By David ReayWednesday 8 May 2019LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 2 minutes
Read Genesis 2:18-25
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man[a] to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still, there was no helper just right for him.
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs[b] and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
23 “At last!” the man exclaimed.
“This one is bone from my bone,
and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”
24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. (NLT)
The first thing God reckoned was wrong with his world was human aloneness. Human beings were not made to be alone. And it was not even enough for another male human being to be created. Apparently, God figured that humans needed different genders in order to fulfill human relationships. Male and female were needed.
We must be careful not to misunderstand this story, which some of us regard as metaphorical rather than literal. The fact that the female was created second does not imply inferiority or even subordination. She was a helper, not a servant to the man.
The other misunderstanding might be that men and women are only complete inasmuch as they get married. In which case Jesus’ singleness becomes a problem. Certainly marriage is a God-given fulfillment of male and female relationships, but not all marry. The overriding issue is that we fulfill our humanity only as we relate across the gender gap, whether in a sexual or marital relationship or simply as companions.
The companionship and helper status of men and women can be experienced in all spheres and seasons of life. We fall short of true humanity not because of our singleness but because of our dismissal of or mistreatment of the opposite sex. To be truly man and woman is not always to be husband and wife.
Blessings
David