What About Those In Non-Christian Lands Who Have Never Heard The Gospel?

Here again, you, a non-believer, look up one passage and try to use it to justify a position. You know nothing about Cain other than he was jealous of his brother and murdered him yet you seem to take it upon yourself to decide that made him a goat rather than a sheep.....interesting. Then you take it upon yourself to apply this passage to ""HIS FOLLOWERS". when that very passage says "all the nations will be gathered before him". That passage applies to everyone who tries to enter the Kingdom of Heaven by their "works". The passage is about "works". Perhaps you need to dig a little deeper in your study rather than looking for things to support your narrative.
Perhaps Cain was found displeasing to God because his attitude of sacrifice was due to his intent of giving was of works rather than a change of heart. That could very well be, yet how do you take it upon yourself to "judge" that single act, or even the murder of his brother condemned him to hell?

 

There’s a lot missing from the story of Cain and Abel but the thing I find interesting is that Cain wanted to make god happy and was clearly hurt by gods rejection of his sacrifice. In his own mind, Cain must have thought he was doing the right thing by bringing a vegan dish to the bbq.
How many people in the world today think they are doing the right thing in their pursuit of pleasing god? How many of them will be rejected by god on a what seems a technicality? There wasn’t even a covenant at the time that Cain slew Abel, no long winded book of rules to consult. God seems to want to counsel Cain and Cain goes on to establish a city and raises Enoch who is such a good guy that he gets to go live in heaven with god rather than just going to the grave like other humans.

 

So you think Cain wanted to make God happy.... I don't know where you get that, but I believe Cain was going through the motions like so many today making a sacrifice that cost him very little,

 

You are substituting sarcasm for reason. It isn't about carnivore versus vegan. It's about offering your best. Abel gave his best as an offering. Cain gave something less, probably keeping the best of what he harvested for himself. Maybe offering to God, shriveled beans, half filled ears of corn, scarred and deformed other things. Somehow this way of life manifested itself in Abel winding up more blessed than his older Brother Cain. So Cain was not only jealous of his Brothers success, but shamed by the knowledge that his little Brother was simply a better person. So Cain murdered Abel, rather than repent of his selfishness and humble himself. He must have been very self righteous and prideful.

As for covenants. There must have been something in place, or else they wouldn't be making sacrifices to God.

 

Trying to pitch this story as real vs. allegory hits me as essentially impossible.

 

You know it doesn’t really say why god turned away from Cain’s offering or why Cain slew able but it is implied that Cain was upset about it due to the murdering. I have always assumed the dissatisfaction is because God wants the meat since the later rules about sacrifices are always about sacrificing bulls and birds and other animals. I don’t think there are any examples of plant based food being sacrificed, but I could be wrong. Maybe the fruit of the soil was mistranslated and he actually brought Road apples.

the carnivore vs vegan thing is just me having a laugh.

I also love that Avenged Sevenfold are given honorable mention in this book thousands of years before the band formed. Truly god has some good taste in music.

 

Interestingly, some have speculated that the story of Cain and Abel was added to the Bible after the Babylonian exile and that it is a version of an earlier Sumerian myth. I think there is some merit to this idea since this story is not told twice the way many other stories from Genesis are told twice due to the book of Genesis likely having two main authors whose work was joined together into one text. This story is probably a third author

The Islamic interpretation includes the idea that the woman with whom Cain produces Enoch is one of Adam’s daughters named Aclima. Cain and Abel were competing to win God’s favour so he would approve of one of them to marry her.

 

I wasn't there. So I have to take it at face value. What do you think is unreal about it?

 

The story as written sounds more like a family feud. There were 4 human beings on Earth. They sacrificed to their god. One sacrifice type was considered worse than the other. A murder resulted. The murderer moved away.

Just about any allegorical interpretation is better than that.

 

People murder one another for jealousy all the time. Is it the presence of God in the story that troubles you? I don't follow your rationale or meaning.

 

Guess it comes down to whether a person believes the Bible, as it has been canonized, is the inspired, written Word from God, protected and preserved for our instruction so we can move through faith into a dynamic relationship with our Creator......or is it an "allegory" conceived and written by flawed human kind for his entertainment. If I personally thought for a moment the latter of the two, I think I would be a "viking" or barbarian of some kind because it would be "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!

 

God? What's that?

 

For now it is your life and the world. But in truth, it is his spirit from whom we are estranged and have forgotten, due to his being eclipsed by our life and the world into which we are born. All that remains of him within us is the light of conscience.

 

Conscience or consciousness?

 

The light of conscience to know right from wrong or to be reminded.

 

Thanks. I agree with you. The reasoning behind your words remind me a bit of the Prophet Malachi's words to Israel:
"Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not." Malachi 3:13-18

 

There is the grain offering.

 

No. First we are judged on the light that we have, and secondly if God through His middle knowledge knows this about Akua Adisa, then Akua Adisa will have an opportunity to be in SC in 1990 to hear Franklin Graham speak.

Arranging that is child's play compared to speaking the Universe into being from nothing.

 

I don't see a higher meaning to be derived from that story.

The story of the garden of Eden? Sure. Adam presumed himself worthy of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - a prerogative reserved for god alone.

That's a clear warning to mankind.

 

Sacrifices to god were to be blood sacrifices.

As God told Moses “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

Cain's sacrifice was not a legitimate sacrifice.

No animal "paid the iron price".

What would have happened had Cain not murdered his brother? He was already an affront to god.

 

The first fruits were the conditions of "grain sacrifices".

 

Surely a God could communicate to man through allegory.

One can't just take everything in the Bible as literal events.

 

Leviticus, I presume. There, the majority of the sacrifice belonged to Aaron and his sons.

I had not heard that.

So, what about the statement to Moses by God???

 

In light of the OP your reply does not make sense.
Why not?
Because there have in fact been untold billions of humans who
lived in the past in lands where there was a total absence of the
gospel message. The Sovereign God is not going to supernaturally
transport a man who lived in say Africa in 1600 A.D. . into
a geographical location where he can hear the gospel message.

Best.

JAG


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"Supernaturally transport?" That's not a claim of mine. I said that if God, via Middle Knowledge, knew that if Akua Adisa were born in SC in 1990, and had an opportunity to hear Franklin Graham give an altar call, that he would commit his life to God; then God would insure that he was born in SC in 1990 in SC rather than in Africa in 1600.

On what basis are you claiming that such a feat is impossible for God?