Advent Day 11 – God Created Families – God Created Diversity

The Biblical Book of Genesis tells us God filled the earth with seed-bearing plants and trees. Likewise, when God created people, He told them to “Be Fruitful and Multiply.”

²⁷So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that ^[h]moves on the earth.”\

In the fourth chapter of Genesis. we read that Adam and Eve multiplied:

4 Adam^[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.^[b] She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth^[c] a man.” ²Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Genesis 4:1

In the above passage, we might begin to understand that God created different types of people. From the beginning, God created Diversity.

Cain was a Farmer and Abel was a Shepherd

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ³In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. Genesis 4:2-3.

The First Murder

As a child, I was taught the story of how Cain became jealous of his brother and killed him. It was later that I learned that Adam and Eve had other children and that through their son Seth, Jesus is connected to Adam and Eve.

During the remaining days of Advent, I’ll be talking about some of the people who were descendants of Seth and were, therefore, in Jesus’s Family Tree. One of my Advent activities is to make ornaments for a Jesus Tree.

A Jesse Tree is representative of Jesus’s Family Tree through Jesse and David, Jesus was the Father of King David. King David was an ancestor of Joseph, who was the earthly father of Jesus.

What Is a Jesse Tree & Why Is a Jesse Tree an Important Part of Christmas?

Tomorrow, I’ll begin talking more about people in the Family Tree of Jesus.

Today, I want to pause for a moment and stress the fact that God did not rubber-stamp Adam and Eve. God deliberately, created Diversity.

God Created Diversity

God created people of all colors, and He created people of many personalities and interests, And It Was Good. We Are All Earthlings

When I was a young child, I was taught to sing: “Jesus loves all the children of the world: red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight.”

I took that song to heart, and 74 years later, I still believe that God purposefully filled His creation with many colors–including a vast variety of skin tones.

In order to better represent all the skin tones of God’s people, Crayola sells a special set of skin tone markers — Colors of the World.