Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1154 | ‘Ew, Dude, That’s My Sister’: John Luke Robertson & Christian Huff Debate Genesis

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Al and Zach engage in a rich discussion with the younger generation as they launch the first Hillsdale Friday and dive into Genesis 1–3. John Luke can’t help blurting out “Ew, dude, that’s my sister” when his brother-in-law Christian Huff dives deep into the Genesis account of marriage and nakedness. Together they explore the four key relationships outlined in the creation story, why God said it’s not good for man to be alone, and how marriage reflects the Trinity itself. In this episode: Genesis 1; Genesis 2; Genesis 3; Genesis 12; Romans 8, verses 19–23; John 4; Ephesians 1, verse 4; 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 8–10 Today's conversation is about lessons 1-2 of Genesis taught by Hillsdale Professor Justin Jackson. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ More about Genesis: Genesis is a book of fundamental importance for the Jewish and Christian faiths and has exerted a profound influence on Western Civilization. In addition to being a great religious text, it is also a literary masterpiece.  This free online course explores some of the work’s major narrative themes, including the complex relationship between God and man, the consequences of a rupture in that relationship, and the path towards reconciliation. Join Professor Justin Jackson in this six-lecture course as he analyzes the stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. “Unashamed” Episode 1154 is sponsored by: http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join us every Friday starting 8/29 for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00–11:53 Intro to the Book of Genesis 11:54–18:30 The Relationship Structure of God 18:31–29:06 It’s Not Good for Man to Be Alone 29:07–40:47 The Mercy of Banishment from Eden 40:48–52:43 Love Creates Life & Balance —  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, welcome to our first Hillsdale Friday episode. This is brand new for us. We have a different group around the table. Me and Alistel here. We threw Jace out. We've actually been ripping Jace behind us back for the last 15 minutes, which was epic. We should have put that on here. But I think we got an upgrade with you guys. Christian Huff. Welcome. Thank you. Happy to be here. I don't know if you can combine us. I don't know if we'll talk as much as Jace will, but we're going to try to add as much as we can. John Luke.

Yeah, we can. Yeah. Are you going to pick up the mantle and just talk the whole time? I will. Well, this is a third time I've been on ashamed. And the first time, I don't think I said a single word. I literally never said a word. Were you on with your dad?

I was on with dad. And I never got in. I felt bad for you, John, Luke. It's very hard with those to. Welcome to my life. The second one, I got like, a sentence unlease. And now I'm back full force. So this is like multi-generation here.

I feel like we've got... Well, we got 60, 40, you're about to be 30. 30 and then... 27. 27. So we got... We're obviously talking about a college course, Hillsdale College, and we have very different college experiences, I'm sure.

Like, you guys, like, went away and went to college, right? Yeah. Yeah. See, for me, I was, like, not sure what I was going to do. So it was a little college, a little duck call, a little school of preaching, back to college. It was, like, spread out over. 20 years, but in a sense, in a way, it's like everybody has their own way to learn. So it's helped

me. But I didn't have like the college experience like you guys. Well, I did go away for college, but I didn't finish. So now I'm back in college. I went away to college and finished. So I'm still in college. But don't you feel like, John Luther, the more, I always felt like the older I got, the more I appreciated the material. Like when I was first there, when I was, you know, 19 or 20 years old, and even though I just got married, you know, I was sort of like the other kids I got this thing over with and what kind of do to get out of here as fast as possible. And the older I got,

the more I began to realize that, you know, this stuff's pretty interesting. Like, if you just listen. So it's really interesting now because in my neighborhood, one of my favorite history professors at ULM is one of my neighbors. And so sometimes he likes to say,

he's retired now, but he likes to sit out and smoke cigars on his front porch. He's next to our neighborhood. And I like to go, sometimes when I just see him out there and I go over and sit down, We've now established rapport. He didn't remember me being a student. He taught thousands of kids.

And so I ask him questions. I tell them about what we're doing and things like that. So it's really been interesting to sort of relive college experience, which is a good thing, just like this. Yeah. No, that's how I feel. The first time around, it was more about going to college to get a job. Like, that's just that you finish high school, so you go to college you can get a job.

And, like, all the information you're learning is really just the steps you have to take to get whatever the career is. But now going back, it's like I actually want to learn this stuff. And even some of the classes that I took 10 years ago, I'm going back and looking at my notes and I'm like, oh, wow, this actually would be very useful to me today. I should have paid attention. That's why we're going to kick it off here with a course called the Genesis story taught by Dr. Justin Jackson.

It's a, and we'll start with today with the story of Adam and Eve. But I thought this, well, first of all, these courses are very accessible. But I think that if you will sit, if you'll go and go ahead and go to Unashamed for Hillstale.com, you can sign up for free and you'll take these courses with us. What we want to do here with Hillsdale Friday is we want you to take the course with us. And then come in and listen to us, talk about it. And I think it helps you kind of sit and kind of incubate in the actual scriptures. I think it makes it really sticky for you.

And I know it did for us. I mean, I've got a ton of notes here. We all have notes. And then we're going to go see what happens today. I'm super excited. preachers love new things like you know a new series a new class a new sermon that's so this is exciting we're all family here we live we have a compound setting uh on purpose and we love it and all our families are being raised together it's fantastic so i love it yeah yeah now we're

doing bible study together now we're in genesis this is the hillsdale court this is pretty amazing these guys came to us you guys have been asking us for when are we going to get back in the old Testament, which we love to camp out on the Unashamed podcast in the New Testament. I love Genesis, though. So this is actually, so what better place to start than Genesis? Now, Hillsdale offers these free courses. And so what we're doing here is we want to invite you guys into it. We're all taking this course together. So we're going to do today, we're going to do the first two lectures. We're going to talk about it. And so what you can do, if you want to join into what we're doing, there's where you need to go. You can join us every Friday.

This is going to be ad-free, by the way, too, which I love. No ads. No ads. Ad-free. We're calling it Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. It's real simple. All you got to do is go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up for free. And then the classes are all on video.

So you can listen in your car or on your treadmill. You are, you, I could listen to these way. You're washing dishes. I did, washing dishes. And I finished listening to it while I was actually on a run. So similar to a treadmill. Yeah, very similar. Running and dishes.

That's impressive. I have a lot to live up to each other. I was just running, just watching. Yeah, that's what I was doing. Well, we were laughing at, when you walked out, John Luke, we were laughing at the notes because Al's notes. Yeah, so it's the difference in the decade. So, like, so me, I've got handwritten notes because that's old school.

I'm 60 years old. Zach, Christian was noticing. He had typed his as he was listing, which is very much, you know. Very organized. Organized. And then Christian said, you took notes? No, no, he has notes. They're on his...

I have my notes. Yeah, they're on his phone. Zach's notes just looked, they looked too proper. I thought they were from the course. Well, they're... Because your generation, everything's on the phone, right?

Well, they're just sporadic. I just typed out something. What are your notes? I have both, because I'm in that... 1995, I'm like that right middle age, where I have handwritten notes and I also have them on my iPad. Are you 30?

Are you 30? This year, I'll be 30. You're 30. John looks the only nerd, though. You actually bought the commentary. And I got the book. So I've got the commentary. And I've got news.

And if you're not watching, he has a commentary with a plastic butter knife as his bookmark. That's pretty. So I've got a commentary on Genesis. Smart. Which actually, and this is, what's the guy's name, John Lee?

Alter. Yeah, Roper Alter. So our professor, Justin Jackson, mentions him a lot. And I've ordered the book because I don't understand the internet. Mine's not here yet. But it's,

so the read along is great. I mean, you've read something of this, Christopher. Yeah, great stuff. I mean, the commentary that they're talking about in the videos, or he gets a lot of his stuff from the commentary in the Robert Alter translation. So you're kind of getting both. But you could totally just watch the videos without reading the commentary. This is just like extra. They're really good. And the reason why we chose Genesis to start, it's the Genesis story,

is because it's taught by Dr. Justin Jackson. And we wanted to ease you guys into the Hillsdale community. So we looked at all the professors, and this guy looks the most like a Robertson. He's got a huge beard. He does. We're going to actually have him on the podcast, too. Really? Yeah. So we're going to go.

It's like six episodes. They're super easy. So I'm like, go download the course. Go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You sign up. It's completely free. But we want you to take it with us because we're going to sit in Genesis. Then we'll do some other courses.

Maybe Axis. There's one in C.S. Louis. There's one on the Federalist Papers. I mean, they've got to. a lot of good questions. Well, and here's the thing about it. So wherever you are at, and sort of study level of your Bible, you will gain stuff. I've taught Genesis many times, and so I've spent a lot of time in this book. I spent a lot of time in the Bible. But listening to someone else and their take, and what I like about Dr. Jackson's approach is that he

asks a lot of questions. And that's a good way to learn. Jesus did the same thing, by the way. I mean, the book of John is not full of questions. So I like it. style. It makes you think about and highlight and realize things you never thought of before. So it's been great for me. I've learned new things I didn't know before, which always, you know, strengthened you and encourages you. Yeah, and they're not that long. I mean, they're anywhere from 22 to 30 minutes. 30 minutes. And Hill sales is interesting because they don't take any federal funding. Yeah. So the college itself does not take any federal funding. And what they really want to do is educate people in Western civilization and the foundations of this country and kind of Western

itself. And a big part of that is, honestly, that we're made in the image of God, the Genesis story. We're going to get into the story of Adam and Eve today. What we want to be able to do with the Unashamed podcast is we do want you to be able to sit in the God's Word and to learn, and we want to learn together. And so I think this is going to be an amazing opportunity. So if you don't just listen to our kind of take on it, I think it would be better. If you would listen to the course and then you come in on the Hillsdale Friday and kind of hear our take on it. Obviously, this first one, you know, we're going to, we've been promoting this on the podcast, but if you have it, go, go to, again, it's unashamed for Hillsdale.com.

Sign up for free. We're taking the Genesis story taught by Dr. Justin Jackson. And we're going to start off with this story of Adam and Eve, which is kind of a big deal because these are our ancestors. We wouldn't be here without them. Well, and, you know, you guys are more used to, on. learning, it's been sort of new for me. But even me, the dinosaur of this particular quartet can understand how to download this and watch it. The hardest thing for me was trying

to figure out a password with 15 characters. That was the hardest thing. You know what I did? 15 to 50. I was like, who has a 50 character password? You know what I did? Christian, this shows you my age, too. I took my 8-1, 8-character one that I used for everything and just doubled it. That's what I did. I have the same thing. I usually have two number twos, then I just added six twos. That's what I had to do. He's got a peek. This is every episode, you'll get another character

in Christian's password. Yeah, I'm just thinking. Y'all already giving away that's information out. It's still complex. We're talking about the Bible. There's no scammers listening to this. Well, that's easy.

I'm saying, yeah, the hardest part was, yeah, like trying to figure out a long password because it was that easy. You just fill it out, and then it takes you right to it, and then you start with the lesson, and then when you finish the lesson, it gives you little checkmark,

and then you can do the quiz. You can keep going on. So, yeah, usually those things are hard for me to figure. out, but it was very simple. Yeah, and you'll listen to the intro at first, and which is not Dr. Jackson. The intro is just an intro to the course.

And to the university. And to the university itself. So you'll kind of get an idea of the university. And I think you'll get that while we're partnering with these guys. We think this is going to be a real benefit for you guys. I know it is for us. I love how it's set up in the intro, and I've always read Genesis this way,

but really Genesis, the book is divided into kind of two-part You got Genesis 1 through 11, and then chapter 12 is where you get the introduction of Israel for the first time, coming out of the Tower of Babel, the creation of nations for the very first time, and then you have kind of the rest of the story. But that sets the kind of the trajectory for even a lot of what we talk about on our podcast, which you guys are on except for this. but just what God is doing in human history as he's calling the nations to himself, first starting with Israel, which started in Genesis chapter 12. So I love how he sets it up,

and then I don't know what you guys thought about. Another thing that I liked is how he talked about these four relationship structures in the book of Genesis. The relationship of God with his creation, one, two, the relationship of human-to-human relationship. But God to humanity. Yeah, God to humanity.

So it's God to creation, then God to human beings, then human to human, which is what we're doing here, and then humans to creation. And I thought that was an interesting way of framing up reality, because it's actually true if you think about it. Right. And it really, if you think about it, it sums up every bit of our relationship and our reality every single day. I mean, it always comes back to those four, right?

I mean, the first question is, is there something bigger than me? You know, is there something out there? That's the question most people wake up every day. Even if they're irreligious, they don't know anything about the Bible. Is there some purpose in life? Is there something bigger? And so everybody seeks that somehow. And he made the point, which I think,

was very sound in 126 when he made us, he made us in his image, which therefore puts that process right into our hearts, right into our lives, right into our psyche, that we desire that. And then, of course, every single day in all your relationships, and we're all married, obviously that's a relationship with our wife, but there's also our children, our parents, brothers and sisters like this, brothers around a table talking about the Bible. Every one of those interactions has to sink up some way. makes sense to us. So I just thought it was really powerful.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I thought the thing I thought was really interesting, going to talk, starting with that first relationship, God and creation. And I'd never heard anyone say this. That is the first relationship that we see. It's like God creating in form of the earth. And then once he creates humans, the first job he gives the humans is serve and protect the earth.

Yeah. Like God, one of God. God's biggest things he does and loves is the earth, is the all of creation. And then we are then is put into us by him and also told to us to take care of it, which is so really like we think about like how does God think about us, but shifting on mind a little to think, how does God think about creation and how does that influence how I act in how I'm taking care of the space I'm in? to John Luke's point about the creation when you see what God has made,

and especially the animal world, and he made a really good point about that Adam got to name those animals. In other words, some of that idea of creativity, you already see and shifted to this first man in the image of God, and he got to name all these animals, which was a, I mean, it's a great compliment, right? He got to do that. But in that process, he realized there was an incomplete nature to him,

And that, of course, is where this woman, his first wife, comes from in that name, how that mattered. And I thought about it, you know, I got a friend of mine that does a lot of counseling, and he has, it's dog therapy where, you see a lot of PTSD guys with dogs. And you see this symbiotic relationship that's there between this dog and a person, you know, that brings this calmness. And that my counselor friend tells me stories about someone gets to that point where they just can't break through emotionally and let that out. all of a sudden this animal comes over, sensing that, and like just out of their presence, opens this doorway to be able to then express all these emotions, things that have been holding back. Same with horses, even more. And so it just, I realized that there is this symbiotic relationship with everything God created and us in the sense of how we, not just interact,

but how we are designed and called to then take care of that and to serve and protect it. So it just, It's really interesting. If you just look around in nature, you'll see these fingerprints of God all over these relationships, you know, and even how we view the animal world, how we view the climate, all of you know, there's a lot of controversy and political stuff about climate. Obviously, we are, we react to that, but we have to do everything we can to make sure God's creation stays like he made it. I mean, it's not to plug that commander products, but they have this t-shirt that says

worship the creator. Since you're wearing a documentary show, yeah. Thank you, Zah, for plugging documentary product. But they have one that says worship the creator. Not the creation. Not the creation. And I think that's interesting, but it doesn't mean that the creation doesn't matter, and it doesn't mean that the creation is evil or bad.

In fact, because when God made everything, what did he say? It's good. It's good. And he said, when he made man and woman, he says, very good. He did make the caveat, which I've pointed out in scripture quite a bit, in Genesis, whenever God makes Adam, and all that exists is Adam in a vertical relationship with the God who made him. And you would think, well, all you need, because you have people, all I need is God,

all I need is God, which is, I understand what we mean by that, but the Genesis account, God saw man when all that man had was a vertical relationship with himself, and God said, it's not good that man should be alone. and so I'll create a suitable helper for him. So I thought that, to me, that, I wanted to talk about that a little, but why do you think that God said, and he kind of talks about this in there, but what do y'all thoughts on why would God say it's not good for a man to be alone? Because he's got creation, he's got all the food, all the, whatever he needs.

He's got a direct relationship with God who made him, and God says this situation is not, this is not good. I think, Zach, what it struck me is that, you know, God made us to be an object of his love and therefore to share that back with him. You know, that's that first symbiotic relationship. And I think we have to have that to be complete on earth. You know, like, we love animals. We love creation.

I love sitting out at my house and Gulf Shores and looking at the water. I mean, I gained peace from that. I love it. It's serene to me. but it's different than me having an object of my love that I'm willing to get my life for. Yeah. You know, that sort of love. And I think that's the sort of completeness that I see in my wife, and my children, my

grandchildren, that love that comes from that. So to me, that's what he means by that, is that object of love, which we are to come. Yeah, I totally. No, I had two interesting thoughts, which I've never thought about one of them before. The idea that, you know, we believe that God is a Trinity. So there's Father, Son, Holy Spirit. even in that relationship, you know, there's three persons. And also, too, maybe thinking about it less from maybe like a spouse standpoint, but even just community. You know, we're called a living

community. And, you know, the New Testament talks a ton about that, about, you know, confessing sense to one another and this idea on how to do relationship with one another. Yes, I don't know. My first thought was that idea of God being in the Trinity. And so even that, that's still a relationship. It's still a relationship. Yeah, so if you're by yourself, there's no relationship. Well, if you think about it like this, that you have father, son, so you have love and lover. And this is debatable, but Augustine would say that the spirit is the love between the two.

And so you think about how that mirrors, that Trinity, like the relationship of a husband and wife actually mirror that. Right. You have husband, lover, wife, beloved, and then you have children, a child that comes out of that consummation of the love. So you actually see that Trinitarian framework. I think you're on to something. And I think you see that with our makeup in his image, body, soul, and spirit. You see animating force, personality, your life, who you are. The thing that when you die is not there anymore because it's just a body, then you see that physical body.

But then you see that soulish nature of us that. that longs for something bigger. So just like you see the three and us, and yet we're one, you see that same thing as the object. You see that in Genesis 1, God's asking a question. It's not to Adam.

It's, you know, we believe it's to the Trinity. You know, so you can ask that, like, well, who's God asking the question to? So even by him asking the question, there's a relationship by that kind of beckoning a response. Well, I'll go back to the relationships in just a second, but to stick on the Trinity, I recently was doing the study on the Trinity

and I think in Christian culture there's been a lot of this thing lately but it's essentially saying like God is thinking of God more as one than as three and the Trinity is somewhere on the spectrum of that but people use all these examples of like well it's like water and water and ice and vapor or it's a triangle or all these other things

a shell of that yeah there's all these different examples and all of them like are lacking. Lacking one way or the other. Who would you compare him to him to? Exactly. And then this one commenter said, the best thing we can come up with is father, son, and holy spirit.

Like man, woman, white. Like man, woman, son. Like, the marriage son thing is what God is. And that's the best way we can understand it. That's good. Well, if you think about it, like he mentions this, by the way, go check it out. It's Unashamed for Hillestell.com.

You can sign up for free. I think if you listen to what Dr. Jackson, how he talks about these four models of relationship, I think that that helps us understand it. Because when I was reading or wrote my notes down, I caught this. The first two are how does God relate to creation? So that's God's relationship with creation,

then God's relationship with humans. So there's two ways that God is relating to reality that we know of, which is God relates to creation, and then God relates to humans. Well, then what are the next two functions of the relationship? It's now how we reflect that. Now, how do we humans relate to creation? And then how do we humans relate to each other, to humans? And so it puts the humanity in an interesting posture. I think there's a word for this called anthropology, which is like, what does it mean to be human?

And I think that's been under attack in our culture for the last at least 10 years, right? I mean, and even now we had this transhumanist movement happening and things are. Well, and you see the downstream of it, then it's like, well, not only that, but then was it mean to be human? What it is to be a man? Was it to be a woman? We don't know. We don't know. So I think there's a lot of questions right now that are circling around like what does it actually mean to be a human.

And without the framework that Genesis 1 provides us, I don't think we can really have an answer for that, which is scary. That's good. Which I think shifts it into where most of this lesson about Adam and Eve got to in the study. And that is what happens when something breaks down? And that's where we get to Genesis 3, where we get in this idea of the introduction of sin. and first there was this loss of connection between God and humanity, but then also between human and human because of Adam and Eve. And then, of course, you got this instigator there, this some force that just was there.

We don't even not sure where he came from, but we know that what he did was introduce a thought that then once it ran out, started that breakdown of process. And so I think that's when you begin to see that, and Dr. Jackson didn't get into it. it, but you only have to go three more chapters in the book of Genesis, and things went so bad so quickly that the entire, you know, humanity had fallen into such chaos that the Bible says every thought was violence towards one another. I mean, that's how quickly this thing went downhill from the study. And he didn't get into that and this. You talk about Genesis 6? Yeah, Genesis 5 and 6. And so, I mean, my point is we marvel sometimes of how quickly we

unravel in our culture when we lose some of these basics, but you see it at the beginning. It was the exact same thing. G.K. Chesterton, they asked him, what's wrong with the world? And he said to understand what is wrong with the world, you must first understand what is right. And so I think if we understand that we're going to understand the fall of Adam and E. You have to first understand, well, what was right in the beginning. And what was right in the beginning is that they were image-bearers of God. They were reflecting the triune nature of God.

So I'm so glad you brought up to Trinity because I think that, I mean, there's a lot of application we can pull out of that, but the whole point is that we were reflective. The reason why God said it's not good for man to be alone is because God wasn't alone. And so inside the Trinity, you actually see this complimentary, like they all complement each other

and this beautiful synergy. And so we reflect that. And you reflect that primarily as humans. Like we reflect that through the fact that where God made us to be in his image, which means that he also says in Genesis 1, to be fruitful and to multiply, subdue the earth, have dominion over it. That's how we relate to creation. So we actually are kind of, the best way to say is like we're vice regents.

We're not God, but we are like God, right? Which kind of leads into the fall because we're like God in that we can make stuff like God, we can create stuff. Now, when Guy creates, he creates X-Nahilo, meaning out of nothing. So the Hebrew word for, I don't think you brought this up in the course, but the Hebrew word is Bahra. I can't say it quite like he would say it, because you've got to get the marbles in the back of Bahra. B-A-R-A, which means to create out of nothing, meaning there's nothing, and then boom, there's something,

which, by the way, the standard model of physics now testifies to that. But we can't do that. But what we can do is we can take the stuff that God made, like a tree, and somebody made this table for this podcast. Somebody created this. They made it out of stuff God made. And so when the fall happens, which I want to get into that, because we all were talking about it.

I have a hypothetical question about that. He was kind of expanding on the reason why they didn't repent. And it was kind of based off that question of like, for you or surely die. And he kind of took a few different angles at it, kind of the human thought of it of like, does that mean instant death or, you know, futuristic of like, eventually you're leading towards death? But do you think they were expelled from the garden because of eating the fruit

or the lack of repentance once confronted? Or both. I would say, I would say, well, I would say primarily the first one, me personally. But I think it was both. Well, and I thought to me, you know, there's always something you learn in a lesson. And to me, the biggest eye opener for me and this whole lesson since you brought it up, Christian, was the fact of him talking about the mercy of the banishment.

I had never thought about that one. That was key. That was big. Yeah. And you got to, look, so first of all, if you need to go down, go listen to that part of the course. Go to Unashamefor Hillsdale.com,

and you can sign it for free. Because I want our audience to hear Dr. Jackson talk about this point. Because I think this is, We were talking about this before, that it's an act of mercy that God would banish them from the garden. They said, well, why is that an act of mercy that seems like something horrible? But he kind of frames it up in a really interesting way, because when he describes life post-fall, and eternal life in a guilty, shameful state, which he described as hell, which is really interesting. You could turn paradise into hell.

That was his point. But I tend to think the repentance, Christian, is the, because he makes the point that they had an opportunity to repent. Why else would God ask them questions they already knew the answer to? Don't you think so, John? I mean, I totally agree. So he was asking that to give them an opportunity. But instead, they double down. They blame shifted.

It was Satan. It was the woman that you create. It was like everything went back to that little G we've made ourselves God. And so I think that's what Satan was peddling to Adam and Eve, to both of them, was the idea was you can be your own God. That's why I always think people say a lie was the oldest sin because Satan told a lie, but I really think it was idolatry because that's what he was selling, that idolatry. Yeah, because you hear a lot of atheists bring up that point of, like, God,

that's why God didn't want them to eat the fruit because he would have felt threatened if they were like him, which was kind of the lie that the enemy told him. eventually, God would have let them eat from the tree, which I've never heard anyone talk about that. That was such an interesting point. I've never heard anyone teach on that. I always thought it was just going to just be there forever, and you're never allowed to, you know, but it was God wanted them to trust him and I guess. Which is why I put the guard there and all that, right?

That is another thought on the tree, though, is what is the fruit and what is the knowledge of good and evil? like is the knowledge of good and evil something inherent like somewhat physical in the fruit that they gain or is the knowledge of good and evil the act of disobedience like the act of eating the tree the tree could have been any tree the thing that made it good and evil was that once they disobeyed god they then understood what good was and what evil was and that and that scenario, would they have ever eaten it or would they have learned that lesson a separate way over a long period of time? It's just a thought. I think what it was is that to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to eat and to dine alone without God. And so if you think about, then there's a guy who wrote a book on this call For the Life of

the World. I think it's based out of John 6, but Alexander Schmeman, one of my favorite. books. And this is more kind of an Eastern Orthodox perspective. But I think it's a really good point. He says that the man at his core is a hungry being. That's what we are. Like, it's not a matter if you're going to be hungry. It's a matter of what you'll hunger for. Another word for hunger is desire. It's not a matter of if you'll desire. It's a matter of what you'll desire. Another word for that is worship. It's not a matter of if you'll worship. It's a matter of what or who you'll worship. And so at our core, we're the hungry beings, and behind all that hunger is a hunger for God.

And so he says we're all priests. And we know that from Peter says that. There were a priesthood of believers. And what's the role of the priest? The role of the priest is to administer the Eucharist, to administer the communion. What is the Eucharist? You take the elements in and then you turn them back into praise towards God. You remember that song, every blessing you pour out?

I turn back to praise. So it's kind of that idea. God pours out blessing. He does that in the garden in the form of you can have any fruit from any tree in the garden except one. All of this is for your enjoyment. All of this is for you to dine with me. We're going to be in communion and community together.

I'm going to walk with you. I'm going to dine with you. I've made this for us to enjoy together. And when you eat of this, what's going to happen is then you're going to turn that blessing back into Thanksgiving and praise. and there'll just be one continuous cycle of participating or partaking in what Peter calls the inner life of God and the divine nature. And to eat of that fruit is, that's to say, I'm going to take all my toys that you gave

me at Christmas, and I'm going to go up into my room by myself and enjoy them. I'm going to open them. I mean, think about that. Think about if your kids came out down for Christmas and you bought all these gifts for them, and you want to see them open them. You want to see them enjoy them. And instead, they say, I'm going to take everything back to Christmas. my room and I'm going to open it for myself. I think that was the original sin and I think that

that's the definition of hell because what you do see in the garden is you see, he says this, that man occupies a unique space, right? He's a mediator between creation, between heaven and earth. Man's a mediator, which we've talked about this a lot in our podcast about that temple motif, but I never had really thought about man himself, who will become the ultimate temple, by the is that. Man himself is the connection between heaven and earth. Well, that's what a temple is. A temple is the place where God dwells. It's the place where heaven and earth meet. Man will become, man was that in the beginning and with the coming of Christ and the death, bearer, and resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, now we are that again. But I think it will make sense when you read Second Thessalonians, when he gives this definition of hell.

He said, the Lord Jesus, he says, basically, when God comes back, he's going to punish two kind of people. Those who don't know him and those who don't obey his gospel, they will suffer punishment of eternal destruction away, shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. So eternal punishment is to be out of the presence of God. Right. And then when he comes on that day to be glorified in the saints and to be marveled at among all who believe, So you see a contrast there on the final day. One side is going to experience hell because they're shut out of the presence of the Lord. They're dining alone without God.

The other side, they're going to get to marvel at him. That's heaven. So when you think about this whole idea of mercy, how is it mercy to kick these people out of the garden once they sin? It's mercy because to live in a state of continual existence out of the presence of the Lord is the very definition of hell. That was Jackson's point. Yeah. And that point on shame on that, they would live with that shame forever. Yeah.

Unless something else happened that they were able to repent and then come back. And I read this down, this was a little bit, this is just my thoughts from watching the videos. The obedience to God is being in relationship with God. And that's willful obedience. Like you making the choice, I'm. I am going to do what God says because I have faith in him. I love him. And that is will for choice.

And you have the legitimate choice to not do that. And one of the things you see throughout the scripture and that we experience in our life is you, to be in that presence of God, you have to stay in that obedience. and when you are disobedient, you're choosing, I am, God, you're choosing to do something else, and God is saying the consequences of that is you can't be in my presence. Why would you choose that, though? Think about it. Right, yeah.

Because you don't believe he's good. Yeah, right. You don't believe that he's giving you blessed. You think there's something else. That's what Adam and he did. They like, I don't believe that you have my best interest. Yeah, and I think that was that repentance, or God gave them that chance to repent to say,

okay, you've made a mistake here, are you going to come back to obedience or are you going to choose to continue doing it their own way and they said no we're going to keep doing their own way we're going to pass the blame and still think that we are right and god said well you can't be in my presence now because you're not staying in obedience and then kicks him out yeah one thing he said too i've never heard i've never really thought about it i think because of after it happens it goes straight to negative but he talked about when they ate the fruit how it was twofold, how they

good and evil. Because then you're, because it goes straight into feeling shame. So I feel like when you read it, you don't think about that they now have a framework for good too. So I was reading and I was like, I wonder what they,

I wonder what the first thing they realized like what is good. Because now, because being in marriage, when you're both naked together, you don't feel shame because that's in marriage. So I wonder why. I'm, like,

that's my sister. It's gross. Well, okay. Well, maybe that was weird. Good point, Dudley.

Well, I'm saying, you know, we're in there. Come on, man. It's a family audience. Come on.

He introduced a shame. Yeah, you're not. Yeah, I know. What is good, that's not shameful. But no,

I've never heard, well, I'm sure I've heard it, but I've never tried to like fully grasp that idea of need a good and evil,

because most of the time we just think about it from the negative consequences of it and the shame of it, but they also did now have a framework for like what is good. So you got this idea that they're creating life, and you know what's happening, even though it's kind of unspoken until later and you start to see the fruit of this, well, when are you the most like the creator when you're creating? And so here's Adam and Eve, the very first man and woman, the very first husband and wife, and you're right. Without shame, they are having children, they're creating life.

And so when you see this sin come in, and all of a sudden this division, and it happens at the God to humanity level and the human to human level, you see all these things begin to flood in. And I'm always amazed at how, after all these thousands of years of human history, it really boils back down to the same things that keep occurring in people's life. And, you know, for the four of us sitting around this table, I mean, I've lived this moment of shame and division in my marriage where it almost cost us the whole relationship.

And you know who was the most innocent of that? Were the lives that we helped create by the power of God. I have two daughters. And now they've got to live with that. That's why when you get to chapter four, the first people affected or who, the family of Adam and Eve.

And then you start to see it breaking down. You start seeing all this, you know, the shame and the sin has all these issues that come about as a result. And so I always love to go back to this narrative. even talking to couples. And Lisa and I do a lot of teaching out of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 because you see the foundation of life in pre-shame.

And so the question becomes, can we reset a damaged life? Can we redeem a damaged marriage? Can we redeem a broken family? Can we redeem an addicted situation? And the answer to all those is yes. And he gave the opportunity of repentance there, but that opportunity still goes on to this day. So the beauty of that is we see these foundational things.

You cannot live in this shame and dishonesty and distance. It will destroy whatever it is. And it's so clear here in this day. And you think you can manage it, but you can't. And again, just want to remind you guys. Go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com to sign it for free. We want you guys to take this course with us and to dive into this topic. But when it comes to shame, you think about in your own.

life when you've done things that were shameful, which we all have, and things that were not proud of, things I do not want posted on a screen for someone to see. I can now, I look at the kids nowadays and think, man, if they would have had cell phone cameras when I was y'all's age, I would have certainly been canceled a long time ago. But we do things that are shameful, but the nature of shame is what it does, is it does cause you to look away. And Adam and Eve did just that. That's what they did. Whenever they violated the command and they ate the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, like they were the ones that withdrew from God.

And they ran and they hid from him. And then when God runs up on him, what does he say? It's a rhetorical question because he's omniscient. He knows to answer. But he's like, basically, what do you guys do? And they're like, well, we heard you come and we were naked so we hit. That's what shame does. You realize your nakedness and you realize your vulnerability.

at that point and you're like, because you have violated, I think this is part of the knowledge of good and evil, too, is that you start to realize that people can hurt you. And so once that enters in, then all of a sudden is, I don't want you to see me naked because if you see me naked, then you're going to see my fat rolls. You're going to see my dimples. You're going to see whatever the things I'm insecure about. I want to cover that stuff up. And you mentioned marriage. The truth is, is that I don't think any of us will ever, really know what a real unashamed nakedness feels like, like, purely, like, because we all have our own crap that we bring to the table. We can experience it and measure, right? But we all have shame. And you kind of know it in your own, right? That's why you've done enough marital

counseling. I have, too, as a pastor, that how much of marital counseling centers around sexual issues? A lot. A lot of it. And I think it's because we're all sexually broken. We all have issues. We all have our trauma, our things in the past, all the things. And what that does to us, to a human, is you cannot manage it, you cannot control it, you will turn away. And so God says, who told you you were naked? Did you eat from the tree? I told you not to eat of?

And what did they do? They had covered up with fig leaves, which I always think this is hilarious, because I used to have a fig tree in my yard when I lived here. And the leaves are not very durable. So think about if you had a suit made of fig leaves, you're going to be. going to be super anxious everywhere you go because man if I hit the corner of this table it might rip something and now you're going to see my me right I'm I don't want it so you're that the anxiety and the fear that comes along with that kind of shame is whatever if I move the wrong way I'm going

to be exposed that's what shame does so you walk around in a constant state of fear a constant fear of being known and seen and then reject it because people see your flaws what God does even in Genesis, pre-Christ, what does he do? He says, that is not a durable covering. I'm going to make you a durable covering. And so then you had the first shedding of blood. Yeah, sacrifice. You have a sacrifice, which is foreshadding of Jesus.

And so Jesus becomes our covering. But even in Genesis, we see that covering. Well, and we even know in Ephesians 1, that before the creation of the world, there was the idea that there would be a covering, even before he made us, which is pretty interesting. Go ahead, Libby. On the idea on knowing yourself and in marriage and going back to your question from earlier of why did God create man and woman and why does you say it's not good, but then it was good.

And I think about early in my marriage or maybe right before. I don't remember who said this. Honestly, it could have been you, Al. If it was good, it probably was. It probably was. If it was bad, it was probably Jason. Yeah. But it is to say the quote was, marriage is like a mirror.

It reflects your good and bad qualities. And I see that in my own marriage so much. Like I understand my, I really couldn't understand myself until I was married. And then when you live with someone every single day, day and day out, and you have those eyes on you, you start to realize the good and the bad in yourself. And I think for Adam and for a man, or not even gender, man, woman, whoever, but for a single individual, you can't. understand yourself unless you are in community with someone else and that mirror that reflects on them is what led them down the path to see okay I'm good or I'm evil or this is bad or this is good in themselves but then they up until that point they

were good until they well he makes that point he says I got my notes here a human person it is a it's a corporate personhood so the point that he gets born on my my flesh of my flesh, only in the act of naming the person across from him was Adam able to name himself. And so you do see that. And I think we see that also with our relationship with God. And so when the fall comes in, what the fall does essentially is it ruptures all for the relationships. Well, it does. It ruptures the relationship between God and creation and the creation, we know from Romans, groans with eager expectations, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. we're in a state of entropy, all the things.

It ruptures the relationship with God and man. It ruptures the relationship with man and creation, and it ruptures the relationship with man and man, human and human. It disrupts all of that. But what Christ brings, it will bring, and is bringing, is the rectifying of all of that, the bringing back together heaven and earth. And he does that through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross

for his resurrection and then the coming of the Holy Spirit that lives now in the bodies of believers. Yeah, because his example for the human to human was when God confronts Adam and he says, the woman, you know, like, so that's, you initially see the enmity there of just blame shifting. And that's really, the woman that you gave me. Yeah, the woman that you gave me.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the initial, like, yeah, human-to-human fractured relationship is that beginning when God asks him the question. And he, yeah, initially blames Eve. And it doesn't take any kind of ability for it. Yeah, well, then it doesn't say this. He doesn't talk about this in the videos.

But then when God goes on, he says, the land will be cursed because of this. Like, you'll be in between you and the land. Like, there's also clearly says it ruptures that relationship between you and creation. Yeah, it does. And that's what we're trying to get back to, which we will, because God will be the notorious in the end.

So, I mean, speaking of shame, you drink shame. You came in. I did not drink shame. Yeah, I was drinking. and I won't say what it was, but it was an energy drink, and he comes in. It is something scary that hides in closets. Yeah.

There you go. And he goes, hmm, whatever energy drink, hmm. And then he walks off. And I felt shame and I hid. I did not. You were on a very serious phone call, it looked like, and I was trying to get your attention, but I don't think you heard me.

I was getting amped up. I was getting amped up for our Genesis study. But again, guys, remember you can join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdown College. All you got to do is go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You'll sign up for free. You'll get a bunch of this stuff.

I want to read the two verses that I read at every wedding that I do. And it's from this context. We're talking about Genesis 224. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, which was interesting because this is written to the original husband and wife. At this point, this is all futuristic. It's going to happen. And yet that's that idea again about creation of life.

So this is the birth is the way I describe it. And someone said it to me, kind of like your mirror thing, which wasn't me, by the way, but I love that. That this is the birth of a new family. Every time this new, this is a new entity, a new thing that happens. This is an independence, right? And be united to his wife,

and they will become one flesh. There's that mirror that you see. I mean, we're one now. So when I look at myself in the mirror, it's the same kind of symbiotic relationship. And then here's the intimacy, Christian. and the man and his wife were both naked and felt no shame. So the idea is you see that completeness that happens in this relationship

and what is going to happen in the next chapter and chapter three because of sin and because of choice is that we're not only going to begin that idea of death and the sense that they're out of the garden and there's no more tree of life and there's no eternal life because we know whatever was there is pretty powerful. The first people lived to be a thousand years old, so there was some pretty amazing juju going on from the tree of life that now, of course, we're cut off from.

But it's also the death of a relationship. And that's why you can't live in shame. I mean, it eventually will destroy it. And I think back to, you know, Jesus and John 4 having that relationship with that woman at the well who was living in shame, you know, because she had all these broken relationships and all this disaster in her life. And yet Jesus came there to then offer her something whole again. again. And now she would become his bride in the sense we all do, you know. And so you see those pictures like that of restoration. It's so beautiful and the idea it can be done. And so I always

like to start out a wedding, you know, by giving that, unlike dad who spoke at your wedding, Chris is saying. Brother Paul said, it's better not to marry. I mean, that was his leave. That was how he started our wedding. It's better not to marry. You will face troubles of many kinds, you know. So dad's laid up to his prayer. And I was, oh, I'm glad his mic's not working. That was an epic film moment. It was. And then you should have shout out.

It's better for man not to be alone. That's right. That's what you should have shouted. Yeah, he was, yeah, Paul, yeah, I think Paul was speaking into a different context. I think Phil got that one a little off. But, you know, he wasn't perfect, right? But, you know, I think to close up here, I think what you'd mention earlier that God wasn't in a rivalry, which is what Dr. Jackson mentioned, he wasn't like,

Yeah. But you think about that, like, I love how he put it. He said, he isn't in competition with the things that he made out of mud. I was like, that's a pretty good line. Yeah. Right? And think about that, God's not in competition with us. Like, I think sometimes we hold ourselves too high that somehow we're going to threaten God's godness.

No? You are not going to threaten who he is. He is not in competition with us, not because, I mean, there is no competition. And so I think the casting out of the guard. Even like when he says that we were called to guard and protect the garden. But in the end, after the rupture, the God placed the cherubims to guard the garden from us. Because that was that broken relationship. But all of that's being made new and it will be made due in Christ.

And so what we're going to see as we move forward in our study of Genesis next week, we're going to be a Genesis 15 through Genesis 21. So do two things. Go read Genesis 15 to 21. You can actually start in 12 to give you a little flavor for Abraham. Yeah. I would. I'd start in 12 because that's the creation of nation states.

That's when Israel was born. That's when Abram was called. So start in 12 and read through 21. And then join us next Friday, we'll go to every Friday for Unashamed Academy, Powered by Hillsdale College. And then the second thing to do is go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. Go through.

We're going to be on lecture. three next week, which is Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. That's unashamed for hillsdale.com. And by the way, and did you guys know this, that out of Adam and Eve's descendants, this is actually shocking, but more than four million of their descendants have taken Hillsdale free online courses.

More than four million now, including the four months. Four million. Four million in a Fink County. I've got over 40 free online courses taught by Hillsdale faculty on history, literature, theology, and politics. This is going to be fun.

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