What's Wrong With Me?

What if the brokenness we see in the world and in ourselves has a single, identifiable root cause? Genesis 3 makes a bold claim that it does. This teaching takes us deep into the heart of that ancient story to uncover what actually went wrong in the garden and why it still matters to every one of us today. At the center of the story stands a mysterious tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and understanding what it truly represents changes everything. Far from being a simple test about forbidden fruit, this tree speaks to a profound question about authority: who gets to decide what is good and what is evil? Through careful examination of how that phrase is used across the Old Testament, in stories of kings, patriarchs, and prophets, we discover that the knowledge of good and evil was never meant to be seized but received. It belongs to God alone, and the moment we reach for that authority ourselves, we trade joyful dependence for a bondage we mistake for freedom. The relevance to our lives could not be more immediate. Every day we face the same choice Adam and Eve faced, whether to trust God as the source of moral truth or to chart our own course and call it independence. This teaching challenges us to examine which direction we are leaning and invites us into the liberating reality that true freedom is found not in autonomy but in dependence on the One who made us and loves us.