Victorious

Merry Christmas to you Cheryl! Once again, may God bless you in the new year as you continue your diligent studies in His Word for the benefit and growth of the Body of Christ!

Gazza said:

“While Paul writes about being forgiven because he was deceived Eve here is still punished for her sin – pain in childbirth etc -]

If I may… The prophetic words of God in Genesis 3 to the man and woman were not punishments. That the woman would have pain in childbirth does not preclude the use of an anesthetic to ease or eliminate the pain. The announcement that the man would toil by the sweat of his brow does not preclude a choice to work in an air-conditioned environment today nor are men required to only eat herbs. And we would be prohibited from using mulch or any type of weed killer to fight the thorns and thistles.

God is telling them, prior to ushering them out of the garden, the adverse conditions that will exist outside the garden. That includes the words to Eve about Adam and his carnal desire to rule over her. With the advance of technology, medicine, science, and God’s providing meat rather than herbs in Genesis 9, most of these adverse, sorrowful conditions have been overcome. All but two…the desire of husbands to rule over their wives and the last enemy which Jesus will overcome – death.

If they were commands, they would not affect single women nor those who choose not to marry. So again, these are God’s forewarning to Adam and Eve about the dire, adverse conditions that await them. And no words against overcoming these difficulties.

Hope this helps….

“One should see the close connection between the land and the people on the land. When God charged the man to guard the garden, God is charging the man to guard all the things IN the garden, not just the dirt or just the dirt and trees.”

Thanks, Don! I got it now!

Hello gengwall:

“I read it a little different in the garden: Adam’s mandate to protect Eve was not one of authority but of responsibility, at least in relationship to Eve. The authority would have been of Adam over the serpent, not Adam over Eve.”

Thank you for your response, but I’m not seeing any mandate from God to protect Eve. Since he was commanded to “guard” (keep) the garden, the reasonable assumption is that there was an entity that required guarding against. That could have only been satan imho and Adam failed in guarding the garden.

hmmm…. in typing this, I see how Adam was, in fact, mandated to protect Eve indirectly.

Ignore this post…. lol!

Cheryl, the 3rd interview was excellent as were the first two! Thank you!

You said:

“I connected it to Adam because the first one created had something that immunized him from being deceived. Eve did not have this immunity because she was created after an event that Adam alone was privy to. Knowledge of a significant event protected Adam and his knowledge should have been used to protect Eve. Adam should never have been silent and allowed Eve to be deceived.”

I’m eagerly waiting to learn what the “significant event” that protected Adam is, but in the meantime, I’m not finding scripture to support Adam’s “role” in protecting Eve. When you say Adam should have never “allowed” Eve to be deceived, you put an authority in his hands that is not recorded in the Genesis passages.

Adam was commanded to “dress and keep” the garden. “Keep” has the Hebrew meaning of guarding and protecting, granted, but the charge was to protect the garden against (logically) evil or danger. Eve would have been indirectly protected had Adam protected the garden as commanded by God, but I do not find any hint of a command for him to protect Eve. The command was given prior to her being formed.

Just my thoughts…..

Looking at the Greek for the word modesty, it’s even more clear that Cheryl’s interpretation is correct and that implied sexuality is indeed absent:

1Tim 2:9  In the same way also, I desire that women adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty (G2887)   and sensibleness, not adorned with braiding, or gold, or pearls, or costly clothing, KJV

G2887
kosmios; from G2889; orderly: – proper (1), respectable (1).

Thank you so much for this, Cheryl!  I must admit that because of male-oriented interpretations of this passage re: modesty, I was also reading sexuality into it.  🙁    I see your excellent points regarding the true focus of this passage.

Re: Titus 2:3-5

Given the interpretation of some about women staying in the home, where does that leave seniors who have no children at home and/or widows who live alone and housework is nil.  Are they not wasting their time and talents?

Gen 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Although we interpret this as: for this reason a man and woman shall leave their father and mother, and be joined to one another…….

That is not what scripture says. It specifically says the man should leave his parents and be joined to his wife.

Why is this important? Because when God gave the promise of the seed of the woman, it was to be traced through the female lineage. The man leaves his “tribe” and joins himself to the woman’s “tribe.”

Man turned this upside down when early in Genesis men began to take women “whomever they chose” as spoils of war and removed her from her family. As the The mother of Sisera said in Judges:

Jdg 5:30 ‘Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil? A maiden, two maidens for every warrior……..

But God fulfilled His plan as we see several women in the genealogy of Jesus; Rahab and Ruth and ultimately Jesus being the “seed of the woman” as prophesied by God in the garden.

That the man was originally intended to “leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” is fulfilled in the mystery of Christ and the church.

Eph 5:32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Jesus left His Father and came to earth (the tribe of the woman) to cleave to His bride (the church.)