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Genesis 3:1-4

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die.”

The serpent’s question twists God’s word.  Eve adds to God’s word.  Twisting God’s word and adding to it inevitably leads us to denying God’s word. 

It’s important for us to remember that God’s word is not the same as the biblical text.  God’s word is God’s address to us, God’s self-revelation, God’s encounter with us.  The biblical text is the vehicle through which the divine voice encounters us.  The question to ask when we stand before a text is how does God encounters us here?  What does it do to us?  How does it create true life and faithfulness in us?

God’s word is living and active says the author of Hebrews, describing it as the small two-edged sword used as a knife.  It would be better to describe the word of God as a scalpel.  It does heart surgery.  It detaches us from those things that are false and harmful and connects us with what is true and makes whole – that restores are true humanity.

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

All of Genesis 1 is about the creating power of God’s word.  

Isaiah makes explicit what we find throughout the prophetic witness: God’s word is a power that accomplishes God’s purpose. 

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, 
and do not return there until they have watered the earth, 
making it bring forth and sprout, 
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 
11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; 
it shall not return to me empty, 
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, 
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

The word of God is not a written code but a living voice that encounters us through what is now a written text.  It wasn’t a written text in the beginning; it was a spoken word.  The prophets looked people in the face and sometimes did crazy stunts like smashing a huge pot in the gathering spot at a gate of the city.  Baruch wrote down the things Jeremiah said, and it ended up being read aloud to the king (who cut each page of the scroll and tossed it in the fire).  It was a living voice.  Even written down it was a living voice – though the king ignored it for other voices who told him what he wanted to hear.

God is not giving us information and instructions like a book on how to fix a carburetor, bake a cake, or build a house; God is in a living relationship with the world and is working to fix our hearts.

Both the serpent and Eve (and Adam with her) treat God’s command as an objective thing, not the living voice summoning our trust and faithfulness.  

And so they play with the text.  It’s an object to be analyzed and manipulated.  The serpent twists God’s command by suggesting God has prohibited all human delight by refusing them every tree in the garden.  And Eve distorts God’s command by embellishing it, saying God has forbidden them even to touch the tree.  She takes the text of God’s living voice and adds to it something out of her own mind, making it say something God did not say.

This is a problem in the church.  Too often we treat the Bible as a dead thing rather than the vehicle of a living word.  It becomes a set of rules that we get to interpret and apply rather than a living voice before which we must stand. Or it becomes mere stories for spiritual reflection rather than the vessel of the divine voice.

When God is looking at me with love in God’s eyes saying not to eat of life’s sorrows, it’s hard to turn away.  If I write those words down and disconnect them from the living voice, then it becomes all too easy to add, subtract, bend, and ignore them.  I can use the biblical text to defend slavery or diminish women (our equal partners) or justify hating enemies despite Jesus’ explicit command. 

Ultimately Jesus is the embodiment of this living voice of God, the incarnation of all God’s encounter with and for humanity:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

The Word of God is a living thing, alive in Jesus, encountering us, revealing God’s own self to us, revealing God’s way and God’s purpose, and summoning us into faithfulness.

God’s word is not a text for us to play with; it is a living voice sent to carry us into the realm of life: “[God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).  Such work is not a one-time salvific event; it is the ongoing work of God who speaks and summons us into the life of the age to come, to compassion and generosity, mercy and forgiveness, open hearts and an enduring joy.

Twisting God’s word and adding to it inevitably leads us to denying God’s word.  And that leads to tragedy and tears, broken relationships and a broken world.

Eternal Grace,
Font of Life,
Grant us hearts and minds
always open to your word.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved.