Saturday, October 16, 2010

Knowing The Bible Characters - Cain

I know that it took me so long to post my 3rd entry of this series "Knowing The Bible Characters". I have no reason why. I just forgot about this. My third character is an interesting one, Cain.
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Cain is the first son of Adam and Eve. In Hebrew, Cain means “brought forth” or “acquired”. Eve said in Genesis 4:1; "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth [ Or have acquired ] a man." Cain grow up as a crop farmer, while his younger brother Abel was a flock keeper.

There are a lot of theory made on who really Cain was, such as being literally the son of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and many more. But knowing that digging into it would not bring any good out of it or whatsoever, I decided to skip those information.

“In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. ” (Genesis 4:3-5 NIV)

This scenario was the motive of the first ever murder that has happened in the history of the Holy Bible. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Genesis 4:8 NIV)

It left me wondering why Cain’s offering was rejected by God. Was it because God prefer meat over vegetables? No offense to the vegetarian. It was just my silly thought. Of course, we all know that it was not the reason. There must be some serious reason as to why God rejected Cain’s offering. As I was digging more to this topic, I found this answer in BibleStudy.org by Adriano Borean:

"Many have speculated (and some quite assertively ) as of why Cain's offerings were not 'respected'. Basically two reasons can be safely assumed as the cause of God's displeasure: one, the 'attitude of mind' that Cain had with his offerings, the other, the 'quality of the offerings'. When one considers Cain's jealousy toward his brother that drove him to finally murder him, a poor attitude in giving offerings to God is very plausible. This attitude was likely a factor in offering to God poor quality products rather than the very best. Cain's mental attitude was a key factor in displeasing God. God knows man's inner thoughts."

Now this thing enlighten me. The bible may not clearly describe as to what manner Cain give his offering to God, but God knows. My hope is that when we give to God, we give the best that we can and not with a spirit of jealousy in our heart.

4 comments:

Layla White in Canada said...

Cain is one of the more popular characters in the Bible. The story of Cain and Abel is a very interesting story which happens even to this day and age.

anne said...

Thanks for sharing this one, and thanks for dropping by

Reverend M Bynum said...

Such a great diction of a much celebrated bible story. I look forward to reading more and gaining more insight!

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GagayMD said...

hola te grace!!!

thanks for dropping by at my site..

this one's really good..naenjoy ko..hehehe..some more te grace!happy Monday!



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