Have you ever played the telephone game? You know, the one where someone says one thing and you tell that to the person next to you and they tell the other until it gets to the end of the circle. What happened? The phrase that you said originally is not the one that ended up at the circle. We see this in our lives and instead of going back to the original source of the information, so what we now possess is not the same information but a lie, a twist on words. This trick has been around since the beginning and the devil doesn't have new tricks so let's take note of the mistakes made in Genesis 2 and 3.
Before Eve came on the scene, God told Adam “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2: 16-17 ESV) This message needed to be passed on to Eve once she entered the world because God saw that man needed a mate. In Genesis 3 Eve gets herself into some word trouble with the serpent. The serpent questioned Eve, “Did God actually say ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”(3:1) The serpent knew what God said but in asking this he was trying to get Eve to recall what God had said. She responded with, “God said, ‘you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” (3:3) Did you catch what happened there? Eve twisted the words of what God had said to Adam. She added that even if you touched it you would die, but God said if you eat of it you would die. This plays into what happens next with Eve believing the small miscommunication and lie in her own mind and it becoming a gateway into the first act of sin for humans. With that small lie the serpent added to the weed that Eve already had in her head. The serpent now says, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (3:4-5) Then Eve ate the fruit and the story began.
What compelled Eve to do this? It was the lie that was expanded by the serpent. The telephone game did its job and had Eve in all kinds of confusion. She relied on her own understanding and by not going to God about the issue she fell into a trap. How many times do we allow ourselves to take God’s Word and fashion it to our own desires, forgetting what the text said. When we forget what God said we give an opportunity for the enemy to tempt us in ways that twist the truth. The longer we stay away from the Word of God the more the truth is muffled, just like the person at the end of the telephone game. We must continue to keep going back to scripture to weed out the lies in our minds.
The source that we need to go back to is the Bible. This is our ultimate source of truth is the Bible, which is infallible and is inspired by God and is his Word. We don't have to ask God, “God I don't remember what you said could you remind me?” We have his written word that we can go back and know what the truth is without having to live with the lie. Do we have different interpretations of some passages? Yes. But continue to seek Christ and humble yourself so that you can be corrected when he does reveal the right answer and until that point live in grace. Humble yourself when you find yourself believing a lie, go back to the Bible to find the truth and live in grace until you figure out how to dig out the weeds made of lies in your life.
