The Write Place

I want you to notice something that must frame our understanding of man, woman and human nature.

In scripture, we often see God’s great works resulting in songs, particularly of praise or glory to God for what he has done. It happens after the Red Sea, or Deborah’s victory and the song to the Lamb in Revelation. It also happens at the end of Genesis 1.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man^[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:26-27

Genesis 1 as you can see here, is the account of the creation event that is about God as the creator. That is common in journalism and historical accounting of any kind. It need not be a textbook to be an account, or to be accurate. You see God creates and orders the universe and at the very top of this creating act, he makes man. So, God is praised for making the creature that bears his image.

Genesis two places itself in the sixth day with another song praising God for the creation of all things after the sabbath.

These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵ When no bush of the field^[a] was yet in the land^[b] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 

Genesis 2:1-5

You can see how this introduces Genesis 2 as occurring within the Genesis 1 account and again praising God for his works as creator with the song in verse 4. But then we see Genesis 2 shifts to another subject. Genesis 1 is about God as the creator of all things, Genesis 2 tells us about this special creation of the peculiar creature, man. God makes Adam and gives him the woman, then Adam does something equally interesting.

²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made^[a] into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”^[b]

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:22-24

Do you see it? Adam writes the first poem, a song about the woman. In doing so, he praises God. If you wonder why guys are so stir crazy about the ladies, it is because in a metaphysical sense they are longing for a reunion, for a wholeness they don’t have alone. Put simply, you complete me. Paul no doubt has this in mind.

⁶ For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. ⁷ For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. ⁸ For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.
1 Corinthians 11:6-8

In Corinth, a woman who did not cover or head (or especially if shaved it) was looking for promiscuity. Paul is telling the believer to dress modestly because they down to their very body, are the image God has created to represent him in his world. And the woman is the glory of this special creature. I suspect this has something to do with God being the husband to his bride throughout scripture. Male and female are to model the relationship between God and his people. God is glorified in that.

The human race is only complete with male and female, and the special connection between the two that produces more life. That is something to thank God for.