Dad, Jill, and Grandma

In western civilization, men tend to be analytic, problem-solving thinkers, while women tend to focus more on relationships and on the feelings of others. Of course this is a generalization with many exceptions—women do solve problems and men do care about relationships and feelings. (And don’t expect me to enter the nature v. nurture debate on this topic.) Given the standard qualifications and disclaimers, the tendency remains.

When Jill tells her father about trouble she is having with friends at school, Dad’s inner tendency is to suggest some solutions to those problems. If he is wise, Dad will keep those solutions to himself. Jill didn’t approach Dad seeking solutions. She wants two ears and a shoulder. If Dad can be supportive of her feelings and understanding about her situation, Jill will receive what she wants and needs. If Dad cannot help but blurt out, “Have you tried this?” he may lose future opportunities to know what is happening in Jill’s personal life.

As always, though, Dad has to perceive when he should act like a typical man and when he should keep his solutions to himself. Jill spends Saturday night at a friend’s house and goes to church with that friend Sunday morning. Jill’s grandmother has agreed to pick up Jill at the friend’s church and bring Jill home at half-past-noon. At 12:50, Dad’s phone rings. Jill gave Grandma the street address of the church (not the name), and Grandma’s GPS says that address does not exist. Grandma has driven up and down the street several times, and she has seen nothing that even looks like a church. She has phoned Jill, but Jill is not answering her phone.

Grandma does not want a sympathetic ear at this moment. She calls Dad looking for a solution. Provided Grandma is not panicking (and she is not), Dad does not care how Grandma feels. All his attention is focused on solving the problem.

Grandma has only a GPS, but Dad has access to Google. He types in the name of the street and adds “church.” He learns that there are three churches on that street. He lists them to Grandma with the street numbers, and the third one matches the number Jill had said to Grandma. Dad is able to click on a picture of the church at that address and describe the building to Grandma. It’s a storefront church in a strip of stores set back from the road. Dad describes the building next door which is closer to the road and easy to spot. Grandma is able to find the church and find Jill, thanks to Dad’s help.

(Fortunately, the church service was longer than expected. Jill has not been sitting outside waiting for Grandma to arrive.)

In western civilization, men have to use their best judgment when to find a solution and when to just listen. Sometimes women say of the men in their lives, “He never even listens to me.” He’s listening, I assure you, but part of his mind is processing the information you are giving him and looking for solutions. He does that because he loves you, and because he’s a normal man. Give him credit for that. J.

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Christ in Genesis: In the Garden

In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates everything in the universe by the power of his Word. In the second chapter of Genesis, God gets himself dirty, interacting directly with the materials he had created. Critics have noticed this and other differences between the two chapters and have suggested that the accounts contradict each other. Conspiracy theorists have said that the two accounts developed in different parts of Israel and were stuck together by an editor long after the time of Moses. The presence of Christ in Genesis provides a more satisfying explanation for the differences between these chapters.

Chapter one describes the Creator as God (Elohim). God creates the world by speaking; creation is accomplished through his Word and for his Word. Chapter two describes the Creator as the LORD God (Yahweh Elohim). The personal name of God indicates his personal involvement in creation. When God is this personally active in the world, we can be sure that Christ is at work. While the Father speaks, the Son gets dirty fulfilling his Father’s will. This happens again in the Incarnation of Christ, when he is born and placed in a manger and spends more than thirty years among sinners, including some who reject him and execute him.

The order of creation appears to vary between the chapters. Chapter one presents a clear order of events, organized over six days. Plants were created on the third day, and land animals–including the first man and the first woman–were created on the sixth day. But in chapter two, the order of creation appears to be the man first, then plants, then animals, and finally the woman. The plants that are mentioned, though, are specifically garden plants. God created a garden after making the first man; he had already created vegetation earlier. Mention of the animals after the creation of the man but before the creation of the woman does not mean that God created in that order. The Hebrew language has only two tenses and uses them in various ways. The best translation of verse 19 is that the LORD God “had formed” the animals before making the man, and that after the man was formed and the garden planted, the LORD God brought the animals to the man.

Genesis 1:24 quotes God as saying, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” Christ, the Word of God, responds by forming animals from the earth, as described in Genesis 2:19. Then he formed the body of Adam. I suggested earlier that the body of Christ as experienced in Genesis is the same body that was born in Bethlehem, that walked the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea, that was beaten, crucified, and buried, that rose on the third day and later ascended to fill the universe in both space and time. If I am correct about that body, then the hands which shaped the body of Adam were already scarred from the nails that held him to the cross.

After forming Adam from the earth, God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The same Hebrew word (ruach) can mean breath, wind, or spirit. Frequently the Bible makes use of this pun, as on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit announces his presence with the sound of a rushing wind. At the beginning of creation the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Here he is mentioned again as the instrument by which Adam receives life.

God brought every animal to Adam so that Adam would name them. To assign a name is to exercise authority. As in chapter one, authority to care for the planet and for its living beings is assigned to humanity. God had a second purpose for bringing the animals to Adam. He was preparing Adam for a special companion by first giving him the desire for a teammate with whom he could share his world and his authority.

“It is not good for the man to be alone,” God said. Does God know how it feels to be alone? Outside of space and time, God is eternally three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In a sense, then, God has never been alone–except for one occasion when the Son of God was truly alone. Hanging on the cross, atoning for the sins of the world, Jesus was forsaken by his Father. For a few hours, the Son of God was truly alone.

Jesus endured the torture of the cross, including the rejection of his Father, to redeem his people. He paid in full for the sins of the world so he could build a Church and claim a Bride. Paul wrote that every marriage is a picture of Christ and his Church. This surely must be true of the first marriage. To provide a bride for Adam, God had Adam fall into a deep sleep. To claim his Bride, Jesus fell into the sleep of death. After Jesus had died, a soldier prodded him with a spear, opening a wound in his side from which blood and water flowed. Medically this certifies that Jesus truly had died, since fluid had accumulated in his chest around his heart and lungs. In matters of faith, it also pictures the Bride of Christ, the Church, coming from the crucified Savior–water reminding us of Baptism and blood reminding us of the Lord’s Supper, both important events in the life of the Church. And both Adam’s sleep and Christ’s sleep happened on a Friday, the sixth day of the week.

Eve was taken from Adam’s side. Someone has said (It’s attributed to various people.) that she was not taken from Adam’s head to rule him, nor from his foot to be trampled by him, but from his side to be next to him, from under his arm to be protected by him, and  from near his heart to be loved by him. They were a team, both created in the image of God, both given authority over the planet and its living beings.

All this happened in a garden. The theme of gardens and wilderness runs through the Bible. Israel was promised a land flowing with milk and honey; but before they arrived in the Promised Land, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus battled temptation in the wilderness. He was arrested in a garden and forced out of the garden, as Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden after their sin. Yet when he had won the war against evil, he was buried in a garden. In that garden, the news of his resurrection was first announced. The last two chapters of the Bible (Revelation 21-22) describe the new creation which will be our home after Jesus reveals his glory and announces his judgment. That description of the new creation signifies that our home, once again, will be a garden.

Love her. Submit unto him.

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul uses these words to introduce his instructions to husbands and wives, to children and parents, and to workers and supervisors. Like Confucius, Paul taught that one must know who one is in relation to others to be sure of what one ought to be doing. Ever since Paul wrote these words, people have been pulling bits of them out of the larger context and using them to try to control each other.

Men and women are different. The difference can be seen microscopically (the difference between X and Y chromosomes) or by studying the entire package. Some differences may be culturally induced (nurture rather than nature), but that does not make them wrong. Whether one attributes the differences between men and women to a wise Creator (as I do) or explains them as “survival of the fittest,” the differences between men and women help to form stronger families, stronger communities, stronger nations, and a better world.

Paul tells men to love their wives with a sacrificial, Christ-like love. This theme diverts Paul into the mystery of Christ and the Church, in which every marriage of a man and a woman becomes a picture or analogy of Christ and the Church. Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” Since he has already told all Christians to submit to one another, it seems odd that he would reiterate that instruction to the wives.

To submit is not to be inferior. Jesus Christ submits to God the Father even though they are equal in power, in wisdom, in glory, and in every other way. To submit is not to be a willing victim to sinful behavior. Christians are told to exhort one another to good works. We are told to remove the logs from our eyes so we can see clearly to remove the specks from our brothers’ eyes. When Eve was created, she was to be a teammate of Adam. (Four hundred years ago the translators working for King James I of England chose the term “helpmate.” More recent translations have shortened the word to “helper,” but “teammate” is more accurate.) They were to work together in their assigned jobs: to care for the Garden, to rule over the land animals and flying animals, and to be fruitful and multiply.

All Christians should love each other and submit to one another. I speculate that Paul told husbands to love their wives because the masculine gender is more likely to stray from their proper mates. Men are more easily tempted to be unfaithful; women are more likely to stay and nurture their families. (These are generalities—of course many exceptions can be found.) Paul stresses that husbands should love their wives because strong love will keep a husband faithful to his wife.

In the same way, I speculate that Paul told wives to submit to their husbands because, as love seems more natural to women than to men, their desire to nurture can be changed into a desire to control. Sometimes men find it easier to let the women in their lives control them than to claim leadership in their families. Men joke about being tied to apron strings and about the old ball and chain. Men notice that the love of their wives can be expressed as controlling rather than as submitting.

Husbands are to focus their effort on loving their wives. Wives are to focus their effort on submitting to their husbands. Husbands and wives both should love each other and submit to one another. Paul does not address the matter of who goes first. A husband is not permitted to say, “I’ll start loving her when she shows she has submitted to me,” and a wife is not permitted to say, “I’ll begin to submit when he shows that he loves me.” Marriages flounder over such arguments, because marriages consist of two sinful people trying to share their lives with one another. The only remedy is that greater love of which marriage is a picture. Christ’s sacrificial love removes the stain of sin, making the Church and each of its members pure and holy in the sight of God. Without that guarantee, marriage would be a burden. With the forgiveness of God generating forgiveness between wife and husband, the teamwork can be joyful. J.