Who put that tree here?

I recently was asked to answer a question for SCC Henderson's Element, and I thought I'd share the question and the answer here. This was the question: "Why did God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden? Why did He give us any temptation at all?"

Excellent question. Why tempt Adam and Eve in the first place? Well, let's make sure everyone is caught up on the background of this question. The Bible is not a book, it is a collection of books that all combine to form one continuous narrative. The first book in the Bible is called "Genesis," and the first couple of chapters of Genesis describe how God created the entire universe. He spoke the universe into existence, and on Earth He created a perfect garden called the Garden of Eden. In this garden He put two people: Adam and Eve.

At this point, life was perfect. No pain, no sorrow, no tears or death or sickness. It was all good. Adam and Eve were given some jobs to do, but really there was only one rule: don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. You can eat from every other tree, eat anything you want really... Just not from this particular tree. Genesis 3 describes how Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan and gave in, ate from the tree, and essentially because of that choice our world went from being what it was in the garden to what it is today.

So now we understand the question. If no Tree, then no temptation. If no temptation, no sin. If no sin... Well we are all chilling out in a perfect world right now. Why not just create a world where every choice is a good one? Do I eat an apple or an orange? Both good. Do I have a grape or cherry snow cone? Both good! Why the option of doing something wrong? Why the temptation?

Not to be too Sunday School, but the answer is "love." The Bible tells us that God IS love (1 John 4:8), and that love is the greatest virtue there is (1 Corinthians 13). WHat does that have to do with the Tree? Everything! God is love, and He wanted someone to share in His love, He created us to be in relationship with Him so that we could experience His love, peace, joy, blessing, comfort, etc. That's why He didn't just create us and then sit back and watch His ant farm go. He walked with Adam and talked with Adam. But relationships isn't one sided. God wanted Adam and Eve to love Him back.

This is where the explanation begins. Love requires something. Love requires free will. Think about this: you own a robot. Your very own R2D2. And your robot is programmed to bring you breakfast in bed on your birthday. Your b-day rolls around and in comes R2D2 beeping and booping with a tray in his robot claws. Do you think to yourself, "Boy, R2D2 really loves me." No... You don't... But what if your mom does that for you? Does she love you? Yeah! What's the difference? Choice. R2D2 didn't choose to do it. He didn't way his options and make a choice to put you first. But your mom... She had other options. She could have slept in, or gone to the spa, or been shopping for a new pair of shoes, or whatever. But instead she CHOSE to put those other things aside and think of you first. There is no real love without free will. And there is no free will without choices.

The Tree provided a choice, a REAL choice where Adam and Eve could decide to put themselves first... Or to love God by obeying Him and thinking of His desires before they thought of their own. And every time they made the choice to obey God, they were in good relationship with Him. They were fulfilling the very purpose that God created them with. They were expressing true love to the God that IS true love. For the same reason God doesn't wipe out all of the temptations and bad choices in our lives now. If He did, we would just be robots. Puppets that could never truly love the God that loved them enough to send His Son for them.

Why blog?

I wanted to create a site of some sort that would allow me to get a little bit deeper with students in the ministry. I look at this site as an opporunity for me to share some of the thoughts that I have about God, the Bible, and life in general. This is also a great place for me to handle some of the theological questions that some of our students have. Our messages in the small groups will very rarely involve a lot of "theological heavy lifting," as Cam likes to say. But sometimes we need to hunker down and really examine the evidence and arguments for and against the things we believe. Occassionally the best way to deepen our faith is to find out that there really are answers to the tough questions. Questions about violence, politics, racism, relationships, drugs... This blog will be that place.

So check in every once in a while. I'll post up on facebook, twitter, etc when there is new stuff on the blog.

And on a side note, I hope every Element student understands how excited I am about this ministry. I have little doubt that God has called me to lead and love high school students. There is nothing I'd rather be doing.