Did God Really Say?

“Did God really say” is the snake’s opening remark to the woman in Genesis 3:1; what a way to open a conversation. I think because of its connection with the snake, many Christians shy away from asking this question, and in certain corners of social media I see individuals using memes and comments quoting “Did God really say” at beliefs they disagree with. This is done to point out the fact that this individual understands the issue to be clearly dealt with in Scripture and disagreement on the issue puts on in league with Satan who first uttered these words. Though at first glance such a comment might appear to have some force, much like the Biblical story if closer examination reveals, “did God really say” is a tremendous question for Christians to ask and those who want to use it as a meme or an end to conversation often have more in common with the snake than they care to admit.

To understand my point we should take a quick look at Genesis 3. First, in context the snake’s question is not about denying God’s command to the couple but about placing a false demand in God’s mouth. It was meant to engage the woman in conversation by demonstrating a clear naivete. He is not calling into question what God said, he is presenting himself as completely ignorant, he is not challenging God, he is providing the woman an opportunity to explain what she understands about God. The woman takes this bait and provides God’s words with an elaboration. The snake seizes on this and calls God’s motives into question, and even the one lie the snake tells “you will not certainly die” can be justified by saying that he meant this in response to the woman’s claim that touching the tree would result in death. This is what makes the snake so crafty, it is not that he directly opposes God, rather he feigns ignorance and the takes advantage of the woman’s statement to sow doubt in her own mind.

When we understand this about the passage it is clear that when someone uses the phrase “Did God really say” to shut down a conversation, they have more in common with the snake than God. [Again remember the snake was asking about something clearly false and to say the question is invalid means the false statement is true.] They are implicitly saying that what they think about the text of Scripture is correct simply because they are advancing the opinion and calling their understanding into question is tantamount to calling God into question. Because the problem was not that the snake asked this question about a statement that was clearly wrong (that was just the introduction to a conversation) , the problem came later when the snake and woman discussed what God did say.

The truth is that we as humans can often be self-centered (as Genesis 3 makes clear) we trust ourselves more than others, including God. And our biggest temptation is in making ourselves the arbitrator of good and evil. If this is true, then the question “did God really say” becomes a valuable tool for us to distinguish our own beliefs about good and evil and how they might differ from God’s. Those who want to dismiss such a question as wrong are not questioning whether their understanding of good and evil aligns with God’s. They assume what they “know to be true” is true, that what they understand about Scripture is correct, without ever asking “is my reading of Scripture simply confirming my own prejudices and biases”. Asking questions of God and the text of Scripture is a way of admitting I do not have all the answers and allowing ourselves to be open to the possibility that I might be wrong in what I think about God. The snake’s deceit was not in asking the question, nor was the woman’s fault in answering. The woman’s fault was in allowing herself to be manipulating after giving the answer and the snake’s deceit was in providing an response to the woman that gratified her selfish desires. In others words she stopped asking the question “did God really say” and started listening to the interpretation she liked.

The point is that we need to be open to asking ourselves if what we believe about the Bible is actually what the Bible says, and when we shut down all disagreement and questioning we are prone to self-serving interpretations of the Bible. If God is truly a God of answers, then “did God really say” is always a valid question because we will be able to find the answer. Our questions are what lead us to God, not away from God. Of course there are better and worse times and places to ask questions, but the questions themselves are not legitimate.