Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”
Genesis 3:3

The woman added to what God said. This is not merely an interpretation, but added words. She was essentially doing what the Pharisees later did. Tacking on a religious tradition onto the command. God’s instructions don’t change. They don’t go in and out of favour. He doesn’t change. But religious traditions do. They come in and out of vogue. We put all sorts of things into categories that they were never intended to be in. She also changed the wording God used implying that eating MIGHT cause death, where God clearly stated that in dying they would die (or that they would DIE die). He was emphatic, He spoke only of the eating of the fruit of the tree, and this was NOT what the woman spoke.

1 Timothy 2:14 says “Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience;” Was the woman deceived because she had not been given word-for-word instruction from the man about what God said? It is certainly implied that the male was the only one to hear the direct command of the Lord. We don’t know precisely. The command was given before they were separated into male and female entities. The male knew the exact words of God. The female spoke additions and inaccuracy. We don’t know the ins and outs. But it clearly shows that the first step in deception is to get the Word wrong. Because the woman spoke it incorrectly, it gave the serpent room to challenge her explanation – taking the focus off the Word of God and onto the interpretation of them by humans.

God’s Word does not require a ‘fence’ around it. It does not require additional restrictions in order to keep it. We can obey by following what the Word says, without needing to not do other things to make sure that we don’t disobey. That is VERY human thinking and an incredible burden to lay on someone (Matthew 23:4).