Eden Revisited

You've heard the old sayings "What goes around comes around." and "There's nothing new under the sun." It occurred to me this week that modern society gives credence to these adages. The original sin was launched by the question, "Did God really say 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden?'" That seemingly innocuous question put a doubt in Eve's mind that led to her succumbing to the temptation to check to see if God was really serious about His admonition. Unfortunately for her, and for all mankind, He was very serious. All the enemy had to do was raise a doubt. We still face the same question over and over today in many ways. Some examples are:
  • The speed limit; conventional wisdom says that the posted sign of 70 mph allows you to go at least 75 without fear of being caught.
  • Lying: we have created incremental lying; white lies, fibs, lies, and big honking lies.
  • Theft: It is OK to take someone's work by plagiarizing, or copying answers to a test; it is OK to steal time by falsifying your work hours; it is OK to take paper clips, pens, pencils, napkins, or as I discovered this week, all the Splenda packets put on the condiment station at fast food restaurants.
In each of these instances, and probably many more that I didn't cite, we create a sense that rules are made to be at least stretched, if not broken. The question in the minds of many is "Did they REALLY mean what they said?" Unfortunately we don't limit this question to the civil law (which Paul tells us we should obey) but we also stretch it to include the laws of God.
When God said "You shall not commit adultery." He didn't prohibit a little "hanky-panky" did He?
When God said "You shall not kill." He didn't mean that you couldn't assassinate someone's character did He?
The bottom line is that what God said, He meant. The consequences that He said would come, do come, if not immediately, eventually. There are no such things as victimless crimes. Someone is always hurt even if it is the perpetrator. It seems we haven't come very far from Eden after all.

Comments

Charmaine said…
As long as our conscious is clear, we should not have doubt about our own actions. Anyway, no one is a saint.
October 28, 2009 at 12:49 PM
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