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Genesis 2 and 3
This is a very strange Bible story and different people have different ideas about it.
What is important is that we can learn a valuable lesson from this story.
God first made the universe. On the earth he made the plants and animals. Then he made a man out of clay. He breathed into the man's nostrils and the man became alive. The man was called Adam. God planted a garden in Eden and in it he put the man he had made.
He put all kinds of beautiful trees there to produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. Then God placed the man in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it. God said to him, "You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree. If you do you will die the same day."
Next God thought that it was not right for Adam to be alone so he made a woman and she became Adam's wife. She was called Eve.
Picture of the garden of Eden
Now in the garden was a snake. The snake was very cunning. It was very bad and it was very clever. It said to Eve, "Did God really tell you not to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden?" Eve said, "He told us we could eat the fruit of any tree but we must not eat the fruit from the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. If we eat it we will die the same day." The snake said, "you will not die. God said that because he knows that if you eat the fruit you will become wise like him. You will know what is good and what is bad."
Eve looked at the tree and thought how beautiful it was and how juicy the fruit looked. She thought she would like to be wise. She took some of the fruit and ate it. She gave some to Adam who ate it too. Adam and Eve suddenly found that they knew the difference between what was right and what was wrong and they both felt very frightened. When they heard God walking in the garden they went and hid. God called to Adam and said, "Did you eat the fruit that I told you not to eat?" Adam said, "Yes but it was not my fault. Eve gave me the fruit." God said to her, "Why did you do this?" She said, "The snake tricked me into eating it."God was angry with Adam and Eve and sent them out of the garden. He made sure that they could not get in again by
placing a flaming sword at the garden entrance. When they were in the garden Adam and Eve found that it was easy to grow things in the ground and they had plenty to eat. Now they had
poor land and they had to work hard to grow enough food to live on. They had done the wrong thing and this separated them from God.
Now we can think of the story like this: Adam and Eve are like us and like the men, women, boys and girls that we know. The snake is temptation. Of course a real snake will not come along and start talking to us and telling us to do wrong but if we feel we want to do anything that is wrong that is temptatation.
If we see some money somewhere and we would like to steal it, that is temptation. If we do wrong things this may keep us away from God.
The Good News is that God does not want us to be separated from him. That is why he sent Jesus to tell us that even when we do wrong he still loves us. He wants us to say sorry. If we do this we will be forgiven and our sins will not keep us apart from him.
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