16. Beginner Bible Course: God's design for men and women and our need for each other

EPISODE 16.  The simple Bible overview of…GOD’S DESIGN FOR MEN AND WOMEN

For a minute. I'd like to start out, tying up a few loose ends and doing a bit of review. One big loose end is, is there room in creation for evolution? The first clue given in chapter one is the God made all of the animals on day six after its kind of a study of the word, suggest species were locked in. God put bumper pads down. So species would stay within their lanes. That would be true for men. The mammal. There's nothing in the meaning of according to its kind of the passage, there would suggest that man was created any other than fully developed. I asked my students Does the Bible allow for micro evolution that is can species evolve within themselves.

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The answer is a resounding yes. We have a pet canine in our home. Lucy, a kava, Sean Yorkie poo, a fancy way to say a mutt. She's a 16 pound adorable for ball and she's directly related to a Wolf. That's micro-evolution the evolving of the species within a species, but the Bible does not give any allowance for macro evolution. According to the Bible, my little mutt, Lucy has no distant relatives in the bird, fish or reptile category. Another loose end is day seven. It's addressed at the beginning of Genesis chapter two.

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The text tells us when their creation of the heavens in the earth and everything in them was complete on the seventh day, having finished his work, God rested from all his work and God blessed the seventh day and declared it Holy because it was the day he rested from his work. We should understand the Hebrew word rested on the surface. It sounded like God stopped his hard work, sat down and took a break. The idea of rest in Hebrew is wholeness and celebration and refreshment and reconnection. Here's one of the first places in the Bible. The whole idea is this prescriptive or descriptive comes up most conclude.

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God is laying down a principle here don't work 24 seven, take a regular time to step back, celebrate, reconnect, refresh. We're not human doings. We're human beings made in God's image. One more loose end. Where does the Bible say? Man was created the answer garden of Eden. God nails it down with geography somewhere between the Euphrates and Tigris river in modern day. Iraq. Why are we here? Man's job to be caretakers of God's creation, which brings us to the essence of what we want to talk about today.

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God creating the first men and saying something's missing the text. Suggest God realized that before Adam did. So God gave him a job. Go name the animals. I have some fun with my students about the names, but I'll spare you. The geezer humor. What clearly happens is that the first man Adam notices that all of the mammals have mates, male and female. He sees how they relate. He sees the offspring they're producing any perhaps ask himself, what am I chopped liver? The tech says, he realized that there was no helper suitable for him. We should define helper to my students.

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Helper means go for someone to do the dirty work while someone else who's really smart does a job. That's not the Hebrew definition. Helper means one who answers back to who meets my need, who fills up the empty places. I asked my students, if they've ever seen the necklace couples, get to chains. One pendant cut in half and a zigzag pattern together. Those two pendants form the whole that's what's going on here. Once he realizes his need God meets it. While Adam was taken from dust, the text tells us Eve was taken from Adam from his side.

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Occasionally I'll have a student say to the girl's in the class. See you wouldn't even be here without us guys to which almost always a girl will respond. Well, you guys wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for a woman, that's beautiful. We need each other to be complete. His image bearers of God, Genesis tells us God made them in his image. Male and female made he them. There are no blurred lines here. A man, a woman complimenting each other as partners managing creation. The text also tells us about their living situation. Adam and Eve were running around the garden partners together naked and not ashamed.

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My students blush a little bit about this. Then I remind them they're in a temperate climate in perfect Eden like conditions. I asked them, what would you think about the woman next door? Who dressed her cat up in a parka and took it out for a walk? They'd think she was a little strange. And so it would have been for Adam and Eve. These mammals made in God's image in a world without sin in a world where no creepiness had crept in. It was a love story made in paradise lovers and rulers over creation. Chapter two of Genesis ends with Adam, just euphoric. This one at last bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh woman for she was taken out of man.

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Then God through the human writer, adds his editorial note. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh. I send my students home after that class period with two pieces of paper and an assignment, it's a pink sheet. It's a blue sheet. And the assignment is to glue these two sheets together. As best you can bring them back tomorrow, pink and blue and glue. What does the Bible have to say about that? We'll answer that in our next wordpicture.