Man and woman 2

 

 
…the most natural implication of God’s decision to bring Adam onto the scene ahead of Eve is that Adam is called to bear the responsibility of headship. That fact is validated by the New Testament when Paul uses the fact that “Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim 2:13), to draw a conclusion about male leadership in the church.
50 crucial questions: An overview of central concerns about manhood and womanhood, John Piper and Wayne Grudem, 2016

Opening question

  • When have you encountered a snake? What happened?

Study

Read Genesis 3:1-13.

  1. In what ways was Eve deceived (Genesis 3: 1-6, 13)?
  2. What do you think of Adam’s participation in the sin and then his response to the Lord?
  3. Do you think it is significant that Satan (the serpent) approached Eve not Adam? Explain why.
Read Genesis 3:14-19.
  1. What are the consequences for the sin of both Eve and Adam?
  2. God says that Adam “listened to the voice of his wife” instead of obeying the Lord. How can we prevent other voices from leading us into temptation and sinning against God?
  3. In the New Testament (as you will see in the following studies), Paul makes it clear that men should lead in the church and their families for their good. How did Adam fail in this instance in the garden?
Read Romans 5:12-21.
  1. There were larger consequences because of Adam’s sin. List the ones you can find in this passage.
  2. Count how many times the words “gift”, “grace”, “righteousness”, “life” and “Jesus” appear in this short passage. Why is this such good news for you and also for the people you know?
  3. When talking to others about Christ, what are the important points that you would include to help them understand how much God loves and has done for them (based on this passage)?
Pray for each other that you may not fall into temptation and sin and also that God can help you fulfill your role faithfully to him in your family and in the church.

The first woman was made specifically for the first man, a helper, to meet, respond to, surrender to, and complement him. God made her from the man, out of his very bone, and then He brought her to the man. When Adam named Eve, he accepted responsibility to "husband" her—to provide for her, to cherish her, to protect her. These two people together represent the image of God—one of them in a special way the initiator, the other the responder. Neither the one nor the other was adequate alone to bear the divine image.
God put these two in a perfect place and—you know the rest of the story. Eve, in her refusal to accept the will of God, refused her femininity. Adam, in his capitulation to her suggestion, abdicated his masculine responsibility for her. It was the first instance of what we would recognize now as "role reversal." This defiant disobedience ruined the original pattern and things have been in an awful mess ever since.
Let me be a woman, Elisabeth Elliot, 1996

Artwork © Max Gilmour 

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