STM Ipoh Roadshow and a Slightly Twisted Version of Gen 3

This will be another busy weekend. Together with the 1st year seminarians and my colleagues, we will be heading north to Ipoh for the annual STM roadshow (for further info, see my colleague's post).

I have been assigned to preach from Genesis 3 in St Peter's Church in Ipoh. I am still struggling to prepare the sermon. I must confess that I am a little bit apprehensive when it comes to preaching from the OT (as a result of over specialisation?).

Anyway, my colleague in church, Ewe Jin (who incidentally maintains a blog called Slightly Twisted Mind), has some weird sense of humour about my sermon. He paraphrased Gen 3 for me (with some minor corrections and additions made by me). Read the NSWMV (the New Slightly Twisted Mind Version).

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did the lecturer really say, 'You must not commit plagiarism in the seminary'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may footnote all the reference books in the library but the lecturer did say, 'You must not commit plagiarism or you will die.'"

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For the lecturer knows that when you plagiarise your eyes will be opened, and you will be like the lecturer, knowing good and evil."

So the woman committed plagiarism. To cut the story short, the eyes of both of the woman and man were opened, and they realized their mistake; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for the results they received in their transcript.

Then the lecturer said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I plagiarised."

And the lecturer said, "The man and woman have now become like one of us, knowing good and evil."

So the lecturer banished the man and the woman from his class. They are now forced to do labour work, dorm duty, cleaning the toilets, and, of course, of course, gardening, come rain or shine.



I think my colleague certainly has more than a "slightly twisted mind"!