¹² The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”

And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12-13 CSB)

This must be the first recorded instance of passing the buck. Wikipedia defines it as “the act of attributing to another person or group one’s own responsibility”

PTB is often used to defer blame but just as commonly it is used to simply pass responsibility off to another. I see a lot of the latter.

In our scripture today Eve blamed the serpent and then Adam blamed Eve. Was the enemy at fault. Yes, to be sure. The old deceiver did what he does. But it is hard to blame a snake for being a snake.

Throughout my life as a leader and as a husband and father, I had one main rule; the buck stops with me. This was so ingrained with me that I would often bear the brunt of something that had little to do with me or my team. I just have never been a “its not my fault”, “its not my problem” kind of guy.

Now there is a down side to this. I often take on too much and get overloaded. So there is a balance to strike.

However, the key lesson to get from today’s scripture is to own our mistakes and our problems. When we are constantly looking to defer blame or shed responsibility there is little room for growth.