Bible in a Year, Day 3: Why Eve Fell for Satan's Lies

Today's reading

Today's reading is Genesis 3, the chapter where paradise is lost, and Pastor Jack Graham keeps coming back to the question that starts it all.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

(Genesis 3:1, WEB)

Reflection

Pastor Jack Graham calls Genesis 3 one of the most important chapters in the Bible, because it tells us what happened and why we need a savior. Adam and Eve had walked with God in perfect peace and harmony. Then the devil came slithering in, and everything changed.

It began with a question. As Pastor Jack Graham put it, "The enemy comes in not with horns and pitchfork, but he comes in with big questions and lies that make you doubt what god has said." Eve listened, and so did Adam, who was right there with her. They looked at the fruit and saw that it was good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for wisdom.

Their eyes were opened, though freedom was not what they found. They saw their nakedness and felt shame, the experience of sin for the first time. They covered themselves with fig leaves and hid from the God who had made them and loved them.

Then God came walking into the garden and called out to Adam, asking where he was. Graham says God asked "Not because he didn't know where he was, because he wanted Adam to know where he was." It was a call back to himself: come near.

The consequences of sin were real: thorns and thistles, pain in childbirth and, finally, death. Yet God did not abandon them. He clothed Adam and Eve with garments of skin, "a picture of the shed blood covering shame." He also spoke to the serpent and promised that the seed of the woman would crush his head (Genesis 3:15). Graham calls this the first gospel message in the Bible.

Centuries later, Jesus came. Where Adam failed, Jesus lived perfectly, and where the first man brought death, the second Adam brings life. Graham says the fall reminds us how quickly we can fall into sin when we listen to Satan, and it also shows us "how far God will go to chase us down and to bring us home."

Take it with you

• Is there a question in your mind right now that makes you doubt something God has said?
• Where are you hiding, and what would it look like to hear God's "where are you?" as an invitation to come near?
• Thank God that the covering for your shame came at a cost he was willing to pay.

Prayer

Father, you know where we are, and you call us to come near. When we hear the whisper that makes us doubt your word, help us remember what you have said. Forgive us for the times we have hidden from you. Thank you for covering our shame and for sending Jesus, who crushed the serpent's head once and for all. Bring us home to you today. Amen.