Stir The Pot Paidamoyo Muzulu

GENESIS 3 v 9-11 (NIV), “But the Lord God called the man, where are you? He answered: I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” This is the first time in the Bible when there was miscommunication between God and man.

Man (Adam) may have deliberately misheard and answered in a defensive manner — giving a reason before he was asked to give one.

Probably the conversation would have taken a different direction if Adam had answered directly the question he was asked.

For argument sake, he may have answered: “I’m under the big tree close to the west end of the stream.”

I guess God would have asked a follow-up question.

Let us look at it from another angle, could it be possible Adam misheard the question? Probably, but he could have asked God to repeat himself — May you come again Lord.

However, it is very probable that Adam heard the question correctly and chose to pre-empt God from asking further questions. This is a plausible explanation.

All this long-forgotten Sunday school teaching was brought back by two events this week from the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led administration (I try really hard not to call it a regime because of the connotations the word carries).

This week had unprecedented two clarifications from government on policy positions.

Government officials claimed they were quoted out of context or some sections of their audience deliberately misinterpreted texts from the administration.

In the first instance, the Mnangagwa