Not an admin assistant!

written by Stephan Joubert

According to Genesis 2, when God made the woman it was not as an admin assistant or full-time maid for the man. To the contrary. God is on record earlier in Genesis 2, saying that his original intent was to create a helper for the man. And if I grasp the term helper correctly, it needs to be someone who can do the helping better than the person being helped! What's the point if the helper can't help? What's the use if the helper gets downgraded to a second-class person? Then God's creation intent is missed!

By creating man and woman, God says that the fullness of being human finds expression in a suitable life-partner and soul mate. When man encounters his woman in the Garden of Eden, there is heaven on earth. Subservience or role delineation is never key terms in God's earthly paradise, like some church folks still believe... Instead love, integration and caring are the key terms. It is only after sin made its unwelcome appearance that we read about male bossiness and female suffering in Genesis 3. But it was never part of God's original plan. Listen again, the dominance of the male is part of suffering and not part of the heavenly blueprint for humanity or marriage!

Thankfully, Jesus restored marriage to God's original Genesis 2 purpose as is explained in Mark 10. Jesus takes marriage back to paradise when the Pharisees confront him with various factory-faults in women, trying to justify male divorce. Indeed, he came to recreate marriage as well. That is why marriage is once again a safe space for all God's children - a space in which man and woman can serve and love each other with abandon. Paradise has reopened since the coming of Jesus!

Peace

Stephan Joubert