The Set Up
Being crafty implies premeditation
As I take these verses one-by-one through the story of the Big Daddy Lie (aka The Fall) I assume you know the story and have already ready the full account. If not, go ahead. I’ll wait. (Genesis 3).
Today we are going to look at the last nineteen words of verse one of Genesis three.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1b (ESV)
Note, first of all, that we never learn within the story why the serpent wanted to deceive the couple. God has no dialogue with Mr. Snake at the end. He simply punishes him. Now it is easy to fall into the same trap they did if, while viewing things wearing World Glasses, we question God’s motives.
“Surely it is unfair of God not to give the serpent a fair trial before punishing him.”
Now, put on your God Glasses and what do you see?
First of all we weren’t there.
Secondly, we are being asked to speculate, and the question itself is weighted toward doubt and distrust.
Finally, the story isn’t the end. It is the beginning to a larger story. We will just have to read the entire book to find out what happens.
Was it significant that the serpent speaks to the woman and not the man?
I think so. And it wasn’t that the man wasn’t there. He was next to her. We find this out at the end of verse six.
. . . and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
We know the man was created first from the dust of the earth. The woman came out of the side of man at a later time after God and man spent an untold amount of time together - enough time for the guy to name all the animals around him. And it wasn’t enough to just name them, it was the effort to study them and essentially create (or learn from God) human language at the same time.
Why didn’t the man speak up?
Why didn’t he call to God rather than eating the fruit?
We don’t know. We weren’t there. And by wearing the God Glasses it is possible not to fall into the same potholes as our ancestors.
For one thing, what keeps us from asking God to give us insights? That’s what most of us who weren’t there think Adam should have done and yet we have the same ability to eat forbidden fruit as he did.
We also have another bad habit. After learning something new, we want to apply it to the lives of others rather than our own alone. That’s where we get husbands and wives yelling at each other trying to get the other to be a better person, and often using cherry-picked parts of this story and other Bible verses to do so.
Which brings us to another way to differentiate the two paradigms.
The World Glasses paradigm is one of superiority. We are in the colosseum safely above the battle determining who should live and die.
The God Glasses paradigm is one of humility. It sees God as high above us. Therefore, we rely on his words and judgements to always be superior to our own. We are not critics of the Bible. It’s the other way around.
World Glasses keep us detached and aloof.
God Glasses put us in the middle of it all and we begin to relate personally to the things we are reading.
Finally, as to the question the serpent asks. We know it’s a set up and we also know that he was playing on her naivety. He was also pretending to be her friend.
It all looks so benign and passive. He was just asking a simple question. What’s wrong with that?
The answer is - intent. He wasn’t asking a simple question, he was setting her up to go against what she understood to be right and wrong - and this, ironically, was what the fruit in question was all about. It was to provide the partaker with the knowledge of good and evil.
Whenever we do wrong things it is true we learn things, but the things we learn are still usually deeply flawed. Doing bad doesn’t improve our goodness. That was St. Paul’s point in the book of Romans.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)
In Conclusion
This study is as relevant as today’s news.
Subtle questions and innuendos from friendly smiling people often are set ups intended to manipulate our behavior — and not in good ways.
Putting on God Glasses can bring clarity to confusing situations.
