Women in the Bible: Eve and Indiscretion
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:1-4
After she was presented to Adam, our first acquittance with the woman, Eve, in the Bible was on a particularly sour note. The first lesson we can learn from her is how not to allow indiscretion to rob one of great blessings and privileges as was the case with her, and by extension her family.
Our reference passage introduced the serpent as a cunning creature. The passage also goes on to qualify the degree of the craftiness of the serpent compared to other animals. It was described as “the craftiest of all the creatures the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1, TLB).
Unfortunately, Eve did not seem to realize this, or she just wasn’t paying much attention to it. And that proved costly for her; not just her, but her family as well. By not recognizing the slyness of the creature she was dealing with, she fell prey to its wiliness and lost so much as a result.
This underscores the importance of doing due diligence on the character and nature of people we allow into our space. We should not just dismiss warning signs when someone starts to behave in a shady way. The serpent had been profiled as cunning; therefore, we may never know whether Eve was naïve to this and was too trusting as to not heed the warning signs. Or, perhaps, she was trying to be nice and was not courageous enough to cut ties with the sly creature when it approached her for a conversation.
All we can see is that she engaged the serpent and was not on guard enough to recognize the manipulative question it asked her, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’”? (Genesis 3:1). Her falling for this trick question by answering it proved to be her undoing, as she was afterwards coerced with a superior logic into disobeying the command of God.
Indiscretion can be costly.
Selah!
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