Genesis 4: The Source of Today’s Headlines


If you want to understand today’s headlines, entertainment, economy, and global conflicts, you have to know Genesis 4.  It’s vital to giving us a sense of history and perspective. 

  • Genesis 1 and 2 tells about the creation of the universe, the world, and the human race.
  • Genesis 3 tells about the “fall” and about the entrance of sin and death into the human story.
  • But it’s Genesis 4 that shows us the beginnings of human society and how sin began to affect the popular culture and mar social order — and what God intended to do about it.  In this chapter, we have:
  1. The Beginning of Violence, Murder, Domenstic Conflict, and Warfare  – v. 8
  2. The Beginning of Organized Cities – v. 17
  3. The Beginning of Immorality (this is the first violation of the marriage covenant as ordained by God in Gen 2 – v. 19
  4. The Beginning of Commercial Agriculture – v. 20
  5. The Beginning of Music -v. 21
  6. The Beginning of Manufacturing and Industry – v. 22
  7. The Beginning of the Messianic Line – v. 25
  8. The Beginning of Organized Worship – v. 26

This is the chapter that explains the beginnings of human society and culture, and when we study it we realize things haven’t changed very much after all.  Yet it ends with the birth of Seth, who became the line through which Christ would come to redeem the world.  How remarkable that all of human and redemptive history is contained in seed-form in Genesis 4.