- [Tim] The story of the Bible begins
with God bringing life out of darkness,
ordering our beautiful world
and then blessing all of its creatures.
- [Jon] Hold on.
Blessing?
That's one of those funny religious words.
- [Tim] Yeah. Right.
People say a blessing over their meal or after they sneeze.
- [Jon] Or just a general way to say
that things are going well for me.
- [Tim] But in the Bible, a blessing is more specific.
The first blessing in the Bible
is when God creates animals. "And he blessed them saying,
'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land.'"
- [Jon] Ah, so God's blessing is about flourishing
and multiplication of life.
- [Tim] Right.
It's when God shares his life-producing ability with others.
Next, God gives humans an additional blessing
that sets them apart from the animals.
Not only are we one of God's creatures
that can generate new life,
we've also been appointed
as God's representative image to rule
and oversee this whole flourishing world on God's behalf.
- [Jon] So part of our blessing
is to take care of God's blessing for all creation.
- [Tim] And God wants us to rule while trusting
in his abundance,
to eat from the tree of blessing,
that is, the tree of God's own eternal life.
- [Jon] Now there is another tree to eat from.
- [Tim] Yes, and it represents this decision
to try and seize abundance and life on our own terms,
by our own wisdom.
- [Jon] The humans encounter a deceptive creature
who tricks them into eating
from this other tree, thinking it's a shortcut to blessing.
- [Tim] And instead of blessing, this tree brings a curse.
- [Jon] A curse?
You mean like a magic spell?
- [Tim] No.
In the Bible, the curse is when God hands people over
to the consequences of seizing our own blessing
on our own terms.
It's a curse because instead of abundance and life,
we end up with scarcity, isolation, and death.
So God curses the ground,
and instead of fruitfulness, there will be famine.
Instead of overseeing the world,
they will have to work the land until they die.
- [Jon] Man.
- [Tim] But God also curses
that deceptive creature that fooled the humans, saying
that a human will come one day to destroy it.
And that human will be born into a world of scarcity,
where men and women and families and tribes
are all locked in violent conflict.
- [Jon] If God's blessing is now covered with the curse,
how can we flourish?
Even more, how can we rule with God?
- [Tim] Well here, the biblical story takes
an interesting turn.
God chooses one couple, Abraham and Sarah,
and God blesses them
and says they will become a huge family.
- [Jon] Be fruitful and multiply.
- [Tim] And there's more.
God says that his blessing on Abraham and his family
is for this larger purpose,
so that through them,
God's blessing can go out to all of the nations.
- [Jon] So wait.
God's plan is to reverse the curse
and restore the blessing
by first blessing this one family?
- [Tim] Right.
And this family does experience God's blessing.
Even when they journey through times of danger and scarcity,
they grow into this huge nation, Israel.
- [Jon] And God brings them to a mountain
and invites them to be his representatives.
- [Tim] Yes.
God will bless Israel so that they can become
a blessing to the nations.
All they have to do is trust and live by God's wisdom.
And they're told that this is a choice
between life and death,
between blessing and curse.
- [Jon] Now keep reading because the Israelites
almost never trust God for his blessing.
Their story is filled with tales of deception,
violent grabs for power,
resulting in the ultimate curse,
exile from their land and slavery to foreign nations.
- [Tim] But Israel's prophets,
who lived through all of this,
they still trusted in God's promise to Abraham.
Qnd they anticipated a future Israelite
who would come to restore God's blessing
and reverse the curse for Israel and for all of the nations.
- [Jon] When we turn to the story of Jesus,
we find Israel still experiencing the curse,
living as slaves to the Roman empire.
- [Tim] But Jesus, he so trusted in God's blessing,
he claimed that it was arriving
in a new way through himself.
- [Jon] He wanted his followers to trust in God's abundance,
to share and be generous.
- [Tim] And he even taught his followers
to bless people who curse them.
Jesus would even reverse the curse
by healing and restoring people's bodies.
- [Jon] God's blessing is being unleashed.
- [Tim] Jesus also confronted his fellow Israelites
who were in power, and he accused them of getting
in the way of God's plan to bless Israel
and the nations through them.
- [Jon] Those leaders arrest Jesus
so they could have him killed.
- [Tim] And instead of fighting back,
Jesus believed that he was that chosen Israelite,
who would face the curse that Israel
and all humanity deserves.
And he would allow the curse to fall on him.
- [Jon] Jesus dies the shameful death
of a man under the curse.
- [Tim] But just as God brought life and blessing out
of darkness in the beginning,
so here, through Jesus, God reverses death by raising Jesus.
The curse is put to death
so that the blessing of God's life
can spread out once again.
- [Jon] After his resurrection, Jesus blessed his followers.
And he said that his presence would be with them
as they learned to trust in God's blessing
and share with others.
- [Tim] And while death
and the curse still have a hold on our world,
followers of Jesus trust that the power of God's blessing
is even stronger.
- [Jon] It means we can live with extreme generosity,
even when it seems like there's not enough.
- [Tim] And that leads us to the conclusion
of the biblical story,
where every nation is enjoying the gifts
of God's abundance.
Because in God's new world that is sustained
by the life-giving power of Jesus,
there is no longer any curse.
(gentle music)