How do you reach people who don't think the Bible is relevant to their life? How do you encourage someone to read the Bible who has no interest in it? Do what Paul did. When he was in Greece he observed how they behaved, whom they quoted and what they valued. Here in Russia we've noticed that Russians love a good story. The famed author Nikolai Gogol once said that a Russian cannot resist a good story.
With that in mind - and by the request of a few students - we put together a 6 week Bible discussion wherein we would look at some form of media (art, music, TV, literature) and then look at the biblical inspiration for that story. As I looked for stories to relate to the Bible I was encouraged by how much Russians know and love culture. Further it is not just their own culture they know, but a wide breadth of culture from the East to the West. The Humanities major in me rejoiced at this task as I finally was able to put my education to work!
For those interested this is first of the four studies I put together. Feel free to use them or tweak them or add to them.
Adam & Eve and Homer & Marge
I took the approach of wanting to point our students to the various covenants God made with the Israelites and how each of those covenants were a foreshadowing of what God had planned all along: the New Covenant Jesus mediated between man and God. I then looked around for cultural references to those covenants and came up with a few discussion questions. Then we would look at the biblical passage that inspired that media and discuss it further.
The first week we watched an episode from the Simpsons. In this episode the family is at church and they all begin to fall asleep and have different biblically themed dreams. The first one is my favorite: Marge dreams that she and Homer are Adam and Eve and that Ned is God. (If you want to watch it it is season 10 episode 18.) In this vignette Marge/Eve is smart and caring and careful to not disobey God. Homer/Adam is goofy and careless and just keeps asking for more from God. Homer/Adam devours the forbidden fruit without a second thought and then blames Marge/Eve. Marge/Eve gets kicked out and Homer/Adam tries to sneak her back in, but he gets caught in the process (and God's unicorn, Gary, dies trying to help them). In anger God kicks them out into the wasteland. There are a lot of funny moments in it and I recommend watching it if you can find it.
Obviously it does not stick very closely to the text, but our students didn't know that. We asked them what they thought of this episode and the responses were varied. Some liked it, some were confused, many of them thought that this really is what happened. Here are the questions I had for us to discuss:
Simpsons Questions
What was the Garden of Eden like? Describe it.
Why did God (Ned) forbid them from eating the fruit?
What was the relationship between God and “Adam and Eve” like?
What did the snake do? Did he force them to take it or suggest it?
Who ate the fruit first? Who was to blame for that action?
What is God like? What are Adam and Eve like? Describe their character?
Then we read Genesis 1:26 - 31; 2:4 - 3:23 and discussed these questions:
Bible Questions
How did God create man? (2:7) Is that significant?
What does it mean to be created in the image of God? (1:27)
Why was Eve created? What was her purpose? (2:18)
What was Adam and Eve’s relationship like before they sinned? (2:25)
What was their relationship with God like?
What was Adam’s relationship with the created world like? (2:15, 2:19-20)
There were two trees in the Garden of Eden, what were they called? (Life, Knowledge of Good and Evil)
Which one did God forbid Adam from eating? why? (2:17)
Could Adam have eaten the other one?
After they ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil what would happen if they then ate from the tree of Life? (live forever apart from God - in their sin)
Why wouldn’t God want them to live forever in their sin?
Was it merciful or cruel to banish them from Eden?
What role did the Serpent play in all of this? (3:1-5)
How did the serpent undermine God’s authority? Was he lying?
Why did Eve eat the fruit? Where was Adam? Whose fault was it? (3:6-7)
What did they do wrong? (they did not trust God)
What were the consequences for
a) the serpent (3:14-15)
b) Eve (3:16)
c) Adam (3:17-19)
How did this affect the relationships between
a) people and God (3:8-13)
b) Man and Woman (3:7; 3:12; 3:16)
c) people and the earth? (compare 2:15 to 3:17-19)
Do you see these consequences today in this world?
(I got most of these questions from http://30minutebiblestudies.com/Study_Adam_and_Eve.html )
Discussing these questions was really insightful for me because I thought everyone knew basically what the Adam and Eve story was. In truth, most of them didn't. Two issues I pressed pretty hard during this discussion were that 1) the sin they committed was not believing God - a sin to be repeated by God's people throughout the Bible. 2) God had to kill an animal - sacrifice something - to clothe Adam and Even when they left. I then re-read the part about the serpent bruising the heel of Eve's offspring and the offspring crushing the head of the serpent. Then I showed them the opening scene from the Passion of the Christ and explained that Christians believe this is the first prophecy regarding Jesus in the Bible.
I finished the studying by making the point that every story in the Bible points in some way to the cross. The cross was the ultimate plan of God and each story is another plot twist on the way. Next week we talked about Abraham and Isaac and looked at Rembrandt. I'll post that discussion soon.
If you have any comments or questions or ways to add to the study please add them in the comments below.
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