Longing for Eden on Wall Street

Deeply rooted within the human heart lives a stubbornly perennial longing for a perfect world, for utopia, for Eden on earth once again. In spite of repeated failure, the dream never dies. Nineteenth-century America saw several utopian societies rise and (in a few short years) fall (see Matthew Continetti, “Anarchy in the U.S.A.: The roots of American disorder”).

Yet, a hundred and some years later, my generation enthusiastically sang along with John Lennon,

Imagine … nothing to live or die for … no need for greed or hunger … no countries … all the people living life in peace … a brotherhood of man sharing all the world.

You can see the full lyrics here—and while you’re at it, buy the song for your ringtone, proving that neither it nor its sentiments have lost their popularity. After all, isn’t Lennon’s fantasy exactly what the Occupy movement is still asking for today?

I say “fantasy” because Lennon and the nineteenth-century utopians imagined they could achieve this life of peace and brotherhood without God. In fact, many of them saw God (or “religion”) as the problem and getting rid of God as the solution.

Now, there certainly is an obstacle to achieving utopia on earth today, but it is not God—it’s the people who must live in these “perfect” societies. As Elisabeth Elliot famously said about marriage, our only option is another sinner. And when sinners get together, there are bound to be problems: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19–20 ESV).

Because these things come out of every human heart (see Genesis 6:5; Matthew 15:19), we take them with us wherever we go.

The only antidote, Paul said, is walking by the Spirit, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:16, 22–23). So utopians have it exactly backwards. We don’t need less of God but more.

In fact, it is God himself who gave us this unquenchable longing for Eden to overtake Wall Street and every street. There is an irrepressible knowledge of God inside every one of us (see Romans 1), imprinted on our DNA, that makes us long for justice to roll down like waters. As pastor Tim Keller writes in The Reason for God, everyone, even the most secular, feels that some things are “really, really wrong” and should be made right. Utopian movements like Occupy Wall Street show us that we are forever longing for a perfect society on earth.

But that is a society only God can bring about. 

Eve and the OWS

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have created for themselves an interesting, though probably unintended, acronym—OWS—that gets right to the problem. They sense, rightly, that things in this world are not the way they should be. There is injustice and greed and exploitation. Life is full of pain and toil and futility. You really can go through four years of college and end up with just a lousy T-shirt—plus tens of thousands of dollars in student loans but no job. Ouch! (Or shall we say, Ow!?)

So the protesters see that the world is not the fair and happy place it is supposed to be. What they do not see, however, is the root cause of life’s “ows.” It’s not the fault of the so-called 1 percent. It’s the 100 percent. It’s you and me and them and every human being since Eve. The root cause is the very same covetous desire awakened in Eve when she looked at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and said to herself, “Look at this beautiful tree! What delicious fruit it has! And what a quick and easy way to get what God has!” (See Genesis 3:1–6.)

We too see something good, something someone else has, and we want it—now. And we would rather not work for it if we can get it for free. That is human nature ever since the fall. The root of the problem is not out there in someone else, as Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote.

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? (quoted by Marvin Olasky here)

Not a one of us! Because “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV). In fact, our hearts are so sick, that we easily deceive ourselves and don’t even recognize our own hypocrisy. In Zucotti Park, among the OWS, in a mere two months, those who wanted a fair and equal society developed their own class distinctions, an “uptown” (with a library tent and lattes) and a “downtown” (with bongo drums). (See the video tour here.) Early on, the occupiers, who wanted free college educations and guaranteed incomes for themselves, became indignant when the homeless took their food and sleeping bags, their stuff, for free. You see, covetousness and greed resides not only in the hearts of Wall Street executives but also in the hearts of Wall Street occupiers.

Occupying Wall Street and demanding change from the 1 percent won’t solve the root problem. One hundred percent of humanity needs the same One Eve needed, the Savior God promised her (Genesis 3:15), Jesus Christ. He is the only one who truly changes hearts and so then nations. Of him, God the Father said:

           

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,

                        my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

            I have put my Spirit upon him;

                        he will bring forth justice to the nations.

            He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,

                        or make it heard in the street;

            a bruised reed he will not break,

                        and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;

                        he will faithfully bring forth justice.

            He will not grow faint or be discouraged

                        till he has established justice in the earth;

                        and the coastlands wait for his law.

(Isaiah 42:1-4 ESV)

Amen. May God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Then and only then will everything be the way it is supposed to be.

Sons—but still women!

Galatians is probably biblical feminists’ favorite book in the Bible. That’s where they find their theme verse, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28), and its corollary, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (3:26). (All Bible quotations in this post are from the ESV.)

Biblical feminists read Galatians 3 to mean that, just as there is now no more distinction between Jew and Gentile because of Christ, so also there should be no distinctions of any kind between male and female. All church offices should be open to women, and there should be no such thing as headship or submission in marriage.

Biblical feminists ignore at least a couple of things here: (1) that the context of Galatians 3 is how we all come to Christ on an equal footing by faith; and (2) that the same Paul who wrote Galatians 3 also wrote “Wives, submit to your own husbands …” (Ephesians 5), “… the head of a wife is her husband …” (1 Corinthians 11), and “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man …” (1 Timothy 2), to cite a few. (We’ll return to these “inconvenient” verses in a moment.)

Now, while Galatians 2:26 (and 2:28) might on the surface seem like the perfect proof text for egalitarianism, that conclusion is really a misunderstanding of what Paul means by “sons of God.” Paul isn’t saying here that gender is no longer important in any context, but that women too (just like Greeks) fit within the category of “sons of God” by faith in Christ. Paul wasn’t opening radical new “feminist” ground here (as some claim), but rather following footprints in the Old Testament that lead back to Eve.

To understand this, we need a little Hebrew lesson. “Daughter” in Hebrew is “son” with a feminine ending. A daughter is a female son, just as Eve is a female man (Hebrew: adam). “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his own image …male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26, 28). “Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created” (Genesis 5:2). Adam is not only the name of the first man, but also the generic name God gave to Eve (and to the whole human race).

Adam is God’s son (see Luke 3:38); by implication, Eve is God’s daughter. In fact, the rabbis thought of God as Eve’s father, preparing her for marriage to his son, Adam (Leila Leah Bronner, From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women). In the Old Testament, daughter is a sub-category of son. And perhaps this is why Paul felt free to adapt the promise of 2 Samuel 7:14 (“I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son”) to read “and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18). 

Whether male or female, we are all “sons of God” by creation, God’s “offspring,” as Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17: 28–29). Paul’s point in Galatians 3 is that those who believe in Christ are also “sons of God” by adoption, whether male or female.

But the mistake of the feminists is to assume that this gospel makes us a sort of new unisex race, where male and female have become irrelevant. Yet it’s quite the opposite. God created adam male and female in order to be husband and wife, because he always had the gospel in mind. That’s why Paul returned again and again to creation as the ground of his teaching about marriage and church office. Paul championed our new freedom in Christ, but with all that freedom, he wanted the church to also hold onto marriage as a picture of Christ and the church (see Ephesians 5:32). From the beginning, marriage had a gospel purpose.

And that’s why egalitarianism ultimately undermines the gospel. 

Where is God’s temple today?

(This is the third in a series of critiques of Rachel Held Evans’s “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” If you missed earlier posts, click on the links below.)

1. A year of biblical womanhood—or not

2. What did Jesus do for women?

For one year, Rachel Held Evans is trying to follow “as literally as possible” all Old Testament and New Testament laws about women. For example, she stayed in a tent, sat on a stadium cushion, and did not attend church while she was having her menstrual period (see here). She calls this “biblical womanhood.” She is seriously confused.

This post looks at another element in her confusion: God’s temple today.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Evans is acting as if there is still a temple building open for business in Jerusalem. By not going to church during her menstrual period, she is acting as if the Mosaic rules and regulations are in force today. As if God’s special presence in the Holy of Holies is off limits behind temple walls and courts, up many flights of steps, and behind curtains. Moreover, Evans is treating her particular church building as if that were the bygone Jerusalem temple.

Hasn’t Evans ever read that her very body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19)? Doesn’t that fact make her whole exercise in piety, um, ridiculous?

Yes.

In A.D. 70 the Romans destroyed the building in Jerusalem, but God still has a temple here on earth. His temple is us. Everyone who believes in Christ is a living stone in God’s spiritual temple (1 Peter 2:5), “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20–22 ESV).

Not only has Jesus “broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances” (Ephesians 2: 14-15 ESV). But also we carry the special presence of God with us everywhere we go. As Abraham Kuyper said, “… there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

So what good does it do Evans to stay away from church?

Well, she hopes it will make us think all gender distinctives in the Bible are just as ridiculous and passé as the menstrual laws of the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In my next posts I’ll start to deal with her real agenda—egalitarianism.

What did Jesus do for women?

 (This is the second in a series on Rachel Held Evans’s “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” To read the first post, click here.)

Rachel Held Evans is trying to follow “as literally as possible” what she calls “a year of biblical womanhood.” To her this means obeying Old Testament as well as New Testament commands for women. For example, she stayed in a tent, sat on a stadium cushion, and did not attend church while she was having her menstrual period (see here). Her actions (and her definition of “biblical womanhood”) raise critical questions: What did Jesus do for women? And what are the implications for women today?

We find one illustration of what Jesus did for women in Mark 5:21–34 and Luke 8:40–48. A synagogue ruler has come and pleaded for Jesus to go to his house and heal his daughter, who is dying. As Jesus goes, a crowd presses around him. Among them is a desperate woman. She has had a continuous discharge of blood for twelve years, and all the doctors have been able to do is take her all money and make her worse. But her bleeding is not just a chronic medical problem. It is a chronic religious problem. She is unclean. As long as she has a discharge of blood she cannot come before her God at the temple.

She should not even be here, in this pressing crowd. She is making everyone who even brushes against her unclean. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, calls the days of a woman’s menstrual bleeding “days of separation,” days when she must sit apart from everyone, lest she contaminate them.

And then she touches the fringe of Jesus’ robe.

Now, according to ceremonial law, this should make Jesus unclean, or at least the garment she touched. But instead Jesus makes the woman clean—she is immediately healed from her bleeding. Jesus is the Holy One, and where he is, is holy ground. No unclean woman can make him unclean. Indeed, it is the other way around, because she has come into contact with the One who redeems us from the curse of the law and makes us holy.

This is what Jesus does for women. We are no longer under curse, because Jesus became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). More than that, he has made us clean. Our sins are like pig filth (Luke 15:15), excrement (Isaiah 4:4), leprosy (Leviticus 14), and menstrual blood (Isaiah 64:6). But when we touch Jesus, we become holy. Paul puts it this way: Jesus “gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27 ESV).

By living in a tent, by sitting on a stadium cushion, by staying home from church, Evans is acting as if Jesus is not present, making her and every place he stands holy. She is acting as if she herself has not yet touched even the hem of his garment. And actions sometimes speak louder than words.

Again, I don’t think Evans is trying to say that Jesus has not touched and saved her and made her holy. In fact, I think she just doesn’t realize at all what she is saying. She is confused: about the Old Testament, the place of the ceremonial law, the transformation Jesus brought about, and many other things.

More on this to follow....

A year of biblical womanhood—or not

A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Take, for example, Rachel Held Evans, an “evangelical” blogger finishing up what she calls “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” Here’s her own description of her intent:

I will commit one year of my life to following all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, from Genesis to Revelation, from the Levitical code to the letters of Paul, there’s no picking and choosing. (Well, except for polygamy…and a few other things that I’ll tell you about later.)

This means, among other things, rising before dawn each day (Proverbs 31:15), submitting to my husband (Colossians 3:18), growing out my hair (1 Corinthians 11:15), making my own clothes, (Proverbs 31:22), learning how to cook (Titus 2:3-5), covering my head when in prayer (1 Corinthians 11:5), calling Dan “master” (1 Peter 3:5-6), caring for the poor (Proverbs 31:25), nurturing a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:4), and camping out in the backyard for the duration of my monthly period (Leviticus 15:19-33).

At the end of her year-long exercise stands a book contract with Thomas Nelson. (See her book outline here.) But let’s leave the filthy lucre aside for the moment (as well as the fact that her idea is a rip-off of the 2007 best-seller The Year of Living Biblically by humorist A. J. Jacobs). Let’s look at the merits of her endeavor. Is this how a Christian woman should live biblically?

No!

Actually, I’m astounded that a self-identified evangelical who says she knows the Bible would even propose such a project. She claims to have studied the issue of biblical womanhood from multiple angles, sources, and commentaries and to have read the whole Bible carefully looking for what it says about women. (Read her comment here.) But obviously she hasn’t learned much, from the Bible or from church history.

The earliest church council (around A.D. 50, recorded in Acts 15) was held in Jerusalem after Paul’s first missionary journey brought many Gentile believers into the church and created a dispute over whether the Mosaic law bound these non-Jewish believers. The apostles ruled that Gentiles did not have to become Jews to believe in Christ—in other words, Christians did not have to obey the Mosaic ceremonial laws. Paul expounded and defended this ruling against the Judaizers in the book of Galatians. And so the Christian church has always understood that Christians are not under the Mosaic ceremonial laws.

Women today no more need to carry around a stadium cushion to sit on during menstruation, as Evans did, than we need to bring two turtledoves to a priest after the menses end, one bird as a sin offering and the other as a burnt (or ascension) offering (see Leviticus 15:28–30). In fact, Evans cannot literally fulfill the law she claims to be following literally—not even close. She needs a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and a reconstituted levitical priesthood.

Happily for us, Jesus fulfilled every ceremonial law once and for all when he became a curse for us and so redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). As he healed the "daughter of Abraham" bent over in back pain and set her free, so too he has set us free from the law's strictures to drink our fill from the Living Water (see Luke 13:10–17). To return to the rituals of Moses is to deny Jesus’ saving work (see the book of Hebrews).

Evans’s entire premise of “biblical womanhood” is wrongheaded. But it is not just harmless silliness. Underneath her misguided piety is serious theological error. Stunts such as not attending church during her menstrual period (see here) say by actions that Jesus is not the Savior, that Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension have not gained us access to the very throne-room of God. They say that the temple curtain still stands, not ripped from top to bottom but still whole, and still a barrier separating us from the Holy of Holies. One of the purposes of the Mosaic law was to put up barriers until Christ had accomplished his work and won our acceptance with the Father (see Galatians 3:19–29; Ephesians 2:13–22; Hebrews 4:14–10:39). To go back to the ceremonial laws about cleanness and uncleanness and temple access is to deny the efficacy of Christ. Hebrews 10:19–24 is especially pertinent to Evans:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (ESV)

Now, I don’t think Evans really intends to bring into question Jesus’ ability to save. Neither is she seriously advocating her year-long method of "biblical womanhood" as a model for women. In fact, just the opposite. She has another agenda, egalitarianism, that is, getting rid of any distinctions between men and women in church office (pastor, elder) and in marriage (submission and headship). In her own words: “It’s unlikely that I will change my overall egalitarian position,” and “I strongly support women at all levels of leadership in the church.”

So Evans’s Year of Biblical Womanhood is really a “straw woman.” She is using that old rhetorical trick, reductio ad absurdum. If the gender laws she has chosen for her year of "biblical womanhood" can only be followed today by living absurdly, then no gender distinctions should be followed today. But she is not just living absurdly for a year, she is promoting unbiblical womanhood and undermining the gospel.

More on this later. There is so much absurdity here that I can’t cover it all in one post.

Creation or evolution?

Creation versus evolution has been much in the mainstream news lately, along with gotcha questions for political candidates. One mother is overheard telling her son to ask Governor Rick Perry “why he doesn’t believe in science.” A New York Times columnist says flatly that Republicans are “against science.” Frankly, I’m fed up! I’m tired of being called anti-science and anti-intellectual—just because I believe the Bible over evolutionary theory.

First of all, I am not against science, but I do recognize that scientific knowledge has limits and it is often wrong, even about this afternoon’s weather. One day, science finds that eggs (or salt or coffee or chocolate or whatever) are bad for us; but on the next, new studies declare them good. So enjoy that second cup. Scientists once believed that criminal behavior was genetically determined and that one could tell a person’s intelligence and character by measuring his skull. What would we call someone who believed that today but ignorant and racist? Yet it was cutting edge in the nineteenth century. Scientific “knowledge” changes over time. By contrast, God’s Word stands forever (Isaiah 40:8).

Evolutionary theory is not a workable scientific theory but a philosophical commitment: it cannot be recreated and so proven through testing, and the vital missing links between species are in fact still missing. Evolution, Ann Coulter says, is a “mystery religion from the Victorian era.” It is not more “intellectual” than believing the Bible. In fact, it is less so, for “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Psalm 53:1). When scientists omit God from the equation because of philosophical bias, they will never find true wisdom and understanding about the origins of the world (Proverbs 2:6; 9:10).

So my philosophical commitment is to God. I figure he knows more than even the most rigorous scientists. After all, he was actually there and they were not, something God pointed out to Job (chapters 38–41).

Was Eve a real woman?

The book of Genesis and especially its story of creation in six days has long been under siege by liberal critics, but now increasingly it is also under attack by those who call themselves evangelicals.

Well-known theologian, author, and teacher John Schneider resigned from the faculty of Calvin College because he has begun to question whether we can, in the face of evolutionary science, continue to believe that Adam and Eve were real, that Eden existed, and that a fall happened (see this article in HigherEd). He is not alone in his doubt, neither at Calvin College nor beyond.

Schneider’s skepticism comes from science, particularly genetic mapping. Genome science is proclaiming that we couldn’t all have come from just two human beings or even from a human original. So, rather than question whether this new science in fact knows everything, Schneider has chosen to throw Adam and Eve overboard—and along with them he is also jettisoning centuries of church teaching about the Scriptures, sin, the work of Christ, and God himself. (Don’t take my word for it; read the first few pages of his article.)

How, you ask, could questioning whether Eve is really “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20) affect all these doctrines?

Well, first of all, the Scriptures say that Eve did become the mother of all the living. The Scriptures say that Adam and Eve are not evolved animals, though Adam and the animals share some characteristics: both were made from the ground as “living, breathing creatures” (the Hebrew is nephesh chayyah; Genesis 1:24, of animals; 2:7, of man—to learn more about this see Into the Weeds: What we have in common with animals--and what we don't). The Scriptures say that man and woman are the only beings made in the image of God, each created by God’s own distinct acts, not by evolution from apes. In fact, the Scriptures say, Adam was formed before the animals (see Genesis 2:4-20).

The Scriptures say Eve did take the fruit, eat, and give it to her husband and that he ate. They say that God came down in judgment and laid out for Adam and Eve the consequences of their disobedience. They say this first sin was imputed to all who are born in the line of Adam and those consequences affect every human being, because we are descended from Adam. They say that the Savior has come as the fulfillment of the promise God made to Eve that her seed would crush the serpent.

What Schneider and others are doing is no different from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics who decided Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead—because that was unscientific. They too would make all such Scripture merely literary devices and man-made stories about the general human condition, not actual history. But Christianity, it has often been said, is a historical religion. If Adam were never Adam, and Eve were never Eve, then we are most to be pitied (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-19), because our salvation is not sure in Christ.

Paul tells us that Christ is the second Adam. This means, Paul says, that as sin came into the world through one man (Adam) so “the free gift of righteousness” comes through one man (Jesus Christ) (see Romans 5:12-21). It means that in Adam we all died, but in Christ all shall be made alive (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23). And it means that “just as we have born the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven [Jesus Christ]” (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-57). Christ as second Adam guarantees our whole salvation: justification, sanctification, glorification.

All the elements of the story the Scriptures tell from Genesis to Revelation fit together because they have one Author who inspired and oversaw the writing of each piece throughout. Throwing out one element (in this case in favor of unproven science) undermines the integrity of the whole. The historical life of Adam and Eve is just as important to our salvation as is the resurrection of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15).

Systematic theologian Robert Peterson, in Salvation Accomplished by the Son: The Work of Christ (forthcoming from Crossway), argues that there are prerequisites, things that had to happen, for Christ to save us by his obedience, death, resurrection, and ascension. If you deny that the prerequisites ever happened, how long is it before the logical next step is that you must also deny the work of Christ? Schneider seems to be on that path, one already taken and well-traveled by nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century critics. Schneider too wants the church to reconcile science and Scripture in a way that puts Scripture in the back of the bus.

So let’s take the road less traveled: Christ is the seed of the very same woman who picked the fruit in the garden, ate it, and handed to her husband; the very woman about whom God himself said, “… her seed will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel” (see Genesis 3:15); the woman Adam named Eve, because she became the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20).

Into the weeds: What we have in common with animals—and what we don’t

Genesis 1 and 2 teach us that there is a certain amount of commonality between animals and people. Both are nephesh chayyah made from the ground. (All Scripture quotations are from the ESV.)

“God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth …’ ”

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth [i.e. wild animals] according to their kinds.’ ” (Genesis 1:24).

“—then the LORD God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7)

“So the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19)

The Hebrew phrase translated “living creature(s)” is nephesh chayyah. Chayyah means living, alive. L’chaim, the Jewish toast (“To life!”), comes from the same root. But nephesh can mean many things: breath; anything that breathes, i.e. an animal; person; soul; life; self; spirit, feelings; inclination, desire. Some translations call Adam a living soul, though never the animals. Both Adam and the animals are living, breathing creatures.

Both Adam and the animals are made from the ground, and God “forms” both. Thus Genesis calls our attention to something scientists know: human being and animals are alike. That’s why medical researchers can test new drugs on rats and new surgical procedures on dogs. That’s why we find the sorts of physical similarities that fuel the theory that man evolved from the apes. God made man and animals from the same raw material and both sets of creatures became nephesh chayyah.

But that’s not enough—and that’s the big joke in Genesis 2. Notice that in Genesis 1, we read that God makes the animals, then man and woman in his own image. But in Genesis 2, God makes the man, and says, “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Readers of Genesis 1 expect Eve to come next, but that is not what God does. Instead God makes every kind of animal—the cows, the sheep, the lions, the elephants, and so on and so on—as well as every kind of bird and brings them to Adam.

And none of them is suitable for Adam. (See Genesis 2:19-20). Only after Adam has seen all of the animals and named them does God put him into deep sleep and make Eve. None of the animals is suitable to Adam, because out of all God created, only Adam and Eve are made in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27). Humans and animals are alike, but not alike enough.

So perhaps the bigger joke is the one that evolutionary scientists have pulled on many Bible scholars, convincing them that scientific discoveries nullify the word of God. Except this one is not funny. It’s harmful.

Into the Weeds: Understanding the Hebrew of Genesis 3:16a

How should we translate the first two lines of Genesis 3:16?

The KJV, ILB, NKJV, and RSV read something like this:

line 1: I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
line 2: in sorrow you will bring forth children.

Other (generally newer) translations (NIV, ESV, JPS, NASB) read something like this:

line 1: I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth;
line 2: in pain you will bring forth children.

The question for translators is really how to interpret the Hebrew conjunction ve- ("and") in the phrase itsbonek veheronek (line 1: "thy sorrow and thy conception" KJV). Perhaps the translators of newer versions have been influenced by Keil and Delitzsch, who in their commentary on the Hebrew of this verse say:

As the increase of conceptions, regarded as the fulfillment of the blessing to
'be fruitful and multiply' (1:28) could be no punishment, [heronek] must be
understood as in apposition to ... thy sorrow (i.e., the sorrows peculiar to a
woman's life), and indeed (or more especially) thy pregnancy (i.e., the
sorrows attendant upon that condition).

In other words, ignore the ve-! Many translators think the two nouns in our phrase are a hendiadys (two coordinate terms joined by a conjunction to express what in English would be expressed by a adjective and a noun). Carol Meyers discusses at length whether this phrase is a hendiadys in Discovering Eve, pages 100-109, and concludes that it is not. Nor, she points out, did the translators of the Septuagint.

The word heron also more properly refers to conception than to childbearing or childbirth. It means "to become pregnant," that is, "to conceive." As Carol Meyers says, it is "more associated with the initiation of pregnancy than with the duration or conclusion.... It does not refer to the sexual act itself but indicates the physiological condition that was the desired result of intercourse in Israelite society" (Discovering Eve, 102). We associate pain with labor, but not with conception. Maybe that also influenced translators!

All translators are also interpreters. Here, I think we miss connections if we ignore the ve- (pun intended!). Genesis 3:16-19 is full of parallels evident in the Hebrew that we miss in English translation. (We'll get into those weeds another time.) The curse on the woman of increased conception connects to the curse on the ground of bringing forth weeds and thorns. But modern translations don't let us see that both the woman and the ground will experience changed fertility as a result of the fall.

The blessing of birth control

When pastor Kevin DeYoung asks Christians to give each other the benefit of the doubt and love one another regardless of the size of our families, he appeals to 1 Corinthians 13 love. Let’s be sensitive to one another’s feelings, he says, and admit that we don’t know the situations of other families well enough to judge their choices.

Good advice—not followed by some of his blog readers. Not too far down in the comments to his post the flame throwing starts. One side calls the other side pagans and the other side responds by calling them Pharisees. So much for practicing love and humility!

When Christians debate birth control, they usually only talk about Genesis 1:28 and how we should fill the earth. But this is only half the story. Yes, when God commanded Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28 ESV), he certainly meant for them to have children. And they did: Cain, Abel, Seth, and “other sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:4)—a large family. Children are a blessing from the Lord (Psalms 127:3-5; 128:3-6)—but so is birth control. Birth control is a blessing in a world Christ is redeeming from death and curse.

After the fall, the first consequence God tells the woman is “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conceptions; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16 KJV). Modern translations have chosen to drop this idea of increased conception and make this curse all about pain in childbirth: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbirth; in pain you shall bring forth children” (ESV). (More on this here: Into the Weeds: Understanding the Hebrew in Genesis 3:16a.) And that’s a shame, because we miss the connection that the fall resulted in changed fertility, for both man and woman and for the ground (Genesis 3:17-18).

Increased conception is one consequence of the fall. Sin’s consequences on our bodies also mean some women are infertile or some husbands sterile. Some women experience debilitating, even life-threatening, illnesses during pregnancy. Some babies are born with birth defects, genetic and otherwise, and some infants die. Sin’s consequences also mean some families can’t make the ends of their budget meet, even though they work hard (see Genesis 3:17-19). These are just some of the new realities after the fall.

But God is gracious. Increased conception was also a blessing for Adam and Eve. Before the fall, they would have had all the time in the world, literally, to be fruitful and fill the earth. Now they were dying. The earliest patriarchs lived almost a thousand years, and according to Genesis 5, they had their first sons at the age of 100 or later. By Genesis 11, men and women are living fewer years and having children at younger ages. By the time we read of Sarah and Abraham, 70 years is past the age of childbearing, and by age 90 Sarah can only laugh at the absolutely impossible notion of ever having a child from her own body (see Genesis 16, 18).

Keil and Delitzsch, in their commentary on this verse, say increased conception “could be no punishment.” In a pre-Industrial agrarian society, where infant mortality was high and family farms needed laborers, that was largely true. (However, I would also point out that this was said by men, who never had to go through the “discomforts” of morning sickness, labor, etc.!) But in a postindustrial world, smaller families are “no punishment” either. In fact, birth control is a blessing.

Birth control is a blessing because it is the gift of God, like other medical knowledge that helps solve the problems of infertility, painful childbirth, infant mortality, and much more. God’s command to be fruitful and multiply was never a command to have as many children as a couple possibly can, nor was having children the only thing God had in mind when he said, “Be fruitful …” Genesis 1:28 is a call to be fruitful in all aspects of life, so that the world is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9) and God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). Within this kingdom-building task, God has given women many callings alongside that of motherhood. (See the woman of Proverbs 31!)

In a world still awaiting Christ’s final removal of every curse and sorrow and pain (see Revelation 21:4), birth control is a good thing!

What is biblical submission?

The press is stunned: Michelle Bachman once told a Christian audience that she had submitted to her husband—by studying tax law and running for Congress! Not only are these pundits stunned; they are worried. Isn’t biblical submission a problem for a female presidential candidate? How can a wife who submits to her husband ever be the leader of the free world? After all, who would really be running the White House?

Such questions led a female Republican pollster to respond,

“When people think of women submitting to their husbands, it’s usually they don’t have access to the family checkbook and they’re stuck picking up Cheerios from the floor—not ‘you should get an advanced degree in tax law and run for Congress,’” she told me. That looks more like “loving encouragement,” she says.

Let’s leave the political debate to the pundits and pollsters for now and instead address the question What is biblical submission?

First, what biblical submission is not—it is not blind obedience. In Ephesians 5:22–24 Paul tells wives to submit, each to her own husband “in everything” and “as the church submits to Christ,” “for the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church” (ESV). Now, Paul is saying here that human marriage is a picture of Christ’s union with us, and that a husband is like Christ to his wife. But he is not saying that a husband is equal to Christ. As John Chrysostom observed centuries ago, husbands are not as far above their wives as Christ is above the church! A husband can’t, for example, command his wife to sacrifice their son to God (as God told Abraham; see Genesis 22)—or if he does, she should just say no! Biblical submission doesn’t take away a wife’s right to individual conscience. A husband has only limited authority, under God, and a command to love his wife (Ephesians 5:25–33).

Biblical submission is also not something a husband forces his wife to do, but rather something she chooses to do, submitting herself. There is actually no verb in verse 22. Rather, the verb is carried forward from verse 21, where we read “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (ESV). So Paul is saying, “Likewise, wives, [submit yourselves] to your own husbands,” “out of reverence for Christ” and “respect” for your husband (see verse 33).

A wife’s biblical self-submission is a picture of the church—but also of Christ himself. In Ephesians 5 Paul gives part of the analogy of headship and submission, but in 1 Corinthians 11:3 he gives us the complete picture: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (ESV). Let’s simplify this:

Christ is to every man
as
husband is to wife
as
Father is to Christ

Note that the original is Christ and the Father. In other words, headship and submission are dynamics within the Trinity! Note too that Christ occupies both tiers. He is the example of headship to the husband and the example of one who submits himself (to his equal!) to the wife. So we wives can learn how to submit to our husbands, who are our equals, by studying Christ’s self-submission to his equal, the Father.

Which leads to another thing biblical submission is not. It is not having a disagreement or clash of wills, in which one side gives in. Jesus and the Father have never disagreed yet Jesus submitted himself to the Father. Submission is an attitude of oneness and union, striving to be of the same mind with our husbands. And isn’t that how the church should submit to Christ?

Christ’s example does give us at least a partial answer to the question of whether a wife who submits to her husband can be the leader of the free world. Paul tells us that Christ is head over everything—except the Father himself (1 Corinthians 15:27). In the same way, when God put everything under Eve’s feet (see Genesis 1:28; Psalm 8:5–8), that didn’t include Adam.

But there is no reason—no reason at all—it couldn’t include the White House.

Becoming wise women

Some of the most chilling words in the Bible are found in Proverbs 14:1: "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down" (NIV). This is what Eve did when she reached out, plucked the fruit, ate it as it lay in her palm, and then handed it to her husband. This is also what Achan did when he took the plunder at Jericho and buried it inside his tent (Joshua 7). His whole family was taken, stoned, and burned.

Eve's sin and Achan's sin are very similar, the Bible tells us. They both saw something beautiful, good, and desirable and took it after God told them not to. What caught Achan's eye was no ordinary piece of clothing, but an exceptionally beautiful robe of Shinar. Shinar (or Sumer) was an Ancient Near East cultural center. This robe may even have been an official's robe, a visiting dignitary's sign of high office. But with it was also a treasure trove of silver and gold. It was too much for Achan to pass up.

Eve also saw an exceptionally good thing. All the trees in the garden were beautiful and delicious, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was one of the two especially good trees, the trees of wisdom and of life that God set in the middle of the garden (Genesis 2:9). When Eve saw the tree, she saw not just a tasty meal but a way to get wisdom with just one bite. But that's not how we get wisdom, Proverbs says. Getting wisdom is hard work. It comes through time and maturity, experience and observation and study, and listening to our Creator and Lord.

Perhaps like me you find Achan's story troubling and unsettling. How could it be fair to stone his family, his sons and daughters, for their father's sin? Maybe they had helped him cover up his crime, some say, so they were also guilty. But what about the cattle and sheep. They couldn't have had any part in his guilt! Yet all are put to death immediately, without appeal.

In this, Achan is like Adam. Adam's sin put his whole family--us!--under a death sentence. Innocent animals died for him and for our mother Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:21). Thus began the centuries of sacrifices that stood in for the Lamb of God, the one who came and willingly sacrificed himself for us, the innocent for the guilty. Jesus died to give life to us, to redeem his sons and daughters from the death sentence that has hung over us since our father Adam ate the fruit from Eve's hand and God said "to dust you will return."

Because of Jesus, there is hope for us. Hope that we will not destroy our families with our own hands but become "Eve's," life-givers (Genesis 3:20). The Valley of Achor where Achan and his family perished and lay under a stone cairn "to this day" (Joshua 7) has become the Door of Hope (Hosea 2:14-23), because our Husband, the second Adam, has given himself up for us, that he might sanctify us (Ephesians 5:25-27).

What's so wrong about same-sex marriage?

"Why can't Christians just join the revolution?" In an oped for The Wall Street Journal ("Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution") R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky asks why evangelical Christians can't join in the "moral revolution" and embrace homosexuality and same-sex marriage the way liberal churches and denominations have. We can't, he says, because "we believe the Bible is God's revealed word" and "we cannot pretend as if we do not know that the Bible clearly teaches" that homosexuality is wrong and that marriage is "the union of one man and one woman."

It's a matter of the gospel, he continues. "Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and for the forgiveness of their sins." The church is being tested, he writes, "to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach." Will we "see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue"?

Rev. Mohler is right: it is a matter of the gospel, because marriage between a man and a woman is a picture of the gospel (see my earlier post).

The "original fact" God had in mind when he made Eve was Christ and his church ("Canticles," Fausset's Bible Dictionary). As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5, Adam represented Christ and Eve represented the church in their relationship as husband and wife. Marriage is natural revelation; that is, it teaches us about God and our relationship to him. (See, for example, Mike Mason, The
Mystery of Marriage). The marriage relationship involves all the senses; it is the most intimate and "complete" of the metaphors that Scripture compares to our union with Christ (cornerstone and building, vine and branches, head and body, husband and wife).

Marriage between a man and a woman is a "great mystery" because it depicts the relationship between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5:31-32). This was God's original intent, when he made Adam and Eve. And so, Calvin said, the church is built from Jesus' riven side, as Eve was built from Adam's. So then, as Jesus sacrificed himself for us, a husband should love his wife sacrificially. He should "nourish" her as he would his own body. And as the church submits to Christ, so a wife should submit to her husband and respect him. A loving and harmonious marriage is a preaching of the gospel.

May God preserve and protect marriage as a picture of the gospel!

The value of a woman 3: kingdom coworker

What is the value of a woman? Priceless, according to the Bible. First, every woman is a person in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Second, women are necessary for the growth and survival of the human race (Genesis 1:28; 2:18-24). Third, women are essential to the expansion of God's kingdom.

When God said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28 ESV), he was talking to Eve too. Eve was Adam's coworker in filling and subduing the earth. When Moses' audience heard this command, they would have thought of their own mothers, wives, or daughters, who helped with the planting and harvesting and herding and milking. These were not surburban housewives but farm women!

I grew up on a farm and many of my relatives were farmers. I can tell you that even before the fall changed work into toil and the fertile ground sprouted weeds and thorns, there would have been a lot to do in the garden! Adam would have needed Eve working at his side, caring for the cultivated plants and domesticated animals. God put the world under Eve's feet too (Psalm 8). Carol Meyers (Discovering Eve) notes that in Genesis 2 Adam and Eve are set like bookends around the world they are to rule together: the garden, the rivers, the minerals, the animals.

Genesis 1 and 2 show us that God didn't intend for Adam and Eve to stay forever in the garden. There was a whole world outside to fill and subdue. Adam would have needed Eve's help to go beyond the garden into that beautiful but undeveloped world outside, where the four rivers flowed and the ground held gold and jewels waiting to be used (Genesis 2:10-14).

God made women to be out and about in his world, filling it with people who know and worship him and subduing it under God's rule, until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9). Because this world is God's kingdom, every good thing we do is kingdom work, whether we work in our own homes as wives and mothers, or work outside the home for income, or volunteer in our churches and communities.

What has God put under your feet? What is your sphere of influence? Whatever it is, remember that you are a kingdom coworker. Do your everyday work with all your heart; it is the Lord Christ and his kingdom you serve (Colossians 3:23-24).

The value of a woman 2: the war against girls

Since the 1970s, 163 million girls have gone missing! They haven't been kidnapped, but killed--by their own parents, before they had a chance to be born! Couples want to have boys, so they simply abort the girls. It's happening all over the world, but especially in India and China. Now the ratio between boys and girls is out of whack, and there aren't enough women for the men to marry.

Some cultures see girls as a liability. One ad in India reads, "Better 500 rupees now than 5,000 later." In other words, it's cheaper to abort a girl than to pay for her wedding! As the mother of two married daughters, I can say this may be true in terms of dollar amounts, but in no way is what they are advertising here "better"! Not only is every daughter a precious gift from God (Psalm 127:3-5), skillfully and wonderfully woven together in her mother's womb (Psalm 139:13-16), made in the image of God himself, and thus worth more than an infinite number of rupees. But also girls are necessary to the human race.

We see this when God creates Eve. When God had made the heavens and the earth, the sky and the seas, the sun, moon, and stars, the plants and sea creatures, and a man in his own image--and all "good" (Genesis 1)--he looked at his handiwork and said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him" (Genesis 2:18). Then, the Bible tells us, he formed the wild animals and cattle and birds and brought them to the man. But among all these creatures "there was not found a helper fit for him" (Genesis 2:19).

I can imagine God laughing a little bit at this point, as Adam scratches his head. These animals can help Adam pull a plow or a cart, they could even be companions, as all pet owners know; but they were not "fit for him." Adam needed someone like himself, made like him in the image of God and yet of the opposite sex. And so God put the man under anesthesia, took one of his ribs, and built a woman.

Eve was the last of God's creation works, and as Susan Foh writes, she was not a luxury but a necessity! She alone, out of everything God made in those six days, shared Adam's nature as image of God. She had intelligence, language skills, the ability to judge and discern, dexterity, the capacity to know God, etc. to be truly "fit for" Adam. And she was exactly what Adam needed if there were ever going to be more people on earth. That is how God made man as male and female; there is no other way to procreate the human race.

This is what countries like India and China are discovering. May God cause all nations to rediscover how "very good" it is to have girls!

Do you like your body?

Psychologist Mary Pipher has been asking young women this question for years. "When I speak to classes, I ask any woman in the audience who feels good about her body to come up afterward.... I have yet to have a woman come up" (Reviving Ophelia). The dissatisfaction, she says, comes from the culture we live in. We see the billboards and magazine ads and movie images, and feel that we don't measure up. But it goes back a lot further than the existence of modern media. It goes back to Eve.

Eve was created, body and soul, in the image of God. As John Calvin said, sparks of God's glory shine in our bodies (Institutes). Now "God is a spirit and doesn't have a body like men" (Catechism for Young Children). He doesn't need actual eyes to see or a mouth to speak, or arms and fingers to do his work, or legs to get about, but we need our bodies. We do need physical eyes to see and a mouth, lips, and tongue to speak and bones, muscles, and tendons, arms and legs, fingers and toes. We need every part of the body God has given us "to exercise the faculties of the soul," as Louis Berkhof put it. Our bodies are necessary to the image of God in us and part of the "very good" creation God made (Genesis 1:31).

So why is that we don't like our bodies very much? Well, the short answer is sin. When Eve took the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate it, she no longer felt comfortable with her own body. She wanted to cover it up, so she and Adam sewed fig leaves together and hid from God (Genesis 3:7-8). But Eve didn't just have a psychological problem now. On that day something also went wrong with her body. She began to die. From their sin in the garden has come all the subsequent pain and disease and problems of aging and death we face (Genesis 3:16-19). But happily for them and for us, God didn't leave them there. He came down and sought them and clothed them and redeemed them (Genesis 3:7-8, 15, 21).

He does the same for us. The Puritans called it "the glorious exchange." Our Savior Jesus Christ took our sins and gave us his righteousness. He took our death and gave us life. The redemption Jesus provides includes even our bodies! The Christian's goal is not to get rid of the body. On the last day, Jesus will transform these bodies to be like his glorious body (1 Corinthians 15:42-49). This is good news indeed!

In the meantime, we live in imperfect bodies, and "in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling" (2 Corinthians 5:2). We see our imperfections; we see our bodies changing and aging and "wasting away" (2 Corinthians 4:16). But that's not the whole story. The "inner man is being renewed day by day." So, as Paul says, "do not lose heart" (verse 16). Like your body! Thank God for this amazing and good gift! Just don't make it the most important part of you.

Women's rights and the Taliban

Women in Afghanistan are worried, and for good reason. The price of peace in their country may be losing their rights to go to school, hold public office, go outside without wearing a head-to-toe burka, or for that matter, even go outside!

Women's rights, like the rights of all human beings, come from God, by creation in his image. Dominion and authority are part of the image of God. And so when God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion ..." (Genesis 1:27), he included all women. When he said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion ..." (Genesis 1:28), God was talking to both Adam and Eve. That isn't apparent in our English translations, but the verbs in Genesis 1:28 are plural. It's as if God said, "Both of you, be fruitful and ... have dominion ..."

Eve's authority to rule over the animals and the earth comes from God, not from man. Yes, Eve is a helper (Genesis 2:18), but she is a helper with authority! Women have a God-given right to participate in the filling and subduing and ruling of the world God made.

Finding Your Purpose: women's spring retreat audio files

At the end of April I spoke at our Presbytery women's spring retreat on finding our purpose.

In the first session we saw that God has revealed our purpose in the Scriptures.

In the second and third sessions we fit the lenses of Scripture to our eyes, seeing that God has called and equipped us to be kingdom-building helpers through our everyday work.

In the fourth session, we looked at our biblical role model, the woman of Proverbs 31 and how we can use our gifts and graces in our homes, churches, and communities.

To listen to the audio files, click on the links in this post.

Finding Your Place in God's World: spring retreat session 4

At the end of April I spoke at our Presbytery women's spring retreat on finding our purpose. In the first session we saw that God has revealed our purpose in the Scriptures. In the second and third sessions we fit the lenses of Scripture to our eyes, seeing that God has called and equipped us to be kingdom-building helpers through our everyday work.

In the fourth session, we looked at our biblical role model, the woman of Proverbs 31. We found that she is not some superwoman meant to make us feel guilty, but a literary device meant to show us how to apply the virtues of Proverbs. Proverbs 31 is not a snapshot of "a day in the life" of any particular woman but a timeline, a lifetime perspective on how we might use our gifts and graces in our homes, churches, and communities. Each of us has gifts and graces for the kingdom, and we find them "where our passions meet the world's needs" (Sally Helgesen, Everyday Revolutionaries).

To listen to the audio, follow the link below.

http://www.windgap.com/PresWIC/2011/4-FindingYourPlaceInGodsWorld.mp3

Listening to the sessions:You can download each of these files to your computer, and store them on your hard drive, or copy them to an MP3 player so that you can listen to them on your car stereo. If you're a Windows user, right-click on the file link, and save the file locally.These are big files--so downloading may take a few minutes. If you'd rather, you can "stream" the files by listening to them with Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or another audio player. Each audio player allows you to load a URL (in Windows Media Player, for example, choose "Open URL..." from the "File" menu; in WinAmp, open the Playlist Editor, and choose "Add URL" from the File menu). Just copy the URL from your web browser, open your audio application, and paste the entire URL into the appropriate dialog.

If you would like a copy of the session notes, email me at mrmurdoch@windgap.com.

Seeing Yourself in the Big Picture: spring retreat session 3

At the end of April I spoke at our Presbytery women's spring retreat on finding our purpose. In the first session we saw that God has revealed our purpose in the Scriptures. In the second session we put on our first lens, that God has called us to glorify him in the world he has made by building his kingdom.

In the third session, we put on our second lens by looking at what it means to be in the image of God and kingdom helpers equipped for the building of his kingdom. We saw how sin marred the image of God in us and how Christ restores it so that we can reflect his glory to the world around us.

To listen to the audio, follow the link below.

http://www.windgap.com/PresWIC/2011/3-SeeingYourselfInTheBigPicture.mp3

Listening to the sessions:You can download each of these files to your computer, and store them on your hard drive, or copy them to an MP3 player so that you can listen to them on your car stereo. If you're a Windows user, right-click on the file link, and save the file locally.These are big files--so downloading may take a few minutes. If you'd rather, you can "stream" the files by listening to them with Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or another audio player. Each audio player allows you to load a URL (in Windows Media Player, for example, choose "Open URL..." from the "File" menu; in WinAmp, open the Playlist Editor, and choose "Add URL" from the File menu). Just copy the URL from your web browser, open your audio application, and paste the entire URL into the appropriate dialog.

If you would like a copy of the session notes, email me at mrmurdoch@windgap.com.

Seeing Your Purpose through New Eyes: spring retreat session 2

At the end of April I spoke at our Presbytery women's spring retreat on finding our purpose. In the first session, we learned that we need corrective lenses to see the purpose God has given us in the right way. So, in the second session, we began putting on Scripture's corrective lenses.

Our first lens is seeing that God has called us to glorify him (or make him visible) in the world he has made by building his kingdom. God made this world to be a kingdom for Christ, and so God's command to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over it (Genesis 1:28) is a kingdom-building mandate. Because Christ has redeemed us, every good kind of work--whatever we do to help our neighbors, do good to our families, or bring children up to know God--is kingdom work. Christ's kindgom is growing and transforming this world like yeast working through dough, and God has given us the privilege of being part of that transforming work.

To listen to the audio of session 2, follow the link below:

http://www.windgap.com/PresWIC/2011/2-SeeingYourPurposeThroughNewEyes.mp3

Listening to the sessions: You can download each of these files to your computer, and store them on your hard drive, or copy them to an MP3 player so that you can listen to them on your car stereo. If you're a Windows user, right-click on the file link, and save the file locally.These are big files--so downloading may take a few minutes. If you'd rather, you can "stream" the files by listening to them with Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or another audio player. Each audio player allows you to load a URL (in Windows Media Player, for example, choose "Open URL..." from the "File" menu; in WinAmp, open the Playlist Editor, and choose "Add URL" from the File menu). Just copy the URL from your web browser, open your audio application, and paste the entire URL into the appropriate dialog.

If you would like a copy of the session notes, email me at mrmurdoch@windgap.com.

Looking for Your Purpose: spring retreat session 1

At the end of April, I spoke at our Presbytery women's spring retreat on finding our purpose. In the first session, we saw that God has a purpose for us and he has revealed it in the Scriptures. But like Eve in Genesis 3, we have a vision problem. We look for our purpose through our own eyes rather than through God's lenses. We need an eye exam and corrective lenses! Eve was redeemed to fulfill her purpose. Because of Christ, we sinners can fulfill our purpose as well.

To listen to the audio of session 1, follow the link below.

http://www.windgap.com/PresWIC/2011/1-LookingForYourPurpose.mp3

Listening to the sessions: You can download each of these files to your computer, and store them on your hard drive, or copy them to an MP3 player so that you can listen to them on your car stereo. If you're a Windows user, right-click on the file link, and save the file locally.These are big files--so downloading may take a few minutes. If you'd rather, you can "stream" the files by listening to them with Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or another audio player. Each audio player allows you to load a URL (in Windows Media Player, for example, choose "Open URL..." from the "File" menu; in WinAmp, open the Playlist Editor, and choose "Add URL" from the File menu). Just copy the URL from your web browser, open your audio application, and paste the entire URL into the appropriate dialog.

If you would like a copy of the sessions notes, email me at mrmurdoch@windgap.com.

The value of a woman

What is the value of a woman? Not much, in some cultures, according to several disturbing news articles. Gruesome female genital mutilation continues and isn't strongly condemned. It's just a cultural choice. Female feticide is rampant in India, because parents want boys not girls. A woman who dared to drive her own car in Saudia Arabia is jailed. What these stories have in common is the devaluation of women. Women just don't count as real persons in their own right.

This is not the Bible's view of women. The first thing we learn about Eve is that she was created in the image of God, and she was given dominion over the earth alongside the man.

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion...." (Genesis 1:27-28 ESV).

What does it mean to be a woman made in the image of God? An image is "a representation or imitation of the form of a person or thing, especially an imitation in solid form; a tangible or visible respresentation of something; a likeness" (Webster's). You can see your image in a mirror, capture your image in digital video, or order a bobblehead image on the web. Each of these would be like you and not like you. So it is with us as images of God. We are both like and not like God.

"God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth" (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q/A 4). We are not infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in anything! We grow and we age. We are not all-knowing or all-powerful, self-sufficient or self-existent. We are limited and created, and there are many things we cannot do. But we are "like" God. He created us with abilities "like" his. We don't have all of God's abilities, and we don't have any ability in the same way he does. But we are fearfully and wonderfully made to show off our Creator.

That means we have beauty, dignity, and honor; we have intelligence, creativity, the ability to reason and analyze; strength, dexterity, will; a conscience, moral sense, and the ability to love good and hate evil; the ability to make decisions and judgments; the capacity for personal relationships, the ability to communicate, and emotions. This is not a complete list of how we image God. In fact, I keep adding to the list as I study more. But these are enough to see the great value of women. Like the woman of Proverbs 31, each of us is worth more than the costliest gems!

May every woman be valued as an image of God!

The PCUSA will ordain homosexuals

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to allow the ordination of "openly gay people in same-sex relationships." Their stated clerk said, "I hope that going forward we can stay together and be faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ," the NY Times reported today. Well, there is little chance of being "faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ" now! They have compromised one of the most fundamental elements of that gospel by embracing homosexual clergy living openly homosexual lives.

But this is a natural progression from ordaining women as pastors. Once you muddy the waters of God's creation, it's harder to see the truth that nature and Scripture proclaim in unison. How did the church get here? One path was by misunderstanding Eve's purpose.

Let's back up to the question of whether women should be ordained. I'm not saying women aren't smart enough to be pastors. Many have used this argument over the centuries, but women graduating from seminaries in increasing numbers proved this false years ago. Women are capable and wise teachers who can "rightly handle the Word of God" as well as men. In fact, as a friend once said, almost all heresies have come from men! But the role of pastor involves more than teaching. We don't call our pastors "vicars" anymore, but we should. A "vicar" is "one serving as a substitute or agent" (Webster's), a representative or proxy. The pastor is a "vicar" or representative of Christ to the congregation. What does that mean and how does it relate to Eve?

The "original fact" God had in mind when he made Eve was Christ and his church ("Canticles," Fausset's Bible Dictionary). As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5, Adam represented Christ and Eve represented the church in their relationship as husband and wife. Marriage is natural revelation; that is, it teaches us about God and our relationship to him. (See, for example, Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage). The marriage relationship involves all the senses; it is the most intimate and "complete" of the metaphors that Scripture compares to our union with Christ (cornerstone and building, vine and branches, head and body, husband and wife).

When we ordain women as pastors, we smear the picture of marriage as revelation of the relationship of Christ and his bride-church. We put a woman in the role of Christ our Husband. That should grate against our consciousness of God and ourselves, but the further we get from a biblical worldview, the less it seems to.

And so the next step is ordaining open homosexuals. Now we can't see even human marriage and sexuality correctly. The plain witness of nature tells us that marriage as God created it is between a man and a woman. But when we suppress the truth, God gives us more blindness (Romans 1). We can see how far the blindness has progressed in the church when the highest church officer of the PCUSA expresses hope that they can be "faithful witnesses to the gospel of Christ" while putting practicing homosexuals in the vicar's seat. Sorry, guys, but the picture has just gotten too fuzzy to be the gospel of Christ and his church.

Eve as natural revelation of God and man

My special interest in Eve began through exploring the idea of Eve as natural revelation. Natural revelation is what we can know about God through the things he has made. Several years ago, I was emailing with a friend, a PhD candidate at Westminster Seminary. He was bouncing ideas for his thesis on interpretation off me, and I was bouncing ideas for a book on women and work off him. In the course of our e-correspondence, he suggested I read up on natural revelation, because he didn't have time to. I thought it would take up an afternoon, but instead it started my looking at Eve in a whole new way. Let me explain.

How many of you have read Pat the Bunny? It’s a “touch and feel” children’s book. As you read with your child, she interacts with you and the book, hearing and touching and feeling and smelling and learning. The world God made is like an interactive picture book. Everything we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell reveals something about God. Everything tells of his glory, power, and nature (Psalm 19; Romans 1:19-20). As John Calvin wrote, we cannot open our eyes without seeing him, and we cannot even know ourselves without knowing something about God.

As part of creation, Eve was a "touch and feel" revelation of God. She was the last creature God made, the one and only suitable helper for Adam (Genesis 2:18-22), a more complete interactive visual aid than any other thing God made. In fact, like Adam, she was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28). She showed Adam (and she shows us) many things about who God is and what he is like. Sparks of God's glory shine in her and in every woman.

But in God's glorious theater Eve played a dual role. Not only was she an image of God, showing Adam and us what God is like, but as Paul expressed it, she was also "the glory of man" (1 Corinthians 11:7). "Glory" can mean honor, renown, beauty, splendor, magnificence, exhaltation. Commentators have often tried to explain woman as the glory of man in this sense. I don't think this is what Paul was getting at. He was using glory in the sense of natural revelation. Glory in this sense is "the spiritual made visible" (Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage). The "glory of God" is God's appearing in ways that we can perceive by our senses, by sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell (Mark Futato, Creation: A Witness to the Wonder of God). Radiant light, dark clouds, thunder, wind, earthquake, and an audible voice are examples in the Bible of God's "glory."

And so when Paul says woman is "the glory of man," he is saying that woman is man made visible. That is, Eve and women/wives in general show us what mankind in relationship with God is like. We are back to the metaphor of marriage. Eve was Adam's "glory." She was a "flesh of his flesh" likeness that he could see and hear and handle (Genesis 2:23).

Paul tells us this is a great mystery (Ephesians 5:22-32), and that's why I find Eve so interesting. I hope you will too.

Why a blog about Eve?

Why am I interested enough in Eve to start a blog "all about Eve"? And why would you want to read it?

Well, she is a fascinating and controversial figure. She is the first woman, described in Genesis 1-4, but afterward only mentioned by name in the Bible in the New Testament letters of Paul. She is somewhat mysterious, part of a distant and murky past, and yet so current that everyone knows her name and reputation. She is the female figure most often depicted in art, according to archeologist and OT professor Carol Meyers (Discovering Eve). Yet she is often overlooked in studies of biblical women--and even more often blamed for all our troubles.

Eve is fascinating because she tells us a lot about ourselves. Posts to this blog will explore what we learn from Eve. I invite readers to join the discussion so that together we may sharpen one another and through the Scriptures uncover more of God's majesty and woman's glory.