Genesis: Foundational Truth, Mankind's First Home, 2:4-20

Genesis 2 began with God’s day of rest. God completed His work of creation and stopped. He set the 7th day apart for His purposes—rest and worship. Since then, mankind has generally followed God’s pattern—6 days of work and a day of rest/worship.
In our passage today, The Genesis writer goes back to active creation—plants, animals, birds, and people. It's ok to wonder what is going on. Some scholars call this a second creation account, as if the writer couldn't decide which to go with, so he included both. But that is not what is happening. The focus is back on day 6, and this is an expanded description of God creating and housing His humans.
Today, we will examine God preparing the Garden of Eden, and in two weeks (Mission’s Conference next week), we will plan to take a deep dive into God’s design for marriage.
As usual, we will see what we can learn from the text, then we’ll see what we learn about God, and finally, we’ll look for ways to apply this text to our daily lives.