Women
“Then the Lord God said: “it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.”…And the rib which the Lord God took from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Then the man said: “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:18, 22-23)
“The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)
God named Adam- Adam named Eve, but first he had named her Woman. Although her first name, woman, became a title to describe her gender; her second name stayed on as her personal name- we don’t call every woman who becomes a mother an Eve.
Eve means something like “life-giver” in Hebrew.
It is interesting to note that Adam gives her this name at the time when both Adam and Eve have just been cursed and God has pronounced a sentence of death over their heads. However, at the same time, God promised a Seed- a Messiah who would come and crush the head of the Serpent and in being bruised Himself bring life to Adam’s race.
This of course was fulfilled in and through our Savior Jesus Christ.
This linking of the two names: woman and Eve is probably what Paul was referencing in I Timothy 2:15 when he says of women “Yet she will be saved through childbearing- if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
Obviously Scripture is not here teaching that it is by being mothers that women are saved eternally.
He is probably saying in different way what He also said in Galatians 4:4 “At just the right time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.”
Women being mothers is a central purpose for which God made women. Of course it is true that not all women will marry and have children.
It is also true that not all married women will have children. God is the ultimate giver of life. Nevertheless, it is in fulfilling this God given purpose that most women will find their greatest ministry and purpose in life.
Don’t let the culture set the agenda of your life. God put a yearning in your heart to mother- do it with all your heart and soul as unto the Lord. We need you.
Because of grace,
Tim
Beautifully said!