Christian Liberty

        Fallen humanity never changes. The Bible, for example, addresses the church members of nearly two centuries past, with exortations that could have been written for today. Then as now, those who are more interested in "walking the line" of religiously acceptable behavior than in loving God by their obedience attempt to exploit Romans chapter 7 for permission to go their own way.

Romans 7 (1) Or do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? (2) For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. (3) Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (4) Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (5) For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. (6) But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (7) What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." (8) But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. (9) I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. (10) The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. (11) For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (12) So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (13) Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. (14) For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. (15) For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (16) Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. (17) So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (18) For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (19) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (20) Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (21) So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. (22) For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, (23) but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (24) Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (25) Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

        To bend these Scripture verses to their own corrupt purposes, however, faulty expositors must blind themselves to a large part of this passage. For example, vss. 1-3 provide plenty of fodder for those who search for Scriptural loopholes. Or do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
        Though the phrases, she is released, she is free, and she is not an adulteress seem to hold out the promise of freedom from responsibility, the last half of vs. 4 specifies God's purpose in giving us the liberty of His grace: ... so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
        What a shame our Bible translators placed a chapter-break after vs. 25, giving the impression that it stands alone: So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. What fantastical permission Paul's confession seems to give the libertine to obey any carnal impulse. With chapter 8, however, its actual meaning becomes clear.
        The beautiful promise of chapter 8 vs. 1, taken by itself, could encourage libertines to continue the tragic mockery they began through exploiting chapter 7 for their own evil purposes. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's plain as day, isn't it? that we can't be condemned for anything we do. But vs. 2 should begin to dash their hollow fantasy. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
        Vss. 3 and 4 continue explaining, in simple terms, exactly why Jesus had to suffer such a ghastly death: For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
        In a brief detour, we need to notice that chapter 6 vs. 12 explores the same redemptive theme: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Alright, "sinner saved by grace," how would you distort that verse for permission to keep sinning?
        Warping Scripture to grant us approval to wollow in the world's effluence, effectively blasphemes the God of our salvation, whose absolute holiness prevents Him from participating in any way with evil works. Chapter 6 states later in the clearest terms how wrong that idea is: What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
        Returning to chapter 8, we continue reading all about the absurdity of construing Scripture to give us permission to live in the flesh, with vs. 8 summarizing the point: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. If that needs explaning, are indicates a state of existence that, in this case, cannot please God.
        Chapter 8 continues: You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Try, for a moment, sticking with simple logic to interpret and apply this verse. Who is the "you" specified here? The answer is, those of you who have been reborn in the Spirit of God. If you are in God's church, that "you" is you!
        Vss. 11-14 continue our simple logic: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. The full implications of this verse deserve much deeper investigation. But for now we can see how the things of the spirit impact the flesh. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
        So, what of this Christian liberty we keep hearing preached? Vs. 15 explains: For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" Contrast slavery with sonship. Both roles infer involuntary responsibility or duty. The first imposes external compulsion, the second, responsibility of birthright. The first, from being owned, the second, from owning. And unlike natural birthrights, becoming God's adopted child is your choice. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (vs. 16 & 17)
        How likely is it, then, that those for whom Jesus died to redeem from sin, should continue living in sin? According to God's word, that is entirely unlikely.
        Do our fleshly lusts so easily deceive us, that we continue "hedging our bets" by participating in religious activities, while the balance of our life shouts self-indulgence? The liberty we have in Christ is not freedom to sin, but freedom to live in a way we never could have even conceived without Him: And that way is holiness!

Praise Him Anyway

Today when I fired up my ol' computer, it didn't! Oh sure, it made the usual fan noises and stuff, but it didn't do anything. So I was all discouraged, even though I made my best effort to thank God for what was facing me ... surely a hosed motherboard or something equally irreparable. Well, I made my peace with my new, computer-less life, watching one of my wife's "reality" shows, then reading from a book; you know, that's one of those rectangular solid things that you don't have to plug into power. It was even kinda fun for awhile, until the nagging feeling overtook me that I hadn't done all I could to resolve the issue. After calling my son-in-law for some quick consultation, I took my old system hard drive out, and I was able to reinstall Windows on my secondary hard drive as if I really knew what I was doing. But I still puzzle over why such a time-wasting, minor catastrophe overtook me on an otherwise restful Lord's Day afternoon. Maybe God was disgusted with the mess its start menu had become. But no matter, at least I'm learning to deal with apparent happenstance without second-guessing God. Come to think of it, if nothing else comes of my little technical hiccup, that alone would be a valuable lesson.

A Distasteful Meal

        My wife and I seem to enjoy exercises of will. Of course, it's always her fault, because she won't listen to reason ... always trying to be right--having to be right.
        The above paragraph is such a HUGE target, it seems unfair to hold it up. Yet, isn't that "logic" exactly the stinking attitude that initiates and perpetuates arguments? Seems to me, the only way to encounter another's bullheadedness is to lower ones own horns, and charge.
        Am I saying one should placate the other, taking on the intellectual role of a soft pillow? If we prioritize our communications according to the spirit of 1 Corinthians 13, such arbitrary accommodation will not be necessary, or even desirable. Few issues are worth an argument, especially in a relationship that is defined by love. And even outside of a spousal or other familial relationship, arguing almost never resolves a dispute.
        Here's a strategy with which I must experiment: When disagreement begins, I must quietly ask, "Is this issue important enough to argue about? Or can we just agree to disagree right now, before blood is drawn?" That way, nobody is challenged to admit they're wrong; no ruffling another's feathers or eating ones pride(such a bitter meal).
        Conventional wisdom says pride is a good thing. But if it's that good, why does it taste so rotten?

True Power

Psalm 33:16-22
        Real power is not founded on military might, but rather on fear of the eternal, self-existent One, and hope in the solid rock of His love(vs. 18). We must depend upon God's redemption when the threat of physical domination or harm is imminent.
        Perhaps He will direct us to resist in kind, or to stand firm in prayer and let Him demonstrate His power over the enemy, but we must be open to either possibility. Discerning His direction and standing in it tests our faith more than any other challenge.
        But what should we do when we can't discern His will for our response to a dangerous situation? Saul sought out the witch of En-dor for help, calling on her to bring Samuel forth from Sheol for his prophetic direction(1Sa_28:7-25). When Samuel came up, however, he clarified for Saul exactly why the Lord had not directed him; because of his disobedience, the Lord had turned away from Saul. Otherwise God's direction would have been clear.
        When we're facing a lose-lose situation and can't get God's direction, we must not seek advice from ungodly sources. By "ungodly sources" is meant any "wisdom" that is not from or is contrary to God's word. Saul sought out a godly man's direction, which would have been the right thing to do if Samuel did not happen to be dead.
        There is no compensating for our failed walk with the Lord. We must fall on our faces to beg His forgiveness and His power to enable us to repent of our faithlessness. And we must continue in that prayerful attitude until He answers our entreaty. Then we must learn from our error and grow from our distress, or we are doomed to repeat the failure time and again.

Angels

According to the Bible, angels are God's special messengers and His heavenly army. The Authorized Version of the Old Testament includes 212 verses where the Hebrew word translated angel appears. That word(מלאך mal'âk), translated 100 times as angel, is also translated as, messengers 74 times, messenger 24 times, angels ten times, and ambassadors four times.
        They do get around. Today angels are quite in vogue, with tiring lists of library and Internet references concerning them. Bumper stickers proclaim angelic protection, and movies and TV shows feature their adventures.
        Though I've personally never witnessed obvious spirit-manifestations, that is not to say they haven't happened around me. There is no reason to assume my eyes of flesh—or anyone else's for that matter—should be able to observe spirit-beings. Since the Bible gives many non-symbolic accounts of angels at work, however, I have no choice but to believe they exist.
        The Bible also makes God's attributes perfectly clear, among which is his attribute of omnipresence, or existing everywhere at once. Since such a concept is impossible for us finite mortals to fully understand, many assume it to mean God is aware of all things rather than literally being everywhere.
        God's omnipresence creates an interesting conundrum when considering the angelic role of messenger. If God is present everywhere at once, logic suggests he must be present as his angels perform their God-assigned tasks. So, why does he need messengers if he's with the message's recipient all along?
        One might think skepticism motivates this line of thought. While that is certainly the case for those who refuse to believe the Biblical account, my questions drive me deeper into God's word for the answer, which I know is there, hidden though it may be.
        In coming posts, I will share with readers what I find. If I come to any conclusions, they are up for grabs. Anyone who can shoot them down must feel free to do it, but not with religious dogma or tradition, unsupported by careful Bible study. So, let's see what comes of all this speculating.

Happy Endings

Psalm 73 begins by reiterating God's goodness to those of Israel who are pure in heart. It's kind of like the good news before the bad, because the Psalmist has some hard things to say.
        Despite God's goodness, the writer had found himself stumbling along through life. Why? Because he ceased watching God and His law, and began lusting on worldly things: the rewards of selfishness.
        The same mind-set that drags us down plagued the Psalmist. We watch celebs of questionable character flaunt their prosperity through their entertainment media. We read about special interests shoveling obscene wealth into the government fat-cats' stretching pockets. The ENRON scandal demonstrates Big Business's wholesale corruption; they were busted, but how many aren't? Then there are the Mafia wise-guys, the gang bosses who have whole cities' vice operations neatly sewn up.
        With the Psalmist, we become envious of the fruit of corruption and the profit of arrogance.
        We shout to the heavens, demanding to know why the wicked suffer no consequences for their wickedness. Their posh lifestyles and gaudy luxury make no suggestion of a coming reckoning. Where is the justice? Smooth-sailing and insulation from the normal rigors of life reward their wickedness.
        They seem to buy, or intimidate, their way our of every consequence, wearing the Teflon® coat of violence.
        And, oh, it gets worse, as they prosper in every imaginable way. Why are they allowed to enjoy such unspeakable pleasures when so many suffer because of them? If we tried tasting of their rewards, we would surely get busted and suffer for our indiscretions.
        Since God seems to approve of their wicked actions, maybe we aught to change our definitions of right and wrong. Such people do seem to have all the power, and by kowtowing to them we could share in some of their wealth.
        The righteous among us cry out to God, demanding to know why He overlooks the graft and corruption. "Don't you see all this going on, God?"
        Witnessing all this profitable injustice, we ask why we bother trying to live righteously. Number one, we are nowhere near that bad! And number two, we're quite religious. Doesn't that count for anything?
        Why, all I get for my goodness is more trouble, morning and night. Where's the justice, O God?
        By verse fifteen, the Psalmist tires of all his whining and grousing, so he reveals his true purpose in such a tirade. If that were his true attitude, and those were his actual complaints, he would have betrayed God's people for all generations.
        The Psalmist grows quite weary, trying to psych-out God's purpose in all this apparent injustice. And today, God-followers remain strangely mute in the face of such challenges as, "Why do the good and upright suffer horrible calamities, while the rich get richer and the fat-cats get fatter?"
        The first half of Psalm 73 demonstrates how humanly normal it is to gaze on the apparent injustices of life, how easy it is to allow such trouble to fill our field of view. Then in verse seventeen, it issued the essential challenge of faith: We must enter God's sanctuary to gain wisdom about the difficult issues of life. And His sanctuary for us is not limited to a particular place, or even a network of places such as church buildings. The phrase, "... enter God's Sanctuary ..." means far more than the traveling tent that followed the Hebrews, or even the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. This is obvious, because lay people weren't ever allowed in the Temple's Most Holy Place. So the sanctuary we must enter—our Sanctuary—is the Lord Jesus Christ, first, last and always. When we seek His voice with all our hearts, confessing and repenting of our doubts and worldly values, His Holy Spirit will speak to us God's eternal perspective and answer all our questions with His supernatural peace.
        Truthfully, we may never learn the factual answers to life's toughest questions—this side of eternity. But we don't need to know such things, as long as we understand God's divine nature enough to accept what, in our carnal eyes, might seem unjust.
        We love, because He first loved us. And because we love God, we refuse to challenge His purposes--even when life seems to go sour. Fact is, when we love God, we know all things will ultimately work for our good. We view the happy endings of movies and books as pure fiction, knowing the warm satisfaction they give us will be short-lived. But in Romans 8:28, God guarantees happy endings for a select few: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (ESV)
        Do you want to trust God for your Happy Ending?

Enjoy Your Children's Behavior--You've Earned It

Psalm 6

¹O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.

          This is the prayer of every child, when he has done wrong and expects discipline. King David did not plead for no rebuke or discipline, but qualified his plea, such that his Father would not deal harshly with him.
        God's word repeatedly makes clear all parents bear the responsibility for correcting their children. Parents often use this first reference below as their "scriptural directive" to abuse children in the name of discipline:

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. (Pro 13:24 ESV)
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. (Pro 22:15 ESV)
Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. (Pro 23:13 ESV)
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. (Heb 12:6 ESV)
For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life. (Pro 6:23 ESV)
But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1Co 11:32 ESV)
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Heb 12:7 ESV)

          But Psalm 6:1 expresses a godly man's desire for moderation in discipline. Several other Bible passages stress God's expectation for parents to discipline their children without anger:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Eph 6:4 ESV)
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. (Rev 3:19 ESV)
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Heb 12:11 ESV)
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Pro 5:22-23 ESV)

          We must remember God's attitude toward expressions of anger and wrath among His children:

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. (Col 3:8 ESV)
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.(Eph 4:31 ESV)

          Admit it; too often what we pass off as discipline, is veiled revenge, making them pay for messing up. Our anger expresses attitudes like, "How dare you disgrace me by behaving stupidly?" "How many times do I have to clean up your mess?" or, "You're more trouble than you're worth!"
          God will not have that kind of self-centered attitude controlling our interactions with our children. His command is clear:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Rom 12:19 ESV)

          Isn't it obvious from God's word that wrathful discipline is His exclusive responsibility? He gave us many examples of leaders who usurped that responsibility by mistreating their subordinates, and the righteous judgment that befell them. Dare we presume to execute ungodly discipline on those for whom God gave us the solemn responsibility to mold godly character? Dare we teach our children by example that it is acceptable, even desirable, to act out our unbridled anger whenever someone crosses us?
          We teach, not by pontificating at our children, but by our example when dealing with the stresses of everyday life—whether right or wrong. Ephesians 6:4 makes the danger clear, and bears repeating: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That means treat them with the same loving respect, grace and mercy that God has granted you. They will take your example to heart, apt students that they are. Before you know it, they are reacting to you in the same way you dealt with them.
          Enjoy your children's behavior, you've earned it.

New Writer for Our Daily Bread

        Philip Yancey is now writing for Our Daily Bread, and this edition shows his typically fresh approach to a well-worn topic: forgiveness.
        Interesting, that I can characterize the topic of forgiveness as "well-worn," in view of the difficulty today's--and history's--church has had with it. I'm convinced that many of my brethren who claim to have absolutely no issue with forgiveness, have simply buried it with the hope of, "Out of sight, out of mind."
        A buried grudge is not a forgiven one, and it will eventually fester, and erupt into a worse wound than it was originally. Do as the CSI-type TV characters often do, exhume the corpse for a postmortem, and get to the truth before it gets to you.

Trouble the Water by Nicole Seitz

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Trouble the Water
Thomas Nelson (March 11, 2008)
by
Nicole Seitz

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

        Nicole Seitz is a South Carolina Lowcountry native and the author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass as well as a freelance writer/illustrator who has published in numerous low country magazines. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism, she also has a bachelor's degree in illustration from Savannah College of Art & Design. Nicole shows her paintings in the Charleston, South Carolina area, where she owns a web design firm and lives with her husband and two small children. Nicole is also an avid blogger, you can leave her a comment on her blog.
        Seitz's writing style recalls that of Southern authors like Kaye Gibbons, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Sue Monk Kidd, and this new novel, which the publisher compares to Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, surely joins the ranks of strong fiction that highlights the complicated relationships between women. Highly recommended, especially for Southern libraries.


ABOUT THE BOOK:
        In the South Carolina Sea Islands lush setting, Nicole Seitz's second novel Trouble the Water is a poignant novel about two middle-aged sisters' journey to self-discovery.
        One is seeking to recreate her life yet again and learns to truly live from a group of Gullah nannies she meets on the island. The other thinks she's got it all together until her sister's imminent death from cancer causes her to re-examine her own life and seek the healing and rebirth her troubled sister managed to find on St. Anne's Island.
        Strong female protagonists are forced to deal with suicide, wife abuse, cancer, and grief in a realistic way that will ring true for anyone who has ever suffered great loss.
        "This is another thing I know for a fact: a woman can't be an island, not really. No, it's the touching we do in other people's lives that matters when all is said and done. The silly things we do for ourselves--shiny new cars and jobs and money--they don't mean a hill of beans. Honor taught me that. My soul sisters on this island taught me that. And this is the story of true sisterhood. It's the story of Honor, come and gone, and how one flawed woman worked miracles in this mixed-up world."

"...a special sisterhood of island women whose wisdom and courage linger in the mind long after the book is closed."
-NEW YORK TIMES best-selling author SUSAN WIGGS

Gardeners, Born and Bred

        Humanity has always born a profound curiosity about his origins. The Bible contains one set of explanations, complete in itself. Though "modern" people largely consider the Bible's creation story to be metaphorical, science hasn't managed to contradict it, or provide satisfactory answers of its own.
        Biblical creation is sufficiently nonspecific to avoid scientific debunking. Yet, given the probability that the details are fabricated, one must also grant the possibility that it is essentially true. Whatever might it mean?
        Perhaps the healthy skeptic could suspend disbelief just long enough to examine the Biblical creation story's essence. Allow it, for a time, to speak its wisdom, even if it is only allegory. Every allegory, after all, has its message, and this particular one has demonstrated its profound power over the centuries. That in itself should qualify it as a significant source of wisdom, not to be taken lightly.
        So, let's go to the story recounted in the Bible. Adam was God's man. In fact, Adam and man are the same word in different languages. In today's phrasing, man was God's Creative Property; He conceived, designed and built man as the creative expression of Himself. After creating the rest of the universe, man was to be God's crowning achievement, for He created man in His own image to become creation's steward, its gardener.

The Job Description
        While Adam enjoyed all the joy, privilege and reward of living as steward over God's creation, he also bore the solemn responsibility to care for it. Part of that job description was to obey God in the one matter with which God found it necessary to constrain him; while Adam was to enjoy all the fruit of the garden, he was not, under penalty of separation from his Creator, to partake of one particular pleasure. Whether the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a literal tree, or metaphorical, matters not in the least to the principle in question. Whatever it or its fruit looked like, or whatever it meant to eat of it, God made it strictly off-limits.
        As the creation account unfolds in God's word, we see Adam stepping up to the plate, so to speak, by naming all the animals—no small feat in itself. Later, we learn that Adam was not only man, but human, in that he was lonely. Acknowledging a need in Adam that the man couldn't even define, God used a key part of Adam to fashion the Woman who would fill that void.
        So, man became mankind, God's gardeners, created to reproduce in His image to care for the rest of His creation.

A Serious Error
        Anyone who's a Windows computer user knows about the Serious Error. No one understands it, but it tends to shut down the operating system. For whatever reason, one of the new humans committed a Serious Error. That person found a fatal attraction in the one thing God had forbidden. Maybe the source of temptation was the serpent, and maybe the fateful object was a spectacular fruit that glistened in the morning sunshine. And maybe it wasn't, but what does it matter?
        The point is, through whatever mechanism, humanity chose to flout the one constraint that God had placed upon them. Perhaps, in the pressure of the moment, they simply forgot that God forbade that particular indulgence. No, the text indicates that the tempter addressed the issue in the form of a question. So they hadn't forgotten.
        Did they not believe God meant it? Well, they knew God personally. What in His personality or temperament would have indicated that He was kidding?
        Or, perhaps they simply didn't take the commandment seriously, preferring to risk His wrath in order to get what seemed attractive at the moment. After all, God was a God of love, wasn't He? Surely He wouldn't throw them out for just one minor indiscretion, would He? In view of contemporary mankind's attitude toward rules and rule-givers, this explanation seems quite likely.
        From the Genesis account, God didn't find their "minor indiscretion" at all funny. In fact, their "error" was sufficiently serious that God "yanked their plugs" from the Source of eternal life, and since they obviously wanted to live by their own standards, He accommodated them with banishment from the garden to make their own way in the harsh, cruel world.

But That Was Then ...
        Let's fast forward a few dozen centuries to see how far we've come. Risking the appearance of tree-huggers, let's forget our conservative politics for a moment and gaze about to see what our "garden" has become. How do we stack up as stewards and gardeners of this planet?
        Have we respected creation by using its resources responsibly? Or have we coveted the pretty fruit until the "tree" is in danger of being stripped bare?
        Have we used the intelligence of a common dog to not soil our own habitat? Look, for the answer, to our cities' filthy streets, to our polluted water and air, to our refusal to commercially develop non-wasteful energy sources. Let's face it; for an intelligent, creative race, we seem awfully slow at our lessons.

Drop Your Bludgeons, People
        So, dear skeptic, is it not possible to find valuable lessons in the book you believe to be full of human errors? Have our "enlightened" lives shown more wisdom than that old, dusty Bible?
        And, dear Bible-toter, standing on ones belief in God is meaningless if we refuse to learn more from Him than sterile, religious doctrine. He said we will love, because He first loved us. Do we?
        Does Christendom demonstrate Christ's love? Does Humanism demonstrate the highest ideals of humanity? Come on, children, let's quit bludgeoning one-another long enough to listen to what the other guy has to say.
        What this planet and its population need to survive is to abandon the inbred prejudices of our know-it-all attitudes, and set about learning from those with whom we disagree. Conservatives need to consider the possibility that unfettered enterprise may be corrupt to its roots, that freedom and autonomy carry with them the solemn responsibility to acknowledge their Source, and that self-government can only work in the context of self-control.
        And liberals need to consider the possibility that we humans aren't the center of the universe, that "quality of life" requires standards of morality and self-respect, far more than a guaranteed standard of living, and that the "free lunch" is, and always has been, the lie we love to believe.
        Earth's gardeners, one-and-all, step up to that plow, take hold of that spade, bend your backs to our God-given responsibility. Whether-or-not we believe in the job Giver, we each have a job to do if we're to survive, and there is nobody else around who will do it.