Book 4 of Musings A Suitable Support

Eve was created as a suitable support for Adam.

It is interesting also that Eve was created from Adam. Why was this? It is not recorded in the Book of Genesis that the female of any animal was created from the male!

Have you ever thought about Adam and Eve?

According to the Bible, Eve was created to be a helper, a helper suitable for Adam.

I did some checking on that word "helper." After looking at the way the term is used in the Bible, I came to the conclusion that "helper" means "provider of support." Several times ayzer (Hebrew term) is used to refer to God protecting and strengthening someone in need.

I am saying this because it is clear Eve was created to be a suitable support for Adam. This is different from the idea that a woman is sort of an errand-girl to help with the details. She is to be a support and strength for her husband. Quite a different concept.

The man was created first, from the dust. The woman was created second, and not from the dust. Why not? If God created a man from the dust, why didn't He create a woman from the dust? What would be wrong with that?

If God created the woman separately, then Adam and Eve could have gotten together for the purpose of bringing forth children, and then could have gone their separate ways-much like today.

In fact, Adam could take the little boy, and Eve could take the little girl, and live their own lives without being irritated and frustrated by the other person.

But this was not what God had in mind.

God created a man. Then God saw that the man needed a helper, someone to strengthen and support him as he bears the burden of life on the earth. A provider of support! I am accenting this point because I don't think the majority of American women who get married today picture themselves as being a man's source of strength and support, although I am sure many do.

A woman may be attracted to the man. Maybe he makes her feel good when she dreams about him. But I don't think the American woman, in many instances, is looking forward to helping the man carry his load. In fact, I wonder how many men are ready to carry the load of unpleasantness that must be borne by those who have integrity. How do you feel about this?

Perhaps a woman cannot find a man whom she deems worthy enough that she would be content to be a source of strength for him. In that case she could enlist as a combat marine. She has every right to go into battle and be killed, just as a man can.

In America a woman can be about anything she chooses. She can be the CEO of a mammoth corporation. She can be a defense attorney, a judge, a physician, a pastor. You name it, and if she has it in her she can attain to her desired role-at least in America. Perhaps not quite as easily as a man, but pretty nearly as easy.

Now why would any intelligent American woman want to spend her life serving as a provider of support for a man?

In fact, I am not certain many American men are worthy of having an intelligent, capable, well-educated woman devote her life to standing with him as he faces numerous problems and fears.

Well then, why did God say such things in the beginning? And why did God not honor the woman by creating her from the dust as an independent being? By creating her from Adam, God made her an integral part of Adam whether or not it pleased her.

When Eve awoke for the first time, here was this farmer looking at her. I wonder what she thought? Since she had no experience, she probably accepted her relationship to Adam as a matter of course, and also the names he gave her.

Eve's sisters, 6,000 years later, have a choice in the matter. They can become one flesh with some very imperfect male, or they can become an attorney.

Why would any woman want to marry a man? Certainly not to become his helper. I think in our culture the woman expects the man to be such a source of strength that no matter how she behaves he will be kind and gentle. Is this often the case?

When men are tired and battered by life they have a difficult time being kind and gentle. Actually, this is a time when both the man and the woman have to pray together for strength to remain kind and loving.

And I think this is why the sacrament of marriage is in such turmoil in America. The woman does not understand her biblical role. For that matter, neither does the man understand her biblical role, or his either, as far as I can tell. It seems, at least in America, that the delusion of romance has confused the relationships involved in marriage until people enter into marriage for no reason other than that it feels good.

Of course, there are numerous exceptions to this.

But I truly believe the concept of a woman being a man's provider of support is not as popular as the Scriptures recommend.

As to God's reason for creating the woman from the man, and not from the dust as an independent creature, I think it has to do with the Lamb and His Wife.

We are married to the Lamb by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. As we keep opening our personality to Him, Christ dines with us, giving us His blood to drink and His body to eat. He dines on our obedience and adoration.

We learn to live by Him as He lives by the Father. He becomes our life.

We are being created from Him, an integral part of Him, just as Eve was Adam in another body.

When the Lord returns, those who live by His body and blood will rise to be joined with the slain Lamb. Then He will be complete.

Adam was complete once Eve was created. Eve was necessary if Adam was to fulfill his position as the image of God.

God called their name, Adam.

What will God call us, once we are perfectly one with Christ?

Probably we will have a new name. So will Jesus Himself! Marvelous beyond all marvels!

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18)

She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:12)