A Biblical View of Marriage – Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 to 25
Marriage was designed as a good gift from God, yet our brokenness so often makes for trouble, fights, disagreements and tension.
- Marriage is Necessary (verses 18-20)
It is not good to be alone. This was the first not-good thing. We need companionship. - Marriage is to be between one man and one woman, and to be husband-led (verses 21-23)
- The Man was made first.
- The Woman came from Adam
- The Woman was named by Adam
- Male headship points to Christ’s headship over the church. But head or helper is not about superiority, for Christ is the pattern for both. Husband, love your wife more than yourself, as Christ loved the church.
- Marriage is meant to be exclusive, permanent and transparent. (verses 24-25)
Women were created from the rib of man to be beside him, not from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled by him, but from under his arm to be protected by him, near to his heart to be loved by him.
― Matthew Henry
18 The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’
Genesis 2:18-25 New International Version – UK (NIVUK) Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
‘This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called “woman”,
for she was taken out of man.’
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
