several passages in Proverbs
(3:18; 11:30; 13:12) and in the book of Revelation (2:7; 22:2,14,19).
God gave Adam a beautiful place to live and provided the food that he needed.
But God also gave Adam a job to do.