The Temptation of Eve

Art  from Access-Jesus.com

In reading about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,* I noticed two things. First, the snake tempted Eve with a pretty thing which promised knowledge. Second, Adam succumbed to a naked woman carrying food. Today I want to talk about Eve.

 I see a little bit of Eve in myself. Okay, maybe more than a little bit. I love pretty things. If they sparkle, I like them even better. I love knowledge and wisdom. Even as a child I desired the gift of wisdom. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I responded, “To be as wise as Solomon.” Odd, I know, but it is true. I’ve quietly studied human nature and how best to please people

 My dad is a rageaholic. Knowledge of his triggers became a childhood survival tool. It irritated him to see me just reading a book. I read under my bed, in the closet, or in a tree to stay out of his path. I also knew how to placate him. Practicing the piano and singing were guaranteed to bring me favor. I watched him carefully at the dinner table. As soon as his gaze rested on a particular food, I passed it to him.Not a healthy way to grow up, but I gained the wisdom to survive.

I love knowledge. I love to study any subject that doesn’t include math. The knowledge you might call gossip is particularly titillating. Whether it’s good news or bad news, don’t you love to be the first one to share the apple of gossip? I guard myself from that particular temptation. I had to learn the hard way how it destroys.

In my early twenties, I lived in a very small town which considered gossip to be an acceptable and desired pastime.  I worked in an even smaller law office. I heard from a very reliable source that a popular teenage girl was pregnant. I shared this juicy tidbit with the woman with whom I worked. On her break she trotted next door to clarify this news item with the father of the teenage girl. He followed her back to our office and confronted me. His anger and the force of his words left me in tears for the rest of the day.It seems my reliable source was the girl’s disgruntled ex-boyfriend. My news, a total fabrication, was created to destroy the reputation of an innocent girl. Unknowingly, I carried the weapon of destruction with my tongue. Now I consider every confidence to be a secret unless I’m instructed otherwise.

I specifically despise “church” gossip. Many a man, and thus a church, has been destroyed by backbiting and gossip. As a preacher’s kid and a missionary kid, I am acutely aware of the fallibility of people in leadership. They are human and as such they will always fail. Even if I never repeat their failings to another soul, knowledge of the specifics has the potential to turn my heart toward bitterness and resentment. “They are such hypocrites,” is probably the number one reason why people avoid church. Yes, they are hypocrites and so am I. Roman 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Emphasis added.) I will walk out of a room to avoid hearing about the failures of my pastor and church staff. Unless they are breaking the law, I don’t want to know about it. Like any temptation, the best way to avoid it is to run! Combat those who choose not to run by praying for them, your pastor, and church leaders.

*Genesis 3 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when[a] you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,[b] knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. (HCSB)