Genesis.
A word that brings to mind any number of potential thoughts
or questions. There’s many ways our
speaker this week, Dr. Andrew Schmutzer, could have approached this topic. Yet, one thing is clear after reading this
narrative and listening to his talk on it: God created us for relationship.
Dr. Schmutzer talked to us this week about “being made in
dialogue for dialogue.” The first layer
of this is the awe-inspiring method God used for the creation of the
world.
“And God said, ‘Let there be light..’ and there
was light.”
Amazingly, God not only created the world exnihilo or out of nothing, but also
through an even more extraordinary way, through simply speaking every created thing into existence. In Genesis 1:26 God speaks humanity into existence, His crowning jewel. His magnum
opus. His image-bearer. The magnitude of God’s power and flare for
the beautiful cannot be overstated. However, it did not end with the creation
of an individual, but expanded into God’s plan for community.
Next, Dr. Schmutzer said this about community: “A person is
someone who is in community; and an individual is someone in isolation.” And although this creation of Adam is good
and complete in every possible way, God wants Adam to live in relationship, to
be connected intimately with one like him.
So as the second layer of the dialogue concept unfolds God then creates
Adam’s helper, Eve. God could see Adam would need another to usher in the
communal vision God had for humanity.
Perhaps, though, when you hear the word “helper” you cringe
because you think it may mean that Eve was created to be subservient. Many people have a narrow view of this word. Yet,
through a word study of helper we see it’s actually used other places that give
it quite a profound meaning such as in Deuteronomy 33:7 and Psalm33:20 when God
is called Israel’s helper. In every way God sustained Israel. In order to help us understand this concept
even more Dr. Schmutzer described wives as being an “indispensable companion.”
Not until Adam’s indispensable companion is created does
Adam talk. Eve was the final paint stroke
on a grand canvas God was designing. At
the completion of this picture we see a God who desires complete relationship
with us and desires for us to be fully known by another, as well.
Join us next week as we will continue learning from Dr. Sigler at 5:30 PM in the Kimball Room. We would love to see you there.
Love,
Amy
