Bible in a Year, Day 2: God's Most Valuable Creation

Today's reading

Today's reading is Genesis 2, and Pastor Jack Graham draws our attention to the moment God forms the woman.

The LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. The LORD God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.”

(Genesis 2:21-23, WEB)

Reflection

Genesis 2 zooms in on creation and gives us a closer, more intimate look at how God made us. Pastor Jack Graham points out that God places Adam in the garden to work, to tend, to cultivate, and even to create. As he put it, "Work wasn't a curse. It was a part of God's good design." It was a way for Adam to partner with God in caring for creation.

Then comes something we have not seen before. Everything up to this point in the Bible has been good, and now God says it is not good for the man to be alone. Pastor Graham notes that we have never heard those words yet. As he read the verse, "it's not good for man to be alone."

God's answer is tender. He causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, takes a rib from his side and fashions a woman. Pastor Graham says she was taken neither from his head nor from his feet, but "from his side to walk beside him near to his heart to be loved, protected, and cherished." When Adam wakes and sees her, he bursts into poetry.

Pastor Graham also sees the gospel breaking through here. Eve came from the wounded side of the first Adam, and the church was born from the pierced side of the second Adam, Jesus. He notes that Paul describes marriage in Ephesians as a living picture of Christ and the church, with Jesus as the bridegroom and us as the bride. Adam gave up part of himself to gain Eve, and Jesus gave up his life completely to gain us and give us life.

He adds that the garden held two trees, one offering life and the other offering knowledge at a big price. God gave the man and the woman a real choice. That sets the stage for what comes next in Genesis.

So when you see a husband and wife walking together in love, Pastor Graham says, let it remind you: "This is a shadow of the gospel." You are seeing a picture of Jesus and his bride.

Take it with you

• How might you treat your daily work as part of God's good design, a way of caring for what he has given you?
• Who has God placed at your side? Consider how you can love, protect and cherish them this week.
• When you think of the cross, do you picture a bridegroom giving his life for his bride?

Prayer

Father, thank you for making us in your image and for calling our work good. Thank you for the people you place beside us, and for every picture of love that points us to you. Teach us to cherish them well. Thank you, Jesus, that you gave your life to gain us and to give us life forever. Help us to remember your love in our homes, our work and our worship. Amen.