Snazzy New Look

I decided to spruce things up a bit.  Hope everyone likes this better than plain black.  I'll probably alter the background picture every so often.  This one came from a stock that blogger already had.  I have a couple others that I may upload whenever I get bored of this one.

Blessings,
David Falls

Gen 3:7 - self focus

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

The devil’s accusation against God also had a subtle barb in what it implied about Eve. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The implication was that Eve’s eyes weren’t open, she wasn’t like God, and she didn’t know the difference between good and evil. In other words the devil was claiming that Eve was ignorant and naive and that she should try to fix herself by disobeying God. The devil got Eve to focus on herself instead of God; we could call this mistake number 5.

After Adam and Eve tried to “fix” their “problem” via an unnecessary snack. They began to realize that something was suddenly wrong with them, “. . . that they were naked.” So they focused on themselves all the more. Then they tried to fix this problem all by themselves as well, with fig leaves.

When God shows up in the next verse the situation goes from comical to tragic. Instead of looking at His goodness toward them and realizing that He had the ability to actually fix their new problem, they focused on themselves (again) and hid from their only true hope of redemption.

So God pursues them and finds them. This begins a long history of God pursuing His rebellious creation. It culminates in Jesus who “came to save that which was lost.”

Once God finds them, He has a conversation with them. Now for the first time in several verses they are paying attention to Him again. In the conversation He promises to fix the problem for real with a promise of an eventual deliverer (vs 15). In the meantime He offers them some help by giving them much better clothing (vs 20) so that they could at least get on with their lives.

The moral here is simple: as much as we focus on ourselves and try to fix ourselves we will create progressively worse and worse problems for ourselves. As much as we focus on the Lord, He will bring real solutions in His own good time.

Genesis 3:5-6 Eve’s third and fourth mistakes

“ ‘. . .For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman say that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Eve’s third mistake was that she listened to and considered Satan’s claims using only her own mind. Because of her conversation with the devil she saw the fruit as a potentially good thing for the first time. It appealed to her physical senses (the lust of the flesh), it looked pretty (the lust of the eyes), and appeared to have the potential to make her better (the pride of life) (1 John 2:16). Her mind was created perfect, but it wasn’t intended to be sufficient to answer all questions. It really wasn’t designed to come up with perfect decisions apart from God and especially not while under the pressures of such temptation. She could have asked the Lord for His help, but unfortunately she decided to try to handle it all on her own.

Satan attacked Eve through her mind and emotions. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was supposed to make her wiser and smarter. It was supposed to give her knowledge. It was supposed to feed her mind. It brought her spiritual and eventually natural death. I have little doubt that up until this event Eve had been growing closer and closer to the Lord, feeding her spiritual walk just as she fed her natural body. The devil came and helped shift her focus from her spiritual development to her mental development. It isn’t bad to development mentally, and knowledge isn’t a bad thing either, but when the thirst for knowledge and reliance on logic replaces a thirst for God and a reliance on His Spirit bad things happen. A healthy Christian trusts in the Lord and does not lean on his own natural understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

Her fourth mistake is the simple obvious one that everybody knows, she disobeyed the Lord. It was Adam and Eve’s disobedience that really cost them. Interestingly enough the Paul notes that Eve ate because she was tricked (1 Tim 2:14). Adam knew what he was doing. I suspect either that the protective side of himself wouldn’t let his wife go it alone or perhaps he saw Eve’s offering of the fruit as a choice between her and the Lord. Regardless of why they each chose the fruit the results were equally disastrous. The lesson here is simple: disobedience always brings ugly consequences.

As followers of Jesus we must decide that we will always obey His commands to the very best of our ability. Disobedience is not an option. All over the Bible kings rose or fell and people prospered or perished on the basis of their obedience and their disobedience (some kings whose stories are worth considering in this light: Saul, David, Jeroboam, Jehu, and Josiah); even after Jesus’ resurrection this pattern still holds true (Acts 2:42-43; 5:1-10, 1 Cor 11:29-32).

A couple observations from Genesis

Genesis 2:9 “Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

The forbidden tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s fruit isn’t named. The result of eating its fruit (the fruit of its fruit if you will) is death. Rebelling against God, even for the noble purpose of getting knowledge, results in eventual death.

Genesis 3:4-5 “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

Jesus called the devil “the father of lies” claiming that “the truth is not in him.” A loud voice (perhaps the Holy Spirit or an angle) in Revelation calls him the Accuser of the Brethren. The titles are not undeserved; Satan’s first declarative statement is both a lie and an accusation about God. It should be no surprise that after we chose to believe his accusations about God that he would then turn to accuse us as well.

Genesis 3:3 - Eve's Second Mistake

Eve attempts to correct the misunderstanding, unfortunately she doesn’t stick to just what God had actually said. “. . .but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” God did say not to eat it, but He never said anything about not touching it.

I need to give Eve a little credit here. The blame here might be Adam’s and not Eve’s. It could be that he misrepresented God’s commands when he passed them on to his wife. In either event someone added something to what God had said. It sounds like a harmless addition. After all, if eating the fruit will get us killed, wouldn’t it just be smart to avoid it all together. I have to agree with the concept; avoid temptation whenever possible. But deciding to do something that seems wise, because it seems wise, and calling that wise looking course of action a command from God are not the same thing. In this verse, Eve (perhaps unintentionally) misrepresented the commands of God. At a minimum this brings confusion. What happens when they have kids? If they passed on Eve’s version of the command and the kids somehow come into contact with this fruit (after all it is in the center of the garden), when they touch it and live they will be lead to believe that their parents (or God) are lying about something. Then they may decide to eat it. Trying to add to God’s commands (even for seemingly noble reasons), usually leads to disobedience. Jesus’ endless debates with the Pharisees mostly came about because centuries of Jewish leadership had resulted in there being more laws than ever. Some of those laws actually stood in the way of the expressed will of the God they claimed to serve.

Adding to what God has said and attributing it to Him is never a good idea.

Addendum to Genesis 3:1-2

I realize I misquoted the devil. I was reading the passage as if He asked Eve if she shouldn’t have eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree only. Instead he asks, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” This actually makes my point from my previous post even more clearly. It is a baited question, designed to get Eve talking. It states a misconception inside a question. To really answer it requires two compete thoughts.
1 - The first is a direct answer, “No that’s not what God said.”
2 - The second is a clarification of what God actually said, “We may eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

This particular question also conveniently steers the conversation in the direction of the forbidden fruit. Demons are very good at talking. It’s best not to engage them in conversation.

Genesis 3:1-2

The serpent (our enemy) shows up to try to get in the way of God’s plan for mankind; so he starts up a conversation with Eve.

Eve was apparently totally unprepared for the encounter (see post for Gen 2:15). Her first mistake in dealing with her enemy started in verse 2. She accepted his invitation to have a conversation with him.

Demons never start a conversation without an end in mind. They always have an agenda. It does no good to talk with them. We do not owe them answers to any of their questions. They may be our accusers, but they are not our judges; so we don’t have to defend ourselves from their accusations. They are not our bosses (if we are in Christ) so we don’t have to answer to them. They are liars and the truth is not in them, so trying to convince them of truth won’t do any good. There is no reason to waste time or energy on a conversation with them. Dealing with them is a little like what happens when a person is arrested. “We have the right to remain silent, anything we say can and will be used against us.” Generally the wise course of action is to say nothing (accept maybe, "Go Away!" or "Talk to the hand!")

They are accusers and manipulators; when they are asking us to talk, its because they either have an angle or are searching for one. When we begin to talk they gain ammunition every time.

Eve’s response to the Devil’s "Did God really say. . ?" should have been something like, “Yep, that’s what He said.” Then she should have walked away.

Genesis 2:15

Genesis 2:15 (NIV) “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

This is Adam’s first job. To work the garden literally means to husband and steward it. In other words God wanted Adam to promote the general welfare of the Garden. A lot like we would work a garden today. Except here there were no weeds or thorns that would choke out the good fruit bearing plants. So this involved some labor, but not the kind of back breaking work we associate with farming today.

To “take care of it,” is a terrible translation. Some translations may translate this as “to keep it,” which is a little better. The word in Hebrew used here actually means “to guard it.” Now in a world where Adam and God are in total control and all physical things are under subjection to them, what could he possibly have to guard against?

The answer lies in Genesis 3. The course of human history since the time in the garden tells us that Adam didn’t follow through very well on the protection side of his job. When the serpent starts talking to Eve, we find that she is totally unprepared for the encounter. When Adam gets involved a little later in the chapter we find that his guard is down as well (he didn’t foresee the threat that the poison of sin could pose coming through his unguarded wife).

Adam could have asked and sought the Lord for more information regarding the threat that he was to guard against. Given the relationship that he and the Lord had it is unlikely that God would have left him to his own devices. Today, according to John 15:15 He no longer calls us servants, but friends. The difference being that He will tell His friends what He is up to. If we seek His counsel in these sorts of matters, He will not leave us totally blind to what we really need to be able to see. He will also give us the wisdom we need in abundance if we but ask (James 1:5).

Adam made his first critical mistake before Eve ever talked to the serpent. He kept only half of the Lord’s commandment. Our purpose from God, is always good. When we fail to walk in our purpose, we open to door to evil.

More of Genesis 1 and God in Charge

As for God being in charge:

All of God’s commands in the creation story begin with “Let.” This has to be one of the weakest ways of issuing a command. He doesn’t say something like, “As the Lord God, Supreme Commander of the Universe, I Command that light break forth and be separated from the darkness.” Instead He says “let there be light.” In other words, “Allow light to exist,” or maybe “I choose to allow light to exist.” Reading the creation story I get the impression that creation caused God zero effort. So what does that say about just how powerful God really is?