Genesis 3 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

Genesis 3 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

by | Jan 7, 2025 | 1-24, DISO studies, Genesis 3

 NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.

Hello again. I hope your new year has already been full of blessings! Mine has, and I’m giving God all the glory for that!

Last Week’s Work

MY PRAYER
For this study, the Spirit inspired me to pray:

Father God, thank You for the chance to re-explore this favorite chapter of mine with Your Holy Spirit. Give me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand the treasure You’ll show me in this passage. I love You and I love Your Word! Help me use it to grow so others can see its treasure in my life. I ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.

HUH? and WOW! MOMENTS
Next, I read Genesis 3, focused on my reactions, and noted what caught my attention. Here are most of the points I recorded:

HUH?s

  • Did the serpent really think God had told the man and woman they couldn’t eat any fruit in the garden (v1)?
  • Did God really tell them not to touch the fruit (v4)?
  • They knew good through their experience of God. How did opening their eyes give them knowledge of evil (v5)?
  • How did the woman see “the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (v6)?
  • Did God really not know where the man was (v9)? But if He did know, why did He ask where they were?

WOW!s

  • Verse 1 seems to imply God made the serpent, too.
  • Maybe they could “not die” (v4). I know of two biblical men who didn’t: Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11).
  • The first thing they “knew” was their vulnerability (nakedness) (v7). And they immediately tried to overcome it on their own.
  • Hiding from God seems to be an acknowledgement that their fig leaves weren’t enough to protect them (v8).
  • The man was honest about his fear (v10).
  • God wanted to know who changed their perception of their circumstances and whether they’d disobeyed Him (v11), though surely, He already knew they had.
  • In verses 9-13, God doesn’t accuse, He asks questions.
  • Serpent’s punishment: he became the lowest of all creatures, the woman and her offspring were above him (vv14-15).
  • Woman’s punishment: she must perpetuate the species through childbearing (which will be painful); she’ll disagree with the man; but he’ll prevail (v16). And she will die. (v3).
  • Man’s punishment: he had to provide their food (v18), and he will also die (v3).
  • Animal(s) died when God made clothing from skins to cover their nakedness. Apparently, covering wasn’t necessary before they disobeyed (v21).
  • Once they knew good and evil, God prevented them from eating from the tree of life (v22).

Even though I’ve studied this chapter before, the Spirit has shown me so much more this time! I can’t study it all, though. By next week, I know the He will help me figure out where to concentrate my attention.

Dig-In Challenges

If you’re studying the passage, too, listen to the Spirit this week, and choose a personal Huh? or Wow! to dig more deeply into. Going forward, I’ll refer to this as your personal treasure from Genesis 3. It can be something you noticed in your study, one of the items I’ve listed above, or anything else the Holy Spirit has laid upon your heart as you think about Genesis 3. Write this treasure in your study journal and note the verse(s) most relevant to it. As we study, we’ll consider everything in the chapter, but we’ll gradually narrow the focus to the relevant verse(s).

Then:

  1. PRAY.
  2. MINE: Dig into the facts recorded in Genesis 3. This week, we’ll focus specifically on the setting (who’s involved, and where and when the action took place). Note anything the Spirit emphasizes.

I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover with you next week!

GO TO WEEK 3 >

Genesis 3 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

Genesis 3 DISO Study Introduction

by | Dec 31, 2024 | 1-24, DISO studies, Genesis 3, Introduction

Welcome to this Digging into Scripture Ourselves (DISO) study of Genesis 3. Thanks for joining me here!

As I mentioned last week, this is the first of a series of seven studies I’m calling Restoration. These are passages I studied years ago using the original “20 Questions” version of DISO, but those posts are no longer available online. To avoid confusion, I’ve decided to work through the passages again with the newer process rather than simply republishing those old posts. I’m excited to see what the Holy Spirit reveals now and compare that to what I discovered previously!

Let’s Study Genesis 3! 

This week, I’ll begin by praying and surveying Genesis 3. If you want to work along with me, here’s what I recommend you have ready:

  1. A copy of Genesis 3, plus access to the entire book of Genesis.
    I like to refer often to the text I’m studying and sometimes make notes on it, so I copy the passage from www.blueletterbible.org, paste it into a word processing program like Google Docs or MS Word, change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a pdf of my Scripture study sheet with lots of room for doodles and notes.
  2. A study journal.
    We’ll spend the next seven weeks immersed in and learning about Genesis 3, and the work we’ll do each week builds on what came before, so plan to record at least some highlights from your work over the coming weeks. I’m old-school and like the pen-and-paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to write out or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app, or recording audio files, instead.

Or, you may decide to just read the posts I publish here. That’s good, too because it will help you become more familiar with the process and show you how the Spirit speaks to my situation. You may find that’s enough to make it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t dig into Genesis 3 yourself this time.

Dig-In Challenges

So, here’s how I’ll be studying this week:

  1. PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer that I can pray every time I study Genesis 3. I’m going to write it in my study journal, so I’ll have it handy each time I study.
  2. SURVEY:  And then I’ll read Genesis 3, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and later ask the Spirit to direct me to the one I should dig more deeply into right now.

If you’d like more information about these steps, check out this printable summary of the process I’ll be using over the next eight weeks. Or, you can always reach out to me with your questions through my contact page or at [email protected]. I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you, along with snippets of my previous study from 2020 as appropriate—I hope you’ll keep checking in with me each week!

GO TO WEEK 2 >