Earlier this month, on my birthday, Michelle and I went to the theaters to watch Ad Astra. We had no clue what to expect, but to our surprise we very much enjoyed the movie. It stars Brad Pitt, who plays an astronaut consumed by his work. He is the best at what he does, and his father was the best before him. But this excellence comes at the cost of becoming estranged with his wife, threats to his mental health and even overall quality of life. Everything, including relationships, are pushed to the margins so he can go farther and achieve more. However, throughout his journeys through space, the protagonist realizes how unhuman he is becoming. In fact, I believe the film highlights how humans become less human the more detached they are from people such that isolated men are the real aliens in this world.

I’ll stop there so I don’t give anything else away. But the movie is on to something. We, humans, become less human when we are not in community. Put another way, to be human is to be in community. God made us, as humans, for each other, and this is an important truth for everyone, including men, who often forget their need for women, the important role that women play in community and the church, and the ways in which God created women to be co-heirs and co-rulers with us on this earth. Men need women, and women need men. And to highlight this truth, I want to go back to the beginning, to God’s creation of the first humans in Genesis 2, in order to unpack the meaning of terms like “helper” and “suitable,” and its implications for the church today.

Men Need Women

Genesis 2:18 says, “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’” This is an often-misinterpreted verse. Many Christians immediately jump to the conclusion that the problem for man is that he is unmarried. But, that’s not what the text stresses. This verse doesn’t say, “It is not good for the man to be single.” It doesn’t say, “It is not good that man is a bachelor.” Because singleness is not the problem. Loneliness is. And the author is stressing the badness of man’s loneliness. When we consider Genesis 1 and how often God says that things are good, for God to now say something is not good is huge. God is stressing the fact that loneliness is not good for humans. It wasn’t good for the first human and it’s not good for us now.

The problem of loneliness should come as no surprise because humans are made in the image of God who is plural. God himself is a tri-unity, a community of three Persons – Father, Son, and Spirit – and inherent within this triune concept of community is codependence.

In the second part of verse 18, Yahweh God says, “I will make a helper suitable for him.” Admittedly, the language of this line is misleading. Based on our modern usage, we hear these words and think, “Oh, look, God is going to make an assistant for the man…” or “God is going to make a servant for the man…” or something like that. Right? We read these words and immediately hear inferiority. We misuse this verse to create a vision of man as superior, and woman as inferior. But, that is far from the truth.

The language of “helper” is actually an honored role. In fact, most of the time that “helper” is used, it is in reference to someone who is powerful. For example, Yahweh God frequently refers to Himself as Israel’s helper. Psalm 115:9-11, uses this very term of “help.” It’s the same root word in Hebrew. God is certainly not inferior to Israel; it’s the opposite, Israel is inferior to the helper. But he has chosen to come and help his people. In other instances, powerful kings are referred to as helpers of weaker parties as well.

The term “helper” does not connote inferiority. In fact, we could read Genesis 2:18 as the woman, delivering or saving the man from his solitude. In this way, the man depends on the helper. He is not fully human without the helper. Men are dependent on women, and that’s a good thing.

Men and Women Are Equal

It’s also interesting that after judging the man’s sorry case of loneliness, God first brings animals before the man. Look at Genesis 2:20. Yahweh God parades all the animals before the man to show how much he needs a helper. However, not one of these creatures is a “suitable helper.” God makes the man realize firsthand how sorry his state is, so that the man is prepared to receive the gift of another.

The term “suitable” is also interesting. In Genesis 2:18, the word “suitable” is a hard term to translate. In fact, I don’t know if suitable is the best option. In the original, the term suggests a correspondence of sorts. The man needs a helper who corresponds to him; a helper who is like him. In this way, helpers are not be superior or inferior to the man; they are equal. This helper will form one-half of what it means to be human.

And, that’s precisely what we see in verse 21. Notice how God builds the helper. He puts the man to sleep. It’s like God hooks him up to anesthesia, the kind of anesthesia that puts grown adults to sleep, so that they don’t feel anything during surgery. That’s what God does to the man. He puts him to sleep because the man is about to undergo a major procedure with God taking a large chunk of the man’s side.

Most modern versions mislead with the translation of “rib.” But “rib” is inadequate translation. In every instance that this term appears in the Old Testament, it is not translated as “rib.” But for some reason, many Bibles translate it as “rib” in Genesis. In fact, the term – צֵלָע – is an architectural word. In other places of the Scripture, it is translated as the side of a building, the side of the ark, or the side of a room. Using that logic, we should instead read Genesis 2:21 as “while he was sleeping, God took one side of the man…”

Picture this with me: God lays the man down to sleep. Then he takes a scalpel and divides the man into two sides. With one side, He builds a woman. With the other side, God bandages up the man with flesh. Isn’t that quite a sight?!   

Church, the very construction of woman indicates an equality between the man and the woman. The woman and man are made from the same material. Even the man’s words stress the equality of the two. He says, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” meaning here is something of the same substance as me, and someone equal to me. Notice, the man does not say, “This is now my servant, or my assistant.” No, the man says, “Here is my equal. We have the same bones and the same flesh.”

The equality of the two comes out again when the man calls the helper, “woman,” and calls himself, “man.” In the original, it’s a deliberate play on sounds. He calls the helper ( אִשָּׁה), woman, as he calls himself ( אִישׁ,) man. By using two words that sound alike, the man is stressing the identity and equality of the two. They are not two different species. One is not inherently better or worse. They are equal.

Rethinking Genesis 2 and Women’s Roles in the Church

What I find utterly breathtaking about Genesis 2 is how radical it is. The Bible is the only ancient Near Eastern text that provides a separate account of the formation of woman. No other religion in the ancient Near East explains how woman was uniquely made. But, here, the Scriptures emphasize how woman came to be. That is awesome! Even the amount of attention on this is amazing.

Check this: the creation of man only gets one verse – Genesis 2:15. But, the formation of woman gets six verses. Moreover, because she is formed last, her formation serves as a climax to the creation account. It’s as if creation isn’t complete until the woman is made. The appearance of woman brings the creation to completion. She is given an honored position within this narrative, and that’s on purpose. 

Here’s what we, as the church today, need to recognize about women, the church, and community in general: we need women. Men need women. The church needs women. Men, hear me: we are not fully human without them. We need them in general, and we need them in the church. Just as the first man needed the first woman in order to work and protect the garden, we need our sisters to work and protect the church. We can’t do it without them. We are dependent on them. God has given gifts to the sisters that we need. We can learn from them, and they can teach us. We dare not think that the church would go on just fine without women. That’s a lie! You need your fellow sister, and it’s high time you recognized this in every aspect of your life.

And, sisters, the church needs you. It can’t fulfill God’s purposes without you. Please know how indispensable you are. You are not less. You are not a second-class citizen. You are not less intelligent. You are not an appendage. You are not an accessory. You are a child of God, a valued member of the body of Christ, and our co-heirs and rulers. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Just as the first man needed the first woman in order to work and protect the garden, we need our sisters to work and protect the church. Click To Tweet