"A Promising Arrangement" - Genesis 2:7-17 - Nathan Edwards

Why do we live in a moral world?

Questions for Personal Reflection:

1. Share your favorite and least favorite responsibility in your life?

2. How might you use the existence of moral values to challenge the sufficiency of naturalism as a worldview?

3. What difference does it make to our faith to believe in a historical Eden and a historical Adam and Eve?

4. C.S. Lewis spoke of universal morals: “What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced?” (a) Do you agree with Lewis that Right is a real thing, i.e. that objective moral values exist? (b) How might you graciously defend objective moral values to someone who believes in relativism?

5. The prohibition of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was an object to teach trust in God’s Word above all. What are some ‘authorities’ that we can put above God’s Word? How can we self-check whether God’s Word is our ultimate authority?

6. Read Romans 6:23. How is the gospel different than “do good enough and you will live”? Where does the news “Christ has fulfilled where I have failed” give you relief and joy today?