Christian Reflections

I just had my first one to one discipleship session with a brand new believer in the church last Sunday. I was excited because he is very interested about his new found faith that he even began telling his friends about Jesus.

During our meeting, the first thing he asked was the name of Cain’s wife. The problem was that I didn’t know the correct answer. I told him that since there was no record of Cain’s wife in the Bible, we can never be sure.

Almost a quarter of our time was used discussing possible answers to his question, making some guesses, trying to cite Bible verses, making more guesses and in the end we agreed to just let it go. We went on to discuss our topic for the day and went home still not knowing the the name of Cain’s wife. There were two things we learned though:

First, we learned that the Bible is selective history, not a census book or civil registrar repository. It means that not every family line was written there. For example: In Exodus 1:15, the name of the Egyptian pharaoh was deliberately left out of record but the two lowly Hebrew midwives were identified by name. Strange? You bet.

Second, we learned that some things are deliberately hidden by God. Deut 29:29 says it all: The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

I suppose I don’t need to write more. The verse is loud and clear for all of us to know. Many of the questions we ask might never be answered in this life.  We don’t have all of the answers, we can only trust and believe. And that’s exactly the reason why it’s called faith!

Question: If you were asked the same question in your discipleship session, how would you answer it?