{"id":17035,"date":"2025-06-11T15:08:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T06:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/?post_type=manga&p=17035"},"modified":"2025-06-12T14:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T05:24:15","slug":"my-uchi-soto-lesson-3-manga","status":"publish","type":"manga","link":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/manga\/my-uchi-soto-lesson-3-manga\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 3: Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iino:<\/strong> You guys are late!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> You\u2019re here already?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> Sorry! Oh, I\u2019m so hungry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> I figured you would be. So I prepared some snacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> Yay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d: <\/strong>You\u2019re the man, Doc!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Okay, let\u2019s get started, shall we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What comes to your mind when you think of \u201cparadise\u201d?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Iino:<\/strong> White sand beaches. Blue sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s like a tropical island, isn\u2019t it? You certainly don\u2019t think of paradise being cold!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would you define a human being?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iino:<\/strong> A rational animal. A mammal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> Biologically speaking, I know we\u2019re mammals, but… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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G\u014d:<\/strong> Even before I read the Bible, back when I was in Junior High School, I wondered why humans are so different from other animals. I mean, only humans build buildings with concrete, right? It\u2019s really weird when you think about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> Did you find the answer in the Bible? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> Hmm, I\u2019m not going to tell you now, because I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be looking at those Bible verses in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Thank you all. We\u2019ve certainly covered quite a bit of ground so far, haven\u2019t we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> First, we thought about how we\u2019re always aware of being inside and outside many circles. Then about the perfect circle of everlasting love. And about the house of the Lord. We saw that the ultimate communion of love is within God himself. That God exists eternally as three Persons. That God created everything. That human beings are also invited into the \u201cinner (uchi<\/em>) fellowship\u201d that God has in himself, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In lesson 3 of the booklet<\/a> it says: \u201cThe whole universe is \u2018God\u2019s house\u2019\u201d. This is a bit surprising, isn\u2019t it? Because if the place of perfect fellowship is \u201cGod’s house\u201d and<\/em> the whole universe is also \u201cGod’s house\u201d, you\u2019d think we would  all be enjoying perfect fellowship already!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> But the reality is far from that, and that\u2019s where our studies began. Why \u201cGod\u2019s house\u201d is not in fact like it ought to be is a question we\u2019ll consider next time. Today we will look at another question: Why does God care about human beings in particular? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let\u2019s read some poetry from the Old Testament. Would you read it for us, Iino?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 
what is man that you are mindful of him, 
and the son of man that you care for him? 
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings 
and crowned him with glory and honor. 
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; 
you have put all things under his feet, 
[…]
O Lord our Lord, 
how majestic is your name in all the earth! <\/p>\nOld Testament, Psalm 8:3-9<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> Thanks. The writer of this Psalm (or song) was called David. He lived about 1000 B.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the writer of this song (David) say about God\u2019s relationship with human beings?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iino: <\/strong>God is mindful of them. He cares for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Mmm. Those expressions \u201cmindful of\u201d and \u201ccare for\u201d have the same sort of meaning, don\u2019t they? This was originally a poem written in the Hebrew language. In English, it\u2019s common for poetry to rhyme, but Hebrew poetry is noted for \u201cparallelism\u201d. In parallelism, you can repeat the same thing in slightly different phrases, or say the opposite of what you said in the first line in the second line. This psalm has a lot of repetition. In verse 3, the first and second lines are similar, and the two lines of verse 4 repeat the same idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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G\u014d:<\/strong> God crowns man with glory and honor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> What do you think that means? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> I think it means that human beings have a valuable status in God\u2019s sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> It\u2019s the king who wears the crown, isn\u2019t it? And it says God has given man dominion over everything. Like the lion is sometimes called the \u201cking of the jungle\u201d, I wonder if human beings are like kings over the entire creation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Yes. The ultimate King of kings is God himself, and the king who represents God is man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How does this understanding lead David to respond towards God?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> He\u2019s responding a bit like I did in Junior High School when I wondered, \u201cWhat does it mean to be human?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> He\u2019s got a sense of awe or a kind of reverence towards God, doesn\u2019t he? I think David is praising God because of how he treats people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> I think so too. Okay, let\u2019s open the book of Genesis and look at the story of the creation of man. Human beings were made on the sixth day of God\u2019s creation. We could say that from the first to the fifth day, a suitable environment was created for man to live in, and that man was created as the pinnacle of the work of creation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> Would you read it for us, Yoshiya? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then God said, \u201cLet us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.\u201d 
So God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God he created him; 
male and female he created them. 
And God blessed them. And God said to them, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.\u201d […] And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. <\/p>\nOld Testament, Genesis 1:26-28, 31<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> In the ancient world when the Bible was written, the statue or \u201cimage\u201d of a god was thought to represent that god. Statues were placed in temples. It\u2019s like how in Japan, Buddhist statues are placed in temples, Shint\u014d deities on the god-shelf, and Inari-san statues in shrines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> In many languages of the Ancient Near East, \u201ctemple\u201d and \u201chouse\u201d are the same word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the booklet it says that the whole universe is \u201cGod\u2019s house\u201d, which is the same as saying that the whole universe is the \u201ctemple\u201d of God the Creator. People go to temples to worship statues. This is because statues are thought to embody or mediate the presence of God. In the ancient world, human kings were also considered to be living embodiments of the local deity. The Egyptian pharaohs are a good example: they were considered \u201cliving gods\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> In the following chapter, Genesis 2, God places man in a garden in a place called Eden. The Garden of Eden was a special place in God\u2019s creation. God made man to cultivate and take care of it. By the way, the Hebrew word \u201cEden\u201d is paradeisos<\/em> in Greek, which is the root of the familiar English word \u201cparadise\u201d. Here\u2019s the question, then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think God means when he says he will make man in his \u201cimage\u201d? [The Japanese Bible says as<\/em> God\u2019s image.]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iino:<\/strong> According to your explanation just now, God created man as his representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where is the temple or house in which God\u2019s image is placed?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Yoshiya:<\/strong> The whole universe is a temple, but Adam and Eve were placed in Eden. From a universal point of view, the earth is the temple, and then in the context of the earth, it\u2019s the garden of Eden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you think God speaks in the plural: \u201cLet us<\/em>…\u201d? (verse 26)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iino:<\/strong> Are you saying that\u2019s because God is Trinity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Yes! God is one, but he exists as three Persons, so that\u2019s why it\u2019s in the plural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What commission does God give to man? What do you think this entailed?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iino: <\/strong>He says, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.\u201d So that means to have children and spread out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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G\u014d:<\/strong> There\u2019s also a commission to subdue and have dominion. I guess it means to rule the whole earth while increasing and spreading around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> Yeah, as a representative of God, as the head of creation, I think it means that mankind was commanded to take good care of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Sounds good. Eden is the temple, the house of God. A place where God is and people worship God. We can\u2019t pinpoint where Eden actually was and point to it on a map. But the Bible says that the Euphrates River watered it, so we can assume that it was somewhere around that part of the world. In any case, it was man\u2019s mission to expand paradise from one place on earth to the whole earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The world that God created and the \u201cuchi<\/em> inside fellowship\u201d that God had with man are described as \u201cvery good\u201d, aren\u2019t they? It seems certain that something has gone wrong somewhere. We\u2019ll consider this next time. But first, what have we learnt from the Bible today about the definition of humanity? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iino:<\/strong> Human beings aren\u2019t just ordinary mammals. They\u2019re the image of God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u014d:<\/strong> And they were made to be kings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doc:<\/strong> Right. Mankind was the image of God and was given authority as God\u2019s representative, wasn\u2019t he? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you think God cares about human beings in particular?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yoshiya:<\/strong> He made them as his own image, to receive his love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> Yes. For God, human beings are truly special. But rather than just lump everyone together as \u201cthe human race\u201d, what about each of us individually?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you believe that this God cares about you<\/em>?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Iino:<\/strong> I wonder… I guess G\u014d and Yoshiya would confidently say, \u201cYes. God cares for me!\u201d But I\u2019m not sure about that yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc:<\/strong> That\u2019s totally fine if you don\u2019t know yet. Well, thank you all very much again for today. I\u2019m looking forward to reading the Bible with everyone again next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The ESV Bible<\/em>. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org\/.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"class_list":["post-17035","manga","type-manga","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manga\/17035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manga"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/manga"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myuchisoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}