Tag: Garden

Tov Meod No More

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Life, Scripture

Eden was a handcrafted dwelling place for both God and humans. In this perfect space, both the Creator and the created could exist together. Since God created everything tov meod (Hebrew for very good), this would include his creation of, and decision to place the tree of life and tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden. 

I have heard it taught humans should be ignorant of evil, that we should avoid knowledge of it. This seems contrary to God’s design, because he specifically put these trees in the Garden in proximity to humans. To take it a step further, Eve and Adam did have at least some knowledge of good and evil before eating from the tree. What I mean is they understood anything in the Garden was good to eat and enjoy, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So where did they get this basic knowledge of good and evil? From God! God never says they should have no knowlege of evil (afterall he told them what evil would be in this case). And there was nothing evil or sinful about the tree itself, after all, God deemed it tov meod. What God did, however, was govern the use and access to these trees. They are not evil, but interacting with them can only be done on God’s terms.

It seems to me that this illustration in the Garden teaches us that we should not seek to determine good and evil for ourselves. It seems God had a plan for the trees and the humans, but the desire of the humans to bypass God is the ultimate sin. Rather than submit to God’s wisdom and knowledge, functioning in their created role, they chose to usurp God by attempting to become like him. The saddest part is the humans were already like God, created in his image. Had they walked with God and obeyed him, perhaps those trees could have been used for their proper purpose. Unfortunately, we will never know this side of eternity.

It strikes me as spiritually significant that God has created tools that are useful for his purposes, and has placed these tools within our reach. But these tools can be catastrophic to us if we misuse them. Life is full of objects that can be simultaneously tov, but harmful.

Let’s use an oversimplified example. God created humans with speech abilities. God created this “tool” for humans because he wanted us to speak. But if misused, our speech can cause catastrophic damage to others and ourselves.

Scripture repeatedly calls us to gain wisdom! But wisdom by itself isn’t enough. Simply having wisdom can have catastrophic results (just look at the story of Solomon!) What is important is where we find our wisdom, and how we apply it. Sex is a beautiful gift from God, but when it occurs beyond God’s intended purpose, it no longer functions in a good way.

We must rely upon God’s wisdom and trust his leading in navigating life. If we rely on our own abilities, or lean on our own knowledge and reasoning, we too will fall victim to the sin of the Garden.

He will rule over you: Prescription or Description?

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Women of Scripture

I realize that this is a series on the women of the Bible and their stories, and last week I spent the entire article talking about the first sin, but it’s important to our understanding of the stories of women in the Bible. So much of what we believe about Genesis 1-3 influences the way we read the rest of Scripture. A bit more heavy lifting this week, and then on to other stories next week.

Last week we discussed how Genesis 3 is not an elevation of man over woman. It shows us that sin is a problem that impacts all creation – humans, animals, and even the garden which is now devoid of its human caretakers. The point we are to take away is that sin affects everything. That is consistent with the consequences of the sin that God enumerates in the last half of chapter 3. I find it fascinating that the word “cursed” is applied to the serpent, and to the ground because of Adam’s failure, but not to Eve.

The real reason we are looking at this passage again is our understanding of verse 16, specifically the last half of the verse:

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16b NIV

Many have interpreted this verse as a sexual desire on the part of the woman, and God now wants man to be in charge. Let’s take a look at this verse within the immediate context of Genesis 3, and the larger context of Genesis and the whole of Scripture.  Genesis 4:7 is a parallel verse to Genesis 3:16 using the same Hebrew words:

“…[sin] desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Genesis 4:7 NIV

With regards to Cain we understand from the same Hebrew language that sin wants to possess Cain, but Cain’s response should be to rule over sin. We get that. Yet the same language when used with the consequences of sin in the Garden gets interpreted differently because we think God wants men to rule over women. This is not how God established relationships in the Garden. He did not create Eve as subservient to Adam (as we looked at for the last two weeks.) Remember, the Garden was God’s ideal environment for humans, but now as a result of sin there will be broken relationships between humans and God, and between men and women, each seeking to dominate the other. I really appreciated Derek Kinder’s statement about this phrase in his commentary on Genesis.

“‘To love and to cherish’ becomes ‘To desire and to dominate’. While even pagan marriage can rise far above this, the pull of sin is always towards it.”  

Derek Kinder, Genesis: an introduction and commentary

So are we to take Genesis 3:16b as God describing the effects of sin, or are we to take the statement as a prescription/authority for man to rule over women going forward? We will answer that question through the rest of this series. From here we will continue to look at how God’s Word describes the relationship between men and women throughout the story of the Bible. We’ll look at how each story portrays this relationship and how those stories should influence our churches today.

Next week we’ll look at Miriam, who is much more than the sister of Moses. She is a child of God with an important role to play.

Question: What was Miriam’s role in God’s rescue of Israel?