In Genesis 3, the woman in the garden was deceived.¹ The choice she made was intentional, but she reached her (wrong) conclusions because she never realized she was on the path of deception.
Unfortunately, we are all at risk in this area. Whether the message is about the Bible, current political or social issues or what someone is trying to get us to do, we are all susceptible to being deceived. But we don’t have to be. If we pay attention, we can avoid the woman’s mistake. So what is the path of deception, and how can we avoid it ourselves?
The Path of Deception: Intent
Genesis 3 begins: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
That is not a complicated word. It means crafty, shrewd, sly. The serpent was aware of his surrounding, aware of his target, and aware of his ultimate goal. All he was missing was the opportunity. And when he saw that, he pounced.
The funny thing, though, is that being crafty isn’t necessarily negative. The word is mostly used in Proverbs, where it’s translated prudent. And being prudent is a good thing. A wise thing. We should be prudent.
So the issue here isn’t that the serpent was thinking this through. It’s that the woman wasn’t.
I used to tell my students to “turn your brains on.” Don’t read or watch or listen to any message without paying attention. Don’t blindly follow anybody on Instagram. Don’t take anyone’s podcast as always, only gospel truth. Test every spirit, the Bible tells us. Because when we don’t, we leave ourselves vulnerable. We become a target for those who, like the serpent, are paying attention.
The Path of Deception: The Set-up
The story continues: He [the serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
We talked about what the question is about (God’s trustworthiness). But the question itself is important too. Specifically, that he asked her a question.
This is an abrupt start to the conversation, don’t you think? They weren’t friends hanging out. This wasn’t her husband or God (her normal sources of conversation). This was the serpent who showed up one day while she was (apparently) already in close proximity to the tree, and he asked her a question.
We need to pay attention any time someone engages us with a question. “Hey, let me ask you something,” they say. And if we’re being prudent, alarm bells should go off in our heads. Why?
Because this is always a set-up.
Every deception starts with a set-up. Someone engages with you about their favorite topic, and it sounds harmless. But it isn’t. Their question is designed to lead you toward their thinking or trap you into doubting your own. And this design shows up in a number of ways.
- The question assumes what they already think is true.
- Sometimes, the question is an either/or.
- It might focus on the truth or fact of an idea or event.
But no matter what it sounds like, the question is a trap. And if we try to engage on their terms, we will always lose.
The Path of Deception: Falling In
Genesis 3:3: And the woman said to the serpent…
The woman didn’t question the serpent’s presence … or his question … or his motives. She took his question at face value, and she tried to answer it at face value. But it wasn’t an honest question. And he wasn’t an honest questioner. She took his bait.
First, she tried to answer his question. Engaging with set-up questions is simply never wise. In our college debate team, we quickly learned that you could not grant any of your opponent’s assumptions as true or you would lose the round. Instead of answering the question as he asked it, she needed to ask her own questions. “Who are you?” “Where did you hear what God said?” “Why don’t you ask him what his instructions were?” She did none of those things. She engaged his question, as he asked it, and it led to her next mistake.
Second, when she answered the question, she focused on the wrong thing. She didn’t question the fact that he was questioning God. Up until this point, no one had ever questioned God. Whatever God said (literally) happened. So that the serpent even asked his question should have surprised her. That he got God’s words wrong should have made her suspicious. Instead, though, she tries to correct the specifics, the details of what God did or didn’t say, and clearly missed the bigger problem of what he was saying.
The Path of Deception: Mishandling Truth
This is the last step, and it’s the biggest one. The woman was deceived because the serpent knew the truth better than she did.
When she “corrected” his understanding of what God had said, she didn’t repeat God’s words accurately.
God said (Genesis 2): 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 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.”
She said (Genesis 3): 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but 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.'”
Notice the differences:
- God named the tree; the woman didn’t.
- God said nothing about touching or not touching it; the woman did.
- God said “you shall surely die”; the woman said, “lest you die.”
The woman’s version of God’s word was inaccurate. She knew the gist. Her version was sloppy.
But the serpent was entirely accurate. He asked a set-up question, purposely mis-quoting God. And when she responds, he replies, “You will not surely die.” These were God’s exact words. He knew exactly what God had said. So he was able to use God’s own words to convince her because he knew what God had said better than she did.
That’s a scary proposition. If we are sloppy, half-hearted, unclear about what God actually says, we leave ourselves open to being controlled and convinced by someone who does know God’s words and uses them to deceive.
The Path of Deception: Getting Off the Path
The woman was deceived, and as a result, she ate the fruit and gave it to her husband. And sin entered the world.
Obviously, most of the potential deceptions we face don’t have that kind of world-wide influence if we fall. But following the path of deception will cause damage even now. Our families can be torn apart, and our children’s faith can be upended. Our homes and finances wrecked, and our churches and faith communities can be destroyed.
The problem isn’t that the world has deceitful people in it who are trying to trip us up. We should assume that. The problem comes when we refuse to engage with our world with an equal sense of awareness.
Deception happens when we aren’t intentional about paying attention. But if we are prudent, if we are aware, if we handle the truth well, we can save ourselves (and others) from this dangerous path.
¹The Bible repeatedly says this. Check out 2 Corinthians 11:3 and 1 Timothy 2:14.
