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Favored Firstborns


The gossip has it that firstborns are favored. At least that is what my second born told me. My wife and I believed that we treated all three of our girls equally. Though I have to admit we have many more baby pictures of our first than of our second. Was your firstborn favored? Adam and Eve’s was. I noted just this morning what she said at his birth.

The text is in Genesis 5.1 I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD. The biblos.com note after the word gotten says, Cain sounds like the Hebrew for gotten. The next Bible sentence reads, And again, she bore his brother Abel.

Is that favoritism or author’s word choice. Whatever the case, life choices prove one thing; favoritism or no Cain was a loser and Abel a winner. In this chapter the birth joy quickly evaporates into life stories that relate their respective professions, their offerings to God, his acceptance and rejection of said offerings and finally murder.

These few lines cover a lifetime for Abel. He died young at maybe a couple of hundred years or so. He became the first murder victim at the hands of a cherished firstborn. This chapter relates an interesting fact about parental estimation.

Eve saw Cain as God’s blessing and Abel as her second born. Cain raised cain in the world’s population by generating a rebellious people. From his line came a cursed earth, aimless wandering, murder, polygamy and evil.

Able though he lived a relatively short life is spoken of well. Jesus called him righteous in Matthew 23.35 and he is first on the list in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11 where it says, By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.  Wow.

So, second, or third or whatever born, take heart. Parental favoritism, acceptance or rejection means little when you muster the right attitude and try to please God with what you have. The second born Abel still speaks because he is with God right now. The first firstborn isn't. What will God say of you and where will you be when death comes?

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