A few things today that are interesting, the first of which links back to the idea that we were supposed to lean on God for understanding whereas we chose to put ourselves at the centre. In Proverbs 1:7-8 we are told to firstly fear the Lord and then to listen to our parents when they instruct us. Both of these are important to suppress our selfish instincts. If we learn to listen to others we create humility in ourselves. If we resist instruction, we will become fools who do not understand how little we really understand (no doubt that is mentioned loads of times in Proverbs).
Back to Genesis 3 though and this amazing story of the serpent and Eve (did you notice she wasn't called Eve yet!). There must have been some trust issues here because if Eve really trusted God at this point and the serpent told her, "You won't die" then Even would have simply pointed out, "no offence, Mr serpent, but God said we would". However, there must have been enough humanity in her that she decided that maybe, just maybe, God was holding out on them. The serpent seemed so nice, so harmless, he would have no reason to lie whereas God on the other hand might have all sorts of ulterior motives. We must all sometimes have this view of God being stingy or shady. There's the whole thing about the nature of temptation, covered many times before in churches but I am more interested in what happens afterwards.
I was telling someone today that the whole area of the knowledge of good and evil is conveniently overlooked in church teaching, presumably because it seems a bit abstract or difficult to teach but I believe it is as concrete as anything else. I believe that this knowledge is literally the ability to judge a situation, not just good or bad but even a choice situation like what school to send your children to or whether to apply for a new job. The root issue here is that rather than allowing God to be our wisdom, seeing as He knows the end from the beginning and everything in between, we have presumed to decide things for ourselves with the massively limited set of knowledge we possess. This is how Adam and Eve suddenly decide they are naked, it is also why politicians can't agree on things and why people argue with each other. The fallout of this I believe is often shown as God being suitably unimpressed and punishing us but I think the truth is much more in line with the God of love we know.
Firstly though, did you see Adam's typically male statement to deny responsibility? (3:12) "The woman you gave me...". One thing that gets my goat is that many men nowadays in the UK seem amazingly irresponsible about pretty much everything, whether it is their family, their work or their commitment to church and this pretty much sums it up to me: "It is everyone else's fault, including Gods, but not mine". What if Adam would have said, "God, you're right. I was stupid and I didn't teach my wife properly about how serious this all was".
Anyway, Eve suffers in childbirth and becomes ruled by her husband rather than simply being the helper that she was created to be. This seems to be a direct punishment since God says, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy" although we do see elsewhere in the Bible God's use of reminders about previous sins as way to point us back to God. Even being ruled over I guess could be a way of reminding women of the time when Eve decided she knew best and did not consult God or Adam about her decision?
The man suffers indirectly however. Remember Adam had been told not to eat from the tree, Eve was not formed at this point (although we know that she knew what she was doing). We see something that demonstrates the preeminence that Adam had over the land because his sinning had caused the ground to be cursed. God didn't say (in most versions!) that "I will curse the ground" in the style of a punishment, but the Bible records, "cursed is the ground because of you". In other words, your decision has affected that which you have authority over in and in return, this will be a burden for you since this curse will cause weeds and other problems for farming.
We then see God provide clothes, even though it was their own fault and we see something else that evokes the image of the God of Love and that is the fact that God bars Adam and Eve from grabbing eternal life from the Tree of Life since it would not be in this state of suffering that God wants us to live forever. He then ultimately sent Jesus as a better way of fixing things that allows us to eventually be free from sin and everything that is a burden for us physically and to return to the way we were intended before God forever.
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