“Where in the world did Cain get his wife?”

Steve Brown:
Where in the world did Cain get his wife? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there’s a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete. How you doing?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m doing good. Did that question keep you awake last night?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it did. It was pretty scary. I mean, you know. There may have been other cultures, do you think?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And the Bible’s wrong, you think?

Pete Alwinson:
No, but you’re going to have to answer that.

Steve Brown:
No, I’m not. That’s why you’re here. So, when it gets really controversial, I just give it to you.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, man.

Steve Brown:
Hey, listen, guys. Go to ForgeTruth.com trust me on this. It is an absolutely great website. There’s a podcast there, and it’s weekly, and it’s fun, and it’s good, and you’ll learn good things. Now, it’s basically, I’ve got to tell you designed for men. But if you want to know what your husband’s thinking, or if you want to know about men, and you want to know the truth about men. If you’re of the other sex, you ought to go to ForgeTruth.com and you’ll learn about God and you’ll learn about men. So, trust me on this. By the way, Pete comes in, as you know, on Fridays, and we spend the entire broadcast answering questions. And you can ask a question anytime you want 1-800-KEY-LIFE and that’s open all the time. And sometimes we play your voice back. Now, this week we listened and there weren’t a number of questions. There were a lot of sermons, but not a lot of questions. So, if you’ve got a question, ask it and you might make it on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and we take you and your questions seriously. And if you can help us financially, please do. I promise we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it. And we’ll use it for the glory of God and the benefit of His people. Hey, Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray together. Our Great God, what a joy to come into your presence now at the end of this week. And Lord, to pause just for a minute and to remember who you are. And we are grateful that you are the God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who’s the God of grace and mercy. And Lord, we do see your grace and mercy in our lives this week, the things you gave us that we didn’t deserve, and the things you’ve withheld from us that we did deserve. Thank you. Thank you for how you protect us. You said you would never leave us nor forsake us. And so, we honor you now. Lord, you know our needs. We have false ideas about things, we have false interpretations toward people, we get angry. We need your forgiveness and we pray that you’d work in our life. And then Lord, we ask for this week-end for our pastors and teachers and priests and leaders worship directors. Lord, use all of them as we come into your presence to worship you. We pray that you would use them in a powerful way and help us to be open to all that you have to say. Lord, be with Steve, be with all those here at Key Life. Thank you for your grace and mercy. We commit this time to you now. In your Holy Name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an e-mail. Where did Cain get his wife? Who else was out there?

Pete Alwinson:
Okay, so was it an alien? I mean, is that a potential, Steve?

Steve Brown:
There was some incest going on, but you’ve got to remember it was different in those days. God doesn’t give his laws to make us miserable. He does it to make us live better and happier and sleep better at night. It’s not just that God says do this and be miserable. But there’s some pretty clear things about incestuous relationships in the Scripture. But that’s not just because God says don’t do that, it’s because of a genetic thing that he knew and even the writers didn’t know. There are all kinds of biological problems that come from that sort of thing. But initially, that close to the Garden of Eden, I don’t think that was true. And I think they married within family. Close to then, very shortly after the fall though, that started going south and God gave laws that were really important about those kinds of relationships.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey, well put. I mean, I don’t think you can say,

Steve Brown:
You agree with that?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think you can say it any better than that. Close to the Fall, that was a right way to see it.

Steve Brown:
And I really believe that.

Pete Alwinson:
We don’t need to be tripped over that as an issue.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And there are people that will use it to do that when they do it wrong. Is being baptized twice, utterly wrong.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
Anabaptisms.

Pete Alwinson:
There are some that would say that, right? I was baptized as an infant. And therefore, but when I accepted Christ myself, I want to be re-baptized. And I’ve never felt like it was a cardinal sin.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I agree with you.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s interesting over the years as a pastor in a church that did, I was raised Baptist, so I was baptized by immersion myself. But then as a a Presbyterian pastor, I baptized people’s babies. And then as people got older, sometimes they would convert to Christ and they were baptized. And I had two major responses. One was, I was baptized as a baby, but it didn’t mean a thing to me, obviously. So, can I be re-baptized? And I said yes, and we permitted it. But then there were others that said, I don’t really want to be re-baptized. Do I have to be re-baptized? And I said, of course not. As long as.

Steve Brown:
The promises were applied that you’re.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Do you think sometimes that we’re, and we have people in our denomination who will require you to be disciplined for what you just said?

Pete Alwinson:
Thank you for saying that.

Steve Brown:
And I want it clear that it was Pete that said that, I didn’t say any of that.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re not up on charges.

Steve Brown:
Have you ever heard that fight going on in our ecclesiastical meetings? I mean, it is serious. Some people think that is such a heresy that if you do it, you ought to be kicked out of the church. Really strong. I don’t believe that.

Pete Alwinson:
I think it falls, and even though we could make a strong argument for not being re-baptized on the covenant basis, I think God is more gracious in the application of that. And that sometimes when somebody comes to faith in Christ and they really desire that public affirmation and demonstration of their faith, that God smiles. And so, there it is.

Steve Brown:
You know, I did that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And I did too.

Steve Brown:
Oh, you did? No, you didn’t get the baby thing.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I thought you

Pete Alwinson:
What do you mean you did that?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I did it personally.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, personally.

Steve Brown:
I was baptized. I was, we called it christened.

Pete Alwinson:
Yes.

Steve Brown:
But I was baptized as an infant. And then when I became a Christian much later, I asked the pastor, it was not a Presbyterian church, it was a Methodist church. I asked the pastor at a Sunday evening service if I could come forward, would he baptize me? And he did. Now, later on, looking back, I would not have done that. Theologically, it would have caused me to wince. But, I don’t think it bothered Jesus at all.

Pete Alwinson:
No, and for you at that point, it was such a change.

Steve Brown:
It was meaningful.

Pete Alwinson:
So meaningful.

Steve Brown:
I think we’re uptight about a lot of things that Jesus might not be uptight about.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree. And my mentor, when I did my internship, he was probably along that same lines too, and then you were that way, and you’ve been my mentor, and so I think we can be gracious on some of those without being so hardcore.

Steve Brown:
I agree. And that’d be areas of eschatology and things like that too.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right, right, right.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail too. Are Christians really able and capable of loving God with all their minds and hearts and souls? And then he gives the Matthew 27 passage.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I know. Isn’t that crazy? I have never loved God perfectly or completely with all of my mind, heart, or soul. And I have not.

Steve Brown:
But I can sing that Gaither song, the older I get, the sweeter he gets.

Pete Alwinson:
Yes. Yes.

Steve Brown:
So, I love him more than I did.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. I want to. I want to. I mean, there are times when, I want to more than ever. Like you and I were talking before we came in here about finishing life well as a minister and just as his sons. We want to finish well.

Steve Brown:
Of course we do. And hopefully get home before the dark.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I told, Pete and I, we weren’t discussing this question, but we were talking about legacy and finishing well and stuff. And I told him a story that Fred Smith told me. Let me tell you, it’s about this bird that landed on a bucket of shellac. On the edge. It landed on a bucket of shellac. The sun was shining. It was warm and a delightful day. And he fell asleep and he, I can’t believe I’m doing this. And he fell into the shellac. And Fred used to say, you know, he had a horrible death, but he finished well. It’s so bad.

Pete Alwinson:
That is so, it’s so bad. It’s worth telling, retelling. I don’t know?

Steve Brown:
Maybe we’ll cut it out on the tape. What does the Bible mean when it says, and he’s referred, doesn’t know it, but he’s referring to Revelation. Don’t add or take anything away from this book.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s a powerful statement about the work of a prophet that when the prophet speaks in God’s name, we can’t add to the words of that prophet because then we would be usurping a divine role.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. And that’s true of Scripture in its entirety.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. But it is interesting. I always found it interesting, Steve. What do you think? It’s in the last book of the Bible? So, it’s true about Revelation as a prophecy, as a book, and as a prophecy of Jesus. But it, because it’s in the last book, it almost has this fast forward to Genesis, to all of the prophets. Do you take it that way?

Steve Brown:
I do. I do.

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting.

Steve Brown:
I think maybe when it was written by John, he meant this book, but I think God meant, and especially that it’s where it is, talking about the whole Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. It’s powerful.

Steve Brown:
Just don’t add to it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, the Canon is closed and it’s enough. And God loves you. Don’t mess with all of his word or you’ll get the hives. I think the Bible says that. I just don’t know where. Hey guys, we’ve got to go, we’re out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. We love questions, and we love that you’re a part of it. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.