Genesis3:16

"To the woman He said:  "I will great multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."  Genesis 3:16

The second of Eve's curses deals with her relationship with her husband.  It explains why many marriages fail and why many of the rest are unhappy.  As mentioned before, human relationships are just as likely to succeed when men and women rely on human knowledge rather than revealed, godly wisdom.

The NKJV's rendering of the latter half of Genesis 3:16 is typical of many translations:  "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."  From this we can see that the two clauses cannot be parallels.  Instead, they form a statement of action and reaction.  Because the woman "desires" her husband, he will "rule over" her.

Yet this does not make much sense as a curse.  Why should a woman's desire for her husband cause him to dominate her?  Most men would gladly accept his wife's desires for him, causing him to treat her more gently rather roughly, as i implied in this verse.  How are we to understand this?

The key is in the word "desire," translated from the Hebrew tesuqah, which the Brown, River and Briggs lexicon calls "unusual and striking" (p. 1003).  It occurs only three times in the Old Testament here, Genesis 4:7, and Song 7:10.  It can carry the sense of sexual longing (as in the Song of Songs), but its usage in Genesis 4:7 shows another side, that of a desire to overcome or defeat one another" "[Sin's] desire is for you, but you should rule over it."  This latter meaning fits Genesis 3:16 better than the former.

Thus, God is saying that a woman's desire will be to gain the upper hand over her husband, but because she is the weaker vessel, her husband will put her down by force, if need be.  The curse is that, in the main, women will lose the battle of the sexes.  History bears this out.  Until the advent of women's rights movements, women were virtually husband's property, treated as heir-producing machines, given little freedom, and forced to serve their husband's every whim.  In many cultures, men bought and sold women like cattle.  Some cultures maintain this custom even today.

Only where true Christianity flourishes is there any real easing of this curse.  Ephesians 5:22-23 teaches how we can decrease it effects within our marriages - by emulating the virtues of Christ's relationship with the church.  Thus, wives are told to submit rather than contend, and husbands are commanded to love rather dominate.  It takes conscious effort to overcome the evil, ingrained habits of 6,000 years of misguided practice.

Ephesians 4:28

"Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need."  Ephesians 4:28

God's intention is clear.  We are to gain property and possessions by honest work and /or inheritance from those who have the right to give them.  WE must come into possession of things in a way God approves.

The verb "labor" indicates exertion to the point of exhaustion.  In addition, Paul admonished us not merely to work to satisfy our personal needs and desires, but also to be able to give freely any excess to others in need.  The admonition implies distributing the excess personally rather than indirectly through an agency.  He adds in Acts 20:35, "I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak.  And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Stealing is totally against the grain of God's way of life.  Our God is a working, creating God (John 5:17), and we cannot be in His imagine if we are gaining possessions through stealing.  In the spirit of God's law, a person not only steals by taking another's possessions, but also by refusing to work in order to share and give to others in need.

This commandment does not reach its fullest expression until the ninth and tenth and added to it.  Stealing frequently has its genesis in a desire to have something one has no money to purchase, or the unwillingness to work patiently until one does.  Deception then enters.  A person will try to acquire a desired possession in such a way that others will think he procured it honorably.  We can stop this sin at any point in the process, but few make any effort to restrain their lust, deceit, and itching fingers.

Robert Kahn was correct in saying, "There are a hundred ways to steal but only one way to be honest."  In order not to steal, we must be scrupulously honest. What good is it if we are one-half or three-quarters honest?  What if God was honest with us only part of the time?  Could we trust Him?  Can others really trust us if we are only partially honest?  Do we lock our doors because we trust everybody?  Thievery creates distrust, fear, and suspicion, destablizing intituitons and communities.

The reason we should refrain from stealing is not just to avoid sinning.  This in itself is very good, but scrupulous honesty produces integrity, wholeness. Such integrity enables us to live confidently before God and man.  The apostle John writes in I John 3:18-19: "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.  And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him."  Personal integrity is a major source of positive, confident living.

A conscience can be either a good or bad guide because it is educated by an individual's experience.  Practicing  scrupulous honesty builds character and educates the conscience in the right direction so that it will send the right prompting at the right time.  We cannot allow ourselves room to rationalize stealing.  We must be scrupulously honest always, or our character will descend on a path of degeneracy.

There are hundreds of ways to steal, and dozens of excuses for stealing, but only one way and one reason and one law of integrity. That way is honor, that reason is a clear conscience, and that law is God's.  He says, "You shall not steal."  Never.  In any way. From any one.

I Timmothy 2:12-15

"And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.  Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue if faith, love, and holiness, with self-control." I Timothy 2:12-15

Paul comments on the woman's curse in this passage, a section of Scripture that has come under a great deal of scrutiny in recent years.  What is immediately striking about Paul's reasoning and conclusion on Genesis 3:16 regarding the church is that he upholds it.  Modern theological thought would reason that the effects of "the Fall" are nullified under Christ's blood, but Paul says, "Not so."  They my be diminished, but not eradicated.

Paul cites the fact that God created Adam before Eve as his proof that God intended the man to lead.  He backs this up by showing that while Eve proved subject to deception - thus, she was the "weaker" of the two - Adam, whose sin was sheer disobedience, did not.  Thus, Eve's sin established that woman should not take the lead from man; that route, by the biblical example of our first parents, generally leads to problems.  The apostle concludes that a woman, formed by God as a helper to Adam and more inclined to being deceived, should not teach or lead men in the church.

On the hand, as Ephesians 5:25-29, 33 plainly shows, a Christian men must no longer "rule over" their wives.  Loving authority is not domineering or despotic, but humble, caring, gentle, kind, and patient.  In the same vein, Christian women should submit to and respect their husbands (verses 23-24, 33).  Submission is not manipulative or grudging, but done in faith, respect, and humility.

How, though, is a woman "saved in childbearing"?  The word uses for "saved" (sozo) can be used for both physical deliverance from danger and spiritual salvation.  How does faith, love, holiness and self-control prevent or nullify the physical dangers of pregnancy?  Conversely, is not salvation by grace?  Which salvation does the apostle mean here?

Neither.  A third explanation fits the context best.  Paul's main concern in this section is proper order within the church.  Men, he writes, should pray and teach.  Women should adorn themselves modestly and do good works, but they should not be teaching publicly or leading men.  Verse 15 explains what their primary concern should be: "childbearing."  Thus, it means that much of God's judgment of women will be based on how well they perform their God-given role in bearing children.

To us, this sounds quite misogynistic, but to the Greek speaker "childbearing" (teknogonia) covers a great deal more ground than just "popping out babies."  The Strong's Concordance definition shows that the extended meaning is "maternity (the performance of maternal duties)."  W.E Vine, in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, agrees, writing that it 'impl[ies] the duties of motherhood" (p. 190).  The Twentieth Century New Testament translates this clause, "But women will find their salvation in motherhood."

Paul's exhortation aims to brings marriage and family back to what God intended of men and women before Adam and Eve's sin.  Just as God will judge men according to how well they fulfill their roles as husbands (leaders) and teachers, so He will judge women by their performance as wives and mothers.  Since salvation, particularly the period of sanctification, is a process that covers our entire converted lifetimes, how well we fulfill our God-given responsibilities within our families will make a difference in God's judgment.  Paul says we must perform these duties in faith, love, holiness, and self-control - just as we must do everything else in our Christian lives.

To summarize, then, the apostle simply states that God will judge and reward a woman according to her growth as a Christian within her appointed sphere of influence:  her family.  God Himself has drawn the lines between the sexes, and we should do our best to fulfill our roles with excellence, not rebellion or compliant.  In this way, we will make progress in reversing the effects of the curses in the Garden of Eden.

Hebrews 5:12-14

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.  But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."  Hebrew 5:12-14.


From the scriptural record, the Hebrews and the Corinthians were not equipped to feed themselves - to discern sacred or spiritual from profane or carnal.  If we are in a dependent state, it would be to our advantage to learn how we can wean ourselves from the bottle.  Some lose an appetite for solid, spiritual food and need to be fed intravenously.

All of us need to become less dependent on spiritual milk and instead become more capable of profiting from solid food.  For those who are losing the capacity to enjoy solid food, there is a way to revitalize our spiritual appetite for weightier matters.

Most of us would agree that the state of spiritual dependency described by the apostle Paul in Hebrews and Corinthians seemed lamentable and disgusting.  Yet, how many are conditioned to wait for a minster to prepare a weekly baby formula rather than ravenously devour God's Word every day?

Perhaps we have developed "baby-bird syndrome" in which we, in a helpless "take care of me" posture, open our beaks to get our weekly, bi-weekly, etc.. worm.  If church services were the only times we were spiritually fed, we would eventually starve to death.

Sometime late in life, after leading a full life, people for no apparent reason lose their will to live and must be fed intravenously.  Actually, when we all think about it, without and overriding purpose of our existence, we have no reason to eat or sustain our life.  If people indeed start to lose the vision of their purpose for existence they eventually lose their capacity to endure solid food.  Hopefully, we have passed the stage of the milk bottle.  I know this is a question I have dwelt on extensively over the past few years and still do at times.

Luke 7:41-50

"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors.  One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both.  Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?  Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more."  And He said to him, "You have rightly judged."  Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?  I entered your house; you have Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.  You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in.  You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman anointed My feet with fragrant oil.  Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.  But to whom little is forgiven, the same love little." Then He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."  And those who sat the table with Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"  Then He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace."  Luke 7:41-50

Interestingly, in the model prayer (Matthew 6:12), sin is expressed as a debt.  It is a true metaphor because duly neglected in relation to God is a debt owed to Him, one that must be discharged by paying a penalty.  All have sinned (Romans 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).  We are all under a peculiar form of indebtedness that we cannot pay and still have hope.

Simon and the woman each portray a class of sinners.  Though all are sinners, some have incurred more debt through the way of life each has lived.  Some are outwardly respectable, decent, and clean living, while others have fallen into gross, sensual, and open transgression.  In this regard, Simon was a great deal "better" than the woman, who was coarse and unclean.  She had been wallowing in filth while he attained civic respectability through rigid morality and punctilious observance of civility.  He had far less to answer for than she, but he had also received a great deal more from his morality and righteousness than she had.  God is not so unfair as to withhold blessings from people for the right they have done.  Yet, regardless of the relative size of each one's debt, neither was able to pay it!

We all are sinful and stand in the same relation to God as these two debtors.  One's sins may be blacker and more numerous than another's, but upon considering degrees of guilt and complex motivations behind each one's sins, we may not be so quick to judge the woman's sins worse than Simons'.  From this perspective, they were equal.  His sins were clothed with respectability, but he still could not meet his debt.  Jesus says, "They had nothing to pay."  That also precisely describes our position in relation to each other.

What does this mean practically in regards to Jesus Christ and our sins?  No depth of guilt, no amount of tears, self-flagellation, or discipline, no amount of repentance can work this into a payable debt.  Some of these are certainly required of God and are good to do, but forgiveness, the payment of our debt incurred through our personal sins, is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8),  It comes by God's mercy through the blood of Jesus Christ (I John 1:7).  We absolutely cannot pay it ourselves and still have hope of eternal life.  If it could, God would owe us something - He would be indebted to us.  That will never, never be.

 

Matthew 5:21:22

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council.  But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire."  Matthew 5:21-22

Matthew 5:21-22 advises each individual to make efforts to cover his responsibility to ensure that his thoughts, words, and conduct do not lead to his needing the court's services.  Indeed, Jesus' approach, if done perfectly, will ensure that he does not sin in any manner.

Our Savior's remedy for combating crime shifts matter from retaliation by civil authorities to stopping it at its source.  When each person is responsible for dealing with anger and hatred internally, keeping them from ever manifesting themselves as external acts, it also eliminates the fear of being caught by police and punished by the courts.

The central thought Jesus expresses is that such thoughts are tantamount to murder in God's eye.  If a person never had an evil thought, no murder would exist.  I John 3:15 reveals how important Christians should consider controlling our thoughts to be:  "Whoever hates his brother is a murder, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."  The hostility present in a wrongly motivated person's mind already contains the ingredients necessary to persuade him to kill another who, he feels, stands in the way of his progress.  The hostility connects directly to the act of murder because they are actually one process.

At first, Matthew 5:38-39 appears to say that one should simply offer himself as a sacrificial lamb; "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'  But I tell you not to resist an evil person.  But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."  However, Jesus does not rule out self-defense in a life-threatening situation, as His illustration in the wider context of Matthew 5 show.

Taken together, His illustration reveal that He is not considering anything more than rather minor, but irritating and perhaps considerably inconvenient, interruptions in our daily routine.  The general thought is that we must not set ourselves up as the angry enemy of the person perpetrating evil against us.  He advises us to remove the bitterness in our own hearts by doing good rather than retaliating and doing evil.  It is a warning against letting our thoughts build a hatred-based case against others.

This involves a great deal of humility and patience on our part, but it often diffuses what could build to murderous thoughts in our mind.  We have all probably felt like not working at one time or another, but because we had to do it, we set our will, threw ourselves into accomplishing the work, and before we know it, we were likely enjoying the accomplishment.  This is a simple illustration, but the same general process is involved in Jesus' counsel.

Jesus followed His own teaching, as Luke 23:34 illustrates: "Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.'  The they divided His garments and cast lots."  Earlier He said, "Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?"  (Matthew 26;53).  Yet, retaliation was not on His mind. Fulfilling His work from His Father and in behalf of mankind overrode His personal feelings, even in this severe dilemma.

Galatians 5:4-6

"You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.  For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love."  Galatians 5:4-6

Paul makes another contrast.  What avails a person is faith working through love.  These three verses are important because they introduce "Spirit" and that "faith works through love."  Faith works.  It works through - meaning "by means of" - love.  In other words, if a person really has faith in the right things and the right Person, he will produce what?  Love.

What is the Bible definition of love?  "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments" (I John 5:3).  That is beautiful.  Similarly, Paul is saying that, if we really believe in the right things and the right Person (that is, have faith), then it will produce the keeping of the commandments.

The evidence of our faith, then, is in whether or not we keep His commandments.  John tells us that the basis of love is commandment-keeping.  It is not the whole picture, because emotion, feeling, is also tied to it, but we have to begin somewhere, and the bottom line is keeping the commandments.

Another statement that proves that Paul was not doing away with law keeping comes right from this context.  The word "Spirit" reflects on a subject he dealt with earlier.  The enemy - Judaistic Gnostics - believed that their calling and election by God came because they had the law and kept it.  But Paul is saying, "No.  We are drawn to God by His Spirit," which is what Jesus says in John 6:44.

Also, truth is revealed by God's Spirit (I Corinthians 2:10-16; John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13), so our calling has nothing to do with our works.  Romans 9:16 tells us that it is not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.  Thus, we are in this position because God, by His Spirit, has drawn us.  He, by His Spirit, has revealed Himself, His Word, and the purpose of life to us.  Our calling and election are completely a work of grace.  At the point of our calling, law-keeping has noting to do with it, but comes into play later when our faith works through love.