Eve’s Forgotten Legacy.

I read through this and found it riveting…

” The word theologian doesn’t appear in the Bible. Old Testament writers used a warmer, user-friendly expression, describing people who “walked with God.” A theologian takes a long walk through life with God — living in his presence, going his way, learning to see the world through his eyes, and getting to know his character so that trusting him in the dark stretches won’t be quite so hard. The theologian sees God at the center of everything. She lives with a profound confidence that he holds the whole world (including her) in his hands. Eugene Peterson described it like this: “If we live by mere happenstance — looking at what is biggest, listening to what is loudest, doing what is easiest — we will live as if God were confined to the margins of our lives. But God is not marginal; God is foundational and central. The person who lives as if God sits on a bench at the edges of life, waiting to be called on in emergencies, is out of touch with reality and so lives badly.”  Eve was created to know and walk with God and to make him known to others by reflecting his character in her life. This is a woman’s true path to fulfillment and meaning — the only way we will ever discover who we are and find our purpose. And it is accessible to all of us.

Eve’s forgotten legacy resides in explicit statements God made when he created her. First, God created Eve to be his image bearer — “in his image and likeness” — and second, to be the ezer, or the strong helper. Furthermore, she shared with Adam what theologians call the “Cultural Mandate” — God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, to rule and subdue the earth. This global mandate included the call to reproduce physically and to engage in scientific, technological, and artistic pursuits.

More importantly, the mandate was also profoundly spiritual and theological — the call to reproduce spiritually by multiplying worshipers of the living God and to extend God’s gracious rule over every inch of this planet. This staggering enterprise encompasses all dimensions of life and has occupied the human race ever since. God’s creation design for Eve applies to every woman all the time, from the cradle to the grave.”

from Lost Women of the Bible (Zondervan 2005) by Carolyn Custis James  http://synergytoday.org/FAQ.html