{"id":4436,"date":"2025-02-25T09:09:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T14:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4436"},"modified":"2025-02-25T09:09:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T14:09:48","slug":"wow-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/25\/wow-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Wow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

\u201cI did an awesome job.\u201d<\/em>

That would be a loose translation of what God said when he looked around at the newly created earth.

Or as Genesis 1:31 puts it, everything was \u201cvery good.\u201d

The first not-good<\/em> aspect of reality shows up in the middle of chapter two:\u00a0\u201cThe Lord God said, \u2018It is not good for the man to be alone\u2019\u201d (Genesis 2:18). Solitude was never God\u2019s intention for humanity.\u00a0\u201cI will make a helper suitable for him.\u201d

It\u2019s worth noting that in Hebrew there\u2019s no difference between the name Adam and the words \u201cthe man.\u201d Because Adam is \u201cthe man\u201d or \u201cthe human,\u201d a number of theologians believe that at this point he isn\u2019t simply male.\u00a0Adam comprises all of potential humanity \u2013 undifferentiated gender \u2013 wrapped up in one being.

So what kind of helper is suitable for Adam?

The word \u201chelper\u201d does not mean administrative assistant, gofer, or someone-who-will-cook-and-clean-up-after-me.\u00a0As author and pastor John Ortberg points out, \u201chelper\u201d is used most often in the Bible to refer to God.\u00a0It is therefore a word of great dignity.

What follows is the account of Adam encountering numerous animals and discovering that none of them is qualified to be his helper.\u00a0We can assume that it is Adam who declines all of the animals \u2013 except for the cat, who presumably declines Adam.

God\u2019s next step is extraordinary.\u00a0Part of Adam\u2019s side is taken to form a second being.\u00a0

Human maleness and femaleness are thus dramatically differentiated.\u00a0This means that every time men and women come together, it isn\u2019t just a union.\u00a0It\u2019s a reunion.

When Adam the male sees Eve the female in Genesis 2:22, the very first love poem springs from his mouth:\u00a0\u201cThis is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.\u00a0She shall be called \u2018woman,\u2019 for she was taken out of man.\u201d

That sentence, in the original Hebrew, begins with a small, untranslatable particle.\u00a0It\u2019s not a word, exactly.\u00a0It\u2019s more like a catch in the throat.\u00a0Some scholars translate it \u201cwow.\u201d

Wow.<\/em>\u00a0That is Adam\u2019s first response when he sees his true partner. People who love each other have been saying \u201cwow\u201d since the beginning of the human story.

Nevertheless, as that story, as reported in Genesis, slips away from the public consciousness in our increasingly secularized society, much of the wonder associated with being made in God\u2019s image has slipped away as well.

What does it mean to be human?\u00a0How should we classify the species called Homo Sapiens<\/em>?

How we choose to answer that question will largely define the character of\u00a0civilization in the 21st<\/sup> century.

With regard to our physical selves, classification is fairly straightforward.\u00a0We are biological organisms. That means that from one perspective we are associated\u00a0with everything else that has protoplasm.\u00a0About half the chemical functions that take place in an average piece of fruit \u2013 like an avocado or a grape\u00a0\u2013 take place inside our bodies.

About 90% of your genome is identical to that of a mouse.\u00a0Right now you have the genes to grow a tail; it\u2019s just that that part of your DNA has not been activated. \u00a0

Materialists \u2013 those who believe\u00a0that the sum total of reality is particles \u2013 would suggest that human beings are complex arrangements of molecules.\u00a0You and your loved ones are chemical assemblages.\u00a0In the provocative words of Richard Dawkins, today\u2019s most celebrated evolutionary biologist,\u00a0\u201cWe are survival machines \u2013 robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules (of DNA) known as genes.\u201d

In other words, the only purpose of human life is DNA survival.\u00a0A person is just\u00a0DNA\u2019s roundabout way of making more DNA.\u00a0Life is matter and only matter \u2013 which means that, as persons, we<\/u><\/em> don\u2019t really matter.

Some materialists decry \u201cspeciesism,\u201d the arrogant assumption that somehow the human species is more significant than slime molds or stink bugs. \u00a0

It\u2019s not a shock that when people are declared to be animals or machines, we start treating each other like animals or machines.\u00a0

In the end, the\u00a0character of a civilization is revealed by how it treats its weakest members.\u00a0If there\u2019s nothing special about human life, then the weak, the frail, and the unproductive among us will inevitably be compromised.\u00a0They will slowly but surely\u00a0be pushed away from life\u2019s table.

The Judeo-Christian understanding of the Bible\u2019s first book has led to a profoundly different take on reality.\u00a0

Looking to Genesis 1:27-28, we find the Bible\u2019s assertion that human beings are made in God\u2019s image.\u00a0Most agree that while that statement is inherently mysterious \u2013 we cannot fully comprehend the depth of its meaning \u2013 its ramifications are remarkable.

At the very least, being made in God\u2019s image means that we are far more than just animals.\u00a0Because God specifically endowed human beings with the stamp of his own character and personhood, our lives have infinite value.

That means that people are valuable even when they cannot contribute.

It makes sense\u00a0that people of faith have historically resisted both abortion and euthanasia.\u00a0Christians have opened hospitals, tenaciously battled diseases, pioneered ministries to the incarcerated, cared for the physically challenged, and loved those who are mentally and emotionally broken.\u00a0

Human lives matter. No human life is trivial.\u00a0

Every time we see another human being, we are gazing at someone\u00a0who bears the stamp of God\u2019s own being.

Which ought to prompt us to say, \u201cWow! God did an awesome job.\u201d<\/em>

Even if he chose not to endow us with stylish\u00a0tails.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u201cI did an awesome job.\u201d That would be a loose translation of what God said when he looked around at the newly created earth. Or as Genesis 1:31 puts it, everything was \u201cvery good.\u201d The first not-good aspect of reality shows up in the middle of chapter two:\u00a0\u201cThe Lord God said,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[870,869,343],"class_list":["post-4436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adam-and-eve","tag-genesis","tag-image-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4438,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436\/revisions\/4438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}