Last time in Bible Understanding, God's attention was turned to the serpent after he had slithered his way up to the humans and sneakily deceived them out of their garden splendour by convincing them that they would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. The humans fell into his snaky trap and God has something to say to him in the form of a curse: "Because you have done this", "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." God isn't done with His cursing and it is to the woman he next turns: "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." It is interesting to note that God cursed the woman with an increase in childbearing pain-the suggestion I make is that she was in a position to bear children painlessly before the breaking of Gods command. Easy living with food and physical freedom and pleasure is replaced with enmity between the snake and the woman, the woman and the man, and ultimately, between the woman and God. God isn't done with the commandment breakers and He turns to the man with this statement and resultant curse: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you. 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorn and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Heavy penalties were extended for breaking the one and only commandment God had for the beings He created. Childbearing is still painful, land is cleared with great toil and you and I, when we die, we simply disintegrate and disappear, like we never were. Indeed, the curse of death, as promised, was and is the ultimate penalty for disobeying a creative and benevolent God...the snake, he too is held accountable for his deceptions and there is foreshadowing in Gods curses and a whisper of what to look for in the future. Exciting captivating intrigue, more next time, in Bible Understanding.

It Wasn't Me

Last time in Bible Understanding, the man and his wife had just sewed together some fig leaves to cover themselves after having eaten from the forbidden from human consumption fruit tree. The clothing was their futile and feeble attempt to hide their shame and their loss of innocence. Following the sewing and covering, they hear the sound of the Lord God as He walked through the garden in the cool of the day. They hide among the trees, like two knowingly naughty children, fearful of God. God calls out to the man with a rhetorical question "Where are you?". The man answers with a quick confession that he heard God walking in the garden and was afraid because of his nakedness and so, he hid. God wants a full confession, a fessing up and He asks the man "Who told you that you were naked?" and "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?". Think of a child who was asked not to eat candy before dinner, with chocolate all over their face and the parent giving the child the opportunity to come clean, so to speak...the parent wants the truth, offers truth telling opportunities and alas, it is up to the child to choose how to respond. The man, he knows he has done wrong, that he had it all and broke Gods trust in him and yet his response is this: "The woman you put here with me-she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Two things come up in the explanation presented by the man, number one, it would appear that he is perhaps blaming God for providing him with the woman as his companion and secondly, he is more than happy to pass responsibility and guilt onto the woman for handing him some fruit. God then asks the woman "What have you done?". She too, is given the opportunity to explain the choices she made and her response is this "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Sadly, both the man and the woman decided that blaming another for choices they had each made was better than simply admitting the truth, they had betrayed God and set the tone for what their new relationship with God would look like...Until next time in Bible Understanding, when God deals with the serpent for what he has done.