Worthy, p.4
Worthy, page 4
4. Summarize what you have learned in this chapter in two or three sentences.
DIGGING DEEPER
1. Read Genesis 1:27–28. “Man” in this passage refers to a kind of creature. Every “man,” both male and female, is created in the image of God, with the mandate to subdue and exercise dominion over the earth together.
a. What implications does this have for gender equality?
b. In what ways might our present culture (in the world, church, or home) diminish the image of God in one gender and exalt it in the other?
2. Read Genesis 2:18. The refrain “God saw that it was good” occurred seven times in Genesis 1. With those words fresh in our ears, the declaration here that “it is not good” should get our attention.
a. What does God declare “is not good?”
b. What aspects of the creation mandate (Genesis 1:26–28) are impossible if the man is alone?
c. Explain in your own words why “it is not good that the man should be alone.”
d. Read Revelation 21:1–5 and 22:1–5. Will Jesus, the last Adam, reign alone? If not, with whom will he reign?
3. God says he will “make a helper fit for him.” What terms does Genesis 1–2 use to describe the distinctive quality of man?
a. How does this inform the meaning of “fit for him”?
b. Does “helper fit for him” refer to something inferior, equal, or superior in status?
TWO
The Worth of Women in the Fall
The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.
Genesis 3:12
Take a few minutes to do a web search for Elvis Presley’s 1958 No. 1 hit “Hard Headed Woman” and listen to the song. (Seriously. Go do it. We’ll wait right here.)
Did you hear the message in those lyrics? Since the beginning of the world, the cause of all trouble is a hard-headed woman. The men were doing fine until the women showed up. The woman is a thorn in man’s side.
We don’t know where the songwriter, Claude Demetrius, learned his theology. We don’t know what Elvis thought as he crooned those words. Perhaps they read Tertullian, the Christian writer who lived in the second and third centuries, who wrote regarding women:
Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse on that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.1
Such misogynistic attitudes were commonplace in first-century Judaism as well.2 Unfortunately, as “Hard Headed Woman” illustrates, such attitudes did not remain solely in the first three centuries of Christianity.
I (Eric) have heard it taught that women are more prone to deception than men. Thus, we should not permit women to teach Scripture. Women, some Christian subcultures argue, are more emotional and less rational than men. Such beliefs cast them as unintelligent and untrustworthy interpreters of the Word: think “Ditzy Blonde.” Attitudes and policies suggest that women are, by nature, dangerous to men, that they are temptresses and seducers, waiting to do to all men what many perceive Eve did to Adam. Other attitudes suggest that women are overbearing shrews, ambitiously striving to domineer men.
Perhaps someone has made you, our female readers, feel more sinful or gullible than men. Someone has made you think that you are a particular danger to men. You believe the fault for a man’s sin is yours (for how you dress, speak, or act). You feel that your motives in interacting with men should be suspect and that you should always second-guess yourself, fearing that your desire to help is actually poorly cloaked ambition to be the boss.
Perhaps you, our male readers, have thought, implied, or stated such things about women. You’ve treated women with suspicion, avoidance, or disdain due to such ideas.
This chapter aims to state that such ideas about women are entirely false. Such treatment of women is nothing short of evil. In this chapter, we intend to see the value of women in the account of the Fall and its aftermath in the early chapters of Genesis. By correcting wrong interpretation and application, we celebrate and defend the woman’s worth. In seeing her value, we condemn her abuse.
The aim of this chapter is not to argue that women are not sinful. We are not arguing that women are inherently righteous and sinless. We are not claiming that women are less corrupt than men. They are not. Scripture is clear on this (Romans 3:10–12):
None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.
We are saying that women—as a sex—are not more sinful than men. Women are not more deceivable than men. Women are not less intelligent than men. Women are not more prone to error than men. Women are not more dangerous than men. Women are not more arrogant or domineering than men. Women are not to be viewed with more suspicion than men.
All women are born into sin, unrighteous by both nature and choice—as are all men. We have all become “worthless,” meaning that we fail to reflect the worth of God in thought, word, and deed. There are deceptive, seductive, domineering, dangerous women that men (and women) ought to avoid. There are deceptive, seductive, domineering, dangerous men that men (and women) ought to avoid. “All have turned aside,” and we confess this truth.
But the image of God remains; its worth is upheld after the Fall (see Genesis 9:5–6). The Lord shows concern for upholding the worth of all humans—men, women, and children—throughout the Bible. Sinful humans have shown the remarkable ability to mistreat other humans—men, women, and children—throughout history. No category of human is to be diminished for skin color, sex, or any other feature. So we denounce and reject any view that actively or passively diminishes the value of women. We condemn any view that actively or passively encourages the neglect and abuse of women.3
Sinful Perceptions of Women
There are three wrong perceptions about women often supported by a mishandling of Genesis 3.
Misperception One: Women are more prone to mishandle the Bible.
Let me give you an example of how I (Eric) fell into this faulty way of thinking. For years, I preached that the woman mishandled God’s Word in Genesis 3 as follows:
The woman diminished God’s generosity. God told Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the Garden.” But the woman said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.” Omitting “surely,” she diminished the generosity of God.
The woman forgot God’s provision. God put two trees in the middle of the Garden—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the woman said, “God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.’” She mentioned only one tree in the midst of the Garden; she forgot about God’s provision of the tree of life.
The woman exaggerated God’s restriction. God told Adam, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” The woman added, “neither shall you touch it.” She added to God’s prohibition, making it more restrictive.
The woman lessened the certainty of the consequence. God told Adam, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” The woman said, “lest you die.” Omitting “surely,” she made the consequence less certain.
I argued that in these four ways, the woman mishandled God’s Word. Her carelessness with the text was what made her susceptible to deception.
There are a few problems with this interpretation. If this is a mishandling of God’s Word, why assume the woman mishandled it? God gave the instruction to the man before he created the woman (Genesis 2:16). Presumably, the man passed it along to the woman at some point. How do we know it was not Adam who mishandled it and passed along this version to the woman?4
We might also ask how we know that God did not repeat the instruction to both of them with slightly different reading. In fact, the Lord gives a similar command when he drives the humans out of the Garden. “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat” (Genesis 3:22). Notice the two parts of this command—“reach out his hand and take” (touch) and “eat.” These correspond to the two halves of the prohibition the woman cites—“you shall not eat” and “neither shall you touch it.” Rather than adding to the Word, perhaps the woman rightly grasps the nature of the command (perhaps as God repeated it). Moses likely includes it in 3:3 as a literary device tying the beginning of the story together with its end. As such, it highlights their loss. They were only forbidden from eating of and touching the tree that brought death. But now they are forbidden from touching and eating of the one tree that brings eternal life. How tragic!
The Bible doesn’t say that either human mishandled the Word of God in Genesis 3. It calls Eve a “transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:14); deceived, she went beyond what was allowed. But in no place does the Bible condemn her for being a careless interpreter of God’s Word. Nor does it condemn Adam for mishandling the Word. Rather, “Adam was not deceived” (1 Timothy 2:14); he knew what God said. Adam did not get the Word wrong—he chose to disobey it! The Bible doesn’t draw attention to either person’s handling of the command.
Finally, the woman quotes the Word in the same way the New Testament quotes the Old Testament. Both Jesus and the apostles omit words and phrases, vary wording, and summarize ideas. For example, compare Jesus’ quotation of Isaiah in Luke 4:18–19 and the original in Isaiah 61:1–2. Jesus does many of the things the woman is accused of having done. For further examples, do a web search for New Testament quotations of the Old Testament. Then compare the quotation of the original passage. Biblical authors do not hold to modern quotation standards when quoting material, though they never abuse the text or misrepresent what it says. The woman’s quotation is an acceptable summary of what the Lord said to the man.5
The Bible never faults her for mishandling God’s Word. The source of her transgression wasn’t in how she quoted (or taught) God’s Word; it was her deception. (Let’s not mishandle God’s Word while accusing someone of mishandling God’s Word.)
Adam’s sin was not that he listened to the voice of a woman.6 His sin was that he listened to the voice of his wife and ate from the tree of which the Lord commanded, “You shall not eat of it.” That is, his sin was not in hearing her but in listening as she invited him to sin—and then choosing to disobey. The emphasis does not fall on listening to an embodied female but in believing and following a creature in opposition to the Word of the Creator.
Genesis 3 does not teach or illustrate that women are inherently less skilled in the Word of God. We should not think of them as such. In fact, as we will see in later chapters, God works through women who speak, teach, and equip with the Scripture.
Misperception Two: The woman tempted and seduced the man. Therefore, women are chiefly to blame for the sin of men.
Did the woman maliciously tempt the man to sin or seduce him? Did she willfully pressure him to sin?
The serpent told the woman that she wouldn’t die, but that her eyes would be opened and she would be like God. She was deceived. So “she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). We’re not told that anything happened upon her eating. It is possible that being deceived, she continues to believe there is no death to come. So “she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” This is the act of a deceived woman—possibly inclined by her “helper” nature—sharing with her husband what she (wrongly) believes to be good to eat. And notice that Adam was with her while she ate. We have no record of his trying to stop her or helping her fight Satan’s attack. They were both there together. She was deceived and ate first. He ate next in wide-eyed disobedience.
No Scripture presents the woman’s action as one of seduction or temptation. (The Scripture is not afraid to call out and name seductresses elsewhere.) Neither Genesis 3 nor the rest of Scripture put heightened blame on the woman. If anything, they land more severely on the man than on the woman.
The effect of sin comes only after the man eats (Genesis 3:6–7); “and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened.” When the Lord appears in the Garden, he questions Adam first. This is a sign of Adam’s special responsibility as head of humanity (vv. 9–11). When outlining the consequences for sin, the Lord is more severe with the man than with the woman. The Lord speaks four lines of poetry to the woman (v. 16). He speaks fourteen when addressing the man (vv. 17–19) and ten with the serpent (vv. 14–15). He uses the word curse with the serpent and the man, but not with the woman. The Lord begins his address to the serpent and the man with “because.” The man and the serpent each have done something deserving a consequence. But to the woman, he does not use “because”; he simply states what will happen to her. This gives the impression that the Lord punishes the serpent and the man for their actions in particular. But the woman is receiving the consequence as part of sin entering the world through Adam.
This is consistent with how the New Testament presents the Fall. The most said about Eve is that “the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:14). Paul makes that statement in contrast with Adam to emphasize that his wrong was more severe—“Adam was not deceived.” Keeping suit, the New Testament puts the blame on Adam as humanity’s head in covenant with God. Paul writes that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The sin of Adam (not of Eve) brought sin, judgment, and death upon everyone—even those, such as Eve, “whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam” (Romans 5:14). “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:21–22). In covenant with God, Adam represented all of humanity; when he fell into sin, his nature, guilt, and consequences became ours as well.
The woman did not cause the man to sin. Nor did she act as a temptress or seductress, the proverbial “evil woman” who “hunts down a precious life” (see Proverbs 6:24–26). Though she (wrongly) offers him the fruit, there is no indication of malicious intent; she is not enticing him in order to destroy him. Neither Moses nor the rest of Scripture paint her in any stronger term than deceived “transgressor.”
Even so, Eve has become an example and a warning about the danger women pose to men. We hear this idea in the Elvis song. We find this in some (not all) policies discouraging men and women who aren’t married to each other from working, traveling, or dining together. We hear this in the suggestion that men and women who aren’t married to each other should not be friends. We see this in calls to women to dress modestly to keep men from lusting (something the New Testament does not do). We find this in shaming female sexual assault victims—“She was asking for it, dressed like that.”
In our chapters on women in the life of Jesus, we find a different mindset. He was not afraid of or distant from women. He sat alone with a woman at a well and engaged in a meaningful conversation (John 4:6–27). He let a woman of ill repute intimately touch him (Luke 7:36–50). Jesus has not called us to be any different; Genesis 3 certainly does not.
Misperception three: The woman’s desire shall be “contrary to” her husband. Thus, women are by nature out to overcome and oppose men. Men should treat women with particular suspicion and caution.
In considering gender issues, teachers give significant attention to Genesis 3:16 (CSB):
He said to the woman:
I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children with painful effort.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.
The discussion centers on the phrase “your desire will be for your husband.” The Old Testament uses the Hebrew word translated “desire” in only two other places (Genesis 4:7; Song of Solomon 7:10). Two major interpretations exist for “desire . . . for.”
The first interpretation understands this “desire” as a sinful urge to overcome and dominate. It appeals to Genesis 4:7. There the words desire and rule appear in the same construction—“sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” Sin “desires” Cain but he must “rule” over it. Likewise, sin will corrupt the woman’s willingness to be a “helper.” Instead, she will long to usurp his authority and control him. In response, he will have to rule her. (In this interpretation, rule may be either a sinful dominion or a proper exercise of authority over rebellion.)
The second interpretation understands desire as the God-ordained desire within the marriage relationship. Song of Solomon 7:10 uses desire this way, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.” In this view, the woman will continue to desire to be a helper to her husband. She desires to fill the earth and exercise dominion with him. But her desire to fulfill the creation mandate will meet with frustration. He will “rule” her—referring to a sinful and harsh rule. (Though the man has a special role as the head of mankind, Genesis 1–2 never presents the man as “ruling” over the woman. Subduing and exercising dominion is a responsibility they exercise together over the earth. They do not subdue and exercise dominion over one another.)
We favor the second interpretation of desire because it better fits the immediate context. The focus is on the frustration and futility experienced as they fulfill their responsibilities.
In Genesis 1:28, God charged both Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.” In Genesis 2, he put the man in the Garden to “work and keep it” (or “serve” and “protect”), which likely included both cultivation of the Garden and the protection of it.7 The Lord made the woman to be a “helper fit for him.” These responsibilities are not removed after their fall into sin. The desires remain—and they remain good. Fulfilling those desires, however, will become frustrating and painful. This is what the Lord addresses in Genesis 3:16–19.
