So what’s your take on it, Pastor?”
Pastor Landris smiled. “Oh, you’re good. You think you’re slick, too, don’t you? I was talking about Reverend Knight and you have somehow managed to steer this whole conversation in a totally different direction. You are good.”
She smiled back. “So is this your way of avoiding my question, Pastor Landris? Is that why you’re trying to change the discussion back to Reverend Knight here? You do know what they say—if you can’t stand the heat? You know…when things like the question I’m waiting for you to answer get too hot?”
Pastor Landris rubbed his chin and leaned in closer toward his wife as he teasingly leered at her. Raising his cup, he took a gulp of tea, and said, “You mean if you can’t stand the hot water, you must not be tea?”
Johnnie Mae practically sprayed Pastor Landris with some of the tea she had just placed in her mouth as a laugh forced its way out. She grabbed a paper towel and wiped his shirt off, then dabbed at her mouth. “No,” she said, not believing he’d just said that. “I was saying if you can’t stand the heat, you need to get out of the kitchen. You’re such a nut.”
“Watch it, now. Be careful how you talk about God’s anointed ones.”
“You’d better be careful. I’m just as anointed as you are. Do you want to explain ‘the hot water, then you must not be tea’ quip you just made?”
“The tea changes the hot water to become more of what it is. So if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the hot water. Too many people are like carrots going from being hard to soft while others are like eggs going from being soft to hard. But few are like tea bags that actually embrace the hot water in order to one, become all it’s meant to be; and two, integrate its essence into what was first thought to be an adversity, only to change, enhance, and affect its immediate surroundings entirely. Which brings me back to Reverend Knight.”
Johnnie Mae started clapping. “Before you go back to Reverend Knight, I’m still waiting on my answer. Why did God put The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden, making it so easy for Adam and Eve to eat from it?”
Pastor Landris bit down on his bottom lip as he tried not to laugh at how cute she looked waiting for him to answer her. “That’s a pretty simple one, my dear Johnnie Mae. You see, I figure it like this: God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Which means, in a nutshell, nothing has happened in the past or will happen in the present or future that God doesn’t know about. Nothing. Which also must mean God would have had to know they would eat from the tree. Right?” Pastor Landris looked intensely at her as he moved in even closer.
“Careful, Pastor. You don’t want to say something and find yourself in hot water.”
“First, Peter 1:19–20 says, ‘But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.’ Hebrews 4:3, ‘For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.’ Please note that the words ‘foreordained before,’ ‘were finished,’ and ‘foundation’ are all my emphasis. And lastly…”
“How do you do that?” Johnnie Mae asked before he could finish. “How do you recall scriptures like you do?”
“And lastly,” he said, smiling, but not allowing her to derail him, “Revelation 13:8 says, and I quote, ‘And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.’ Verse 9, ‘If any man have an ear, let him hear.’ You see? Before the foundation and from the foundation, the Lamb was already slain! A very important fact, very important.” He sighed. “Now that I’ve laid my foundation, please ask your question again. Go on. Ask it.” Elbows on the table, he propped his chin on his fists.
She smiled and shook her head. “Why did God put The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden, making it so easy for them to eat from it?”
“How did Princess Rose learn what was okay to do and not do when she was a toddler?” Princess Rose, Johnnie Mae’s daughter, had recently turned three years old.
“We would tell her ‘no’ or ‘stop’ but mostly ‘no’ when she was doing something she shouldn’t.”
“Did you ever tell her not to do something before she did it?”
“Yes. Okay; I see where you’re headed with this.”
“And did she do it anyway?”
“Yes.” She grinned and shook her head. “Can you possibly speed this along?”
“Okay. You told her not to do something, but as a baby she most likely didn’t quite understand completely. After she did it, she learned what wrong was and the consequences that followed it.” Pastor Landris leaned back in the seat and took a swallow of his tea. “Saying not to do something makes some people think more about doing it.”
“I get it,” Johnnie Mae said.
“So if you think about Adam and Eve, they really didn’t know what evil, death, or disobedience was because all they had ever experienced was good. They didn’t know what bad or evil was, let alone what to ‘surely die’ meant. Prior to their act, nothing had ever been killed or died. It was only after they disobeyed God and ate from the tree that they became acquainted with the knowledge of good and evil.” He drank the rest of his tea.
“They had broken fellowship with the only Father either of them had,” Pastor Landris continued. “Think about it. That is death. They were literally banished from the Garden of Eden. Another loss. They discovered they were naked, then tried hiding themselves. God had to kill an animal to cover them—a blood sacrifice in order to cover sin. Being naked hadn’t been a problem for them before, yet it was afterward.” He looked at her and grinned. “Now, can we get back to Reverend Knight?”
“Okay, but I have just one more question for you that’s generally off limits. At least, for any of the preachers I’ve tried asking in the past.” Johnnie Mae took a cluster of grapes out of the refrigerator, washed them, placed them in a glass bowl, and set them on the table. Plucking off a few, she offered them to Landris. “This won’t take but a minute. I promise. Then you can get back to Reverend Knight and whatever else.”
“Go ahead,” Pastor Landris said as he popped a big, black, seedless grape into his mouth.
“Where did evil come from?”
Pastor Landris thought for a minute. “I know you’re expecting me to say, from Satan.”
“If I get an answer, that’s usually the answer I get.” Johnnie Mae pulled a grape off the stem and took a bite. “According to what we were just saying, there was a tree in the Garden of Eden called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God put it there. My question is: Where did evil come from for there to even be the knowledge of it? We know Satan was once a top angel—beautiful, with jewels and the most melodious singing voice ever created.”
“So you’re saying Satan was the choir director?” Pastor Landris teased.
“Don’t even go there,” Johnnie Mae said, knowing full well the battle Pastor Landris had fought in the past with the choir director
