Wednesday's Woman of the Word - Eve

Several years ago I taught a Wednesday night ladies' Bible class that focused on women of the Bible. This study actually went on for two and a half years. It was interesting learning about so many women, from the ones who have a lot said about them in scripture, to those who only were mentioned by name.

I've kind of missed the in-depth study of these Biblical women lately, so decided that each Wednesday I would feature a post entitled: Wednesday's Woman of the Word. I hope you will enjoy looking closely at each of their lives and seeing how their life might relate to your own.

The most logical choice of which woman to look at first would be Eve - since she was the first woman mentioned in the Bible. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be Eve? It's hard to imagine what her life might have been like to me. For however many years it was just Adam and Eve - no other humans around. Strange to think of, isn't it?

Eve is known as the first woman, but she is also known for the very first sin. The sin of disobeying God by eating the fruit which God had told she and Adam not to eat.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."" Genesis 3:1-5

The major thing we can learn from Eve is that sin leads to sin. Even though the first sin of eating the fruit was wrong, Eve could have decided then to sin no more. Unfortunately, though, Eve gave the fruit to Adam. He didn't have to take it, but he did...and their eyes were open to their nakedness. To cover up their sin, Adam and Eve then tried to hide from God - something that didn't work then and still doesn't today. And lastly, Eve tried to blame her sin on someone else. Yes, Satan was the tempter, but it was by choice that Eve sinned.

It's easy for me to sit here and think to myself, "Why didn't Eve just obey? Why did she eat the fruit? That wasn't that hard of a thing to resist." But that's easy for me to say when I can read the whole story and see that because of that bad decision sin entered the world. But how many times do I disobey God? How many times have I been tempted by something that might seem really easy for someone else to resist? What would I have done if I had been in Eve's same situation - being tempted in that way by Satan? What would you have done?

I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

Psalm 119:11