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TeacherAide The First Epic SESSION 4 ILLUSTRATING
THE POINT Statue of Adam Crumbles In autumn 2002, at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City, a priceless 15th century statue of
Adam toppled and shattered while no one was in the room. Although vandalism was
initially suspected, curators determined that the life-sized Venetian sculpture
“buckled of its own accord” said Time
magazine. “It will take a great deal of time
and skill, but the piece can be restored,” the museum’s director said.
Citation: “Museum
to mend shattered statue,” BBC News (10-10-02) Good Thinking The greatest mistake of education has been to assume
that intelligent people are automatically good thinkers. High intelligence does
not ensure effective thinking--it may actually make a person a poor thinker. For
example, a highly intelligent person can take any view on a subject and then use
his intelligence to defend that view. The more perfect the defense, the less
chance the thinker has of actually exploring the subject. Other aspects of the
intelligence trap include the need to be right, the need to show oneself to be
more clever than others, critical rather than constructive thinking, and
reactive thinking rather than projective thinking.
Citation:
Feedback. Leadership,
Vol. 6, no. 3. THE
MORE YOU KNOW Our choices always have consequences;
either good consequences or bad consequences. For Adam and Eve, their choice
brought bad consequences for them and the rest of mankind. Before they made
their tragic choice, Adam and Eve enjoyed the benefit of living life free from
every circumstance that would bring problems. What are problems? That is exactly
what Adam and Eve would have asked before their fall because they did not have
any problems…none. From this passage in Genesis 3, Moses
outlines the exact consequences of the Fall: Loss of self-esteem (v.7) Personal shame and alienation (v.8) Fear (v. 10) Transference of guilt to another
(v.12) Pain in childbirth (v.16) Exhaustion in labor (v.17-19) At some point in our life, we will
experience some if not all of Adam and Eve’s consequences. But we have a new
opportunity not to repeat their mistakes. Sure, we are born with their sin
nature, but as believers, we have been given a new nature. A new nature where
the Spirit of God lives, rules, and resides within you. If you chose wisely, you
can minimize your bad consequences to your choices. As Indiana Jones would say,
“Choose wisely!” I
THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY “Few preachers of religion do
believe thoroughly the doctrine of the Fall, or else they think that when Adam
fell down he broke his little finger, and did not break his neck and ruin his
race.” Candy
coating the Fall – Charles Haddon Spurgeon “Human beings generate shame; God
covers it with a durable product that requires the shedding of blood. Human
beings suffer a metaphysical chill; God warms them with garments they should
never have needed.”
Melvin D. Hugen and Cornelius Plantinga “Satan was planting in Eve’s mind
the idea that there should be no restrictions in the perfect plan of a good
God.”
Charles Ryrie “Satan promises the best, but pays
with the worst; he promises honor and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure
and pays with pain; he promises profit and pays with loss; he promises life and
pays with death.”
Thomas Brooks “The thoroughly evil nature of the
devil consists in the fact that here we have spontaneous, self-generating sin
expressed in pure defiance and pure arrogance.” “We are punished by our sins, not
for them.”
Elbert Hubbard “Sins, like chickens, come home to
roost.”
Charles W. Chestnutt “All sins tend to be addictive, and
the terminal point of addiction is damnation.”
W.
H. Auden |