Dema, a 26-day-old male Sumatran tiger cub, and Irma, a 5-month-old female orangutan, cuddle at the Taman Safari zoo in Cisarua, Indonesia. Two tiger cubs and two baby orangutans, all abandoned by their mothers, became close friends and playmates sharing a room in the zoo’s nursery.

CNN.com

A female monkey fondly cuddles a puppy at a shop in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, 9 May 2002. The pet monkey, bought from an animal trader, "adopted" the puppy and spends many happy hours hugging it. Hunting and selling of monkeys are prohibited under Bangladesh laws but they are seldom enforced.

Reuters photo credit Rafiqur Rahman

Animals "adopting" and caring for each other speaks much about the Kingdom of God. After realizing their abandonment, the baby tiger and orangutan saw past each others’ differences. We are all abandoned orphans. We have a hard time realizing this sometimes. That’s why God wants to adopt us.

"He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love. For He foreordained us to be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ." Ephesians 1:4-5 (Amplified Bible)

God does not abandon people; people abandon people. People abandon. God adopts.

As we grow older we notice more differences. Prejudice is something we learn. A child’s faith is a blank slate without prejudice. "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it," Mark 10:15. This type of faith allows Hosea, the Prophet,  to marry Gomer, a prostitute, and have a child with her. It is easy to talk about reconciliation generally, but when people start marrying across different races, economic/social backgrounds and education levels, then the conversation becomes more tense. When reconciliation in the church becomes real, people in the church will be comfortable with their children marrying children of prostitutes, thieves and murderers.

People kill. God saves. Thinking you are better than someone else is the root of all conflict.

There is nothing wrong about eating from the Tree of Knowledge. It is wrong how Adam and Eve respond once they gain knowledge. New knowledge made them proud, causing them to blame each other for the "misdeed." Gaining knowledge without love brought/brings death into the world. God told them to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge, because God knew: Truth without love kills.

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., January 8th, 2006

If Adam and Eve were the same gender, would they be ashamed of their nakedness? Could differences between their composition cause conflict? It may be tempting to say everyone is the same for the sake of unity. By overlooking differences, it would create a "Utopia" based on blind comfort and happiness. Struggle purifies. Our job is to recognize difference when necessary and overlook differences when needed. Love without truth lies.

The Bible is the Tree of Knowledge. The Pharisees who valued the Torah more than anything else were some of the most depraved people according to Jesus. When we study the Bible, we eat from the dangerous Tree of Knowledge. This creates "Christians" who know their Bible, but blame others for conflicts in the world, just like Adam and Eve did. Some may say, "This is a fallen world. That’s why there is sin, violence, lies and Satan in this world." This statement evades personal responsibility and blinds you of reality.

The Tree of Life, the source of love, is blocked with the flaming sword after Adam and Eve are unable to handle knowledge without becoming prideful.

Genesis 3:22-24
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

God did not block the Tree of Life, as some people think: "The flaming sword is sheathed, but not before its blade was bloody with the blood of our Kinsman Redeemer, the second Adam," (http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nl143.htm). Instead, humans block themselves from the Tree of Life. Knowledge brings pride. Pride creates a wall between us and love.

"The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:17

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

The flaming sword is the Bible. The Bible (the truth) separates people. Love brings people together. The person who overcomes differences by loving others gains eternal life (the paradise of God):

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." Revelation 2:7

These two passage advocate that love without truth lies, not violence or abandonment.

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
   " ‘a man against his father,
      a daughter against her mother,
   a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—[Micah 7:6]
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)

"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." Luke 18:29-30 (Mark 10:29-30)

Truth without love kills our relationship with God and people. Love is more important than truth. Killing is worse than lieing. Truth and love are both necessary, because both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life are present in the garden. God says that eating from the Tree of Knowledge, "the man has now become like one of us." The perfection God teaches comes from discarding knowledge that puffed us with pride and embracing God’s love for all people (e.g. orphans, widows, murders, prostitutes, thieves) by humbling ourselves before these people.

"External religious worship [religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world." James 1:27 (Amplified Bible)

P.S. If Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life, rather than the Tree of Knowlege, first, then they would be far better off, since killing is worse than lieing. God said that, "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." God does not have any prohibitions against eating from the Tree of Life. The serpant is crafty to lead Adam and Eve away from the Tree of Life, and toward the Tree of Knowlege.

Peaceable Kingdom: Abandonment, Adoption and Relationships

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize