{"id":12278,"date":"2021-08-01T17:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=12278"},"modified":"2021-08-01T17:59:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-01T17:59:00","slug":"genesis-4-cains-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/12278\/genesis-4-cains-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Genesis 4 – Cain’s Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During our Old Testament class* we are taking with Mark, Brad and Allison, Mark asked, \u201cwhere did the other people come from?\u201d Today, Michelle and I were listening to one of the CD\u2019s, God is punishing Cain to be cut off.\u00a0 Our question is where did the other people come from that caused Cain to be afraid?\u00a0 Up to this point all we know are the descendants from Adam, no one else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/span><\/p>\n

Kevin<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi, Kevin.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You all are doing a good thing, going through the online Old Testament class.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As you continue through the Old Testament, and the New, for that matter, you will find that there are stories that leave off a critical time element, so that the\u00a0events seem out of sync,\u00a0if not impossible.\u00a0 I suspect that is the case here.\u00a0 The story\u00a0you mentioned makes it seem as if Adam only had two children, Cain and Abel, at the time Cain murdered Abel.\u00a0 But those\u00a0two sons were both grown at the time (just how old they\u00a0were, we cannot say), and I assume that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters during the previous years.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently, Adam’s sons and daughters married one another.\u00a0\u00a0As Adam’s family expanded, there would have been quite a few children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, etc., and they could not all have lived in the same area.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Adam would have had a multitude of children over his lifetime: “And the days of Adam after he fathered Seth were eight hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters.\u00a0 And all of the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died”\u00a0(Gen. 5:4\u20135).\u00a0\u00a0And after earth’s population increased sufficiently, God forbade marriages of close kin.\u00a0 Before then, however, very close kin could marry.\u00a0 Abraham and Sarah were half-brother and sister, and God was OK with that\u00a0in their time<\/span>, but in the law (centuries later), God plainly forbade such marriages (Lev. 18:9, 11).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

There are many unanswered, and unanswerable, questions about the earliest days of earth (Genesis 1\u201311), and we wonder about such things, but we have to stay focused on what is revealed.\u00a0 Moses told Israel: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but things that are revealed belong to us and to our children”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That’s the best I can do with your question because the Bible does not deal with that issue.\u00a0 It’s one of those “secret things that belong to God”.\u00a0 So, I just say “OK”, and move on to learn those things God has revealed.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for the question.\u00a0 A lot of people have wondered about that, including me.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

* Old Testament Course (Pt. 1) – Going to Jesus.com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0 During our Old Testament class* we are taking with Mark, Brad and Allison, Mark asked, \u201cwhere did the other people come from?\u201d Today, Michelle and I were listening to one of the CD\u2019s, God is punishing Cain to be cut off.\u00a0 Our question is where did the other people come from that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}