"To hear many men tell it today, you’ll think both responsibility and accountability belong equally to men and women. But, if the Bible is true, and I certainly believe it is, the destiny of the world rest upon the shoulder of the men, with the able assistance of the women. That is the divine plan and that is why it is important that men rediscover manhood – urgently too. The world has a men problem and men must arise to help the world solve it. Christian Men’s Network Nigeria, of which I am a coordinator, is poised to be in the vanguard of this journey of rediscovery. Please, watch this space for how you can join us."
In spite of the unambiguity of the
verses of scripture we read in arriving at what we saw as the God’s divine
place for the man in the scheme of things, questions apparently remain. The
most recurring of the questions arises from the creation narrative in the first
chapter of Genesis, which tended to suggest that man and woman were created
almost simultaneously and thus conferred with absolute equality in all things.
The relevant verses, which recorded
the activities of our Creator God on the sixth day, read:
“And
God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle,
and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And
God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind,
and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So
God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:24-27).
The Bible said God took a look at all
that he had created, and he saw “that it was good”. Yes God saw that it was all
good, but he also saw that it was incomplete. That explains what followed: “Let us make man…”, he declared, some
have said, plausibly, in consultation with his creation partners, God the
Spirit and God the Son. Then he proceeded to define how: “…in our image, after our likeness…”
In other words, let us make man exactly like us. And then he stated
why: that he may have the abilities which we
have to “have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” In other
words, God decided that his next creation must have the necessary equipping to
take charge over the creatures that swim in the oceans, the ones that fly in
the sky, as well as, those which creep or walk on land.
And he proceeded to do exactly that,
as the famous verse 27 of Genesis1 faithfully reported in these words: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them.” But as a holistic reading
of the creation account has shown, the latter part of this verse “male and female created he them,” was
a bit premature in the narration. This is because, as Genesis 2 has
demonstrated, all of this while, God had only the male in view! The man he
created in the image and likeness of the Godhead; the man that he gave dominion
over the rest of creation to, was the male; not male and female.. We have even
seen that the female probably would never have been made, had Adam found a
worthy helper among the other creatures that God presented to him for
consideration (see Genesis 2:19-20).
Another question that has arisen is
why bother about the whole issue in the first place with suggestions that this
was just an exercise in male chauvinism. But far from it, I did state
categorically the last time that “the truth that the man has preeminence in the
divine order of things does not, in any way, imply that he is superior in any
sense to the female. It does one very important: “it shows who is RESPONSIBLE
AND ACCOUNTABLE for the overall headship of the new enterprise”. It also shows
that in spite of the power and authority that
God has devolved to him in order that
he might play his role effectively, he is in fact incomplete without the woman.
This, unrecognized by most world
leaders and institutions, is possibly one of the most important issues of our
time. God in his wisdom decided to put someone in charge, handing him the
responsibility to ensure that things run as he has planned it. That implies
that it is that being that will account to him at the fullness of time. He also
created a helper for him, one with the duty of helping him succeed. She has
responsibility to help, not to take over and certainly, if she has any
accounting to do, it is to the extent of her specific assignment.
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