God created woman distinct from the rib of man; yet man and woman are interdependent, and created to be in covenant with God and one another in marriage.
Scripture: Genesis 2:18-25
Sermon Notes:
- Man was created to cultivate creation and to turn it into God's fruitful kingdom.
- Adam and Eve were created sinless but not fully mature; they had to learn, grow, and develop as they faced challenges caring for the creation, mastering various arts and skills required in the dominion task.
- Adam was called to holiness his calling to dominion. Adam was to gather and build wealth by hard work.
- Theft is the avoidance of work for profit; it is based on a false sense of entitlement.
- Adam had a choice either to serve God or to serve himself. Obedience would mean life and blessings.
- While modern Marxism views the biblical family as a source of oppression, it is in fact the basic unit of economic productivity.
- Covenant marriage is the foundation of all social order.
- The dominion task given to Adam, God then declares that it is not good for man to be alone. Man needs a suitable helper, a corresponding counterpart.
- Adam's first lesson from God is to recognize that there was no physical, intellectual, or spiritual counterpart among the animals.
There is a radical discontinuity between human beings created in God's image and the animal kingdom. - The creation of woman from the side of Adam shatters the concepts of theistic evolution and the pagan concepts of an androgynous human. Male and female were created distinct and utterly unique.
- The woman takes the man's name acknowledging his headship; the order of creation is not a value judgment, but it reflects the creation order (cf. 1 Cor. 11:3-15).
- The creational distinction between man and woman is to be maintained even in appearance.
- Marriage was created as a picture to show the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.
- Marriage is entered voluntarily and submission within marriage is a voluntary act of obedience.
- Distorted by sin, man reverts from his dominion calling to sinful domination, objectifying and abusing women. Likewise women reject godly submission to their husbands for distorted forms of submission.
- We are all created equal in value before God, and yet God's order entails distinctions and differentiation between people.
- Feminism is hostile to God and His order, and thus it attacks marriage a His basic institution.
- Christian young people seeking marriage must find intellectual, social and spiritual common ground before pursuing marriage.
- It takes courage to have a faithful, godly marriage. Scorned by the world, yet it is the only kind of life that has a blessed future.
- The assault on the family is an assault on the church. The decline of the family follows the cultural decline in Christian faith. We must live and teach God's order.
- In their innocence, man and woman had no need for shame; there was no breach in their relationship with God.
Application Questions:
- What were God’s purposes in creating male and female?
- What is our basic calling in on the earth as God created it?
- How has our culture rebelled against God’s created order?
- What happens when we reject God’s order of submission?
- How can we live and teach God’s order this week?