Who is in charge?

In the begin­ning, God crea­ted human beings as man and woman – equal and with a com­mon mis­si­on. But the Fall chan­ged this situa­ti­on. Ins­tead of ruling tog­e­ther, from now on men ruled over their wives, a few over all others. But through Jesus the­se rela­ti­onships were res­to­red. Jesus Christ show­ed a new under­stan­ding of domi­ni­on. If someone wants to be the lea­der, then he should be the ser­vant of all.

To start today’s ser­mon, I would like to take you into our house­hold. And­rei­na and I were pri­ma­ri­ly loo­king for a job for mys­elf and then found what we were loo­king for here at see­tal chi­le. Andreina’s lifel­ong dream has always been to be a mother and house­wi­fe. So we agreed that I would go to the mine and bring money home, and in return she would do most of the house­work. As it tur­ned out, this was a huge win-win situa­ti­on for both of us. She was very gra­teful to be able to chan­ge care­ers. I lived alo­ne for some time, but never real­ly got used to doing laun­dry. Be it becau­se of the washing machi­ne, which has to be shared with others in a block. Or becau­se in the rush it some­ti­mes hap­pen­ed that I washed a blue wool­len jum­per tog­e­ther with a pair of white trou­sers – well, lucki­ly light blue does­n’t suit me too bad­ly. When our son is one year old, my wool­len jum­per should fit him too.

This mor­ning, start­ing from God’s good crea­ti­on, we want to look at the issue of res­to­ra­ti­on bet­ween the sexes. We want to look at how it was inten­ded by God and what peo­p­le have made of it becau­se of the Fall and how it could be one day. We want to immer­se our­sel­ves in this ten­se topic. We will focus on the rela­ti­onship bet­ween man and woman based on the sto­ry of crea­ti­on and the mis­si­on God gave man in the Gar­den of Eden.

1. Eve – the ultimate help for Adam!

When it comes to the ques­ti­on of the rela­ti­onship of women to men and vice ver­sa, a snapshot is often taken. The pro­blem is ana­ly­sed that often women are trea­ted dif­fer­ent­ly than men. But in the crea­ti­on sto­ry at the very begin­ning of the Bible, we are shown a dif­fe­rent pic­tu­re. Actual­ly, it is quite cra­zy. Alt­hough images of hea­ven as it was once sup­po­sed to be appear again and again in the Bible, we only have two who­le chap­ters of how it was at the begin­ning of huma­ni­ty. Two chap­ters expres­sing God’s good plan for this earth with all its inha­bi­tants. Two chap­ters in which peo­p­le live at peace with them­sel­ves and with God. Two out of 1189 chap­ters in total. But the­se two chap­ters are immense­ly important for God’s plan for us humans. That is why we are still loo­king at the crea­ti­on sto­ry now in April. But it is important to say that the Bible was not ori­gi­nal­ly divi­ded into chap­ters. A book should the­r­e­fo­re always be seen as a com­ple­te work.

The enti­re first chap­ter revol­ves around the crea­ti­on of the uni­ver­se and the earth. This is all tied into a nar­ra­ti­ve frame­work of six days. The first chap­ter of the Bible descri­bes that God crea­ted human beings as male and fema­le (Gene­sis 1:27). It is only in the 2nd chap­ter, from ver­se five onwards, that the crea­ti­on of human beings is explai­ned in more detail. Here it is descri­bed that Adam, the man, was crea­ted first. «And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alo­ne; I will make him a help meet for him.» (Gene­sis 2:18 LUT). For Eve, the first woman, it is not her pro­per name that is writ­ten here, but it is Ezer. Ezer means help. Adam was all alo­ne in the Gar­den of Eden. But God gave him a help. He gave him someone to talk to, someone simi­lar to hims­elf. Someone to reach out to him. Tog­e­ther they would make a super team. God’s dream team, so to speak.

But this alre­a­dy rai­ses the cru­cial ques­ti­on of what help means. Help, unders­tood as a labou­rer on the buil­ding site who has infe­ri­or know­ledge and a lower posi­ti­on than a skil­led craft­sman, is cer­tain­ly not meant here. But it also does not mean help, as I am curr­ent­ly expe­ri­en­cing through a trans­la­ti­on app. My wife and I have deci­ded to take in Ukrai­ni­an refu­gees. But the lan­guage bar­ri­er is so gre­at that we have to rely on trans­la­ti­on even for the simp­lest things. The app is a gre­at help, but it often patro­ni­s­es us a lot and takes the reins out of our hands when it comes to com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. A help like the one meant here is a sup­port. Such help helps to bring out the best pos­si­ble. The same word ezer is also used for God hims­elf. «But God is my hel­per. It is the Lord who sus­ta­ins my life!» (Psalm 54:6 NLB).

Eve unders­tood as a help for Adam does not mean that Adam is hig­her. Rather, Adam and Eve are equal and com­ple­ment each other. This also stands out in the first men­ti­on of human beings as God’s crea­tures. «So God crea­ted human beings in his image, in the image of God he crea­ted them, as male and fema­le he crea­ted them. And God bles­sed them and gave them the com­mand: «Be fruitful and mul­ti­ply, popu­la­te the earth and pos­sess it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the beasts of the earth.» » (Gene­sis 1:27–28 NLB). Here God gives human beings, as man and woman, the task of ruling over the world. Exer­cis­ing domi­ni­on always means taking respon­si­bi­li­ty. I can­not take domi­ni­on over my car wit­hout respon­si­bi­li­ty. When I dri­ve a car, I con­trol the stee­ring wheel, but I also have to ans­wer for any dama­ge. Adam and Eve are both given domi­ni­on. But this is not meant to be explo­ita­ti­ve, but lovin­g­ly caring.

2. Lonely instead of together!

It was won­derful­ly plan­ned by God. A won­derful sym­bio­sis of man and woman. But this idyll did not last long. Peo­p­le deci­ded to rebel against God. Eve play­ed a lea­ding role in this. She was tempt­ed by the ser­pent and then also con­vin­ced Adam to eat the for­bidden fruit. When Adam is con­fron­ted by God, he bla­mes Eve, his clo­sest con­fi­dant. He bla­mes the being who was sup­po­sed to help him with his task. So Adam and Eve are faced with a heap of ruins of human coexis­tence. A heap of rub­ble that still exists today. God pulls the rip­cord and puts them both out­side the door. Adam is punis­hed by the fact that the earth is no lon­ger only good. No, from now on the­re are also weeds that make the har­ve­st more dif­fi­cult. God says some­thing about Eve that can quick­ly lead to much misun­derstan­ding. «Then he said to the woman: «With gre­at dif­fi­cul­ty and pain you will give birth to child­ren. You will long for your hus­band, but he will rule over you» » (Gene­sis 3:16 NLB). One can quick­ly draw the short con­clu­si­on and say that the hus­band has every right to rule over his wife; after all, it is her own fault. But this view lea­ves out a num­ber of things.

Just as the man from now on has a lot of trou­ble orga­ni­s­ing food, child­bea­ring for the woman also invol­ves a lot of pain. But not only pain came into Eve’s life, but also depri­va­ti­on. Eva will long for her hus­band, for secu­ri­ty, accep­tance, but he will not be the­re for her in the way she wants. Ins­tead of stan­ding by her, the man is next to hims­elf. He thinks more of hims­elf and needs the woman pri­ma­ri­ly to satis­fy his own desi­res. But the cru­cial thing about this say­ing about Eve is whe­ther this was done pre­scrip­tively or descrip­tively. A pre­scrip­ti­ve inter­pre­ta­ti­on means that this say­ing estab­lishes a norm. This means that God is say­ing here about Eve that the man should rule over the woman. This is God’s inten­ti­on and the woman’s fate, to which she must bow from now on. If the state­ment is inter­pre­ted descrip­tively, it means that the con­di­ti­on of the woman is descri­bed from now on. Howe­ver, this is purely descrip­ti­ve and does not con­sti­tu­te a rule. From my point of view, this pas­sa­ge is to be unders­tood descrip­tively, that is, descrip­tively. Based on the sto­ry of crea­ti­on and the com­mon mis­si­on con­tai­ned the­r­ein to pos­sess and rule the earth. The state­ment about woman hap­pens in a situa­ti­on whe­re men have alre­a­dy rebel­led against God, but it is not the norm. Yes, man and woman have dif­fe­rent talents, espe­ci­al­ly on the bio­lo­gi­cal side, and thus also per­form the task of pre­ser­ving the earth dif­fer­ent­ly. But man and woman have the mis­si­on of domi­ni­on in common.

But how should a man and a woman live tog­e­ther in a rela­ti­onship? Paul descri­bes this as fol­lows: «The­r­e­fo­re, I say again that every hus­band should love his wife as he loves hims­elf, and that the wife should respect and esteem her hus­band.» (Ephe­si­ans 5:33 NLB). Hus­band and wife have to be careful of two dif­fe­rent things in a rela­ti­onship. The hus­band is to love his wife. The Greek word behind this is aga­pe. Aga­pe means love, but it puts a spe­cial empha­sis on it. Aga­pe means sel­fless, self-sacri­fi­ci­ng love. It means the love that Jesus show­ed on the cross when he gave his life. The hus­band is to meet his wife with such love. This may not sound so dra­stic to us any­mo­re, but for a man of that time it was a big change.

Soci­al­ly, women were mar­gi­na­li­sed in the 1st cen­tu­ry AD. The man was the decisi­ve fac­tor and it was quite clear that the woman had to fol­low the man. But if now the man sud­den­ly has to love his wife as hims­elf, then this chan­ges a lot about marital coha­bi­ta­ti­on. For love shows its­elf wit­hout excep­ti­on in deeds. Love wit­hout action does not exist. I can still tell my wife I love her, but tre­at her bad­ly. Then my love is not sin­ce­re. Love always shows its­elf in behaviour.

Women, on the other hand, are cal­led upon to respect their men. Yes, dear women, we men need you to let us be your heroes. This spurs us on and this is also what is meant. Respect is misun­ders­tood if it means that the wife blind­ly fol­lows her hus­band and does ever­y­thing he says. Respect and esteem for the hus­band is shown by show­ing him sup­port, prai­sing him and not cri­ti­cis­ing him all the time.

I am then also con­vin­ced that this is an inter­play, which is writ­ten here in Ephe­si­ans. If the woman rea­li­ses that the man loves her and this also includes faithful­ness towards her, then she is more wil­ling to sup­port the man and be a help to him after the exam­p­le of Eve. Long-las­ting rela­ti­onships are mutual­ly deter­mi­ned, no one domi­na­tes the other.

3. Serving influence!

Befo­re And­rei­na and I got mar­ried, we did a mar­ria­ge pre­pa­ra­ti­on cour­se tog­e­ther. Right at the begin­ning of the cour­se we were intro­du­ced to the five lan­guages of love. The­se were and are very for­ma­ti­ve for our rela­ti­onship manage­ment. The­re are five love lan­guages in total and each per­son has a favou­ri­te. The task now is to find out this favou­ri­te and to speak it. It is not a mat­ter of doing ever­y­thing, but of doing the right thing. The five lan­guages of love are the following:

1. Prai­se and recognition
2. Tog­e­ther­ness – the time just for you
3. Gifts that come from the heart
4. Hel­pful­ness
5. Ten­der­ness

The­se are cer­tain­ly very hel­pful in a love rela­ti­onship. But they can also be used to con­vey app­re­cia­ti­on when tra­vel­ling together.

Up to now, I have main­ly spo­ken about the rela­ti­onship of man and woman, espe­ci­al­ly in a love rela­ti­onship. The rebel­li­on of the peo­p­le cau­sed a lot of things to shake and many things are no lon­ger as they were plan­ned. Through Jesus came a chan­ge of times. Not only do you count in the years befo­re and after Christ, but through him res­to­ra­ti­on hap­pen­ed. With Jesus, the gap of equa­li­ty bet­ween man and woman, but also bet­ween all other sup­po­sedly wea­k­er social groups, is ope­ned. Through Jesus we are all pla­ced on an equal foo­ting. «Now the­re is no lon­ger Jew or Gen­ti­le, slave or free, male or fema­le. For you are all equal – you are one in Jesus Christ». (Gala­ti­ans 3:28 NLB). This making equal does not mean era­sing bio­lo­gi­cal dif­fe­ren­ces and indi­vi­du­al, cul­tu­ral or other pre­fe­ren­ces. It is about ever­yo­ne being equal befo­re God. He loves ever­yo­ne exact­ly the same.

Jesus hims­elf is an exam­p­le to us of how we should behave towards others. Befo­re Jesus was cru­ci­fied, he washed the feet of his clo­sest fri­ends. This was actual­ly a job that was only done by slaves, the lowest peo­p­le. But Jesus was not abo­ve lea­ving his posi­ti­on and taking a servant’s atti­tu­de. So fol­lo­wers of Jesus are cal­led to influence in a ser­vant way. «It shall be dif­fe­rent with you. Whoe­ver wants to lead you shall ser­ve you, and whoe­ver wants to be first among you shall beco­me your slave». (Matthew 20:26–27 NLB). This is my wish for your life and espe­ci­al­ly for the tog­e­ther­ness in this church, that it is dif­fe­rent with us. That it is not about who sets the tone, but that one ser­ves the others.

Possible questions for the small group 

Bible text rea­ding: Gene­sis 2:15–25, Matthew 20:26–27

1. How do you under­stand that Eve was a help to Adam?
2. What kind of role model do you have? Is your under­stan­ding of Gene­sis 3:16 more pre­scrip­ti­ve (giving the norm) or descrip­ti­ve (describ­ing)?
3. What do you see as man’s «domi­ni­on» over the earth?
4. How do you live mutu­al respect in your relationships?
5. Have you alre­a­dy stu­di­ed the five lan­guages of love? If so, which lan­guage do you speak and how does it show?
6. Do you find it dif­fi­cult to ser­ve others?