26 min
Priests & Kings | Genesis 1-3 (Women in Ministry Sermon Series: Co-Ruling in the Kingdom) Cornerstone Congregational Church Sermon Podcast
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- Christianity
As I was preparing for this message, I remembered James Brown and Betty Newsome’s song, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (take on mad mad mad world). The first half of the song goes like this:
You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the train to carry the heavy load
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark
This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
Is this how the world is? All about men? Are women and girls an afterthought? Newsome wrote this song as she observed how men and women relate.[1] Is this the Bible’s vision of what God intended? In the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis one, God paints a radically different picture.
Genesis 1:26 (NIV)
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
In Genesis one, God makes humankind in his image, in his likeness, and gives us authority to rule over creation. And less we think only kings, rulers, Pharaohs, or men are made in God’s image; we find that both sexes, equally and together, manifest the image of God in our world.
Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
This means God places men and women equally in charge of his creation. Humanity is the kings and queens, the co-royals of creation. And we’re given a job to do.
Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
God calls men and women to rule creation together. The only way men and women can be “fruitful and increase in number” is as a team. Together they make up the image of God. Together they are to “steward” creation towards flourishing. Scripture emphasizes co-laboring in Genesis two. God creates man from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7); and places him in the garden to “work it and take care of it” (Gen 2:15).
Two sources, John Walton and Gordon Hugenberger taught me that Adam is not only a king, as seen in Genesis one, but a priest in Genesis two, and that the Garden of Eden is a temple, a sacred space where God dwells. The temple in Jerusalem had four walls. The garden has four rivers. The Jerusalem temple has garden imagery inside it, just like the actual Garden of Eden. The temple is guarded and cared for by priests, so is the Garden of Eden, not just by men but by man and woman. Adam, man alone, is an insufficient priest.
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
This word for “helper” is often used of God when he helps his people.[2] Here, helper may be translated “fit for” as “corresponds to.” Eve was Adam’s fit and flourish. Together, they would guard and keep the garden as priests, Eve supplying something Adam cannot do without. So what does God do? Does God pick up a clump of clay and fashion woman like he did man? No, because God again wants to emphasize man and woman’s togetherness, their connection, their union:
Genesis 2:21-22 (NIV)
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
God doesn’t take a toe bone, which might have symbolized women’s inferiority. Neither does God take something that might have suggested superiority. An earlobe? Instead, God takes something that represents woman’s equality with man, their side-by-si
As I was preparing for this message, I remembered James Brown and Betty Newsome’s song, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (take on mad mad mad world). The first half of the song goes like this:
You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the train to carry the heavy load
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark
This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
Is this how the world is? All about men? Are women and girls an afterthought? Newsome wrote this song as she observed how men and women relate.[1] Is this the Bible’s vision of what God intended? In the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis one, God paints a radically different picture.
Genesis 1:26 (NIV)
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
In Genesis one, God makes humankind in his image, in his likeness, and gives us authority to rule over creation. And less we think only kings, rulers, Pharaohs, or men are made in God’s image; we find that both sexes, equally and together, manifest the image of God in our world.
Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
This means God places men and women equally in charge of his creation. Humanity is the kings and queens, the co-royals of creation. And we’re given a job to do.
Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
God calls men and women to rule creation together. The only way men and women can be “fruitful and increase in number” is as a team. Together they make up the image of God. Together they are to “steward” creation towards flourishing. Scripture emphasizes co-laboring in Genesis two. God creates man from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7); and places him in the garden to “work it and take care of it” (Gen 2:15).
Two sources, John Walton and Gordon Hugenberger taught me that Adam is not only a king, as seen in Genesis one, but a priest in Genesis two, and that the Garden of Eden is a temple, a sacred space where God dwells. The temple in Jerusalem had four walls. The garden has four rivers. The Jerusalem temple has garden imagery inside it, just like the actual Garden of Eden. The temple is guarded and cared for by priests, so is the Garden of Eden, not just by men but by man and woman. Adam, man alone, is an insufficient priest.
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
This word for “helper” is often used of God when he helps his people.[2] Here, helper may be translated “fit for” as “corresponds to.” Eve was Adam’s fit and flourish. Together, they would guard and keep the garden as priests, Eve supplying something Adam cannot do without. So what does God do? Does God pick up a clump of clay and fashion woman like he did man? No, because God again wants to emphasize man and woman’s togetherness, their connection, their union:
Genesis 2:21-22 (NIV)
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
God doesn’t take a toe bone, which might have symbolized women’s inferiority. Neither does God take something that might have suggested superiority. An earlobe? Instead, God takes something that represents woman’s equality with man, their side-by-si
26 min