When The Stars Disappear

Paul Winters and Mark open their discussion of Mark's second volume, Give Me Understanding that I May Live, by exploring why we must understand the first chapter of Genesis if we are to live the lives for which God made us and to which he calls us.

Paul and Mark discuss how the expansion of Genesis 1's account of the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:4-25 enables us to understand more deeply who God has created us to be.

Paul and Mark explore the remarkable implications of the Genesis 2 account of Adam and Eve.

Paul and Mark begin to explore the prohibition that God gave to Adam in Genesis 2:17—namely, “you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” Why did God issue a command prohibiting our first parents from eating from one specific tree in the garden of Eden? And why would their disobedience result in their deaths?

Paul and Mark discuss how prohibitions add an important element to human life: they help us recognize what we must never do and they enable us to express our unqualified resolution to live lives of complete and exclusive commitment to another person.

In this episode, Paul and Mark show why the penalty of death was the inevitable consequence of Adam and Eve's eating from the forbidden tree.

Paul and Mark examine how the serpent led Eve to doubt God's warning that if she and Adam ate from the forbidden tree, then they would die, as well as how they knew enough about God and his love for them that they should not have believed the serpent's lies.

This episode asks whether Adam or Eve was more responsible for the fall and then turns to show how suffering became inevitable once Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree yet is also a key element in how God calls us back to himself.