The Temptation of Eve

The Temptation and Fall

::Now the Shining One was more clever than any animal of the field that the LORD God had made. It asked the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You are not to eat from any tree of the garden’?”:: (Genesis 3:1 ISV)

:: … she took some of its fruit and ate it. Then she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate some, too. :: (Genesis 3:6b ISV)

::It was the woman who was deceived and became disobedient, even though she will be saved through the birth of the Child … :: (1 Timothy 2:14-15 ISV)

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The third chapter of Genesis opens the curtains to a scene we all would’ve loved to play a starring role in, imagining that we would’ve chosen differently. Eve is minding her own, gets tricked by a snake, one bite of a fruit later from her and Adam parades in the Fall of Man that separated us from the perfect life we were designed for. Although this story is labeled the The Temptation and Fall, Scripture urges that Eve was deceived. This must mean Adam was the one tempted. However, he never had a conversation with the snake, so how is that possible? Eve is the main star here and he’s more of a side note in the beginning, though definitely an important one.

Eve was deceived, we’re told again and again. I think of it as “dis-Eve-ed”, because a conversation with the enemy made her question her identity. “If you eat, you will become..,” so she took. With the sin came carelessness; she could care less at that point about her divine role. She had a false sense of power. Though she kind of did have it, it was not the good kind she was after, but the power to tempt her man to join in. She took on the enemy’s voice and became the tempter. It was bite, turn, lure. Of course she would, she had been “dis-Eve-ed”. With her identity dropped, she did the opposite of what she was created to do: be a help to him. The man she was created to run next to, to help him run further, faster, she instead helped him trip and escorted in for all humanity the Fall of Man instead.

The temptation of Eve is still the same today. Many a woman will try to control a man with the same tactics to cause him to chase her, whether through outright seduction or complete withdrawal that makes him wonder what he did wrong. It’s manipulation at its ickiest, playing like Jezebel with deceptively selfish reasons. This is the temptation of Eve towards man.

Women have a unique voice in the life of men. We see Eve helping Adam fall and Delilah who tempted Samson out of his supernatural strength; but we also see Queen Esther who convinced her king to save a nation and Pilate’s wife whose urges didn’t allow him to kill Jesus. How many historic moments have actually been shaped by a woman speaking into the ear and heart of man? Though in some cases it has caused destruction, in others, it has bred amazing life.

1 Timothy 2 says woman would be saved through the birth of the Child — Jesus. So let’s look at Mary, a woman chosen by God to escort in the redemption of all mankind (and womankind too, amaright?). She humbled herself to take on the culturally shamed identity of being unwed and pregnant. She risked losing the man she had pledged her life to. She gave away the One she bore. This all required a rock-solid trust in God and an awareness and release of her female tendency to control man, leaving it all in God’s hands. Her bite was instead a bow, her turn was towards God, and her lure was a release.

Woman, you have a choice. You can choose the path of selfish seduction with your wants front and center, or you can release all of that and instead focus on arousing the strength of man, speaking forth his divine design to build and expand the kingdom of God in a way that only he can to the people he was called to. It would require you to relinquish the control you think you have of him and let him take the lead, to build him up and encourage him, to lay down your wants for others’ needs. Call me naive or old-fashioned, but I fully believe in the Genesis 2:18 design for woman to be a helper of man. Let’s consider which side our actions and words line up with: the side of control and manipulation to help him trip, or the one of complete trust in God to help him up and running. One breeds death, while the other will help lead many to what we were created to birth: life.