Welcome to the KUW Insight Podcast. Today’s insight is titled Apple written by Ade Ojomo and read by Morenike Olubode:
1. Why could Adam and Eve not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
2. Why was this tree planted in the Garden of Eden?
3. Why was the penalty so heavy?
Below is an This extract from the book - ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by Dr M Scott Peck
One thing I clearly had in common with all mankind was my laziness. It was at this point that the serpent-and-apple story in the Garden of Eden suddenly made sense.
The key issue lies in what is missing. The story suggests that God was in the habit of ‘walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ and that there were open channels of communication between Him and man.
But if this was so, then why was it that Adam and Eve, separately or together, before or after the serpent’s urging, did not say to God,
“Were curious as to why You don’t want us to eat any of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We really like it here, and we don’t want to seem ungrateful, but Your law on this matter doesn’t make much sense to us, and we’d really appreciate it if you explained it to us”?
But of course they did not say this. Instead they went ahead and broke God’s law without ever understanding the reason behind the law, without taking the effort to challenge God directly, question his authority or even communicate with Him on a reasonably adult level. They listened to the serpent, but they failed to get God’s side of the story before they acted.
Why this failure? Why was no step taken between the temptation and the action? It is the missing step that is the essence of sin. The step missing is the step of debate. Adam and Eve could have set up a debate between the serpent and God, but in failing to do so they failed to obtain God’s side of the question.
The debate between the serpent and God is symbolic of the dialogue between good and evil which can and should occur within the minds of human beings. Our failure to conduct – or to conduct fully and wholeheartedly – this internal debate between good and evil is the cause of those evil actions that constitute sin.
We make this failure because we are lazy. It is work to hold these internal debates. Like Adam and Eve, and every one of our ancestors before us, we are ally lazy. To question God may let us in for a lot of work. But a moral of the story above is that it must be done!
The story just narrated reinforces our total dependence on a relationship with the Holy Spirit to help us know the truth to make godly and effective decisions.
Goodbye and until the next KUW Insight,
Shalom – Love Never Fails
