Bad Girls of the Bible Part 3

Cunning doesn't begin to describe this wily serpent.

Author Jean Kerr, of Please Don't Eat the Daisies fame, shared a story about her son, Christopher, who'd been cast as Adam in his first-grade play and was less than enthusiastic about the role.

"Why, that's wonderful, that's the lead!" his mother a.s.sured him.

"Yeah," he replied gloomily, "but the snake has all the lines."8 Satan is full of lines, all right. He reeled in the first lady like an unsuspecting trout.

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden..." Genesis 3:2 She meant well by correcting the serpent, but again, dialoguing with the creature to begin with was her first mistake.

"Like a theologian, she a.n.a.lyzes the serpent's arguments; like a lawyer, she enters into debate,"9 goes one a.n.a.lysis of this scene. Plenty of theologians and lawyers have been made fools of by Satan. Whether we're innocent as doves or highly educated, the fact is, when Satan talks, the wise woman turns her back at the opening hiss and heads for the hills.

Naive Eve-to-be, however, tried to correct the serpent's misquote and instead made one of her own: "...but G.o.d 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.'" Genesis 3:3 Notice her second mistake: She added to the Word of G.o.d. The Lord never told her to "not touch it," just not to eat of the fruit. When we exaggerate G.o.d's Word, which literally means "to enlarge beyond the truth," we sow seeds of doubt in the minds of others-Did G.o.d really say that other thing?-and in our own mind-Maybe G.o.d's words need my help.

The crafty serpent didn't draw attention to her verbal blunder. The woman was already doing such a good job of deceiving herself, his a.s.sistance was hardly needed. Instead he picked the dire consequence of sin-death-and turned it upside down.

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. Genesis 3:4 So far, this might have sounded like good news to her. It does to us. When Jesus said, "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die,"10 that was the best news in town. Still is.

What's the difference? Jesus prefaced that statement by saying, "I am the resurrection and the life,"11 but the serpent made no such claim or promise. He didn't offer the woman life, let alone life after death; the serpent offered the woman knowledge-a knowledge which led to death. That was G.o.d's promise too, but the woman's eyes were no longer on G.o.d; they were on herself-another grave error.

"For G.o.d knows that when you eat of it..." Genesis 3:5 The serpent subtly shifted the conversation away from the Word of G.o.d and toward the desires of man, all the while invoking G.o.d's name. Not "G.o.d said" though; now it's "G.o.d knows." Notice that the serpent left himself out of the discussion entirely. He always does. We never hear about how our actions will benefit him or his evil kingdom; he brings up only our perceived benefits.

In the Garden of Eden, he reminded Eve of two appetizing promises. First: "...your eyes will be opened..." Genesis 3:5 Can't you hear our sweet girl now? "Gee, I didn't know my eyes were closed. Is there more of this lovely world to see? Am I missing something good?" It's easy to criticize her, but the fact is, her purity and innocence break my heart.

How well I remember, when I was truly "sweet sixteen and never been kissed," hooking up with a woman who was two years older than I was and infinitely more experienced in life. My eyes would literally open wider when I'd listen to her stories of s.e.xual adventures that my virginal eyes had never even envisioned, let alone seen.

Oh, if only I'd known the Lord then and known where else to look! The two blind men by the side of the road outside Jericho knew exactly where to turn: "Lord, we want our eyes to be opened."12 When Jesus did so, they rose and followed him. But the woman in the garden wasn't asking G.o.d to open her eyes. She thought this tasty-looking fruit was going to pop open her peepers.

Boy, did it ever.

The serpent added sugar to the fruit with the second promise: "...and you will be like G.o.d..." Genesis 3:5 Satan still peddles this one today with great success. Most of the false philosophies and religions making the rounds have this lie at their heart: You are G.o.d. People are easily misled by semantics: "Why invite Jesus to live in your heart, when G.o.d already resides in all of us?" goes the sales pitch. (Note the small g.) Since the woman pictured the Father of Creation as all-good, all-loving, and all-knowing-which he is, of course, but he's also all-powerful-she must have convinced herself that being like G.o.d was a grand idea.

"...knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5 I doubt she even heard the "good and evil" part, especially since she was an innocent and wouldn't have known the difference. To her way of thinking, since life was all good, maybe evil was even better, right?

Let's face it, that bit of tripe sells well these days. Surfed the Internet lately?

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree... Genesis 3:6 The tree that had been in the middle of everything yet obediently avoided-for how long we don't know-suddenly, that tree was it. The all-consuming, gotta-have-it thing. Like a child of Christmas past who put only one item on her wish list-Cabbage Patch Doll, Tickle-Me Elmo, Beanie Baby-Eve had a fixation about that tree.

She stopped looking to G.o.d for the truth.

She stopped looking to her husband for shared counsel.

She stopped looking at the good, wholesome fruit already available to her.

She even stopped looking to the serpent for direction.

Notice: The serpent never said another word. He didn't have to. His temptation was complete. The seeds of his deception had fallen on fertile ground. Now he stood back and watched the fruit fall from the tree into the willing woman's hands.

As Ralph Hodgson wrote: "Oh, had our simple Eve / Seen through the make-believe!"13 The problem here involved taking her eyes off what was good and acceptable, and putting them on what she knew, absolutely, to be forbidden.

Didn't that fruit look tasty though?

...was good for food... Genesis 3:6 The witty Lord Byron once said, "Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner." True, but let's set the record straight on one thing: It was not an apple, Granny Smith or otherwise. Apples grow in Washington State, not in Mesopotamia. Historians have suggested three more likely suspects for the forbidden fruit: pomegranates, apricots, or figs.14 Personally I think it was G.o.diva chocolate.

Whatever the fruit, it appealed to her fleshly appet.i.te. It made her mouth water and her stomach grumble and her taste buds stand up and pay attention. If she wasn't hungry before, she was now.

Bakeries that pump the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls into the mall have utilized this old trick for years. So has Satan. Eve's mistake was listening to her stomach, not her heart.

...and pleasing to the eye... Genesis 3:6 At first blush this seems a higher plane: the aesthetics of the situation. Instead of the base appet.i.tes of the flesh, she indulged in an intellectual appreciation of the fruit's artistic appeal. It was indeed attractive, a beautifully designed piece of fruit.

Of course it was-G.o.d made it!

But pleasing to the eye isn't the same as pleasing to G.o.d. Did G.o.d plant this lovely tree in the garden for the very purpose of testing the obedience and faithfulness of his created beings? No doubt in my mind whatsoever. The woman's test grade was a C- at this point, with a tough essay question coming up.

When my son, Matthew, was in first grade, his teacher used a tamer version of the tree of knowledge to teach her students right from wrong. On the wall in the back of the cla.s.sroom was a floor-to-ceiling, construction-paper apple tree. It didn't look good to eat, but it was pleasing to the eye. Each child had an apple with his or her name neatly printed on it, dangling from the tree for every small eye to see.

When-not if-a child misbehaved in cla.s.s, the apple fell into a basket at the bottom and lived there the rest of the day. Ugh. Serious peer pressure for a six-year-old. The next morning all was forgiven, and back on the tree went the apple. (Sir Isaac Newton would have argued about the gravity of such an object lesson, but it worked for the kids.) It also made it easy for parents to do a quick obedience check: "Did your apple stay on the tree?" I'd ask Matthew.

Day after day, week after week, his answer was the same. "Yes, Mama." Until that fateful day months into the semester when he jumped into the car with tears rolling down his round cheeks.

"Let me guess, honey. Your apple fell down today, right?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded dejectedly, then hiccuped. "Sorry, Mama."

Oh, that sin nature. It was born in the garden, beneath the spreading leaves of an attractive fruit tree where a woman saw something so pretty she convinced herself it had no power to wreak destruction in her life.

...and also desirable for gaining wisdom... Genesis 3:6 Tasty as the fruit promised to be, it was the fruit of eating the fruit that really whetted the woman's appet.i.te-the wisdom, the knowledge. Her ego longed to be equal with G.o.d, to have that much understanding and creativity and power.

Where was Solomon when we needed him to remind her that "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge"?15 The book of Proverbs was eons away-but G.o.d and his Word were not. They were right there in the garden, walking with the two of them. If she desired wisdom, all she needed to do was ask, as Solomon did, and G.o.d would no doubt have given her all she could handle.

But our girl Eve wanted a shortcut to wisdom. We all do. One commentary phrased it this way: "With rationalization and justification Eve was soon in rebellion against G.o.d."16 This translation of the verse says it all: "The woman was convinced" (NLT).

...she took some... Genesis 3:6 Everything stands in the balance right here. Touching it isn't tasting it-not yet. How often do we reach out for something we know to be wrong while our conscience is screaming, No! Stop! You know better!

Bet that happened to Eve, too.

Yes, she was innocent, but she also had one important piece of wisdom already tucked in the folds of her gray matter: G.o.d had said, "Don't eat of the tree." She knew that much to be fact.

Then why did she take the fruit?

Oh, the ink that's been spilled on that subject! One Bible scholar found her courageous: "It must have taken great daring to sin for the first time."17 I have sympathy for the woman, but sorry, I can't see awarding her a Medal of Valor for being the first Good Girl to go Bad. Others have chalked up Eve's actions to "curiosity" and "ambition."

When those qualities-courage, curiosity, ambition-are aimed toward a lofty goal such as exploring a new mission field, they're admirable. But this woman had already demonstrated her goals and motivation, none of which honored G.o.d: "I'd enjoy the taste; I like the look of it; I'll be like G.o.d."

She could have quit, let go of the fruit, run the other way.

But she didn't. It was her last chance to remain innocent. At this point, no matter how noisy her conscience, the woman pressed on, perhaps a.s.suring herself, "Hey, I'm not dead yet! Might as well take a bite."

...and ate it. Genesis 3:6 Incredible. And devastating. The entire axis of human history rotated on six words: "She took some and ate it." In the original Hebrew, it is only three words: wattiqqach mippiryo watto'cal.

The fall of man. No high drama, no lightning bolts, no John Williams musical score full of kettledrums and trumpet blasts. Just the soft, juicy sound of the woman's teeth piercing the skin of the forbidden fruit. Milton wrote, "Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate. Earth felt the wound."18 Hang your head, O ancient sister. You had no one to blame but yourself. Not a dysfunctional childhood, not a husband who led you astray, not abject hunger, not poverty, nor need of any kind. You couldn't even blame that serpent, though I'm sure the thought crossed your mind.

Speaking of which, where was the serpent, since he didn't offer an "attagirl"? Was he celebrating his victory in silence? Were the fallen angels rejoicing in some distant region?

And where was Adam during-? Oh. Look who showed up.

She also gave some to her husband, who was with her... Genesis 3:6 The ten translations I studied all include the notion of Adam's standing next to her. None of them indicate when he arrived-whether it was early in the temptation scene, at midpoint, or after the fatal bite. If he'd been there, might he have tried to stop her? Would she have listened? Or would he have let her try it first, like an official food taster for the king?

We don't know and never will know, this side of heaven.

We know enough though. We know that not one word of protest or hesitation on Adam's part is recorded in Scripture.

...and he ate it. Genesis 3:6 It took the craftiest creature around to tempt the woman. All it took for the woman to tempt Adam was a question, posed with her eyes and extended hand: "Wanna bite?"

When Adam ate of the fruit as well, he became her partner in sin, even as he was in marriage; that is to say, they were equals. The woman took the rap for going first, but they both ended up in a prison of their own making.

Without the woman to offer him a bite, would Adam have tasted the fruit of that tree? Absolutely. Man is no less a sinner than woman just because he went second instead of first down the path of destruction. We are all sinners in need of a Savior. But, to be fair, because she offered her husband the fruit instead of doing the right thing and trying to talk him out of it, Eve adds another mistake to her growing list.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened... Genesis 3:7 Interesting. G.o.d told them they would die, but the serpent told them their eyes would be opened. The serpent was still victorious. For the moment.

...and they realized they were naked... Genesis 3:7 This wasn't "Oh, boy!" This was "Oh, no!" To appear before the Lord naked was a major faux pas, and the Israelites who first heard this story would have known that. Even being naked with one another was embarra.s.sing. As Mark Twain observed, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."

...so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Genesis 3:7 To my way of thinking, this is proof that the forbidden fruit couldn't possibly have been a fig. Reach for a leaf from the one tree that spelled your doom? Talk about your dead giveaway!

Those leafy outfits resembled ap.r.o.ns, covering the bottom half of their naked bodies. A bit like hula skirts, perhaps, but with more coverage, since fig leaves are wider. Ah, but those figgy "puttings" couldn't hide their sin. Few things successfully do.

When I was a not-so-sweet-anymore seventeen-year-old, curled up in an overstuffed chair in my bedroom one summer evening, I was reading a book and-horrors!-smoking a cigarette. A major no-no. Huge. I heard my father coming up the steps and, in a panic, put out the cigarette, then tossed the whole ashtray out the window and sprayed perfume around me like a mad woman.

The one who was mad was my dad. "Have you been smoking in here?"

"Uh...gee, not exactly, Daddy."

"Then what exactly have you been doing?"

Sewing fig leaves, that's what.

I didn't get away with it. Neither did the two in the Garden of Eden.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD G.o.d as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day... Genesis 3:8 "Late in the afternoon a breeze began to blow" (CEV), but for the first couple, it was an ill wind. They heard the footsteps of G.o.d, their creator and friend. They'd enjoyed a fellowship with him we can only begin to imagine. But sin had repercussions, and separation from G.o.d was the worst of all. For the first time, those fatherly footsteps struck terror in their hearts.

"You will surely die," he'd said.

He was a G.o.d who kept his promises.

Now fallen Adam, who had named every animal in the garden, had to find a name for what they did: sin. A name for what they felt: shame. A name for the consequences: separation.

...and they hid from the LORD G.o.d among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8 We delay the inevitable when we hide, but still we do it. Silly. Sad. And sinful.

But the LORD G.o.d called to the man, "Where are you?" Genesis 3:9 G.o.d didn't call out to both of them, "Hey, where are you two lovebirds?" He held Adam accountable first. To Adam's credit, the man responded immediately with three true statements: He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." Genesis 3:10 Before we pat Adam on the back for honesty, though, remember that when confronted with our sins, we often do the same thing: point out what we did right, or what was true, in the desperate hope it will minimize or divert attention from the ugly things we did wrong.

G.o.d saw right through that fig leaf.

And he said, "Who told you that you were naked?" Genesis 3:11 We aren't smart enough to figure this stuff out ourselves, and G.o.d knows it. Knew it then, knows it now.

One wonders if perhaps a bit of fruity pulp was stuck between Adam's teeth.

"Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" Genesis 3:11 It doesn't get any more direct than that. G.o.d asked a legitimate question about obedience, which produced one very circ.u.mspect answer.

The man said, "The woman you put here with me-she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Genesis 3:12 Three more statements from Adam. Two were totally true and without guile-she gave him the fruit and, yes, he ate it-but oh, that first response! Adam shifted the blame for his sin as far away from himself as possible. First toward "the woman"-he didn't even call her his wife, his beloved, his partner. Their separation from G.o.d had already led to a rift between them, a hairline fracture in the "bone of his bones."

But he didn't blame only "the woman." No, the one whom "you put here with me," Adam insisted. Oh, there's a novel idea. Blame the Lord. Adam was suggesting that left to his own devices, he'd never have eaten that awful fruit. It was her fault or G.o.d's fault. Not his fault.

(My own husband, Bill, thinks Adam would've been too distracted by the woman's charms even to notice the tree.) Then the LORD G.o.d said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" Genesis 3:13 It was the woman's turn. She didn't distinguish herself either. "Eve has always been a convenient peg on which men hung unflattering theories about women."19 I'll point out it was a man who said that and not recently-1941. But the fact is, she followed her husband's example of not taking responsibility for one's actions and shifted blame faster than the late comedian Flip Wilson's Geraldine character could wail, "The devil made me do it!"

The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Genesis 3:13 Her final mistake here was the cla.s.sic of them all: "The snake tricked me" (CEV).

Why do we think we can get away with that "blame the serpent" stuff, when we who have the power of Christ living in us are told, "the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world"?20 Satan may be cunning, crafty, and clever, but he is in no way equal with G.o.d.

In my own efforts to be blame-free, I've hidden behind that cloven-hoofed character more than once. I heeded Martin Luther's advice from 1521-"be a sinner and let your sins be strong"-without embracing the whole of it-"but let your trust in Christ be stronger." Before I had any relationship with G.o.d, I took singular pleasure in wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed, "Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself." I was, as one writer eloquently described Eve after the Fall, "a changed being-a rebel-a sinner."21 Yes, I was. Yes, I am.

Eve was a rib, a woman, a wife, and a sinner. Finally the dear soul got a real name.

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. Genesis 3:20 When her firstborn, Cain, arrived-ooh, long story there!-Eve did not forget the Lord but acknowledged G.o.d's hand on her womb: She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man." Genesis 4:1 Indeed, much later in Eve's life (you won't believe how much-like decades later), she gave birth to Seth, who stands in the lineage of Christ. Through her offspring, that old serpent would eventually be crushed forever.

Eve is unique among the Bad Girls of the Bible.

If she had been Bad to the Bone, she would have made the serpent eat the fruit, chopped the forbidden tree down to size, and charged Adam some serious coin for the privilege of enjoying her favors.

If she had been Bad for a Moment, she would have changed how she fixed fruit salad, not changed the course of human history.

If she had been Bad for a Season, but Not Forever she would have reveled in her sin for a long time, looking for more trees to nibble on, before she was invited to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life-the Son of G.o.d.

She was instead the first woman G.o.d ever created. A one-of-a-kind Bad Girl.

When she was perfect, beautiful, and innocent, I found no toehold where I could connect with Eve.

When she was tempted by her flesh, humbled by her sin, and redeemed by her G.o.d, I could sing out, "Oh, sister Eve! Can we talk?"

What Lessons Can We Learn from Eve?

Don't get into a debate with Satan-get out!

We can't stop the Adversary from whispering in our ears, but we can refuse to listen, and we can definitely refuse to respond. No arguing, no debating! Like Eve, we'll come out the loser. Let's stand and resist. "Just Say No." If he doesn't flee, we can take off running for the safety of the Lord's arms.