Bible Study Seattle

Plants play a role in the return to paradise.  Both the grain offering and fellowship sacrifice included fine flour (Leviticus 2 & 7).  In the days before Noah, people were vegetarians.  Afterword the flood Noah was told, “Every living creature will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.”  But evidently in the future, people and animals will return to being vegetarians.  Isaiah 11:6-9 says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat.  The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together, and a child will lead them.  The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox.  An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den.  No one will harm or destroy on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.”

Plants’ greatest honor is hinted at in the beginning and end of the Bible.  “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed.  The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the midst of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Trees were essential to mankind’s wellbeing.  This is really brought home in Revelation 22.  “Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the bread street [of the city].  On borth sides of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month.  The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse.”

Perfect trees yielding perfect fruit allowing mankind to live forever!  Not bad.  And there’s 12 kinds rotated each month so you won’t get bored!