Twisted Truth and Little White Lies

For many years, I was told that the serpent deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden. The serpent was indeed cunning—but does cunning automatically equate to deception?

I read Genesis 2:16–17:

“But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.’”

Then I read Genesis 3:1–6:

“The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?’

‘Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,’ the woman replied.

‘It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, “You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.”’”

There it was—the serpent’s opening. The twisted truth.

The twisted truth is akin to a “little white lie.” Once the serpent heard that Eve had added to what God said, he had a way to plant doubt and create questions in her mind. Eve inserted her own version of the story—“You must not eat it or even touch it.”

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

People often use this to blame the serpent for tempting Eve. However, did the serpent really lie? Isn’t it true that once they ate the fruit, their eyes were opened and they became aware of both good and evil? That awareness is what began all our pain. That awareness is why we see and feel suffering. It is why we know death. It is why cruelty and devastation exist in our world.

God didn’t want us to carry that kind of knowledge—that depth of pain. And while the serpent said, “You won’t surely die,” it left out the truth that death would be spiritual, not immediate or physical. Humanity lost eternal life that day. Worst of all, our innocent spirit died. The battle we now face between good and evil all stemmed from that moment when Eve twisted the truth and added her own version to God’s words.

We must be careful about carrying secondhand information. We must be careful not to create our own versions of stories that were never ours to tell. This is the same trap that gossip creates.

We add to a story about someone based on our own perspective. We exaggerate it to make it sound more interesting or believable. We create stereotypes from a headline or a single experience and then carry that narrative as if it were gospel truth. Those actions make us judgmental. We begin to think we have the right to determine what’s good or evil based on our limited understanding—but that was never our role. That was always God’s.

What Adam and Eve did opened the door for a spirit that still plagues our world—the spirit of judgment, gossip, and twisted truth.

We may think these are small things in the grand scheme, but they are openings for the enemy to slip in and create bigger, more sinister consequences.

It’s like looking in the mirror and noticing a small pimple on your face. You think, “Something must be wrong with me.” Soon you begin picking yourself apart—your eyes are too far apart, your nose is too big, your body isn’t good enough. One small twisted truth turns into a distorted identity.

The same applies when we omit the truth. Someone asks us about a person we once had a misunderstanding with, and instead of sharing that it was a miscommunication, we label them untrustworthy. Was that their true character, or just our experience?

We even twist the truth about ourselves. We promise to attend an event knowing deep down we don’t want to go. Instead of simply saying, “Thank you for the invitation, but I won’t be able to make it this time,” we create a lie—“I wasn’t feeling well” or “My car broke down.”

We think it’s harmless—until the next week when we actually end up sick or our car really does break down. Then we wonder why. But we opened that door ourselves.

We must be careful with our twisted truths. I am learning that they are more than small infractions. They can grow into large dilemmas that derail blessings meant for our lives.

I’m sure Adam and Eve would attest to that.