Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture: The Quest #15: Genesis and Manhood Pt1

We’re finally beginning the process of constructing what will be a compelling and motivating definition of manhood for you. We’re going lay the footings today. Out of the next 4 or 5 sessions, you’re going to receive a definition of manhood that will motivate you for the rest of your life. It will be the kind of manhood that you can pass on to your sons with real energy and enthusiasm.

Today, We’re going to go all the way back in time to the beginning of man, to the original blueprint of life, to unroll those scrolls and look at the blueprints that have to do with the construction of masculinity, to a book that’s called Beginnings, Genesis.

What we want to do is investigate -- in an original way -- the things that you hear about. Often we comrades hear about what we’re supposed to be like from the Bible, but we don’t take the time to go back and check it out for ourselves. today we’re going to do some original research – looking at the original blueprints for mankind in the book of Genesis, to see what it actually says about masculinity.

Genesis explains and measures manhood, both in its original ideals and in it ongoing fallenness.

Today we’re going to focus on the first three chapters in the book of Genesis. In a remarkable way, Genesis embodies a number of the ideals and realities about life, in particular about manhood and masculinity. It serves as a capsule of all these remarkable truths that we can draw on when we are constructing for ourselves a path to authentic manhood.

When you ask - ‘what does it mean to be a man?’ We go to Genesis because it measures manhood – both in its original ideals and also in its ongoing fallenness. Everything, comrades, that you would ever want to know about masculinity – in it’s original form – is found in these first 3 chapters of the book of Genesis.

I believe Genesis 1, 2 and 3 are real historical events that summarize the beginnings of life on planet earth. Even more importantly, everything found in the Bible about women, about social order, social structure, social dysfunction is measured, explained or defined in Genesis. It’s all here in this one story that will be unfolded for us over the next couple of sessions. No one can understand life on this planet as it should have been, and as it is now - and no one can understand masculinity as it should have been, and as it is now - without going to the book of Genesis to look at the clarity it offers to us. This is where we’ll begin building those footings in order to construct a compelling and motivating definition of manhood for you.

Genesis describes our ancestral roots

Genesis is a place to discover who men were once, and why we are the way we are now. Genesis 1, 2 and 3 is like 3 different camera lens focus points.

Genesis 1 is a “wide-angle perspective.” of the beginning of life. It is a broad overview of creation. It is a 7-day summary that includes a description of how man was created on the 6^th day.

Then when you get into Genesis 2, you get into a “Close Up.” You change the focus of your lens and you get a close up replay of the 6^th day of creation. We focus in on the creation of a man and a woman. In this close up, we get a lot of the fine details of that account that was just described in a broad perspective in Genesis 1.

Then when you get to Genesis 3, you move into a “Real Tight Focus” on one single event. This event changed this couple’s life and changed their destiny. It has even affected us here today. It changed our masculinity - what it means to be a man. It shows us what we need to do in order to reverse the changes that occurred in that moment.

What we want to do today, and finish up next Session, is look in more specifics at each one of these chapters: Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and Genesis 3.

What Genesis 1 Says About Manhood

A) It speaks of male and female value.

Genesis1: 26-27: “Then God said, ‘let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle and over the earth; and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.”

We’re going to make 3 observations.

1) Image. Unlike the rest of creation, man is singled out alone to bear the image and the likeness of God. That’s what makes man more than just part of God’s creation. He alone bears the image of God. He has a consciousness that the rest of creation doesn’t have. He has a will and a self-determination that the rest of creation doesn’t have. He has a reasoning ability that the rest of creation doesn’t have and all because he bears this imago-De: the image of God across his heart.

2) Equally endowed/equally valuable. Man is split into two parts – male and female – that are equally endowed and equally valuable in God’s creation. The reason is because when God created this man and this woman, He didn’t parcel out one part of His image to the man and another part of His image to the woman. Whether they’re male or female, they are equally made in the image of God. It’s this powerful sameness of sharing God’s likeness that casts a shadow over whatever differences they may have as male and female.

3) Unique and special. They are special and unique to God, because as you move through creation – you have God saying “let there be light” and there was light. “Let there be animals’ and there were animals, and so on. But after he creates the man, He does something that He didn’t do to any of the other parts of His creation. It says that He speaks to them personally. He talks with them. As God speaks to them, what you begin to understand is that man is not just a part of the creation that God has set in motion with an already predetermined purpose. But man was created especially to have relationship with the living God. He was created for this personal relationship with God and that’s what we begin to see unfold as you move into Chapter 2.

B) It also speaks of male and female calling.

Genesis 1:28; “And God blessed this couple and He said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

3 commands embedded here:

1. Be fruitful/multiply/fill the earth. This speaks to the bearing and releasing of a healthy next generation -- healthy children – into the world that God had created.

2. Subdue the earth. On whatever part of the planet you’ve been placed, you need to use your creativity and your intellect to bring out the best in that part of the planet.

3. Rule over the earth. You’re to be a good steward of the earth and its resources.

Those are three simple statements, but comrades, I believe that within those three simple statements is the calling of man. Your calling. As we’ll see later, how well you fulfill those three statements has a lot to do with your quest for authentic manhood. It will determine how much of a sense of meaning and satisfaction you give to your particular life.

C) It hints at a very important social structure.

Genesis 1:26 & 27: “Then God said, ‘let Us make man in Our image; according to Our likeness.’ And He created man in His own image, and in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Can you see the social structure there? What does God call the man and the woman collectively? He calls them ‘man,’ doesn’t He?

Every reality and every ideal is embodied in every phrase and every nuance of these incredible opening 3 chapters. God creates the male and the female and He calls them – not people, not personhood, not humanity – God purposely and selectively calls them collectively ‘man.’ Is that a big deal? Absolutely! It’s a big deal because Genesis knows what you and I should know - it is that words and titles in particular, have significant and powerful meaning in life.

This is also repeated again in Genesis 5:2. It is done in a little different way, it says: “And God created them male and female, and He blessed them and He named man in the day that they were created.”

Our modern age would immediately feel a sense of discrimination in those verses, wouldn’t they? Don’t you feel that even today? Even as I read those – even as I said God called the male and female ‘man’ didn’t you feel kind of funny. Well it just didn’t feel politically correct, did it? Because it’s not. That’s why we’ve changed ‘chairman’ to ‘chairperson.’ And ‘layman’ to ‘layperson.’ That’s the world we live in! It’s because in our world, sameness and uniformity are the only acceptable direction.

As we move in those directions, and we bring the richness of male and female down on a kind of a bland, uniform level. But that’s not true in the original blueprints. The original blueprints have something different to say. At the beginning, regardless of how we feel, God chooses to call the human race by the term ‘man.’ The question is: Why?

That is the big question as we start constructing a definition of masculinity. The question is “Why?”. The answer is this; it’s the same reason why, after a wedding, we call the couple “Mr. and Mrs. Alex Wesigye, “rather than calling the couple ‘Mrs. and Mrs. Christine Muzaki.” That’s the answer. In these titles – in this ceremony – or in this moment – in these titles a social structure is being hinted at and anticipated for the man and for the woman in the future – a social structure that will get fleshed out a little bit more in Genesis 2 and 3 – a social structure that is still being grappled with today.

In the original blueprints, you hear that social structure whispered –ever so softly when God creates the male and the female and He says, “And I call them ‘man.’”

These are the 3 wide-angle observations that stand out in Genesis about value and calling and social structure.

What Genesis 2 Says About Manhood

A. Notice… Adam was created first.

In Genesis 1, It said He created them male and female. But when we go back over this 6^th day of creation and take a closer look, we realize it didn’t just happen instantaneously like that. It happened in sequence. Adam was created first. Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord formed man (this is the start of it) of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and this man (as male) became a living being.”

He was created first. Is that really significant?’ God could have easily created both the man and the woman at the same time, couldn’t He? Why didn’t He? That’s the question that’s being asked here to any original researcher in the book of Genesis.

He could have created them at the same time, brought them into existence with just a spoken word. But he didn’t do it that way.

‘First’ always means something, especially in the Scriptures as you go through it, because it speaks of preeminence. For instance, when Jesus was asked what was the first and foremost commandment, He was able to tell them; “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind; with all Your strength.”

The firstborn son throughout Scripture is the son who receives the blessing; the special blessing of his father.

Proverbs 3:9 it says, “Honor the Lord from the first of your wealth.” ‘First’ is very significant. It’s to come off the top -- right at the beginning; not at the end of what’s left over. That’s significant.

In Revelation 2, Jesus speaks to the Ephesian church and He says, “you’ve left your first love.” (‘You’re doing a lot of things well, but at the core – the most important thing – has been forgotten, the first.’)

Jesus is called the firstborn from the dead, the first fruits of creation.

We are called, as Christians, to seek first the kingdom of God, and then, all these things will be added to you.

If you just took the word ‘first’ as you go through the Scriptures you get a sense of that priority, don’t you.

In the beginning of man, as male and female, Adam was created first.

First. The question is “why?” It’s because God was making a statement about social structure, social positioning, and manhood as it should be. Not necessarily as it is now - we’re looking at the original blueprints -- but the way God created it to be.

In Paul’s day, he was asked why women couldn’t be pastors. A lot of us ask that same question today as we see both males and females become pastors, but in Paul’s day, he was asked the question, ‘why can’t a woman be a pastor of a church?’ - the leader.

In 1Timothy 2:12-13, Paul says this: “I don’t allow women to teach or exercise authority over a man but remain quiet, for it was Adam who was first created, then Eve.”

In his day – thousands of years moved from the day God created man and they were asking him about an intensely difficult issue. This was especially true in Ephesus, a city of pagan religions where all the religious leaders were women.

These people who had become Christians were wondering why the women couldn’t lead the church too. So Paul says, ‘well, here’s why I don’t think that should happen….because God had some original designs in mind.’ And he points to this ‘first’ in creation.

B. Notice… Adam is given an occupation and responsibility before Eve’s creation.

Genesis 2:15: “Then the Lord God took the man [the male] and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it, and keep it.”

I don’t know how much time has passed at this point before God created the woman, but here’s what we do know; that God created the man. After He created the man as male, He gave him a job to do – a vocation in the garden of Eden. Then He gave him other responsibilities, orders to obey. During this whole time Eve’s not been created yet. These directions are given to the man exclusively and not to his wife, Eve.

We ask “Why?” If you look at it long enough, you begin to think that it’s almost like there’s some kind of leadership training program going on here.

C. Notice Adam is instructed by God with the responsibility of leading with His word.

Genesis 2:16-17 says “And the Lord God commanded the man saying, ‘from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day you eat from it, you shall surely die.’”

Eve has still not been created. God literally spoke to Adam, He’s saying ‘okay, I’ve given you this place. I want you to cultivate it. I want to give you some instruction about how to live in this place.’ The thing that’s fascinating is the instruction was not given to Eve, but was given to Adam to then give to Eve.

But we have to ask the question “Why?” Why did it occur this way? I believe it hints at the spiritual responsibility that God created men to assume as part of real masculinity. A responsibility that thousands of years later is stated outright in Ephesians 5:25-26, when Paul is speaking to men about how to live with their wives. And he says this;

“Husbands, love your wives (I’m just shortening it here to get the essence of it) love your wives with the Word.”

In other words, a man should lead with spiritual truth when he’s in relationship to a woman. He should lead with spiritual truth – not she should lead. He should lead. That’s a real key — a real nugget to satisfaction and social health, not just for the marriage itself, but for the community at large. It comes under the banner and command, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” - not with dysfunctional kids, but with healthy ones.

To do that, someone’s got to deposit the truth and be the standard bearer. In the “original blueprints”, that scepter is given to the man.

D. Notice that Adam names the animals, a signal of his leadership over creation.

Genesis 2:19 “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever this man called a living creature, that was its name.”

Assigning names to others in the Bible is very significant because it‘s a sign of authority or leadership over something. You see God exercise that kind of leadership in renaming people throughout the Bible. He takes Abram and He renames him ‘Abraham’ because He’s calling him to be a leader – to be the originator of the nation of Israel. God changed Sarai’s name to ‘Sarah’. God changed Saul’s name to ‘Paul’ because He wanted him to be a witness of His resurrection to the Gentile world.

God changed Simon’s name to ‘Peter’ as a sign of his authority over Peter and his calling into the leadership of the church. In Genesis 2, in naming the animals, Adam gets to show his first-level leadership over creation. This is a responsibility that his counterpart, Eve, will receive through him, but he receives it first.

E. Notice… Adam is give a “helper suitable for him,” a title that offers further evidence of God’s original core social identity for the man and the woman.

Genesis 2:18; “Then the Lord God said, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone (up to this point everything I’ve told you Adam’s been alone, but at this point He says…) I will make him a helper suitable for him.’”

The deepest and most profound differences between a man and a woman – male and female – are not physical. They’re intensely sociological. What’s happening here in Genesis is what you and I as men feel right now. It is a relational dance between these two equally endowed, equally valuable counterparts. This relational dance poses a very big question that is pertinent to the very core of masculinity - if it’s a relational dance, then who leads? And who follows?

Do you see how relevant Genesis is? Is that not the question of the 21^st Century? Today, in the sociological realms of the everyday life, we as men will experience this - whether this week when you take a girl out on a date – or when you go home to the woman you married. This world is intensely sociological. There’s a relational dance going on between man and woman - who leads? - Who follows?

In this moment in Genesis, Adam discovered more than a work to do in the garden. He discovered more than a will to obey. He also discovered a social counterpart, who will not only offer him help – great help in his life – but is also looking to him and looking at him to lovingly lead her to fulfillment. That’s what we begin to discover in Genesis.

God calls her ‘helper.’ What does that make the man? It doesn’t tell us in the passage. Are We supposed to assume that meaning?. But thousands of years later Here’s what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:3, as he’s speaking to a church;

“I want you to understand, that Christ is the Head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the Head of Christ.”

What you see is Christ is not inferior to God. Christ is equal to God. That’s part of the whole wonder of the Trinity. Yet they have a relationship that requires roles and order. In the midst of explaining that, he also says ‘I want you to also know that, as I created man and woman in My likeness, I also created relationships and roles and social order.’ Men, we need to understand this because, it is the key to your masculinity – at least one of the keys.

At the beginning – in this foundational work – what we begin to understand is that there’s a woman who’s going to be looking at a man, and to a man, to take the lead in order to bring about fulfillment in her life. That’s the way it is even to this day because men are called, from the very beginning, to be social and spiritual leaders. This principal is at the very core of real authentic manhood.

Genesis has a lot more to say about this and a lot of other things that will help us formulate the definition of manhood – a lot more! We’ll look at it in the next Session