2The AMI QT Devotionals from March 6-12 are provided by Pastor Mark Chun of Radiance Christian Church in S. F. Mark, a graduate of University of California, San Diego, and Talbot School of Theology (M.Div.), has been married to Mira for 20 years; they have two children, Jeremiah and Carissa.
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Genesis 4:1-10
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.
After writing about singleness and marriage from 1 Corinthians, I thought it would be fitting to end my week of blogs with some thoughts on the family. In the eighties there was show on PBS hosted by John Bradshaw that unpacked the role that our family of origin has on our personality formation. The research is hard to deny. As individuals, we are a product of our upbringing and therefore, we are not as free or as independent as we think we are. Our families impact us to degrees that are unimaginable and outside of our scope of conscious thought. So this has a trickledown effect: if individuals are sick emotionally, this means that our family systems are sick; if our families are dysfunctional, society as a whole manifests these symptoms of brokenness. In his book on the family, Bradshaw cites that “…shame is the source of most of the disturbing inner states which deny full human life. Depression, alienation, self-doubt, isolating loneliness, paranoid and schizoid phenomena, compulsive disorders, splitting of the self, perfectionism, a deep sense of inferiority, inadequacy or failure, the so-called borderline conditions and disorders of narcissism, all result from shame. Shame is a kind of soul murder. Forged in the matrix of our source relationships, shame conditions every other relationship in our lives.”
Now before you discount this as meaningless psychological mumbo jumbo, let’s think about the message of Genesis. We are told that before the fall, before sin, “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” After the fall, according to Genesis 3:7, “… the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” So the Bible, 1000s of years before Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung, understood that the driving mechanism of sin is the shame that it produces. Theologians talk about sin being imputed from Adam to the rest of humanity and along with the imputation of sin is the shame that it produces. And it is this shame at the bottom line that leads to the many unmentionable sins in the family.
We see the effects of shame and sin in the story of Cain and Abel. One key to understanding this passage comes from looking at the names of the two brothers involved in the story. The birth of Cain is a celebrated event and his mother essentially gives him the name “Begotten of God”. Martin Luther in his commentary on Genesis describes this as Eve putting all of her Messianic hopes on her first-born son. He is the one who is going to save the family. I want you to notice the language Eve uses to describe this newborn child. It is not “Oh what a cute baby we have or what cuddly bundle of joy.” People tend to get really childish when they see a baby but Eve looks at her newborn and calls him a man. These were the high expectation for Cain’s life. And so he grows up to be strong and manly, and best of all he becomes a farmer just like his dad. But unknowingly, Eve elevates Cain at the cost of Abel, whose name literally means “breath”. It is the same word that is translated as “meaningless” or “vanity” from the book of Ecclesiastes. It is little wonder that Cain thought so little about his brother’s life given their own parents attitude towards his younger sibling.
These are the type of dynamics that sin creates in the most important of all our relationships, our family. But this is precisely why the gospel is such good news! As Peter preaches the first sermon in the history of the Christian church, he tells the broken crowd, “The promise (of the gospel) is for you and for your children and for those far off.” I pray that the Lord will bless and bring healing to all the families the call on His name.
Prayer: Lord, you have the words of life not only for ourselves but also for those whom we love. We lift up our families to you and though we try to be strong, we know that there are problems that sin causes. At times we feel lost and despair over many things including our marriages and our children. In the midst of our worry, help us to trust in your goodness and to apply your word to every situation even if it doesn’t seem to make sense. We look to you because that is where our help comes from.
Bible Reading for Today: 2 John and 3 John
In our day and age, it has become increasingly unpopular to talk about sin and its consequences. But because we tend not to identify sin, it festers and grows unchecked and ignored. In the early 70’s, the influential American psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a book entitled Whatever Became of Sin? From his vantage point in the field of mental health (he began as a professor at Harvard Medical school in the 1920’s to the writing of this book in the 70s), he witnessed a dramatic change in the average American’s attitude towards sin. In the opening of his book, he makes this observation:
One excuse that people make to avoid obeying the commands of God is the right for believers to exercise their Christian liberty. However, we need to understand that Christian freedom is not a license to do whatever we want to do. You cannot make the Bible a book of mere suggestions when in fact, these are the very commands of God. Therefore, the Scriptures give us wisdom on how to exercise our Christian liberties and outlines the limits of our freedom.
It is the wise person who asks the question, “What makes my life significant in the eyes of God, and what will I ultimately be rewarded for when I stand before the Lord?” We live in an area that is driven by metrics and analytics, and everyone in our church seems to be consumed by measurable results. But what does God consider a win? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to quantify spiritual success, because God’s scoreboard is different than ours.
The AMI QT Devotionals from March 6-12 are provided by Pastor Mark Chun of Radiance Christian Church in S. F. Mark, a graduate of University of California, San Diego, and Talbot School of Theology (M.Div.), has been married to Mira for 20 years; they have two children, Jeremiah and Carissa. 
I know that the main point of this passage isn’t about maintaining one’s virginity but being content in one’s current situation. However, in today’s over sexualized society, being content in one’s relational status is clearly connected to keeping proper sexual boundaries until marriage. In her book Sex and the Soul, Donna Freitas captures the essence of the modern struggle on the issue of sex from one of the women she interviewed for her book. She quotes her as saying:
Surprisingly, surveys reveal that the divorce rate for Christian marriages is comparable to that of non-believers, approximately 50%. I believe that the reason for these high numbers is two-fold: First, some Christians don’t understand the importance of marriage and don’t give it the proper honor, and so they marry unwisely. Second, we don’t take seriously the commands regarding divorce and don’t realize that most cases of divorce are prohibited by the Scriptures. Outside of sexual immorality and unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant, there are no other grounds for divorce. Irreconcilable differences, incompatibility, falling out of love cannot be used before God as an excuse for divorce. Even Christians who are married to non-believers are commanded to stay in their marriages.
Most cultures and people have a very high view of marriage. In the movie Jerry McGuire, Tom Cruise who plays the main character tells Renee Zellweger, “You complete me.” I’ve come to realize that this is not just romantic sentiment, but it is something that is believed by many people: life is not complete and you are not a complete person until you have found a person for marriage. In our generation of postponed marriage, divorce, and singleness, this societal expectation has become a great point of pain and anxiety. Yet in this passage, Paul reminds us that the relationship between a man and a woman does not make a person complete. I want you to consider these following points from Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:
I am generally not strong with presentation, nor do I much care about it. So when I give presents, they will often come in the retailer’s bag where I purchased it (sometimes with the receipt still in it). When I cook dinner, it will generally have a bachelor’s meal look to it (think Denny’s, not fine dining). As a practical person, I’ll give myself the excuse that I’m more concerned with the quality of the gift, taste of the meal, or heart of the man than I am with the externals.
My oldest son has a unique gift: he can watch anything—and I mean anything—on television. Obviously, he has his favorites—like cartoons and all things related to Star Wars—but I could be watching a home improvement show, nature show, sitcom, drama, he’ll come, sit on the couch, and watch attentatively with me. I kid you not, after the election, I watched lots of news, and he was all over that as well. You know where he gets this gift? From his old man. You see, I understand my son because he is just like me—I too can watch anything on TV. The other day I was watching Avatar, and my wife looked at me, laughed and asked, “Why are you watching that stupid movie? You hate it.” (Sorry, if you liked that movie, but she’s right, I do hate it.) I had no good explanation, so I think I said, “Because it’s on.” Perhaps there is something in our DNA that is attracted to the movements, flickering lights and sounds of the TV, but we are like moths drawn to the flame.
When I was living in Philadelphia, to save money on rent, let’s just say that I didn’t live in the cleanest of places—that is, I’ve had my share of cockroaches. Now, if you’ve ever had roaches in your place, then you’ve probably learned the phenomenon of being “afraid of the lights”: it’s when you enter a room and turn on the lights and see several cockroaches scurry away to hide, you become a little disturbed and you almost don’t want to turn on the lights again. You’ve become afraid of the lights. Many will overcome this by turning on the lights before physically entering the room. Almost everyone I know thinks that roaches are disgusting, ugly, vile creatures, and when we see one, our instinct is to kill it immediately.