“All roads lead to Rome!”

This saying finds its origin in the fact that in the early days of the Roman Empire all the empire’s roads emanated from the capital city, Rome. Like the spokes of a wheel, the entire transportation system radiated from the capital.

In a similar manner I feel as though EA’s poverty alleviation efforts find their origin in an understanding of Sin and The Fall, with all roads leading to Genesis Chapter 3. As I listened this week to a sermon by John MacArthur entitled “The Breadth and Depth of Sin,” I was reminded of the power and perspective available exclusively through Scripture.

Pastor MacArthur states,

“The impact of that Fall has touched every part of the universe. It is accurate to say that absolutely everything wrong in our world is because of sin…

And people who don’t believe in sin and don’t understand the Fall cannot diagnose properly the human dilemma. It is impossible to understand the world. It is impossible to understand the cosmos, the ordered world of creation. It is impossible to understand man. It is impossible to understand the disintegration of matter. It is impossible to understand the collapsing world and universe. It is impossible to understand man’s behavior if you do not understand that it is all a product of sin. And all sin in the world is a result of what happened in Genesis 3.

So, Genesis 3 as a point of origin is absolutely critical. In fact, it is arguably the most important chapter in the Bible because it explains why the rest of the Bible tells the story of redemption.”

So whether the issue at hand is racism, pornography, natural disasters or EA’s church-based poverty alleviation efforts, our methodologies must find their origins in the theology of Genesis 3, both its diagnosis of sin, leading to death, and remedy of life abundant, found exclusively in Christ Jesus.

Describing Genesis chapter 3, the late theologian A.W. Pink states,

“Here is given the divine explanation of the present debased and ruined condition of the world. Here we are shown how sin entered the world, together with its present effects and dire consequences. Here are revealed to us the subtle devices of our great enemy the devil. We are shown how we permit him to gain an advantage over us. On the other hand, it is a most blessed chapter, for it reveals the grace and mercy of God, and assures us that the head of serpent will yet be crushed by the victorious Seed of the woman (Rom. 16:20), telling us that His redeemed will also participate in Christ’s glorious triumph. Thus we see that in wrath our God from the commencement ‘remembered mercy!’”