Tempting...

Genesis 3:6 NIV
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.


We know almost nothing about Eve except what we find here in Genesis three. Was she kind and warm or cold and calculating? Did she enjoy parties or prefer to be by herself? Was Eve a thinker or driven by her feelings? How was she as a wife and later as a mom? Was Eve a good cook…a good housekeeper, a good story teller? Eve, who some estimate gave birth to as many as 100 children has a seductive, alluring aura about her that may be due to all the naked renditions that have been made depicting her in the garden and later with the fig leaves after she sinned but was she attractive, or friendly or fun to be with? Did Adam enjoy her company as they grew older? Eve, whose name sounds like the Hebrew verb that means “living”, is known almost exclusively for her brief encounter with Satan and almost immediate plunge into sin. Other women have been known mostly for their sinning…Delilah, Jezebel and Potiphar’s wife. However, no other woman is so completely associated with sin and temptation as Eve.

What is most fascinating about Eve though is not her final decision to eat the forbidden fruit; it is rather the illuminating description of how temptation worked with Eve and what lead to her fall. The scene in Genesis three is surreal, a talking serpent is the central character along with Eve in a battle that would permanently alter the condition of the human race. The serpent we are told is crafty, shrewd. Satan’s take on God’s command to not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is telling. “You will surely not die. Now Eve had just told Satan that the Lord commanded they could not even touch the forbidden fruit lest they would be killed. Satan’s strategy in the temptation is enlightening. He immediately shifts Eve’s consideration once he discredits God’s warning by telling Eve that on the “day” she eats the fruit, her eyes would be opened and she would know good from evil.

Satan brings into the dialogue a most critical factor in temptation…time. Whereas God’s warning was not bound to a point…you die on the day you take the forbidden fruit as you would with a lethal poisoned apple, Satan’s promise was. The day you taste that fruit, a magnificent wonder will happen. Temptation rests upon this one pillar…today and not yet. Today you will have open eyes. Today you will enjoy insight into mysteries unknown to you before. Today it will be sweet and pleasant and good. Tomorrow isn’t going to happen. Tomorrow is nothing to bother you. Tomorrow is the slave of today. Every temptation works this way. I will be leading next month a seminar on child abuse and the molester does his perversion because he takes tomorrow out of the equation. Upping the ante on murder…making the penalty worse, the execution more gruesome, the hanging more public has statistically been proven to be inconsequential to reducing the rate of murders both in the U.S. and elsewhere because every homicide is done without tomorrow. The catching part of the murder, the finding it out part of it, the punishment aspect, is left out when the murder is committed. Satan’s temptation was that tomorrow isn’t but today very much is. It still works that way. When I stole candy from a store as a child, I did it because I didn’t think I would get caught…actually I didn’t even think about it. The theft was based totally on today. Get the candy. The now of the Jolly Ranchers swallowed up the tomorrow of being nabbed.

This Topic will be completed in the next blog