Untitled Sermon (6)
Genesis’s account of the woman’s creation demonstrates that God intended women to be equally important in the purposes of Providence
God has created human life to have fellowship with him but also to be a social entity, building relationships with other human beings
God has created human life to have fellowship with him but also to be a social entity, building relationships with other human beings
The focus is on the equality of the two in terms of their essential constitution. Man and woman share in the “human” sameness that cannot be found elsewhere in creation among the beasts. In every way the woman shares in the same features of personhood as does the man
Moses spoke of God as his “helper” who delivered him from Pharaoh (Exod 18:4), and it is often associated with “shield” in describing God’s protective care of his people.
In the case of the biblical model, the “helper” is an indispensable “partner” (REB) required to achieve the divine commission.
The woman was taken from the man’s side to show that she was of the same substance as the man and to underscore the unity of the human family, having one source
The symbolic significance of the “rib” is that the man and woman are fit for one another as companions sexually and socially
This is the significance of the “rib”; they are of the same human “stuff.”
Although naming indicates authority in the Old Testament, the narrative of Eve’s creation as a whole takes steps to show that the woman is not subject to the man in the same sense that the animals are subject to him. Rather, the text presents them as partners who together exercise rule, fulfilling the mandate of 1:28 by exercising their appropriate sexual functions and respective intrahuman roles.
However, the sin of the man is not his listening to the woman per se but his following the woman in sin
This verse is not the continued speech of the man but the commentary of the narrator, which is attributed to God by Jesus (Matt 19:4–5).
Our human sexuality expresses both our individuality as gender and our oneness with another person through physical union. Sexual union implies community and requires responsible love within that union. The sexual union of the couple is, however, only symbolic of the new kinship that the couple has entered. The sexual act by itself does not exhaust marriage; marriage entails far more.
Monogamous heterosexual marriage was always viewed as the divine norm from the outset of creation