2. Misinterpretation 1: “Did God Really Say…?”
The first heresy we’re given as an example to avoid is the original one that started it all.
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.”
–Genesis 2:15 (NKJV)
3 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings
–Genesis 3:1-6 (NKJV)
What was the original heresy? Sleight of mouth. What is that? Do me a favor, please. I need 14 minutes 9 seconds of your time. If you would, go to You-Tube and search for the following: Derren Brown pays with “Paper” at stores on the UltimateMastermind channel. After that, please watch: Paying with paper breakdown: NLP analysis of how Derren Brown’s Paying With Paper on the Peter Schwarz channel. Why’s this relevant? Simplifiedtheology.org is not endorsing those individuals or channels and those individuals and channels are not endorsing simplifiedtheology.org nor are we affiliated in any way.
Years ago, when I was driving commercially, I was responsible for selling tickets to riders and accounting for the cash, which could be substantial. Every so often a customer would ask me for a refund. Here’s how it worked: 1. they would pop onto the bottom step of the bus as I was getting ready to close the door and pull away from the curb, so I could not close the door nor pull away, 2. they would start talking very fast using word salad and contradictory events, etc. giving me their “story”, 3. they would then slow way down and deliver the command line, “Just go ahead and give me my refund/ replacement ticket/ valuable part of ticket, etc.”, 4. any hesitation on my part triggered the high-pressure tactics-”You’re delaying these people from going home” (in reference to me), “You’ve stolen from me and I’ll report you to management/ police, etc.” (not joking-this was a real threat on occasion), 5. they would refuse to go away and start repeating themselves often escalating the threats and becoming animated and aggressive, verbally and on occasion threatening physically.
To he honest, especially the first time this happened, I was tempted to comply. The only thing that kept me from that mistake and thus having to reimburse the company out of my own pocket was me sticking to the fact I was not the one who had interacted with them and as a result was not responsible to make them whole. I insisted they take it up with the driver they originally did business with-this really seemed to irritate them which was a red flag, and they would become very insistent. Looking back on it, when they described the driver they’d interacted with it sounded a lot like me. I think they were describing me, but doing it so generically I was filling in the blanks with someone else I knew and they were then just affirming that to give it legitimacy. Some of these people were obvious professionals in their huckster pursuits. The second time it happened, the affect on me was greatly diminished. Every time after that I would roll my eyes when they popped on because I knew what was coming. I even got to the point where I would have a little fun with them just to push their buttons.
What’s the point of this little trip down memory lane? When you’re unsuspecting you can feel real pressure to comply with something, especially when you’re in an innocent mindset (one of wanting to be genuinely helpful, etc.). It can be difficult to discern and dare I say downright uncomfortable to label someone you don’t know (or even more so, those you do know) as having nefarious or suspect motives especially when you want to believe they’re being genuine because you are yourself.
Nonetheless…