It is not my intention to cause any disrespect, but rather to show the value of woman. The headline is purely shock factor to catch your eye.
Before you go on, please read:
"A Warning - Straight From My Heart" if you haven't already.
Thinking outside the box
Looking at Genesis 1:27 I remember that one of the names for God is "El Shaddai" (the breasted one). God himself must have male and female parts and because of this was able to create Jesus.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
It seems in verse 27 that if man was created in the image of God perhaps man started out a "whole" being with both male and female parts and traits just like God. In that case, man would have been created self-sufficient. At the very end of the 6th day, the day when man was created, God declared everything VERY good. It was just "good" before, on all the other days. This implies that God created man and did a very good job at it.
In the beginning, Adam was walking with and learning from God, growing and changing personally, but there came a time when things changed. Adam probably came to his full point, the place where he stopped growing and changing. He needed something else to bring out his full potential. Adam needed to get out of his comfort zone. What did God decide to do?
Genesis 2:18 "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." None of the animals would do. God planned to make Adam a help MEET for him, a helper that MET what he needed...not what Adam wanted. Needed? Maybe not from Adam's point of view. It seems that from God's point of view though, there could be something BETTER. The condition had turned from “very good” to “not good”.
Adam naming the animals
In Genesis 2:19, right after God decided that it was not good for man to dwell alone, He brought before Adam every beast of the field and fowl of the air to see what Adam would call them. The word “call” has several synonyms; it means name, describe and identify when used as a verb; assessment and judgment when used as a noun.
It was important to God that Adam recognized these types of animal spirits and the nature of these beasts. Adam began to realize every living creature had a help “meet” for them except for himself. In naming the animals, God taught Adam that Adam could never use a beast as a helpmeet. A beast can only create another beast, not man. God made a very plain distinction between what man was and what a beast was. They have very different purposes. Man was supposed to have dominion over the beasts.
How were beasts different from man? What are some marks or identifying features of a beast?
1. One of the natures of a beast is to kill without remorse.
2. One of the natures of a beast to vie for dominion amongst others of its own kind.
3. A beast cannot change it's nature. It is who it is and likes it. It would rather die than even try to be anything different than what it is.
You can put a starving lamb into a room full of steaks and it will rather starve to death than eat meat. You can put a starving wolf into a room full of fresh grass and it will die rather than graze. (...so this must mean a wolf in sheep's clothing is not really a wolf or a sheep.)
4. It is not the nature of a beast to cast blame.
Why change?
Everything Adam had needed was provided in the garden and because he had no needs, there was nothing to motivate him into changing or growing. Adam was completely satisfied. It seems he would have existed in stasis forever. We don't even know how long he was in the garden before Eve came along. God needed to do something to make Adam grow and become more than Adam was. The Lord wanted more from Adam, an enhanced relationship. He wanted Adam to grow up to "Be All You Can Be". (An old Army phrase)
Think of it…if a man is just given handouts all his life, there is no motivation to study, create or change anything.
All progress in history was made by those who were not satisfied, got off their duff and did something. Those are the ones that were able to change the lives of others and enhance relationships. God wanted more out of Adam, so He changed it so that Adam NEEDED something. Like an oyster with a grain of sand, a little annoyance that would become something of great value; a pearl of great price.
On the same thought, I guess you can say God created a lack in the self-sufficient being of Adam, a longing and an uncomfortableness that needed to be filled. God did this by taking something away from Adam.
My thinking is that perhaps God took out Adam's female parts, mental and physical and made a separate entity, Eve. It was still the original Adam, but now flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, equal to him as a help "meet" for him.
Creating woman introduced a dynamic in mankind that allows us to grow if we embrace God’s plan for us. It adds a lot of dynamics to our lives when our wives are around. Life is no longer simple once we get married. Becoming ONE is now the hard part. A being "at one" with itself is full of peace and God promised we will become one with our wives. Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:8-9. But there needs to be relationship to fulfill potential. Perhaps that is why God himself created Jesus and why he wants a bride for his son.
There is only one God the Father. There is no other beside Him. He cannot deny Himself that He is. He is unique in that He is the only self-sufficient being, there is no other to be His equal. How could God the Father have a help meet for himself?
Every other being, however is created...even Jesus his son. I think God recognized the necessity that for someone to reach their full potential, they need to become one with another. It is the process of relationship that makes us grow. John 17:21.
What about the dilemma about being single vs. being married?
God gave a command for all living things to be fruitful and multiply. He never rescinded this command.
In 1 Corinthians 7:6 Paul writes how he thinks it is better to be single, but qualifies that he does this by permission and not by commandment. This is NOT how God's plan of being fruitful and multiplying works. You cannot reproduce by yourself. Paul would have been teaching disobedience to God's command if he had not qualified his statement. Paul also states in verse 19 that keeping the commandments of God is most important. At the very least, I want to be one of those in Revelation 12:17 who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Except for abnormalities, God has created all creatures to be able to fulfill his commandment to be fruitful and multiply. I also know how He feels about it by reading Genesis 38:7-10. Killing seed is against God's plan for mankind. Although I have dominion over my animals, it has caused me to re-think if spaying and neutering are against God's plan too.
For those of you out there who may think I'm talking about birth control, perhaps I am, but just as a sidelight. I guess you could say we inherited it from the eating of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It would be more on the evil side in that our whole society's use of birth control and abortion comes from a harlot's way of thinking. It's easier to do what you want to do when you are able (like God) to create and destroy life so that it fits into your timetable.
See a woman's point of view on Julie's blog entitled "Womanhood" by clicking here.
God gives us free will, but there are those without a choice. For you, I have a scripture.
Psalm 68:5-6
5A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
6God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
Adoption is a very pleasing thing in Gods sight.
If you are having a hard time with this topic, please remember my heart towards you.
Looking back at the "Who Do We Think We Are?" blog, how can we compare ourselves to God? We have free will, but we will never be able to change His ultimate plan for mankind. The fact that we can't change His plan can give people peace. We don't have to worry about man creating global warming, destroying the environment, nuclear destruction of the earth, or the scientists in Sweden creating a black hole. God who created the universe would not allow it because He has a plan for us. It shows we do not trust God when we worry about overpopulation; that He did not plan well when He created the earth to sustain us. We will never surpass him. These are the things that people who do not believe in God worry about.
First promise in Bible – "They shall be one", but it doesn’t mean this.
Married men and women should function as a unit, one flesh that is not in conflict with itself. One part is not given more importance than another, but different parts do have different functions, you cannot have two heads and fulfill God's purpose.
When we look at God’s creation in general there are certain physical requirements for a creature to live, be healthy and fulfill the purpose God gave to it. We can put a body through a lot and it will still live, but there is a delicate balance to keep it thriving. Abnormalities do exist, but they are rare, most commonly found in serpents. Three things to note in these abnormalities:
The most vulnerable part of any creature is its heart and this is usually protected well. In the case of humans, God gave us ribs. From a rib, God created one woman for one man. The promise was then given that the two shall become one flesh. It doesn’t say one spirit, because they are two separate entities.
One thing that makes a man vulnerable is his wife because he loves her. He shares his most vulnerable moments with her and can be hurt the deepest where his wife is concerned. In the best marriages, she is his heart.
Proverbs 31 Her husbands heart rests safely in her and there is only need for one.
If it was God’s intent for man to be the head of this union of two, then perhaps it was also His intent for the woman to be the heart of the relationship.
Part of the job of a man is to speak for the family. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh (the mouth is in the head). If you look at it in this way, a woman won’t feel second best.
Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:28. Adam could not produce a Godly seed for the Lord without his wife.
See Julie's point of view here.
Dominion
Genesis 1:28
Adam and Eve were ordered to have dominion over the beasts. They were not given dominion over one another. Beasts are allowed to vie for dominion amongst themselves. Not people…at least in the beginning. That was because of the curse of Eve and of Cain. I’ll talk about that later in "What Happens When You Decide To Follow God Instead of Men".
Life Is Confusing For Two-Headed Snakes
Hillary Maxwell
for National Geographic News
Updated March 22, 2002
The two-headed monsters of myth may have a basis in reality. Two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of, and one recently found in Spain is giving scientists an opportunity to study how the anomaly affects their ability to hunt and mate.
"We hear of one every several years," said Gordon Burghardt, a herpetologist at the University of Tennessee who has studied several two-headed snakes.
The snake in Spain, discovered near the village of Pinoso, is a two-month-old non-venomous ladder snake Elaphe scalaris. It is about eight inches (20 centimeters) long.
It's probably lucky it was captured—its chances of surviving in the wild are nil, said Burghardt.
"Just watching them feed, often fighting over which head will swallow the prey, shows that feeding takes a good deal of time, during which they would be highly vulnerable to predators," said Burghardt.
"They also have a great deal of difficulty deciding which direction to go, and if they had to respond to an attack quickly they would just not be capable of it."And that's assuming that both heads are hungry at the same time, and both are interested in pursuing the same prey.
"Having two heads would be a hindrance in the wild," agreed James Badman of Arizona State University. "It would be much harder to catch prey." Arizona State was home to a two-headed king snake that was found as a baby. It lived for nearly 17 years in captivity at the university.
Even in captivity, there are problems. Snakes operate a good deal by smell, and if one head catches the scent of prey on the other's head, it will attack and try to swallow the second head.
On the whole, though, they can do quite well in captivity, said Burghardt. Thelma and Louise, a two-headed corn snake at the San Diego Zoo that's now deceased, had 15 normal babies.
-Anomaly, Not Evolution
-Two-headed snakes typically occur in the same way that Siamese twins do. A developing embryo begins to split into identical twins but then stops part way, leaving the twins joined. Among humans, 75 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn or die within 24 hours.
Two-headed snakes can lead to a big payoffPosted May 28 2009 10:14pm
Two-headed snakes (like the one pictured above) aren't uncommon in nature, but they are rarely seen because usually they do not survive. According to MercuryNews.com:
It's like a car with two drivers, with each brain vying to do the thinking that one brain usually does. Snakes that are polycephalic — that's the word for creatures with more than one head — never survive in the wild, experts say.
They are so hard to find, in fact, that when someone comes across a live two-headed snake, it can generate a lot of interest. This is exactly what Aron Dickey, owner of Hayward's Reptile Room, is dealing with right now.
"It would probably be worth $10,000 after it eats, and $15,000 after it poops," Dickey said. "The more it eats, the better it thrives, the more the cost goes up. I could probably get $20,000 for it later."
Before you go on, please read:
"A Warning - Straight From My Heart" if you haven't already.
Thinking outside the box
Looking at Genesis 1:27 I remember that one of the names for God is "El Shaddai" (the breasted one). God himself must have male and female parts and because of this was able to create Jesus.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
It seems in verse 27 that if man was created in the image of God perhaps man started out a "whole" being with both male and female parts and traits just like God. In that case, man would have been created self-sufficient. At the very end of the 6th day, the day when man was created, God declared everything VERY good. It was just "good" before, on all the other days. This implies that God created man and did a very good job at it.
In the beginning, Adam was walking with and learning from God, growing and changing personally, but there came a time when things changed. Adam probably came to his full point, the place where he stopped growing and changing. He needed something else to bring out his full potential. Adam needed to get out of his comfort zone. What did God decide to do?
Genesis 2:18 "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." None of the animals would do. God planned to make Adam a help MEET for him, a helper that MET what he needed...not what Adam wanted. Needed? Maybe not from Adam's point of view. It seems that from God's point of view though, there could be something BETTER. The condition had turned from “very good” to “not good”.
Adam naming the animals
In Genesis 2:19, right after God decided that it was not good for man to dwell alone, He brought before Adam every beast of the field and fowl of the air to see what Adam would call them. The word “call” has several synonyms; it means name, describe and identify when used as a verb; assessment and judgment when used as a noun.
It was important to God that Adam recognized these types of animal spirits and the nature of these beasts. Adam began to realize every living creature had a help “meet” for them except for himself. In naming the animals, God taught Adam that Adam could never use a beast as a helpmeet. A beast can only create another beast, not man. God made a very plain distinction between what man was and what a beast was. They have very different purposes. Man was supposed to have dominion over the beasts.
How were beasts different from man? What are some marks or identifying features of a beast?
1. One of the natures of a beast is to kill without remorse.
2. One of the natures of a beast to vie for dominion amongst others of its own kind.
3. A beast cannot change it's nature. It is who it is and likes it. It would rather die than even try to be anything different than what it is.
You can put a starving lamb into a room full of steaks and it will rather starve to death than eat meat. You can put a starving wolf into a room full of fresh grass and it will die rather than graze. (...so this must mean a wolf in sheep's clothing is not really a wolf or a sheep.)
4. It is not the nature of a beast to cast blame.
Why change?
Everything Adam had needed was provided in the garden and because he had no needs, there was nothing to motivate him into changing or growing. Adam was completely satisfied. It seems he would have existed in stasis forever. We don't even know how long he was in the garden before Eve came along. God needed to do something to make Adam grow and become more than Adam was. The Lord wanted more from Adam, an enhanced relationship. He wanted Adam to grow up to "Be All You Can Be". (An old Army phrase)
Think of it…if a man is just given handouts all his life, there is no motivation to study, create or change anything.
All progress in history was made by those who were not satisfied, got off their duff and did something. Those are the ones that were able to change the lives of others and enhance relationships. God wanted more out of Adam, so He changed it so that Adam NEEDED something. Like an oyster with a grain of sand, a little annoyance that would become something of great value; a pearl of great price.
On the same thought, I guess you can say God created a lack in the self-sufficient being of Adam, a longing and an uncomfortableness that needed to be filled. God did this by taking something away from Adam.
My thinking is that perhaps God took out Adam's female parts, mental and physical and made a separate entity, Eve. It was still the original Adam, but now flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, equal to him as a help "meet" for him.
Creating woman introduced a dynamic in mankind that allows us to grow if we embrace God’s plan for us. It adds a lot of dynamics to our lives when our wives are around. Life is no longer simple once we get married. Becoming ONE is now the hard part. A being "at one" with itself is full of peace and God promised we will become one with our wives. Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:8-9. But there needs to be relationship to fulfill potential. Perhaps that is why God himself created Jesus and why he wants a bride for his son.
There is only one God the Father. There is no other beside Him. He cannot deny Himself that He is. He is unique in that He is the only self-sufficient being, there is no other to be His equal. How could God the Father have a help meet for himself?
Every other being, however is created...even Jesus his son. I think God recognized the necessity that for someone to reach their full potential, they need to become one with another. It is the process of relationship that makes us grow. John 17:21.
What about the dilemma about being single vs. being married?
God gave a command for all living things to be fruitful and multiply. He never rescinded this command.
In 1 Corinthians 7:6 Paul writes how he thinks it is better to be single, but qualifies that he does this by permission and not by commandment. This is NOT how God's plan of being fruitful and multiplying works. You cannot reproduce by yourself. Paul would have been teaching disobedience to God's command if he had not qualified his statement. Paul also states in verse 19 that keeping the commandments of God is most important. At the very least, I want to be one of those in Revelation 12:17 who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Except for abnormalities, God has created all creatures to be able to fulfill his commandment to be fruitful and multiply. I also know how He feels about it by reading Genesis 38:7-10. Killing seed is against God's plan for mankind. Although I have dominion over my animals, it has caused me to re-think if spaying and neutering are against God's plan too.
For those of you out there who may think I'm talking about birth control, perhaps I am, but just as a sidelight. I guess you could say we inherited it from the eating of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It would be more on the evil side in that our whole society's use of birth control and abortion comes from a harlot's way of thinking. It's easier to do what you want to do when you are able (like God) to create and destroy life so that it fits into your timetable.
See a woman's point of view on Julie's blog entitled "Womanhood" by clicking here.
God gives us free will, but there are those without a choice. For you, I have a scripture.
Psalm 68:5-6
5A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
6God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
Adoption is a very pleasing thing in Gods sight.
If you are having a hard time with this topic, please remember my heart towards you.
Looking back at the "Who Do We Think We Are?" blog, how can we compare ourselves to God? We have free will, but we will never be able to change His ultimate plan for mankind. The fact that we can't change His plan can give people peace. We don't have to worry about man creating global warming, destroying the environment, nuclear destruction of the earth, or the scientists in Sweden creating a black hole. God who created the universe would not allow it because He has a plan for us. It shows we do not trust God when we worry about overpopulation; that He did not plan well when He created the earth to sustain us. We will never surpass him. These are the things that people who do not believe in God worry about.
First promise in Bible – "They shall be one", but it doesn’t mean this.
Married men and women should function as a unit, one flesh that is not in conflict with itself. One part is not given more importance than another, but different parts do have different functions, you cannot have two heads and fulfill God's purpose.
When we look at God’s creation in general there are certain physical requirements for a creature to live, be healthy and fulfill the purpose God gave to it. We can put a body through a lot and it will still live, but there is a delicate balance to keep it thriving. Abnormalities do exist, but they are rare, most commonly found in serpents. Three things to note in these abnormalities:
- They are the exceptions and do not normally have a full lifespan that survives as a unit,
- They can be a product of a polluted environment and
- They almost never reproduce to fulfill God's first command to be fruitful and multiply.
The most vulnerable part of any creature is its heart and this is usually protected well. In the case of humans, God gave us ribs. From a rib, God created one woman for one man. The promise was then given that the two shall become one flesh. It doesn’t say one spirit, because they are two separate entities.
One thing that makes a man vulnerable is his wife because he loves her. He shares his most vulnerable moments with her and can be hurt the deepest where his wife is concerned. In the best marriages, she is his heart.
Proverbs 31 Her husbands heart rests safely in her and there is only need for one.
If it was God’s intent for man to be the head of this union of two, then perhaps it was also His intent for the woman to be the heart of the relationship.
Part of the job of a man is to speak for the family. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh (the mouth is in the head). If you look at it in this way, a woman won’t feel second best.
Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:28. Adam could not produce a Godly seed for the Lord without his wife.
See Julie's point of view here.
Dominion
Genesis 1:28
Adam and Eve were ordered to have dominion over the beasts. They were not given dominion over one another. Beasts are allowed to vie for dominion amongst themselves. Not people…at least in the beginning. That was because of the curse of Eve and of Cain. I’ll talk about that later in "What Happens When You Decide To Follow God Instead of Men".
Life Is Confusing For Two-Headed Snakes
Hillary Maxwell
for National Geographic News
Updated March 22, 2002
The two-headed monsters of myth may have a basis in reality. Two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of, and one recently found in Spain is giving scientists an opportunity to study how the anomaly affects their ability to hunt and mate.
"We hear of one every several years," said Gordon Burghardt, a herpetologist at the University of Tennessee who has studied several two-headed snakes.
The snake in Spain, discovered near the village of Pinoso, is a two-month-old non-venomous ladder snake Elaphe scalaris. It is about eight inches (20 centimeters) long.
It's probably lucky it was captured—its chances of surviving in the wild are nil, said Burghardt.
"Just watching them feed, often fighting over which head will swallow the prey, shows that feeding takes a good deal of time, during which they would be highly vulnerable to predators," said Burghardt.
"They also have a great deal of difficulty deciding which direction to go, and if they had to respond to an attack quickly they would just not be capable of it."And that's assuming that both heads are hungry at the same time, and both are interested in pursuing the same prey.
"Having two heads would be a hindrance in the wild," agreed James Badman of Arizona State University. "It would be much harder to catch prey." Arizona State was home to a two-headed king snake that was found as a baby. It lived for nearly 17 years in captivity at the university.
Even in captivity, there are problems. Snakes operate a good deal by smell, and if one head catches the scent of prey on the other's head, it will attack and try to swallow the second head.
On the whole, though, they can do quite well in captivity, said Burghardt. Thelma and Louise, a two-headed corn snake at the San Diego Zoo that's now deceased, had 15 normal babies.
-Anomaly, Not Evolution
-Two-headed snakes typically occur in the same way that Siamese twins do. A developing embryo begins to split into identical twins but then stops part way, leaving the twins joined. Among humans, 75 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn or die within 24 hours.
Two-headed snakes can lead to a big payoffPosted May 28 2009 10:14pm
Two-headed snakes (like the one pictured above) aren't uncommon in nature, but they are rarely seen because usually they do not survive. According to MercuryNews.com:
It's like a car with two drivers, with each brain vying to do the thinking that one brain usually does. Snakes that are polycephalic — that's the word for creatures with more than one head — never survive in the wild, experts say.
They are so hard to find, in fact, that when someone comes across a live two-headed snake, it can generate a lot of interest. This is exactly what Aron Dickey, owner of Hayward's Reptile Room, is dealing with right now.
"It would probably be worth $10,000 after it eats, and $15,000 after it poops," Dickey said. "The more it eats, the better it thrives, the more the cost goes up. I could probably get $20,000 for it later."