The Creation of the Family; Genesis 2:18-25

 

The third story of creation tells of the creation of the family It has three parts: Adam’s relationship with the animals, the creation of Adam’s wife, Eve, and how the family continues to be created today.

God stated that there was one thing about creation that was not good. He said it was not good that Adam was alone. God said that He would make Adam a helper, someone to help him to work the garden and keep it. Creation was not yet complete.

One of the ways of God is that He shows us what something is not, then He shows us what it is. First God brought all the animals to Adam for him to name. In giving each animal a name, Adam was entering into a relationship with it. Knowing the animal’s name gave Adam a relationship with the animal. After naming all of the animals, Adam was still alone. God had shown him that the animals could not be the help he needed. God had given Adam a desire for a deeper relationship than the animals could be to him.

God caused Adam to go to sleep. While he was asleep, God opened up Adam’s side, took one of his ribs out, fashioned a woman out of it, and then healed the place He had opened up with flesh. When Adam woke up he saw his wife, Eve, and exclaimed, “Finally, someone I can know intimately and that can know me as one. She will be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.” The first family had been created. Adam and Eve became husband and wife in God’s presence.

 Then God stated that from that time forward, the family would be made of one man and one woman. Every time a man leaves his family and cleaves to a woman who has left her family, a new family will be created. Husband and wife would know each other in the most intimate way without any shame. Their relationship with each other would be unique and creative with new life being the fruit of their love for each other.

 The family was the crown of all creation, revealing God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit with glorious love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

 

Lessons from the Story of the Creation of the Family

·         Only God can create a family by bringing a man and woman together by His design and purpose.

 

·         The family is made of a husband and a wife, created to be together as one and to help each other in the calling that God has given for His own glory.

 

·         The family, as God created it to be, is the way that God established for us to be obedient to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue and have dominion over all of creation.