Beautifully Deceiving

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Growing up, watching Snow White always confused me. I mean, why did Snow White take the apple from the ugly old woman with the weird voice? Stranger danger, anyone? All she was missing was a big flashing Vegas-sign that said "Bad guy alert! Flee!" However, this is the opposite of Satan's description in Paradise Lost. Abdiel makes a comment in Book VI that helps us understand why Satan was appealing to Adam and Eve--he looked like an angel. Even though Satan had fallen from Heaven and turned his back on God, he still looked like an angel. Is this not how sin is presented to us? It rarely looks like the ugly old woman from Snow White, and usually comes presented as something good. Desirable. "Pleasing to the eye." And we do not see the danger until it's too late, but then after we experience the danger, we try to escape the consequences. This is what the war in Heaven seems like. Satan and the demons know that they turned against the Almighty God and they know they are weaker than Him (No, they don’t openly admit it, but it is assumed in the wording as well as Satan’s silent thoughts [see Book I, II, IV]), but they still rise up against Him again. For what? What do they accomplish? They didn’t win, they didn’t rebuild their pride, they truly gained nothing but more pain and humiliation.

I know this post doesn't flow as coherently as I would have liked, but it was my thought process 😅

 I commented on Ty and Darby's posts. 

Comments

  1. Abigail BrockSeptember 3, 2017 at 8:21 PM

    When you were talking about Satan being appealing to Adam and Eve and how sin is the same way, i immediately thought of one of God's creations that demonstrates this perfectly: the venus flytrap. The plant lays open in the sunlight displaying sweet sticky nectar, looking everything like a delicious free meal so the fly (or whatever creature you prefer) comes along to take advantage of this delicious treat. The fly lands on the plant to begin feeding but as soon as it gets close to the middle, the plant snaps shut and slowly begins to digest the fly. In this sense, humans are the fly, the nectar is sin, and death is the flytrap. Deception is a powerful thing.

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  2. Carmen KnowlesSeptember 4, 2017 at 9:58 PM

    I LOVE this connection! And this idea goes along with almost any Disney story. My favorite was always The Little Mermaid (I can't figure out how to italicize here), and in this story Ariel even knew that Ursula was bad business. The catch, just as it is with satan and sin in reality, was that Ursula offered her something she wanted even though Ariel knew it would come with consequences. We are Ariel in a sense that we go after the things we want even when we know they are bad or will follow with consequences. Good thought, Natalie.

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  3. BrandonArnoldSeptember 4, 2017 at 11:51 PM

    I think this theme of sin disguising itself is something that is littered throughout this book, Even back to when Satan and his followers first awoke in hell and were deciding what they wanted to do next and how each of them tried to twist their horrible sinful idea into something that sounds less evil.

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