It was Paradise…Until it Wasn't: Creation and Fall in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:1, 26-27, 31)

Even if you’ve not read it, you’ve probably heard of the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The story is set in the late 18th century against the backdrop of the French Revolution. London and Paris are the Two Cities Dickens writes about. I’ve not read it, but according to the peer-reviewed, award-winning, surely in the running for a Nobel Prize - Sparknotes.com - we read: “Dickens asserts his belief in the possibility of resurrection and transformation, both on a personal level and on a societal level.”

That’s a big claim. “The possibility of resurrection and transformation” of both persons and society? Sounds familiar, don’t you think? In fact, the very first line of the book sounds familiar too.

“It was the best of times” sounds like Genesis 1-2.

“It was the worst of times” sounds like Genesis 3.

Isn’t it amazing how all good stories have elements of The Great Story…The Story of God in the Scriptures?

This Sunday we’ll begin a 3-part series called, A Tale of Three Gardens. Yes, I stole and modified for the title.

We’ll start in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1-3)
Then we’ll join Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26)
Finally, we’ll end in the Garden-City of New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22)

I hope you can join us this Sunday at our first stop on the Garden Tour!

Blessings,
Pastor Tim

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

- Genesis 1:1, 26-27, 31