At creation, we were without flaw, and with the ability to commune with God in a way no other creature could. We had both a will and the power of choice; able to make moral judgements governed by love. These qualities are part of what we understand as being made in the image of God.
In Genesis 1 we read where God viewed the creation of the man and woman as very good. Yet we are also told it was never God’s intent that we be alone. We are not complete by ourselves. We especially see this in the unique differences fashioned into the man and woman. Why do you think God did not create the woman from dust but formed her out of a part of man? She was not a separate creature. Though she had unique and complimentary qualities she had the same image and breath of God within her. It is also significant that she was fashioned from a part of man that was near his heart. She was neither above nor below him but designed to live alongside him.
Conflicting opinions have been written about the roles of men and women, and a lazy read of biblical history could paint a false picture of how God views the sexes. Yet this perception comes when misreading the Bibles’ description of the attitudes and behavior of fallen humanity. The mind of God is clearly woven all throughout scripture, and God does not change.
It’s hard to find words to adequately describe this remarkable creature called human, and particularly the woman who was given the name Eve (life-bearer), the mother of all the living. The special relationship between Adam and Eve would produce offspring like themselves who would also have the eternal image of God in them. This role does not end with their rebellion; what we call the ‘fall’. The blessing they were given by God (“Be fruitful and multiply”) continues. Only together is it possible for more humans to exist and the plan of God to continue.
And what is the role of the woman? As necessary as it is for man to participate in conceiving new life it has been given the woman the ability to bear that life, give birth to that life, and then nurse and nurture it as it matures toward adulthood.
It was a woman who gave birth and helped raise all the great prophets; Noah, Moses, Samuel, Daniel and John the Baptist. And it was a woman to whom God entrusted with giving birth to and raising His only begotten Son, the Savior of all humanity.
Women supported the ministry of Jesus (Luke 8). It was a woman who was the first evangelist to Samaria (John 3). It was the devotion of a woman that Jesus said would be preached about all down through history (Mathew 26). Women were the first to testify of the resurrection (Luke 24). And could it be intentional, that the main character in Jesus’ parable about the gospel being spread throughout the world, is a woman (Matthew 13:33)? There is a dignity, and a special purpose for the daughters of Eve, the mother of all mothers.
Today we honor her and all the women in our lives who bear that special gift given to them by God.
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30