1 QUOTE

“Uncle John, Luke cooked you!”

- Toby Liu (my 13 year-old nephew)

1 NOTE

Last month I visited my friend Richard Clinton in North Carolina. The one-hour drive from the Raleigh-Durham (RDU) airport to his home was shockingly beautiful. Living in Los Angeles, I was entirely unprepared for the vibrant, every shade of green Loblolly Pines, Red Maples, Oaks and Yellow Poplars saluting us as we drive down the 405 freeway. It made me think of Adam, God, the garden full of every tree, and the Hebrew idiom that unlocks the Bible.

God established one boundary in paradise. He warned 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 (Genesis 2:16-17).” I always thought there was a tree in the garden that had two fruits, one good and one evil. But Darrell Johnson in his excellent book The Story of All Stories helps us understand this phrase is a Hebrew idiom. An idiom is a group of words that do not mean what they say. Last week I played hoops in the backyard with my son, Luke, and my nephews, Neo and Toby. Luke crossed me over, broke my ankles and scored an easy layup. Toby burst out, “Uncle John, Luke cooked you!” Did Luke chop me up and throw me into a frying pan? Of course not. (Though my ego felt chopped up). In the same way, ‘knowledge of good and evil’ does not mean what it says. 

There two clues in the Old Testament. Children do not possess the knowledge of good and evil (Deuteronomy 1:39). The elderly no longer possess the knowledge of good and evil (2 Samuel 19:35). What do children not possess and what have the elderly lost? The ability to take care of themselves. Independence. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a shiny fruit that promises independence. When you bite it, your mind and heart suddenly believe you can take care of yourself. The fruit casts a spell in our minds that we don’t need God. Once they bite the apple of ‘independence from God’ everything fell apart. They suddenly believed the lie that they could have a good life without God. And they believed the obvious lie that they would not die.

It is grace upon grace that God wants to be in loving fellowship with him every single day. This idiom has changed how I view every command in the Bible. Every command declares, “John, don’t live your life on your own. Stay dependent on me.”

1 QUESTION

In what area of your life are you biting the apple, believing you can make life work on your own?

Until Next Tuesday,

John