Adam and Eve

Hey all,
Did it ever bother you to hear someone preach about Adan and Eve, the fall of mankind and blame it all on Eve eating the fruit? Was Adam just an innocent bystander that got sucked into Eve's sin? My question for that is, if Adam was so innocent, then why did he recieve a curse? Well...to recap, let's quickly read over the Bible story.

Genesis 2: 6-7 "The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.  At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." Then God finds them in the garden and asks why they hid from him. They confess it was shame over their nakedness and God knows they ate from the tree he told them not too. Verses 12-13 says: "The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.' Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”' "The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”" After that, they recieve punishment for their disobedience.

Where was Adam when Eve reached for the fruit and fell into the serpent's trap? He was right beside her. He kept quiet and did not speak up to stop her. Then later, Adam blames God and Eve- 'the woman you gave me..' Both Adam and Eve sinned and both were punished because of it. The first couple on the Earth were having some relationship problems.

Ephesians 5:21-26 says "And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy..." Everyone must be humble and submit to one another but specifically, women need to obey/submit to their husbands. But husbands need to love their wives just like Christ loves his people and gave himself up. Husbands need to give of themselves, sacrifice for their wives. I think these verses are basically saying the same thing to both husbands and wives. Both have to submit and respect each other.

So since God designed that Adam (all males) should take spiritual leadership over their wives, giving of themselves to make her holy. Adam failed in that regard. He did not stand up to the serpent tempting Eve. He allowed the temptation to continue and got sucked into it himself. Imagine what would have happened if Adam told the serpent off- what would Eve do? Would she submit to her husband's leadership or rebel and face the curse?

So what do Adam and Eve teach us? That us girls should just do everything our husband's say? What about when their wrong? Can women teach men? There is a lot of debate in Christian circles about women holding leadership roles (specifically over men) but the fact is, God did call some women into leadership- look at Deborah in Judges. I firmly believe that women can be leaders, can instruct men, we are all 'one' in Christ after all. I think that the focus on submission and male leadership is there because we need to be reminded of our unique abilities that come from our genders. For example, we have to admit that we are often prone to controlling our men, we know what's best or at least we think we do, we take that control- nagging wife?? eh? Well, that's not good. That's not submitting in the least. Men sometimes need our encouragment to take control but girls, having your husband run aspects of the relationship and home, is not a bad thing. God knew women were prone to becoming stressed, worrying too much, overly concerned about things. We have to trust our men and allow them to be the leaders, take the stress off ourselves so we can concentrate on doing our best as wives. Men will do their best as husbands when they feel that they are performing a vital function in the relationship, a needed, necessary, can't function without, type of position. Maybe Eve was prone to taking control and so Adam sat back, thinking he wasn't needed or feeling that he wasn't good enough to take care of his wife.

We all know there are abuses to this functioning too. Where men control everything and make life miserable for their wives but that's not Godly, not Christlike. Christ died for the benefit of his church, a man acting in that capacity is not helping his wife. When leadership becomes a power trip- it's not proper leadership- leadership comes from giving of oneself. The best leader is also a servant. Look at Jesus, washing the feet of his diciplines. The fact that husbands are called to be leaders, means that they are called to be servants- and that's something that's often forgotten.

Anyway, big topic, definately some stuff to mull over. Think about it girls...there is more to the story of Adam and Eve than just the explosion of knowing evil spreading over the world.