Hey Andy, why was Eve so stupid to eat from the tree of knowledge?
Hi. You know, it’s real easy to point the finger at people and reflect on how stupid they were to do something, but not realize that we do the same thing all the time. I mean, not that we eat from the tree of knowledge, but that we sin against God – we do something wrong, even though we know it’s wrong.
Adam and Eve were given every tree and bush in the whole garden to eat from, but just needed to stand clear of the tree in the center of the garden. If they ate from that, they’d die. Now, regardless of the consequence, doing anything that God tells us not to do is sin, and all sin leads to death. But if we do something that God tells us not to do, then we sin, and that’s what Adam and Eve did (notice, it wasn’t only Eve that ate from the tree, but also Adam, for it says that she gave some also to Adam, “who was right there with her.”)
Cue the Serpent
Another point that needs to be made is that they were also tempted by the serpent. Now, we can say all types of things about this, and I’ve heard many of them, but the point of the matter is that when he tempted the humans, he did so by making God look greedy and like a tyrant who was just preventing them from doing something that would make them better – that God was lying to them so they wouldn’t become like Him.
So they had the desire to be like God (as every child has the desire to be like their fathers, and to not need them – to be all grown up), but not only “like” God, but “as” God – to not need God anymore – to be able to live without Him as gods – to have great knowledge and be able to do the things that God can do, to know the things that God knows, etc. And isn’t that what we do when we disobey Him? We want to do things on our own, we want to make our own decisions for what’s right and not right for us, we want to be in full control of ourselves…
Why We Sin
Now, I’m willing to bet that they were also right there by the tree when this all went down, for if they’d walked from there to the tree while talking, then they’d have had the time to think about it and come to their senses. So now imagine, they’re standing right there by the tree, admiring its fruit, when suddenly the serpent comes out and tells them to go ahead and take a bite – then goes into all the reasons why they should. So, desiring everything that he’s saying, they give into the temptation and take a bite of the fruit, then she hands it to her husband, who was there with her, and he also takes a bite of the fruit. That’s sin, and that’s exactly what we all do when we give into our temptations and desires.
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