Episode Details

Prayer

Lord of all wisdom and grace, our Loving Heavenly Father, Thank you for the gift of women—made by your hand, in your own image. That you that you have created men and women to be equal in dignity and purpose. Please illumine the eyes of our hearts, that we may more clearly see your design and purpose for women. We pray for the women in our local churches, that you may build them up, and shine your glory through them. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reading

Genesis 2:18-25.

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19. Now out of the ground the Lord God had 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. 20. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Meditation

What does it mean to be a woman? For the better part of the last century, that question has been one of the defining debates in Western society. And looking at the ways it's been answered over the years, it's clear that this has been nothing short of a fully-fledged cultural battlefield. Whether it was the surge of women entering the workplace in the 1960s, or the debates over sexual rights and abortion in the 1970s, the question of womanhood has been at the center of social upheaval and change.

And the battle is far from over—it continues to push into new territory today. Just this past week, at the time of writing, the New South Wales Government in Australia announced that men who identify as women will now be eligible to enter the NSW Woman of the Year Award.

So again, we return to that central, unresolved question: What does it mean to be a woman? Ours is a culture full of noise, a cacophony of voices, but with no clear or coherent answer. But just as we’ve seen in our previous studies, as we’ve been exploring the purpose of masculinity, it is not the culture that we, as Christians, should be turning to for answers. Our foundation is the Word of God. And while there are many passages in Scripture that help us think through the question of womanhood, Genesis 2 is a key one among them. Because in it, we’re given the origin story of women.

Now. I’m going to say something that would probably get me lynched in some places, but it’s so obvious and clear in our text that we would be negligent not to say it: the woman was made for the man. Let’s not beat around the bush: that kind of statement is absolutely anathema in our society today. Maybe you feel that tension yourself. Maybe you don’t like that statement. Maybe you find it puzzling, or troubling. Maybe it makes you nervous. The woman was made for the man.

In spite of our reactions, whatever they might, it is right there in the text—in Genesis 2:18—where God declares that it is not good for man to be alone, and so he makes a helper suitable for him. The Apostle Paul reaffirms this in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:8–9, Paul writes: “Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”

Now, the worl