Coulda Hada Pear: Overview Series

We have all had those “I wish I would have done it that way” moments in our lives. They are not really regrets as much as simply looking back and realizing we could have done things differently. This Coulda Hada Pear presentation is a series of writings, sections, chapters that explore what Adam and Eve must have experienced back then… but, then bringing that whole “shoulda, coulda, woulda” experience to our lives today is really where the Lord wants us to grasp the brevity of that predicament those two encountered. We encounter that very predicament almost every day of our lives, if not at almost every step of our lives, too.

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Genesis 2:17

We didn’t make the garden, but are given ruler-ship over it. There are guidelines and rules that need to be followed. Responsibility is passed directly to Adam.

There is only one stipulation or restriction for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; do not eat of its fruit. The list of things we could have done with that tree is much longer;

Picnic under its shade

¤ Use the wood for fire

¤ Use the wood for building

¤ Use the sap

¤ Use the leaves for decoration

¤ Use the leaves for cooking

¤ Etc, etc, etc.

Guidelines for life

The moment you have more than one entity (either person, organism, or organization), a system must be implemented to help ensure stability, clarity, and certainly success (harmony). Without a system of agreed guidelines, chaos has free reign. Boundaries can be viewed/received as bad, but they are actually essential for survival.

The Trinity takes on a whole new meaning and has a whole new set of results when ‘man’ is involved. We know that we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but when man enters the world, we suddenly have a funky version of the Trinity going on.

Eve ends up taking the brunt of the rap for the fall of man and the whole ‘sin entered the world’ problem, but Adam was there… he was a participant to the demise of the world, as was ‘the serpent’. When the ‘three stooges’ start working through that one simple rule, “all hell breaks loose”, as the saying goes. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised to know that that rule… that one stipulation God gave us about eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil was given to Adam and Adam alone. Not only that, but Eve wasn’t even on the earth when God told Adam that, too! See… It was in Genesis 2:17 that God told Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…”. The very next verse, God does recognize that “..It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”, but it is not until verse 22 (after God made all the beasts of the field) that God actually creates Eve. Genesis 2:22 states, “And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.“

The Temptation

All of that is to say that it was Adam who heard about this rule, this guideline, this stipulation from God… first-hand. For Eve, it was hearsay… for Eve, it was trust in Adam’s communication, it was faith that Adam even told her, let alone that he properly conveyed the severity of the rule…. afterall, neither of them knew ‘death’… especially as we know it. Sure, we may have lost something in the translation, but it is likely that Eve didn’t grasp the impact it would all have on her world. Being tempted or challenged to do something you were instructed not to do is the very beginning of building faith.

Many will say that you should avoid temptation altogether. Sure, that helps minimize the places and ways you can fail, falter, or especially crash altogether. But too often, the temptation rarely appears as though it is temptation! See that? See… if we have an obvious sign… an obvious clue…. even an obvious and tangible way of knowing we are at the doorway of temptation, many of us would take notice.

Temptation is much more subtle… much more un-obvious… and worse… much more ‘my normal life’ looking to us. In fact, things that mislead us do so because they are appealing… because they are intriguing, and even better (worse), much more seductive.

The Seductive Reasoning

Without being too protective and cautious, Eve was duped into reasoning about the rule that God laid out. That beguiling serpent got her to thinking about the intentions of this rule, and even went so far as to twist the specifics of the rule, itself. Reasoning has that affect… thinking through things is almost always a good thing.. thinking and reasoning over and around a rule can be troubling.