Here are my thoughts on the said question.
Brother Eli of blessed memory made us to understand that, When God created the first man and woman in the garden of eden, He gave them a specific instruction which can be found in the book of Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:.
Most people when thinking of this passage, conclude that God’s instruction was restricted to just fruits, but we can see clearly from the above scripture that, the instruction was ‘of every TREE’ not just fruit. It’s not just the fruit of a tree that’s useful, many, if not all the parts of a tree are useful in one way or another.
Brother Eli gave a beautiful example of the tamarin tree which he loved so much, he said you can also eat the leaves of a tamarin tree, not just the fruit, even the bark of a tree can be eaten for medicinal purposes, he gave another example of the bamboo tree, pointing that the shoot of the tree can be eaten.
What does this implies? It implies that, God gave man free will to choose for himself any thing he wants to eat from, but God also stated in verse 17 of genesis 2 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Now, here is the confusing part, most people think that God restrained man from eating from the tree of knowledge and by virtue of thinking that, Man isn’t free, well brother eli made us to understand that, God also gave man the choice to either obey Him or disobey Him, God told man the consequences of his actions if he should choose to disobey Him. This isn’t a restriction, it points to us the loving kindness and concern of God for us, God doesn’t want us to be lost/to destroy ourselves, rather He wants the good for us.
Thanks for reading through and happy Sunday to Y’ll.
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