Pandora's Box Unleashed

 
In Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman.  According to Hesiod’s Theogony, after Prometheus, a fire god and trickster, had stolen fire from heaven and bestowed it on mortals, Zeus, the king of gods, determined to counteract his blessing. He commissioned Hephaestus to fashion a woman out of earth and bestow upon her their choicest gifts.  Pandora (her name) had a jar containing all manner of evil and misery.  Opening the jar, all evil flew out over the earth.  Shutting the jar quickly, only hope remained inside.  Later the reformist Erasmus mistranslated the Greek, and the jar became Pandora’s box. 
I propose that we live in an age when symbolically, we are experiencing the evil ways of Pandora’s box.  But let’s remove the mythology and put this in biblical context.
Indeed, the first man and woman were Adam and Eve.  God gave them a choice from the one rule he enacted, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They made their choice, Eve being tempted by Satan and giving in, then she convinced Adam to join her.  Sin (disobedience to God) was unleashed upon the earth.  I don’t believe Adam’s sin was automatically transferred to us, as some churches teach, but I believe we are all sinners, making that choice ourselves once old enough to choose between God’s way and sin.  “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
The remedy to this has been provided by God through sending his son, Jesus of Nazareth, to die for our sins as the perfect sacrifice (having lived a perfect life, with no sin, then dying as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”).  Just as we had a choice to sin, falling into Satan’s trap that catches all of us, we have a choice to accept what Jesus did on our behalf, repent of sin, be baptized into Christ, then “clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:27) which protects us, we live by faith, obeying the direction of Christ as we live life, following our King and Lord. 
But there is a spiritual battle with evil still going on in this world (Eph. 6:12).  It impacts everyone, whether Christian or non-Christian.  For the Christ-follower, we must continue this path of repentance, learning from God’s Word, developing goldy characteristics, involved in service to others, and rejecting and abandoning sin as we encounter it.  The evils of Pandora’s box, or in more realistic terms, of Satan’s desire to entrap us in sin, still lurks about, still seeks to claim us.  We must reject it, but we cannot reject sin until we first identify sin. 
Historically we have what have been called “the seven deadly sins” which are: lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy, and pride.  But as believers in Jesus and the Bible as truth, there are more.  Adultery, arrogance, blasphemy (taking the Lord’s name in vain), coveting, disobedience to parents, drunkenness, bearing false witness, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, hypocrisy, idolatry, lying, murder (and Jesus says hating your brother is included), sorcery, stealing, and the list goes on.  You can do a search in the Bible to find these and others. 
Here's the thing.  Hope is not trapped inside Pandora’s box.  We have hope through Jesus Christ, if we will only seek him, accept him, and follow him in faith.  But we cannot do so while continuing to play with the evils all around us.  Pandora’s box is mythical.  Sin is real, and the way of Christ rejects it.