Category: Marriage

Abraham and Hagar

What was the point of concubines? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Our next look will be further ahead at the life of Abraham as we study what the Bible says about marriage. Abraham is told by God that he will have a son through him he will bless the world. I had a pastor once who said you can picture Abraham going home that evening, turning on some Barry Manilow, and telling Sarah that they had to do their part in faithfulness to the promise of God.

Yet despite whatever might have happened, that promise didn’t seem to be being fulfilled. So Sarah decided she needed to help God fulfill the promise. Isn’t that nice of her? Technically, God had said Abraham would have a child. That doesn’t have to be through Sarah. Here. Take my concubine Abraham and have your way with her and let the promise come through her.

Now in the biblical account, this doesn’t end well. Some people claim that Ishmael’s descendants became the Arabs and that led to Islam, but I don’t know if we have any hard data on that one so I won’t accept it now, but there was still enmity many times between the Ishmaelites and the Israelites. The home life at the start was also disrupted as Ishmael was hardly friendly to Isaac.

But why would God allow concubines?

Something we see in Scripture is that people fell and they fell and often seemed to hit rock bottom immediately. God is a gentle teacher and sees that they are progressing so He allows certain borderline practices that He does not consider ideal as they go on their journey. I consider Israelite slavery to be better than the surrounding nations, but still a practice God tolerated but never considered ideal.

We also need to keep in mind that in those days, infant mortality was high. Not only could children die at a young age, before the advent of better medicine, but mothers could also often die in childbirth. That can still happen today, but normally, expectant mothers don’t worry that they will die in the delivery room as they are giving birth.

In those cases, it was often thought that this was a way of keeping the wife alive and increasing the number of children that could come about. Later in the history of Judah, we will see, for example, that Joash is given two wives when he becomes king, which makes sense since most of the Davidic line had been wiped out by his grandmother, even if it wasn’t ideal.

Does this constitute a change in marriage? No. You still have the man-woman unit being central. What we do see is the numerous problems that develop. Fortunately for Hagar, Sarah’s concubine, the story works out for her. After all, she is the innocent party and was just doing what she had been told, although there was the exception of her possibly being rude to Sarah. God indeed blesses her and she is actually the first person in Scripture to see the angel of the Lord specifically.

Concubines will show up later throughout the text, but there is no need to discuss their role further, though we will mention at times when they show up.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The First Polygamist

When did someone try to have a different relationship? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Genesis, we have the fall of man and then when Adam and Eve are forced out of the garden, then we have Cain and Abel come along who are brothers, the children of Adam and Eve. The next thing we know, Cain has killed his brother.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Then the next thing we have happen is we get introduced to one of his descendants, Lamech. Lamech has this idea that “Hey. Why should I be limited to one woman? Why not go and have two women instead?”

Lamech is also seen as a prideful man seeing as he kills someone for insulting him and says “If Cain gets avenged, I should get avenged even more.” It’s not a shock that a man who thinks he can take two women when no one else has decides to think this way. However, this is the first case of polygamy in Scripture, so we need to talk about it.

First, does this constitute a change in marriage? No. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman based on a covenant. This just has it go to two people at the same time. If any change has done, it is the removal of exclusivity. When we get to Jesus in the New Testament being asked about divorce, we will find he has words to say even about polygamy without explicitly mentioning it.

Second, Moses, or whoever wrote Genesis, wants us to know about this. Something that we will see as we go through the Bible is that when men marry multiple wives, there usually is chaos to some extent in the family. We don’t know much about the family of Lamech, but what we do know is not really ideal.

A brief word needs to be said about polygamy. I would not be surprised if this came to America again soon, at least in Utah, as Mormons could see the way the LGBTQ crowd has attempted to change reality and then say “Well, we need to bring back polygamy.” I’m sure a number of guys might be interested in this, although most guys are getting used to getting the “benefits” of marriage in their eyes, without actually having to make a commitment to someone.

The main argument Jesus makes really in the New Testament is that when male and female come together, then the union is complete. There’s no need to expand beyond that. For the most part, polygamy is a way of saying that one woman is insufficient. It’s the same reason that a man watching pornography can be greatly hurtful to his wife.

As we go through Scripture, we will see a number of polygamous relationships. When we get to the New Testament, this is largely gone and we get to 1 Timothy 3 which I am inclined to say means that if an elder is married, he must be married to one woman only. However, as we go through the Old Testament, I hope we will see why the Jews abandoned this practice.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Adam’s punishment

What does Adam get? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Adam really should have been the man. Instead, he was the wimp. He stood by and let some serpent sweet talk his wife into doing something really foolish and now all of us are paying for it. Eve’s punishment is said in a few sentences. Adam’s is much longer.

I hold that before the fall, man’s joy was his work and his work was his joy. The garden was easy to tend to and Adam did not have to work. Now, he would. Men do like to be providers for their families, but they would love it if they had a way they could avoid that.

If I could stay home and play video games all day, I would enjoy that. If many guys could watch football all day, they would enjoy that. If they could stay home and watch Netflix all day, they would enjoy that. By the way, it’s worth noting that an idol is always what someone else is fixated on. What you are interested in is hardly ever an idol.

Not so for man now. Now man will really have to work hard to get what he wants. The very ground will be his own enemy as he tries to get food as now, it will produce growth that is contrary to his wishes. Man had been given a rather simple task to tend a garden and since it was watered by a mist from the ground, it looks like God was doing a lot of the work.

Man could not keep that garden so God will expel him and make him realize what he lost. He will have to tend a garden that will not be as friendly towards him as the original one was. Man’s work will be a labor, it will be a chore, and if you have ever said that you hate your job, it is because Adam fell that you have to do work that you hate.

A true paradise state though is coming where man will once again enjoy his work. Believe it or not, there will be work to do when we get to eternity, but we will enjoy it. God doesn’t save us just so we can sit on clouds all day playing harps. Most of us would absolutely be convinced we had made it to the other place if that was our future.

After this, we also see shame in the garden. Clothes are made for man and woman at that point. It’s often pointed out that this means death as well. The text refers to skins being used and that means that some animals had to die in order for Adam and Eve to have clothing.

Man is also prevented from eating of the tree of life. Now I personally don’t think man was created immortal. After all, if that was the case, there would be no point to the tree of life, but I think the potential was there since I hypothesize the tree could have kept man alive forever. Now, that is gone. Man has no access to that tree anymore.

As we continue our study of marriage, we will see that the fall indeed has consequences. Relationships have suffered. They will keep suffering until the return of the Lord. Our study will see just how.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Eve’s Punishment

What did Eve get? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So Eve has taken of the fruit and ate and so has Adam. The serpent receives the first sentence, but we’re not going to look at that except for one part relevant to the woman. We are told that her seed will crush the seed of the serpent. Now some look at this and say that this is a proto-evangelium of the virgin birth (Which I do affirm). After all, women don’t have seed. Right?

Not so fast. Hagar is said to have seed in Genesis 16:10. Rebekkah is said to have seed in 24:60. The term refers to offspring in Genesis many times, although it can certainly refer to seed as in plant life. Now while I do affirm the virgin birth, this passage could be evidence of it, but the term seed of woman, does not necessitate it. Not only that, if we take the serpent to be the devil, do we really want to say that the devil has seed like that?

However, let’s look at the punishment now of the woman. The first punishment she gets is that her pain in childbirth will not just be increased, but it will be multiplied. I leave it to the readers to debate the nature of pain before the fall. For my view of the garden, this isn’t a problem. I fully accept the universe was not created perfect for God knew we would fall.

However, some think that this refers not just to physical pain in giving birth, but also to the pain of having to raise a child. How many times do you hear parents talk about how exhausting it is to raise children? If you are a parent, you’ve probably said it yourself. Would we have this problem if we lived in a sin-free world? You would not have to discipline children or teach them to be good. You would not have to protect them from evil people who wish them harm.

Children are also something that is usually most precious to a woman. Generally, if you ever want to see a woman get angry, go after her children. Mama bear will come out normally and it will not be a pretty sight. Of course, I know not all mothers are like this, but many are.

Today, the feminist movement really embodies the second part. The husband will rule over the wife. In the fall, Eve took the lead and gave to her husband. Now in reply, she will be the one who submits to him. It as if saying “You failed at leadership. Now he will lead.”

Now I do believe headship was already there, but this is just a way of saying that the desire will be frustrated. Today, feminists many times want to rule over and control men. Submission is thought to be a dirty word and the way it is used by too many Christian men today, rightfully so. Hint guys: If you have to use the word submission, odds are you’re probably not leading your family right anyway.

Eve has it rough, but as we shall see, Adam has a greater sentence. After all, he should have stood up to the serpent and yet he did nothing. He sat by silently. What does he get? We’ll see that next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Adam’s Laziness

Why is Adam sitting on the sidelines? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Genesis 3, the serpent comes to Eve and tries to get her to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve is regularly said to get the commandment from God wrong as God never said to not touch the fruit. For all we know, they could take the fruit from the tree and juggle them if they wanted to, just as long as they didn’t eat from it. I suspect what really happened is that Adam told her to not touch it just to make doubly sure she didn’t go near it.

Unfortunately, that advice worked against him.

The serpent calls into question what God has said. In the book, Struck Down But Not Destroyed, which is an excellent book on dealing with anxiety, the author says the root of sin is ultimately distrust. Here, the serpent tries to get Eve to distrust in what God has said.

The sad reality is that he succeeds. I suspect once Eve touched the fruit and saw that nothing happened, it was an easy step for her to eat the fruit from that tree. At that point, we have the first sin that is committed by a human as she eats of the fruit. Then, she takes some and gives it to her husband who is with her.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Did the text say that Adam was there with her?

It’s hard to avoid that conclusion after all. The text says that her husband was with her. Earlier I wrote about the loneliness of Adam. Today, we are looking at the laziness of Adam.

Adam was apparently sitting here the whole time watching what was going on and listening and what do you see him saying or doing? Nothing. Do we see him standing up to the serpent and telling him to leave his wife alone? Not a bit. He is entirely passive in the whole exchange.

Adam was put in the garden to tend to it and care for it and we can presume the same was given to him when he was given a wife. Do we see him doing that? No. Perhaps we are wrong in thinking the first sin was the taking of the forbidden fruit. Perhaps the first sin was really Adam being a passive wimp.

Some people have suspected that Adam knew that his wife had messed up and he took the fruit because he knew that she would likely be banished from the garden and he chose to be with her. That could be and I am entirely open to it. However, he could have avoided that if he had just stood up at the very beginning.

Today, we who are men also need to stand up for our wives and families. If we are single, we need to stand up for the women around us. We’ve already seen an example of what happens if we don’t do that. The whole world goes wrong at that point. Perhaps every time we stand up for what is right, we are putting the world right again.

So let’s put it right again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

No Shame

Is nudity shameful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Genesis goes on to tell us that the man and woman were both naked and unashamed. Why would this need to be said? Because Moses knew about his own time, (Presuming he wrote this which is secondary to the point anyway) and he knew that there was shame in his day.

That shame has extended to our day. Why is it this way? Is the body something we ought to be ashamed of to hide before everyone else?

Genesis ends with a favorite verse that says “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” Indeed. Unfortunately, what God intended for good, the human body, is often used for evil.

Of course, you could ask why that would be the case today. Why would people be concerned about how their bodies look? Do people still think that way?

Hey. Have you seen that show with all the hot females in skimpy clothing?

Odds are, you might have thought, “Which one?”

That’s the problem.

I want to focus on women first because most women I know tend to have this problem. When I hear news stories about concerns about people struggling with image due to Instagram or Facebook, it’s teenage girls. They look at all the other girls around them and they think they don’t measure up.

These women tend to shame themselves with their bodies. They might think there is always someone prettier out there. The truth is in some aspects, someone will always be better at you in something out there. No human today is a master of everything.

However, the #1 person to compete against is really yourself. Are you doing enough to make yourself a better person today? Not just a physically beautiful person, but an internally beautiful person. That is the most important beauty.

And ladies, if you are married, you no longer have to compete. Your husband already chose you. If he tells you he thinks you’re beautiful, believe him.

Of course, there is that one exception.

Guys. Stop watching porn, especially if you’re already married. Whether you mean it or not, you are telling your wife that she is inadequate. Yes, women. In that case, I fully understand you distrusting your husbands. Their actions and their words are not lining up.

Some women unfortunately go the other way. They go all out freely offering their bodies to most anyone who comes along. The idea of nudity is really saying how much you trust someone. The problem is people are saying “I trust you totally with my body, but I don’t trust you totally with a lifelong commitment.” It’s a way of being used.

When a man and a woman come together in matrimony and are engaged in sex, what they are saying is they alone are the ones who trust each other entirely with their bodies. Marriage is the place for that total trust and commitment. Marriage is where that promise has already been made and then the action of sex lines up with that promise. It is a way of saying that here there is no shame.

It is a recreation of Paradise. When you have covenant love fully going on, you are to have Paradise. In this way, some secular artists do have it right. Intimate love is often compared to Heaven and Paradise. They’re right in that this is a microcosm of what God has for us. They’re wrong in thinking that this is indeed Heaven and Paradise. The finger is great to point at the moon, but it is horrible to mistake the finger for the moon.

Now on to men.

Yes. Men themselves struggle with this. I have had my own difficulties. I weigh just a little under 130 and I am 5’7″. Technically, I am underweight, but I am incapable of gaining weight too much due to the steel rod on my spine being designed for a certain weight.

I well remember as a man in my 20’s working at a grocery store in the back room on break and seated with the girls and here them talk about some guy going by and one of them jumping up to pursue him because “You’re so hot.”

Yeah. I’m just some guy in the room.

Guys worry that they don’t compete with other guys as well. Maybe not as much as women do, but that is there. Men have a tendency to want to one-up one another in anything. It might be the stupidest kind of contest ever, but we want to be #1.

Years ago I remember working at the Christian Research Institute and sitting in the break room with some of the guys there and we were talking about painful physical experiences in our lives. Slowly, I noticed that after one of us told our story, another guy had to come and say “This is my story.” We weren’t just sharing stories. It was along the lines of, “You think you went through a lot? Let me tell you what I went through!” It was as if the bigger man had the bigger story.

By the way, I think I won when I brought up my back surgery.

When I was married, I remember going to the Titanic museum in Pigeon Forge with my ex-wife. There, you could stick your arm in water that was the temperature that the water was around the iceberg when it was hit by the Titanic. I thought I would roll up my sleeve and show her what a man I was by putting my arm in there as long as I could.

I think I lasted about a minute.

So yes, guys do have those insecurities, but I noticed when I was married, I had none of that around my ex-wife. In my mind, I was already accepted. Why hide? Not all guys are like that. Insecurity is real.

Shame has distorted what God meant for good.

We somehow think if our bodies are less in some way, we are less in some way.

Our values are not determined by if we have a super hourglass figure or how tall we are or if we have six-pack abs or how much we weigh on a scale. These can matter to some extent, as we should try to be healthy, but they don’t determine our value. Our value is found in being in the image of God.

Every marriage is meant to be a microcosm of the love of God and man together. This includes even a secular marriage. Just because it wasn’t done in a church doesn’t mean it’s not something from God.

We are to have no shame before God. We are to have no shame before our spouses. Treating the body like it’s just something common and anyone can see is a false view as not everyone is worthy of that covenant relationship. Marriage is a way of saying one person is.

Treat your body well. Respect it, and save it for someone who is worthy of it. You are worth that too.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

One Flesh

What does it mean to be one flesh? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

At this point in the Genesis narrative, we are told once Adam and Eve meet that for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. For us, we think, “Yes. A boy meets a girl, falls in love, leaves his parents’ house and marries her.” In the world of the Bible, it would be much deeper than that.

Family structures run deeper than we imagine. This was saying that the husband and wife would really become a whole new family unit in a sense. The main bond would no longer be between the man and his original family, but between the man and his new wife.

This is also the first wedding in the Bible. It’s tempting to think that just having sex with someone makes you husband and wife, but as we go through this series on marriage in the Bible, I hope to show that that is not accurate. God is the one who marries Adam and Eve together ultimately.

But what is this one flesh?

The word is echad for one and it refers to a powerful unity, a unity that is in the nature of God in the Trinity. When we speak of the three persons as one being, we really speak of a deep and powerful inseparable connection. Such is supposed to take place between husband and wife.

Obviously, this can’t refer to just sex as if you see a husband and wife walking around, they can walk around a part. A couple doesn’t become glued to each other forever when they have sex. At the same time, this means more, but as N.T. Wright would mean, it doesn’t mean less.

For a Christian marriage, a sexual union is supposed to mirror the union that takes place everywhere else, and vice-versa. Barring any medical problems or problems of distance (Such as a husband serving overseas in the military) if the home life is good, the sex life should be good, and if the sex life is good, the home life should be good. The two build on one another.

As one recovering from a divorce, I can definitely say that the separation of the bond that is meant to be there is extremely painful. This is the one kind of relationship where you can say you gave someone everything you had in a covenant promise and they rejected it. It is such a great sting that it cannot compare to any other kind. You never really realize that until it happens to you.

I used to say that I would rather lose my library than to lose my wife, and I meant it. It has been more painful by far. I could easily go out there and earn any number of books all over again. I cannot do that in the area of another human being. You do not truly replace a spouse you lost. Persons are not interchangeable for the most part. You just go out and try to find someone new, but that wound is still there. Just today I had a message from someone who remarried over a decade after his divorce and yet had a hard time with trust still.

However, the bodily union is powerful, and it’s supposed to be. We are not Gnostics. We are embodied creatures and God made us that way and He made the sexual union the way that it is as well. Those who have experienced it do know that there is indeed something extremely connecting about it. It didn’t take me long to find this out in my experience.

God blesses the couple in this. He wants them to be fruitful and multiply as was said in Genesis 1. (Which some guys I know have said is the best commandment God ever gave man.) It’s not something dirty. It’s something sacred God made.

But there’s another part to this passage isn’t there? Yes. We will cover that when we continue.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Eve’s Beauty

What makes a woman beautiful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Adam is alone and God decides to give a companion for him. He takes a rib from Adam’s body and when Adam wakes up, out comes Eve to him. We also know that she was naked as the text says they both were and had no shame. Adam sees Eve and says “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.”

Now I don’t know Hebrew, but I know people who do, and I have been told that a direct Hebrew way of understanding what Adam said there is “YOWZA!”

Adam was impressed.

Now I’m going to look at the whole one flesh statement another time, but it deserves something on its own so today, I just want to focus on Eve. Who was she?

Now when I was growing up, Eve was one part of the Bible that I sometimes wished had been illustrated. Just think about it. A woman that God Himself hand-crafted. What a looker she must have been! She must have been a total beauty queen! Every man would be thrilled to see her. Helen of Troy has nothing on her!

Now, I’m not so sure of that.

Let’s consider that we have three races. Now usually, if a girl buys a baby doll at a store, she will buy a doll from her own race. After all, that’s the kind of kid she’s likely to have someday. Many people do often desire someone of their own race. Not all do, but we all have our preferences.

Some guys like girls that are slim. Some like girls that are heavier. Some like a certain hair color. We could go on and on and since this is a blog I would hope a family could read, I don’t want to go too far down this road.

So let’s talk about Eve. What do we not know first off? Well, I’m going to have to use modern standards, but there are several things we don’t know.

We don’t know her height.

We don’t know her weight.

We don’t know her race.

We don’t know her hair or eye color.

We don’t know how long her legs were.

We don’t know what her bra size would have been.

We don’t know what her voice sounded like.

We don’t know about her complexion.

And there’s no universal idea of what a woman should look like here so it could be some guys today would see Eve and think she’s no big deal. Others would and be going internally crazy at the sight of her. Some guys have a wife they gush on and on about her beauty and their friends just don’t see it, but that guy sure does.

Here’s the important fact. Adam thought she was beautiful.

That’s all that matters.

And thank God then we don’t have a description of Eve. Can you imagine if we knew Eve was a brunette for example? Every woman who was a blond could think there was something wrong with her and she wasn’t the ideal woman. Every woman who had a different bra size or legs of a different length or was of a different race could feel like they have to compare themselves and many a man would compare his wife to Eve.

Without knowing what she looked like, no comparisons can truly be made.

And you know why that is?

Because every woman is truly meant to be Eve.

Eve is the pinnacle of God’s creation. If I have a daughter in the future, I want to name her some variation of Eve, like maybe Eva. Why is that? Because I want her to know that she is a representation of God’s beauty on this Earth. Woman in the account is the last created and I think the jewel of creation. Certainly in beauty. Nothing on Earth compares in beauty to the beauty of a woman.

All women somewhere in them have that beauty. All are to be treasured somewhere. That beauty should also be sacred and not shared cheaply. Sadly, too many women are doing that today. This is especially so in the porn industry where a man can see a woman’s body without having to make any real effort to be a man.

A woman does not have to compare herself to Eve, but she is still meant to be Eve. She is meant to represent the beauty of God on this Earth. As a man, I am amazed at the handiwork of God when I see a beautiful woman. It boggles my mind how many women don’t see just how beautiful they are in the eyes of their husbands. They live their lives in shame of their bodies and we are sitting back thinking “What the heck are you thinking?”

Ladies. Every time your husband compliments you physically and you argue against it, in some way, you are calling your husband a liar.

Adam saw Eve and he was pleased. The two became one flesh.

This we shall talk about another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Adam’s Loneliness

Why was Adam lonely? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the things often told to a divorced person is to find their joy in God, and that’s true, but that often treats it like God is the only aspect of the world to enjoy and if you have Him, that’s enough. If so, one has to ask why He gives us so many other things? Why does the text in 1 Timothy 6:17 say that He gives us all things richly for our enjoyment.

Maybe, just maybe, God wants us to enjoy other things besides just Him.

In Genesis 2, man is put in the garden to tend and care for it. All the animals are brought to him for him to name. This is showing that man has a place of authority. Whatever he calls that creature, that is what its name is. Even God goes along with this. There’s no indication of God ever saying “No Adam. I want that creature to be called a lion.”

Yet here we have a virtual paradise of sorts with no sin in it and yet we are told something is wrong. We are told that man is not alone. It is not good for the man to be alone either.

Wait a second. How can man be alone? Man was just put in a garden where every creature came to him and he got to name him. Don’t we all love having animal companions either way? I know I refer to my cat in here as one of my best friends. Dogs are normally referred to by that title, but I prefer my little kitty.

Not only that. Man has God. Didn’t Paul say that a man who is married worries about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife? Surely when it is just man and God, God will keep it that way.

Well, it would be kind of hard for the species to move further that way. However, there are some interpretations that say Adam and Eve were put in the garden as representatives for other people who were out there. Even if this is a correct interpretation, man is still alone and it is not good.

The idea is that man is incomplete at this point. Man needs someone else there to complete him. He needs to be fulfilled. Speaking as a person who is divorced, I can tell you this resonates with me.

Many times when I am at home, for the most part, I can be fine. I have enough that I can do. However, take me to work and get me doing something I don’t like and I am very miserable. I have nothing to distract me and being surrounded by people is incredibly lonely.

Crowds can be one of the loneliest places to be.

Why? Because you see people all around you going about their lives and you don’t think any of them really care about you. When I am at home, I do have my family who cares about me and my cat, but I also can easily jump on the internet and find people who know me and care about me. I can call a friend and talk about my troubles if need be. I am not alone.

When I go to bed at night, I am also alone. Shiro doesn’t usually like to sleep on me and if he tries to get on top of me as I sleep, well I just can’t sleep that way and you can’t really explain that to a cat. I used to sleep next to someone and wake up next to someone, but not now. That is painful.

Does this mean God is insufficient? No, but there are some types of companionship God cannot provide based on who He is. I remember getting together with friends to play video games together. God doesn’t do that with me. You don’t go out to eat with God. You don’t kiss God or have physical intimacy with Him either or sleep next to Him at night.

I think God recognizes different kinds of companionship. He did not make us to be isolated beings. He made us to be creatures who tend to be social. Some are more so than others, but all of us to some extent need other people.

If there was anyone who it could have ever been said did not need anyone like that, two people come to mind. Those are Adam and Jesus. Adam had no sin and all the animals and God and still that scenario was not good for man was alone. Jesus meanwhile was the perfect Son of God living on Earth and yet He had His family and His friends with Him.

I’m thankful this text is here. It tells me God understands my own desires. I don’t want to be without a special companion in life. God hears that. As I thought about this today, God says He clothes the flowers in the field and He feeds the birds.

He also does bring companions into the lives of animals.

Maybe I have met that companion and I’m just waiting for a relationship to blossom. Maybe I will meet her in the future. I do not know, but I am trying to trust that my God knows the desires of my heart and if it is a good desire that He will provide for it. I pray that He does.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Genesis 1 and Opposites

What are male and female in Genesis 1? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Some people now are asking about my view of divorce and remarriage in the Bible. In order to explain that, I think we also have to look at marriage in the Bible. What is it and what is it for? For that, let’s just start at the very beginning with Genesis 1.

If you’re wondering here whether we’re going to discuss the age of the Earth or if evolution was a part of the plan, you’re going to be disappointed. Whichever the true view is in this, I fear that too often we get caught up in the hows instead of the why and read Genesis in a way it wasn’t meant to be read. It’s my hope that whatever view you take on the how of creation, my look at the why will be able to resonate with you.

Something you notice in Genesis 1 is that there are opposites and these opposites are usually separated. Light and darkness and different waters are opposite. Those things which are opposed are divided.

This seems to happen fairly consistently even if the word divided or separated isn’t used. There is one great exception. This is when man and woman are created and these are not separated.

Man and woman are when the text turns truly poetic as this is the peak of the creation of God. Now I am sure some people who are not Christians are saying “Well here is where Genesis 1 and 2 contradict since in 1 they are created together and in 2 at different times!” I hear that, but that is not going to be my focus today.

Now in my view of this, humanity is created in the image of God in that they are meant to be the idol of God, which will represent God in the temple He has built, which is the entire cosmos. Man is meant to rule over the creation on behalf of God. We are to be the stewards making sure everything is kept in good order.

Yet here, you have two that can be considered opposites, but there is no separation mentioned. These two are to work together. God could have created one gender if He wanted to, but He didn’t. He made two and He made them to work together.

Also note something for those who think the Bible is misogynistic. In this passage, men and women are both in the image of God. There is no distinction in this. Man is not made largely in the image and woman has a pale reflection of that. Both of them are in the image of God. It’s really hard to think of a higher way to lift up women than to say they are fully in the image of God.

This also helps explain how we can all be equally human. If you were to point to our genetics and say that based on that we’re all equally human, well aside from identical twins, we have different genes. Our bodies are designed differently. Our brains can work differently. Even within the same sex, there are vast differences between us.

So what do we all have equally? The image of God. We all carry that. Every man is to treat his neighbor well because his neighbor is a fellow image-bearer.

Next time we do this, we’ll look some at Genesis 2 where we will interact more with the idea of male and female and how they come together. I also have some specific thoughts on female beauty in Genesis 2 that may surprise some of you. I know I got surprised with my final conclusion when I took a deeper look at that topic, but that is for another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)