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Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree in the garden you may eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for from the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17 Scripture demands a moderate level of reflection to sort out what is going on. The Bible was written in such a way that there is very little editorial comment, so that we actually have to think and analyze what is being said. The writer did not put right on the surface what was going on. But if we step an inch below the surface, some things just blare out. One of the things that should be noticed is that the woman, Eve, was not there. The man, Adam, was given the commands concerning the purposes of God without her being present. With this we have an implication about males. Genesis 1:31 said that when God was done creating the world and placing humanity in it, He said that what He had made was very good. Since men were very good, it follows that they must be very good at what He asked them to do. So what a male is good at must be the fulfilling of goals and purposes. Males tend to be driven, and often, purposes enslave them. Men were created to fulfill purpose. This is the glory of men when they are healthy, and their greatest weakness when they are out of balance. While the lady was not around, God turned to the man and said, “I have a purpose for you and you are responsible for it.” He gave a purpose to the male. After the purpose was given: Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not beneficial, it is not a good thing, for the man to be alone.' Genesis 2:18 When we ask ourselves who was keeping Adam company before the creation of Eve, it is fascinating, and almost humorous, to realize that the answer is God! God essentially said, “I am not the best possible company for this person.” God looked and said that the man only had Him. Adam needed someone other than God to meet his need. That sounds strange, but sometimes a fellowship exists among humans that God himself cannot provide. Every once in awhile we need the comfort of another creature. God was sympathetic enough to recognize that, and it did not bother him that we needed each other. Mistakenly, we say God and God alone is all we need. God hears that and questions our sense! He is not as spiritual as we are! Then the Lord God said, "it is not beneficial for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper." Genesis 2:18 The word for helper is a wonderful Hebrew word, Azer. This word Azer appears about twenty-two times in the Old Testament, and eighteen of those times it is used of God. Always referring to “a significant helper like God, a king, a prince, or a great warrior,” the word Azer underscores how critical the helper is. It is someone who is of critical importance, who normally will deliver another from an immense problem, and who is a loyal companion. Being a magnificent term, it is not the Hebrew word for a slave, a hireling, an assistant, or a vice-president. We would not say to God, “God, you are my assistant.” But instead, God is our Azer, our helper. God said, “I will make him a helper suitable for him [or who is his complement].” Because the helper was able to harmoniously match him, it really meant she was a magnificent helper who was his equal. The purposer, the male, had been created. God looked at the man and said that man needed a relational expert who was a consultant. She would know how to work with him. Not only needing a magnificent helper to deal with his loneliness, he needed this relational expert to be his consultant to fulfill the grand purposes of God. His blind spot would be his relational inability, but his glory would be his ability to fulfill purposes. We see this played out over and over again with men. Their glory is their drive. Their weakness is that they are often driven and do not notice loneliness. They need a relational expert as a consultant to get them through life. Then God did something very, very clever. What he did was to recognize that creatures learn by experience, not by abstract thought. We have a silly educational approach that says if we teach ourselves information, we learn. The Bible does not approach life like that. It says give a person an experience, and he or she will learn; give data, and the point will be missed. God created an experience for Adam. When Adam was done with the experience, he absolutely understood the significance of the woman. God knew that He was going to give Adam a female. If He just handed over a female to him, the man would have no depth perception to appreciate the gift. He needed an experience. God, therefore, walked him through a zoo. When the man was at the other end, he had enough depth perception to appreciate what he would be given. Notice what occurred: . . . and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky. Genesis 2:19 It was like a wonderful magic act. God created an owl, an elephant, a cat, a dog. Right in front of him, they were made – out of the ground. Then He brought each of the animals to Adam. Initially it was very exciting, but how many animals can one look at in a day? God told the man, “You name them – put a name on them.” Out of the recesses of his being, this absolutely brilliant man, who would be able to call eagles from the sky – named an eagle. God allowed him to imitate the way God had named the day and night, the sun, moon and stars, the waters and the land, in chapter one of Genesis. Adam looked at these animals and gave them names. Each time he named an animal, God asked him whether he had found a helper or not. He did not. When he finished naming them, he was crushed with loneliness. He previously had a name for lonely; now he had the experience of being lonely. When the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a significant helper for him. Genesis 2:20 After the experience of going through the world of animals and not finding a helper, he was put to sleep by God. The purpose of putting him to sleep was not only to get the rib, but to heighten the drama. The curtain went down and came up. After Adam woke up, he burst forth into poetry. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man and the man said,
'This now, is Bone of my bones, This is actually a poem. After all of those animals, this was someone like him, but she was feminine. The phrase “this now” referred to the person he saw, as opposed to the animals. Delight was his. The commonality for humanity is that we are made in the image and likeness of God, but the difference is that the man is focused on purposes and the woman is focused on relationships. They were made to be a team. Whether a person is married or single, he or she needs to have a deep appreciation of how special it is to be human, and how the genders are similar to and different from each other.
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o understand the genders, one has to
enter the world of the Bible to see what God intended for humanity
and what He intended by the difference in the genders. God made
humanity to rule the earth, but in that rule the genders would have
two different focuses. Let us see what they are, and as we see
that, we will discover how they were intended to relate. 
