Abel in the Bible/"He, Although He Died, Yet Speaks" -Growing Up in the Time of "the Founding of the World"

Abel was born near the dawn of human history. Jesus later associated Abel with "the founding of the world."  (Read Luke 11:50, 51)   Jesus evidently meant the world of people who might be redeemed from sin.  While Abel was the fourth human to exist, it seems that he was the first one whom God saw as redeembable.  Clearly, Abel did not grow up among the best of influences. 

Though the world was young, a pall of sadness hung over the human family. Abel's parents, Adam and Eve, were likely beautiful, dynamic people.  But they had fallen far in life and they knew it.  They were once perfect, with the prospect of eternal life before them.  Then they rebelled against Jehovah God and were banished from their Paradise home in the garden of Eden.  By putting their own desires ahead of all else-even the needs of their offspring-they lost perfection and eternal life. -Genesis 2:15-3:24. 

Exiled to life outside the garden, Adam and Eve found their existence hard.  Yet, when their first child was born, they named him Cain, or "Something Produced," and Eve proclaimed:  "I have  produced a man with the aid of Jehovah." Her words suggested that she may have had in mind the promise Jehovah made in the garden, foretelling that a certain woman would produce a "seed," or offspring, who would one day destroy the wicked one who had led Adam and Eve astray.  (Genesis 3:15; 4:1)  Did Even imagine that she was the woman in the prophecy and that Cain was the promised "seed"? 

If so, she was sadly mistaken.  What is more, if she and Adam fed Cain such ideas as he grew up, they surely did his imperfect human pride no good.   In time, Eve bore a second son, but we find no such high-flown statements about him.  They named him Abel, which may mean "Exhalation," or "Vanity."  (Genesis 4:2)  Did that choice of a name reflect lower expectations as if they put less hop in Abel than Cain? We can only guess.

Parents today can learn much from those first parents.  By your words and actions, will you feed your children's pride, ambition, and selfish tendencies?  Or will you teach them to love Jehovah God and to seek friendship with him? Sadly, the first parents failed in their responsibility. Yet, there was hope for their offspring.  

Next time: Abel in the Bible/"He, Although He Died, Yet Speaks" -Abel Developed Faith -How? 

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