Trying to make the Word justify what we already
believe or are doing.

Let’s face it. Sometimes we may have an agenda. Even the most sophisticated of students may do this at times, including preachers and politicians, and world renown scholars. As human beings we often seem to be a self justifying breed. We may have already taken a stand, a perhaps ill advised one, that we never should have made. Now we want to justify that stand, and even deny the truth if that is “necessary” to uphold “our” word.

Adam did this in the Garden of Eden.

They were living in a garden. The Hebrew word in Genesis is gan. It seems to imply an enclosed place. The Greek equivalent is paradeisos, a paradise is a transliteration in English, a word for a garden or a park. They were very innocent, our first ancestors. They were naked but did not realize it. Further the constant temperatures in the garden were such that the absence of clothing was not noticed. God Himself had “planted” it, Gen 2:8. It was watered, like the whole earth in those early and plentiful days, by a mist arising from the ground (Gen 2:6), and also by a river which then split into four rivers, the best known to us Westerners being the Euphrates river (Gen 2:14). So all of this occurred in what is now northwestern Iraq or eastern Turkey. Food seemingly was there for the taking, and although man did have to tend it (Gen 2:15), man’s work was not cursed as it is now. Entropy. A perfect set up.

Some think that all knowledge is good.

They think it is shameful to destroy any knowledge, but knowing somethings can just be a snare to us, to cause us to do what is wrong. And so came the fall, when first the woman and then the man ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You know the story. And so it has been.

When God questioned Adam,

he tried even to shift the blame back to God!

“The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.””
Gen 3:12

How very much like us as humans.

Remember that admitting the truth will NEVER commit
your grandparents, for instance, to hell.

You do not have that power, nor do I. We need to take hold of the truth no matter what, and leave judgment to God. The Solution is to be ready to believe WHATEVER is said, and hold to it, and further,

being willing to admit WHATEVER
proves to be wrong.

Just go ahead and admit it, and accept the consequences, and beg the Lord for mercy. There is no sin that is unforgivable, other than bad mouthing the Holy Spirit of God (Lk 12:10). Make your life one of continual learning, repenting, picking yourself up again, forgetting what is behind (Phil 3:13-14), and always trekking on.

As men, we cannot avoid being wrong at times, but we can avoid staying there.

Scriptures are from the World English Bible (WEB), a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901