Eve Joins the Party || Deeper Creation || Week 10 (FINALE)

Welcome back! This series is “Deeper Creation,” We’re taking a deeper look at Genesis 1 and 2 to see how the Creation story gets told throughout the Bible!

Last week, we looked deeper at the last day of the creation story—the day of Sabbath rest. We discussed why rest is good because Jesus did it, God promised it to us, and it gives us a glimpse of eternal life. Based on Moses and the Ten Commandments, we also discussed how rest should happen.

This week, we wrap up this series by discussing Eve’s creation. We’re going to look at Eve’s creation from two perspectives: 

• Men and women can walk side-by-side in life to do good.
• We can represent marriage and how it’s like how Jesus loved the church.

Before we read our scripture, let me share my goals and perceptions of where this message will go. First, I’m not married, so I will be talking about the sanctity of marriage from what I hope marriage will be for me as well as how I perceive an equitable marriage should be. Second, I’m a man, so I will talk about how men and women can walk side-by-side from my perceptions, knowledge, and experience in my life. The scriptures we will use all come from the Apostle Paul, who some people don’t view discussing women and women’s rights positively. We’re not going to look at the character of Paul but at the words and the situations that the scriptures come from and how it applies to us today. I will handle these topics carefully and add as much detail as needed to convey my point. Let’s read the creation of Eve found in Genesis 2:21-23:

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 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.'”

We see that God created men and women to do various tasks, all leading to accomplishing the same goal – honoring God. People have different ways of doing what God has called them, so there should be no reason to think that one gender is superior. This principle will be the mindset we will carry today’s message throughout. 

Walking Side-by-Side

Let me give you the context of where our following scripture comes from. We’re in the book of 1st Corinthians. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth to help them find their problems, offer solutions, and teach the believers how to live for Christ. In the eleventh chapter, Paul gives instructions on worship and preparing the Lord’s supper. A consistent thing that Paul discusses in verses 1-16 is head coverings. Paul is saying that believers should look and behave in honorable ways in their own culture, with what Paul says focusing on the Corinth culture. Overall, Paul said we should refrain from dressing like and acting in ways that detract from being witnesses for Jesus and misinforming what it means to be a Christian. We’re looking at 1 Corinthians 11:8-11 for our message today. Here’s what it says:

8 For the first man didn’t come from woman, but the first woman came from man. 

9 And man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man. 

10 For this reason, and because the angels are watching, a woman should wear a covering on her head to show she is under authority. 

11 But among the Lord’s people, women are not independent of men, and men are not independent of women. 

Verses 8-10 remind us of the cultural context of the Corinth church, while verse 11 gives us our take-home point. Paul reminds his audience that God created lines of authority for the world to operate smoothly. Yet, authority does not equate to superiority. Women received horrible treatment as humans during this time, so the concept of women being a step under men is common. The Bible uses “submit” or “submission” in these contexts. What does this mean?

To submit means to yield to authority or to be accountable to another. A lot of times, it’s interpreted as the yielding to authority definition because it gives a sense of power to the man. God created it as a way of being accountable to one another, as we’ll discuss next when we get to marriage. 

Paul closes this chunk by reminding us that men and women are still human and need community and cooperation. God created men and women uniquely and complementary to one another. One man might be unable to do what one woman can and vice versa. This mindset shouldn’t divide us or create discourse between us but instead allow us to rely on one another and build relationships and communities with each other. God didn’t create us to do life by ourselves. I mean, that was God’s intention when he created Eve. To have a partner for Adam and to create this bond that allows them to do life together. We should use God’s gifts to strengthen our message and glorify God. We can do this with others cooperatively. It’s not a competition to see who can please God better, but instead a cooperation and harmony that brings peace to the kingdom of God. God created men and women to live cooperatively in a community to bring harmony to the kingdom of God. Let’s talk about how we can do this through the lens of marriage.

Loving as Jesus Loved the Church

We’re shifting letters and heading to the book of Ephesians. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus to help strengthen the believers in their faith by explaining the nature and purpose of the church and the body of Christ. We’re landing in the fifth chapter, where Paul talks about how believers can live in the light by carrying the same sacrificial love that Jesus had for others and making our actions and attitudes align with the teachings of God. Paul also talks about how believers can live by the Spirit’s power through spirit-guided relationships. We will read Ephesians 5:25-30 with a heavy focus on verses 28-30. Here’s what it says: 

25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her

26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 

27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 

28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.

29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 

30 And we are members of his body.

We’re seeing Paul showcase how important marriage was to him. Paul wanted Christians to show the world that marriage is good and represented a relationship like Jesus had for the church. The sacrifice of Jesus cleansed the church and made it holy. We see this cleansing done through the act of baptism. When we get baptized, we gain entrance into the Church. (NOTE: this is a general explanation of baptism and one that is more specific to the time of Paul. The United Methodists have a unique perception of baptism that I’ll have to do a series on later because it’s fascinating and has taken me a long time to wrap my head around.) 

We see specificity towards the men in this verse, which differs from what we saw in his message to the Corinth church. Men should sacrifice themselves for their loved ones as Jesus did for the church. Let’s look at this concept in three ways: 

• Sacrifice everything for her.
• Make her well-being of primary importance
• Care for her just as he cares for his one body.

We should do these things in the sense of cooperation and accountability, not out of authority and power. We should do what we can for our significant other to make the relationship work, which may require sacrifices. If those sacrifices involve losing your identity in Christ or causing you to do things that aren’t of God, then the relationship needs to be re-looked at or stopped. Sacrifice what you need to do to make it work, but don’t sacrifice yourself to the point where you lose who you are in God. 

Making your significant other’s well-being of importance is very wise. We want to ensure our loved ones are being cared for correctly and in a good place. We also want to make sure that they can take care of themselves. We should only do as much as help them get to where they need to be, but without doing things for them in the sense that they’re not taking care of themselves. Does that make sense? Ensuring their needs get fulfilled is a definite must, but removing their sense of independence by always caring for them is a tricky boundary. If the situation is needed, do what you must, but ensure they have the resources, space, and support to care for themselves at the basic level. That’s where I was trying to get to. Each person should take care of the basic level of needs when possible, but we can support each other and provide resources when necessary to ensure we care for one another. 

Caring for your significant other as you care for yourself is essential. How you love yourself does reflect how you love others, but you remember that you can’t pour from an empty cup. We have to make sure that we are attending to our own needs. We must get proper nutrition, hydration, sleep, and mental health management. If we’re not, we could accidentally take out our emotional distress on our significant other and cause discourse within the relationship. When we care for ourselves well, we learn how to better care for the things around us. 

No person should fear another person when appropriately treated. If you’re in a place where you fear your relationship with any person, romantic or platonic, I encourage you to find help and talk to a trusted person as soon as possible.

On that note, we wrap up this message and this series. I hope you enjoyed this series. Writing and investigating how the creation story elements get shown throughout the Bible was super fun. We will take a week off and do a “Let’s Listen To,” and then we’ll move to Genesis 3. I’ve been interested in the punishments God gives the serpent, Eve, and Adam and how it connects to other parts of the Bible. It will be an interesting 3-week series. If there’s something you want to look at, please let me know in the comments. Until the next time, everyone, stay blessed!!