Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:17-19

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Here Adam is told of a cursed earth, of hard labor and sweat before having any bread, of a war against the land just to live, and this description fits my native land perfectly. I live in central Utah, the middle of a desert, where it is possible to grow fruits and vegetables and trees…but it is not easy. Today we cheat and import richer dirt and foreign plants to help us out, but my progenitors extracted their lives from the land inch-by-inch.

And even in the more flourishing parts of the world there is still a strong sense of strife in nature. Consider the monarch butterfly, which has a symbiotic relationship with the milkweed plant. The monarch butterfly, when still a caterpillar, feeds exclusively on the plant’s leaves, and after transforming into a butterfly pollenates its flowers. Neither can live without the other.

But also each kills the other by the thousands! The caterpillars have a ravenous appetite, and consume and destroy vast numbers of the milkweed plants as they grow. They would overrun the species entirely if it weren’t for the fact that the plants lethally defend themselves. They secrete a sap that drowns massive numbers of the caterpillars when they are still young, cutting their numbers to a mere fraction! These two parts of nature may rely on one another to live, but there is still a great, mortal strife between them, and this is a common theme in nature: life, but only through a heavy, struggling burden.

In sorrow shalt thou eat. Thorns and thistles. We raise out of the dust, we struggle until we can struggle no longer, then we collapse back into the dust. It is a bleak life, to be sure, but it is still a life.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:16

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Let’s face it, this is a hard verse, and it has implications that can be very hurtful. It has been used as the justification behind some truly atrocious customs, customs that have made a staggering number of women live as second-class citizens. And if all that oppression was solely the cruelty of man, that would be one thing…but does this verse suggest that it is also the will of God?!

Well, to answer that I consider my personal experiences, and I must conclude that such a notion is entirely incompatible with the God that I see loving my wife and daughter. The God that I see has just as much passion for them as He has for me and my son. He is remarkably devoted to them, He fiercely fights for them, He is near to them at every moment. I have never seen in Him a desire to subjugate them to another, but rather to free them.

So how do I resolve verses like these? I think the natural response would be to try and apologize for it, to give some interpretation that makes all of the inconvenient elements go away. And frankly yes, a number of such possible interpretations do occur to my mind, and perhaps one of those could be the correct interpretation….but also perhaps none of them are.

If I started to preach any one of those ideas as the truth, I would be putting words in God’s mouth, which I do not have any right to do. Only He can provide the perfect clarification, and thus far He has not provided that to me. And so I must conclude that I do not know how this verse is meant be read…but I do know that God loves his daughters, and that He loves them just as much as His sons.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:14-15

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Having obtained Adam and Eve’s confession, God now addresses each of his children. And yes, that includes his child Satan. God will address each in the order of their offense: Satan first for tempting Eve, Eve second for falling to that temptation, and Adam last for taking the fruit from his wife.

The King James Version of the bible translates the fate of the serpent as having his head “bruised,” but other translations have noted that the Hebrew word used (shuph) is commonly used to say “break” or “crush.” Thus the serpent may snap on man’s heel, but man will outright kill the serpent.

Which is a wonderfully encouraging prophecy from God! Here are Adam and Eve, having been compromised by the devil and are about to be cast out into the fallen world. Their heels have definitely been punctured, but they are being told that in the end they can have the victory over this foe. This prophecy was generally made true when from the ranks of mankind was found a Savior who defeated Satan and offer reclamation to every fallen man and woman.

But this prophecy can also be true of us on an individual level. We may succumb to temptation once, twice, or many times, constantly nipped at the heels by our foe, but each of us retains the hope to overcome. Many the addict has found a power that they didn’t know was in them, crushed their personal viper underfoot, and moved on with a life restored.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:9-13

9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Perhaps Adam and Eve hid themselves first, but I must applaud their honesty in these verses. When confronted with an inquiry they came forward and clearly confessed all that they did wrong. “I was afraid and I hid myself,” “the woman gave me, and I did eat,” “the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

I do wonder whether it even occurred to them to lie. Perhaps they realized God would see through it, or perhaps no such notions had yet entered the human mind, or perhaps they were simply choosing to do what was right.

In any case, as one who has partaken of his own forbidden fruit and then lied about it, I have great respect for Adam and Eve bringing it forth directly. I am never able to move on from my shame until I am ready to confess, and the sooner I have been able to do that the better it has always been.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:7-8

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

Yesterday I mentioned how Satan uses techniques that are uniquely suited against each individual. We all have our secret weaknesses, and many times they are secret even from our own selves. We feel bold and confident, believing there is no chink in our armor, right up until the moment that he pierces us with his arrow.

Then our weakness is exposed and we are ashamed to discover this part that is so willing to trade all our principles for temporary gratification. We lose trust in ourselves, and we feel naked. Having seen this bare side we hurry to craft a persona to conceal it behind, an apron of fig leaves to prevent anyone else from seeing what we truly are. We hide.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:6

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Why did Satan approach Eve about the fruit in the first place? Why did he focus on its ability to give one knowledge? As I mentioned a few days ago, why would he even begin his temptation by reminding her that God had forbidden this? Well, probably because it would work. Because Eve was a particular way, and Satan knew what that way was, and so he knew the best strategy to tempt her.

Sometimes I have been amazed at the temptations that have come to other people, because I have thought to myself “well no one would ever fall for that,” but then they do! And meanwhile I have had my own temptations, which are very well fitted to my own weaknesses, and I have fallen to them where others never would have! We all have different Achilles’ heels, and frankly many of us don’t even know what ours are until Satan compromises us through them. Then, like Adam and Eve, our eyes our opened to our own shame.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:4-5

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Every temptation comes with the promise of gain. Take the money and you can buy the things you want. Tell the lie and you’ll get out of trouble. View the pornography and you will have a rush of pleasure. Shout at the child and they will stop doing the thing that annoys you.

In short: eat the fruit and you will gain. And why do we give in? Because there is a truth to all of these statements. Immediate gratification does come about by committing sin. It really works!

Of course we have also been warned of painful side-effects accompanying each of these vices. After the rush of gratification comes the lack of self-respect, the shame, the addiction, the broken relationships, the decline of health, the sense of being fractured, the feeling of being cursed. And it is against these consequences that Satan lies, just as it was the consequence he was dismissive of to Eve: “Ye shall not surely die.”

When asked why we sin, most of us say it was because we thought we could get away with it, which is another way of saying we believed Satan and thought we could slip past the consequences. We thought that if we were fast enough or clever enough we could take the gratification of sin while dodging all the pain. We assumed the promised shame was only put upon us by stodgy priests and parents, and if we just didn’t care about them we wouldn’t feel bad about it. But as each of us has learned, it doesn’t really work that way. The pain is already hidden within the pleasure, you cannot bite the fruit without consuming both.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 3:1-3

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

I find very interesting the question Satan leads off with. Drawing attention to the fact that God had forbidden the eating of this fruit seems a risky tactic, more likely to prevent Eve from doing so than anything else. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to distract her from that memory while he tried to get her to eat it?

But then she might trespass God’s commandments, but it would just be an accident, not a willful choice, and that is not what Satan wants. I firmly believe that Satan wants us to know what we do is wrong as we do it. He doesn’t want us to ignorantly partake in behaviors that cause us self-harm, he wants us to look ourselves in the eye with shame because we knew better and did it anyway. He wants us to lose faith in ourselves, to give ourselves over to despair.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 2:25

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

I let my two young children take a shower just last night. They love our walk-in shower, because they can freely march across its tile and splash in the water without a single care in the world! Both of them were stark naked, of course, but they didn’t feel one bit embarrassed or ashamed about it. Why should they? They are innocent. Indecency and sexuality don’t even register in their minds.

Of course being naked is also metaphorical. It means being exposed, being vulnerable, having all your private secrets laid bare. How many of us would feel so unashamed in that event? A key piece of my children’s carefree innocence is that they also are too young to have done anything that they truly, deeply regret. They therefore have no hesitation to be seen exactly the way they are, just like Adam and Eve.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 2:21-24

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Verse 24 is curious, no matter how you read it. Is it a continuation of Adam’s speech upon seeing Eve, or is it an insert by Moses? Because if it is the former, then it is very interesting that Adam already understood the concept of a “father and mother,” giving that he and Eve were to become the first ones. If it is the latter, though, it is a fascinating bit of foreshadowing by Moses.

Because as that verse states, man shall indeed leave father and mother to remain with the woman. Adam will soon make a choice between taking the fruit that Eve offers him, or else remaining alone in the garden with his heavenly parentage. And he is going to choose the woman, the one who is a part of him, the one that is “bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh.”

And the language of verse 24 seems to be approving this decision. It seems to suggest that this is a right and natural thing for Adam to do. Condescending from his cozy paradise to remain a partner with his soulmate, to face even death together, this is a beautiful concept. The classic marriage vow today echoes this sentiment with its pledges of “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” In fact, Adam’s choice is itself foreshadowing another individual: the Savior that will leave heavenly parentage to also be a partner to the fallen.