lies and questions

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Genesis 3:1b

Satan is the great liar. And in this deceptive question posed to Eve, that are the first words from the devil recorded in scripture, the serpent begins baiting his first big lie with suspicion. He tries to create an alternate version of God’s Word and God’s world. He puts words in Eve’s head that God never said. And the lies Satan puts there question the very goodness of a perfect, holy God.

Up to this point in Genesis every action and creation God has done has been very good. The text goes out of the way to show us a good God Who does not stop until all of creation is good. Satan questions God’s motives implying with his first question to Eve that God is denying them (a theme he will build up as he goes): “Did God say you couldn’t eat from any tree?” There is a subtle inference that any negative command restricting from one tree is an exclusion from them all and a defect in the goodness of God.

And so it is when we question the words or the actions of a perfect, holy God. We are put on a slippery slope of temptation slanted in the devil’s favor. Eve started sliding when she gave credence to even answer this absurd question. How can we not sin if such doubts start to enter into our minds in a way that we engage with them? We must see how there is insidious intent even in the kinds of questions that the devil uses to set-up his lies! We need to look through them to analyze the false disinformation and misleading untruth. Any thought that doubts the goodness of God comes from the serpent’s deceptive inspiration and began right here in Genesis 3:1.