Genesis 1-2: Verse by Verse With Bible Study Fellowshipنموونە

Audio Teaching

Listen to these deeper insights and practical applications from days 6-10.

The Lord God Creates Eve

Genesis 2:21-23 records how God meets Adam’s need for help, companionship and fulfillment. In equal love as for Adam but with a different method, God creates Eve:

• Personally
• Miraculously
• Intimately

Eve represents God’s love, care and purpose for humanity. The Hebrew noun, ezer (translated “helper”) is used throughout the Old Testament. This word identifies those giving vital, powerful assistance, even rescue. Often this word is used in reference to God.1

God helps Adam by providing a suitable helper. The Lord God meets Adam’s need by making Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. Adam offers his joyful response (1:23).

Eve and Adam share the same nature of body, soul and spirit.

They equally bear God’s image and breath of life.

They completely belong to God.

They are created to love and help one another as one flesh.

They share stewardship of creation as God’s vice-regents.

Creation was not complete until God created woman to steward the earth alongside the man. God designed the differences between men and women to complement one another. Male and female, individually and together, reflect the image of God.

The Lord God Creates Marriage

God's love for humanity includes His creation of marriage and family. Marriage is the foundational block of family and societal order. Every image-bearer of God is vital to creating order through family and community relationships. Therefore, unmarried people of all ages are equally important parts of God’s cultural mandate. God’s institutions bless and stabilize humanity (2:24-25).

God’s marriage covenant binds one man and one woman; they spiritually and physically become one flesh. In deep and symbolic ways, marriage illustrates the loving, enduring relationship between Christ Jesus and His bride – His people, His Church.2 God’s marriage covenant is designed to reflect this relationship in our human context.

Humanity – Creation and Purpose

We long for a sense of identity and belonging. People will look anywhere and everywhere to find meaning and purpose. Yet, why do things of the world provide only temporary distractions, not permanent satisfaction?

God created us for intimacy with Him. No higher pursuit exists than to glorify and enjoy God forever.3 When we refuse to know, trust and yield to Him, we resign ourselves to seeking fulfillment and stability in our volatile, sin-filled world. When we believe God is responsible for our existence, purpose and worth, we can blissfully rest in His tender care.

Humanity’s original union with God was lost through Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. Yet, the perfect sacrifice of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, restored our communion, peace and bliss with God.4 Jesus is the way of peace; starting with new life today, and culminating in life filled with God’s presence and every good thing for all eternity.5

Jesus Christ is “made in human likeness.”6

His earthly life and sacrificial death redeems His people.

His resurrection in His glorified physical human body attests to our dignity.

God knows everything about us. God delights in you; He wants you to increasingly know, love, trust and obey Him for abundant life. He desires intimacy and fellowship with us in every aspect of our beings:

• Physical
• Emotional
• Intellectual
• Experiential
• Spiritual

Ultimate fulfillment comes in living by faith – remaining constantly aware of God’s unfailing love and constant presence. Fellowship with God also prepares us to relate rightly with other people and to care for the world. Our stability, fulfillment and hope are found in knowing the God who knows us.

Questions

1. What similarities and differences exist between Adam and Eve and in their relationships to God
2. What are God’s purposes for marriage, and how does His design affect your life? (Refer to Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-18; Ephesians 5:21-33 for more context.)
   
   Insights: God establishes His marriage covenant as an exclusive, intimate relationship between one man and one woman. Together they are formed into one flesh. Adam and Eve’s union is the way God directs their work in His Cultural Mandate to expand the family, society, and stewardship of creation, by enjoying fellowship and support from one another (1:26-28). Ephesians 5:21-33 tells us how human marriage symbolically pictures the relationship, purpose, and work of Christ and His Bride, the Church. How these purposes affect our individual lives and communities will look different across diverse times, places, individual circumstances and cultural experiences.
3. How do these verses expand your perspectives about humanity’s creation and purpose?

Reflect

Let’s pause to reflect on what we’ve discovered to help us live purposefully for Christ, in light of the Creation story. Reflect on the Scripture, your prayers and responses to the questions raised as you studied. Here are two final questions to guide you into putting God’s truth to work in your daily life.

If you fully adopt the truth of Genesis 1 and 2, what must change in your viewpoints, priorities, actions and relationships?

What do you already know about God’s purpose for you, your work and your rest, and what questions do you still have after this ten day study?

Related Verses

1. God as helper: Psalms 54:4; 121; Isaiah 41:10; John 14:26; Philippians 4:13; Hebrews 4:16
2. God’s love: Isaiah 62:5; Ezekiel 16:1-14; Hosea 2:19-20; Ephesians 5:25-33; Revelation 21:9
3. Worship God: Matthew 22:37-38
4. Jesus our Remedy: Colossians 1:15-23
5. New heavens and new earth: Revelation 21
6. In human likeness: Philippians 2:6-8 12: Like Him: 1 John 3:2

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