{"id":9797,"date":"2024-06-05T02:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T02:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9797"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:24","slug":"cain-and-abel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9797","title":{"rendered":"CAIN AND ABEL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coming fast on the heels of the creation account, the serpent&#8217;s temptation, and Adam and Eve&#8217;s forced exit from the Garden of Eden, Genesis 4 introduces some notable firsts:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>The first birth: Cain.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The first sacrifices: Cain brings &#8220;fruit of the soil&#8221; and Abel brings some of the firstborn from his flock.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The first use of the word &#8220;sin&#8221;: God warns Cain about sin &#8220;crouching at the door&#8221; and &#8220;wanting&#8221; him.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The first murder: Cain kills Abel.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The first mention of blood: Abel&#8217;s blood cries out to God.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The first city: Cain builds it after he is punished by God for Abel&#8217;s murder.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>And the chapter ends with &#8220;men beginning to call on the name of the LORD&#8221;.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another notable aspect of the story is what is NOT there.<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>No clear explanation of why God prefers Abel&#8217;s sacrifice.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>No overt expression of wrath by God over this first instance of one human killing another.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>No sense that Adam and Eve had passed on some genetic, corrupted sinful nature to their offspring. Abel made good choices and Cain made bad choices.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Testament authors fill in a couple of the gaps:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Hebrews 11:4 <i>By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. <b>By faith<\/b> he was commended as <b>righteous <\/b>when God gave approval to his gifts.\u00a0<\/i><\/li>\n\n\n<li>1 John 3:12 <i>Do not be like Cain, who <b>belonged to the evil one<\/b> and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because <b>his own deeds were evil<\/b>, while those of his brother were <b>righteous<\/b>.<\/i><\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly, Jesus implies that Abel was a prophet in some sense, although that word does not appear in Genesis 4. In rebuking the Pharisees, Jesus said,<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Luke 11:47 <i>Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them. 48 So you are witnesses consenting to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49 Because of this, the wisdom of God said, \u2018I will send them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and others they will persecute.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>50 As a result, this generation will be charged with <b>the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world<\/b>, 51 from<b> the blood of Abel<\/b> to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, all of it will be charged to this generation.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the broadest sense, a prophet was one who highlighted God&#8217;s standards and warned those going astray.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not recorded that Abel said a single prophetic word to his brother. It seems Abel&#8217;s life and example were enough to inspire his brother&#8217;s hatred.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coming fast on the heels of the creation account, the serpent&#8217;s temptation, and Adam and Eve&#8217;s forced exit from the Garden of Eden, Genesis 4 introduces some notable firsts: Another notable aspect of the story is what is NOT there. New Testament authors fill in a couple of the gaps: Interestingly, Jesus implies that Abel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9798,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions\/9798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}