Reading through the beginning of Genesis this morning, the end of chapter 4 stood out to me...

"When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. It was during his lifetime that people first began to worship the Lord." (Gen 4:26)

Now I've found myself saying a number of times: 'we were designed to worship/live lives of worship' etc. But this morning, reading the creation account and finding this little verse made me wonder if this was the case. I wonder what is meant by 'worship' in this context. My initial response was that when in God's presence, the kind of activities that go on are beyond worship. Perhaps worship is our expression of love for God within our disconnectedness from God.

In Easton's Bible Dictionary it says this:
"He lived nine hundred and five years. In his time "men began to call upon the name of the Lord" (Genesis 4:26), meaning either (1) then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord (marg.) i.e., to distinguish themselves thereby from idolaters; or (2) then men in some public and earnest way began to call upon the Lord, indicating a time of spiritual revival."

Looks like I'm wrong.

Anyhow I was also struck once again by the curses which are assigned males and females because of the fall
Women: Pain in child birth and finding your identity in your man, rather than in God (3:16)
Men: Being condemned to make a living form the ground, to have to work for a living, rather than just to work out of design we were now forced to work for what we eat (3:19)

We've so often fallen into the trap of living in these curses - condemning women to being identified by who they are married to and man to his work (just look at your conversation starters with Men ("so what do you do for a living") and Women ("so who are you with?"/"are you married"/"are you single?")

Shouldn't we be living out of God's original intention for mankind?

It also made me think about how simple following God was before 'religion.'