NB: this is what I planned to say - but what I actually said was a wee bit different.
Sorry there's no tape - my machine didn't work again - argh!!!!
Let me tell you about some evening classes I read about.
Evening Classes for men
TOPIC 1 How to fill ice-cube trays. Step by step, with slide presentation.
TOPIC 2 Lavatory paper rolls: do they grow on the holders? Round table discussion.
It goes on - and on...
TOPIC 6 Learning how to find things, starting with looking in the right place instead of turning the house upside down while screaming. Open forum.
TOPIC 7 Health watch: bringing her flowers is not harmful to your health. Graphics and audio tape.
TOPIC 8 Real men ask for directions when lost. Real-life testimonials.
And so on...!
Well, it wasn't meant to be that way.
How was it supposed to be? Have a look at Genesis 2:25 "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Don't laugh!
I know it's just the kind of verse that we all giggled at when we were children - like looking up 'sex' in the dictionary - but it's not here for our amusement, it's here to inspire us. "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Genesis has got two accounts of creation - they're different, and they're proud to be different, Moses and Joshua knew they were different as they taught the Israelites with them - God's revelation of himself as creator.
And as we saw last week, we're supposed to read them in a poetic-literary way, not as a science book. We expect to find out about meaning and purpose, not mechanics and physics.
Near the end of the first account, we read this: Genesis 1:31 "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."
A wonderful statement of completeness and perfection - and Genesis 2:25 is supposed to have the same impact on us: "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
As Genesis goes on, we blur into a more historical account of the world's origins: and here in v.25 I believe we have a real description of the first human beings - perhaps they're a representative couple, one couple amongst many, perhaps they're the only humans - don't know: but as we see humans appear on the earth, God wants us to know, with verse 25, that His created order of humans as men & women, who marry each other, is good.
But as we look at Genesis chapter 2 together, we're going to find it difficult.
And that's because we live on the other side of Genesis 3.
Sin is now in the world - and our human instinct and desire is to be like we want to be, not like God wants us to be. Our ways are not God's ways - and so we can expect to feel uneasy as we read about God's ways.
As disciples of Jesus, those who trust in him for life and forgiveness, when we feel uneasy, we need to put ourselves under God's word, in submission to it, and not over God's word, in judgement on it.
What has fascinated me about Genesis chapter two, is that its two key themes about men and women speak very clearly about two key areas of the sexual revolution of recent decades: sexual equality, and sexual freedom.
What are the two key themes of Genesis 2 about men and women?
v18-23, a suitable helper; v 24-25, one flesh
v.18-23 a suitable helper - the first theme about men and women is that God makes woman to be a suitable helper for man.
In the Old testament, in 15 out of the 21 times we hear about a "helper", it's God who is described as the helper.
So this isn't a derogatory statement about women: it is NOT saying 'God makes woman as man's slave'!
When God makes woman to be a suitable 'helper' for man, something excellent is going on - expressing God's image in womanhood.
I'm afraid I'm going to ignore for now vv 4-18, where God creates man and breathes life into him, and places him in the beautiful garden - where amongst all the other trees, there are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We'll come back to them when we look at chapter three.
But that's where the man is, when God speaks: have a look at v.18: "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.""
And God shows man all the animals, but, v. 20b: "for Adam {Or [the man]} no suitable helper was found."
And so we get the description of how God made the woman from Adam's rib.
Is this a literal description of how woman was created?
The language used suggests it's probably meant to be taken figuratively.
For example, apparently in Hebrew 'rib' also means 'side' and hence it can mean 'alter ego' - apparently there's an Arab expression "he is my rib" which means "he is my best friend". - there's a play on words here - by speaking of Adam's rib, this account is emphatic about the similarity of woman to man - that's why Adam is so joyful in v.23: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh".
He's so happy! He doesn't have to shack up with a lesser-spotted hyena - here's a something just like him. What's he going to call her? - v.23 again: "she shall be called..." - well the Hebrew word that we call woman sounds just like the word for man - she's just like him
So here's the first thing to notice about men and women: they're made to be similar.
What will stop Adam being alone in this world full of plants and animals? What will help him to care for this world and live in it? Someone just like him.
There's a lovely quote from Matthew Henry: "God did not make the woman 'out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved"
likeness is very important.
But so is difference.
Have a look at the account again - does it say that God put a human in Eden, and he didn't want the human to alone, so he made another human as a companion?
No, God, in his wisdom, put difference into the equation.
He says that a man was there, and the best possible helper, the most excellent companion, was not another man, not just another human, but a woman - someone with key biological differences that are reflected throughout her whole make-up as a person.
But there's no sense here that that difference makes the woman lower in value than the man.
Remember the nursery rhyme?
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of? Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails;
That's what little boys are made of
What are little girls made of made of?
Sugar and spice, and all that's nice; that's what little girls are made of
No - it's sinful human nature that devalues either male or female at the expense of the other.
God made male and female to be alike, and yet different - and it was brilliant.
This likeness and difference of the suitable helper can be summed up in the word: "complementarity"
Complementarity - Man and Woman help each other precisely by being different - and we can rejoice in that, we should be inspired by that.
A young man asked a computer to find him a wife that was small, attractive, who liked water sports and group activities. The computer suggested he marry a penguin.
Well, perhaps a wife shouldn't be that different.
But the bible does rejoice in there being a difference in role between woman and man, particularly in the family and in the church.
Equality in value, but difference in role.
The trouble is that the worlds idea of what is valuable is quite different from God's idea.
The world sees power, independence, ability to earn money as valuable.
But listen to Jesus Christ as he turns the worlds values upside down: (Mark 9:35) His disciples had been arguing about who was the greatest: "Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.""
Jesus demonstrated that supremely through his sacrifice of himself on the cross for our sins, but also you can see it in the way he treated people, both men and women.
When the Bible speaks about male headship in the home and in the church it's not male domination, not subjugation, not oppression - but an order of responsibility, exercised in self-sacrifice, love and partnership - always in the context of equal value in God's eyes, and to each other.
"a suitable helper"
God made woman to be a suitable helper for man - an excellent design, involving likeness, and difference, complementarity that values both women and men as they live together in partnership.
That's the first theme about men and women from Genesis 2.
The second theme is "one flesh" - verses 24-25.
v.24 - "For this reason" - that is, because God made woman to be suitable helper - "a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
God makes marriage an intrinsic part of his creation - such an important part of the creation that later in the bible marriage is used as the picture of Jesus Christ's relationship with the church: his followers.
Just a word here if you're single: although this passage is more about marriage, singleness is valued by God - we can see that in Jesus himself - so please don't switch off - particularly if you're likely to be married one day: it's important now to think ahead, and understand God's will.
In verse 24 we see that marriage involves: leaving, uniting, and one flesh
Leaving.
First the man leaves his parents. This is a public thing, and from the earliest times, certainly at the time this was written, it was something marked by the civil authorities.
Marriage as God intended it is a public relationship of exclusive commitment, not a private arrangement.
Living together is not the same.
The oldest known Valentines Day greeting is from 14th Feb 1477, written by Margaret Brews to John Paston, and she wrote: "if you really loved me, you'd marry me" - in the end he did, and the note was found recently in the Paston family papers - it's in the British Museum.
"If you really loved me, you'd marry me"
Just living together doesn't fit the bill - it doesn't provide the agreement to exclusive commitment that this relationship created by God deserves. It doesn't provide the exclusive commitment that this relationship needs.
And for some reason, in general, women see that more clearly than men.
I looked through all the comments put on the friendsreunited website by my year at my secondary school - and there was quite a difference between the men's and women's comments.
Almost all the women who mentioned a relationship said: "I am now happily married" - it kept coming up, time and time again. "I am now happily married". I don't think a single man used that phrase, but lots of the women did.
Maybe it's time men took more seriously our responsibility in male-female relationships - and marriage is where men need to start.
So the man leaves his parents and then he is united to his wife.
Marriage is about uniting a man and a woman:
Jesus tells us what this means : Mark 10:8-9 "they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Marriage creates a new permanent unit in the community.
And that's a brilliant thing - it's the foundation for security, trust, intimacy, understanding, and support.
Before God, when a man and a woman marry, they become just one being in his eyes, forever.
I wonder if the married couples here see themselves like that? I wonder if we see married couples like that when we look at them from outside?
We need to work both from inside of marriages, and outside of them, to keep them united. And we can do that with how we treat couples, when they're together or apart; we can strengthen that unity with how we talk to other people about the person they are married to, or the person we are married to.
When I used to chat with captains in the airline, often it was as if they felt obliged to do down their wives in conversation - as if this was somehow manly. Now I guess this is something just for blokes to watch our for - I imagine that women would never do anything like that, would they?
The apostle Paul writes about the loving care that this uniting implies - Ephesians 5:28-29 "...husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church..."
So that unity between husband and wife is a picture of how believers are united with Jesus, the church is the bride, and Christ the bridegroom - and wonderfully, that uniting will never be broken - Jesus assures us that once we trust in him, he will hold on to us - he is faithful, even when we aren't. - and that in turn is a great example for us in our marriages.
Leaving, uniting, and one flesh. "a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
Marriage, then intercourse.
Marriage, nothing less, before sexual intercourse.
In God's plan for our lives, the marriage of a man and a woman is the only place for sexual relations.
The alternative to marriage is celibacy. There's nothing wrong with being a virgin, however much it's ridiculed in the world around us.
In fact God's view of marriage is ridiculed all over, isn't it.
But what happened when it was done God's way? Genesis 2:25 "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." - it was fantastic.
What happens when it's done our way?
We can read about the damage in the statistics, we can feel it in the pain.
We need healing from that damage and pain. We need help to be faithful husbands and wives, to be faithful single people, to be helpful friends.
Remember I mentioned the tree of life that was in Eden? 2v9?
That same tree is in the new creation that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring about. And in the last chapter of the bible, we're told that "the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations". (Rev 22:2) Jesus alone can bring the healing we need.
When we look at a passage like this, it's great to see what God's design and plan was and is. It's great to aim for what God wants.
But I'm sure for each one of us, God uses it to show us our weakness as we see ourselves falling short of his desires, God uses it to show us our need for his mercy and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he uses it to show us his love and faithfulness towards us.
It's quite striking that God's two key themes face up directly with people's ideas about equality and sex.
Will we face up to what God's plan is for our lives?
A suitable helper - real value in complementarity - likeness and difference working together.
One flesh - a profound unity in marriage, the only place for sex.