Five Minute Friday: Woman

*Occasionally I will participate in Five Minute Friday, a weekly linkup where we free write for five minutes flat about a specific topic. I veered a little from the no editing part this week, but I am pretty sure my actual writing was close to 5 minutes.  This week's topic is: Woman.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.-Genesis 1:26-27

In the very first chapter of Genesis, we see where God created woman.  If you go on to Genesis 2, you can see a more detailed explanation about how she was created.  But, in Genesis 1, we see that God created her in his image.  

Later, in Genesis 1, God gives both the man and the woman the same commands.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.-Genesis 1:28-30

Then at the end of Genesis 1, God calls everything he made good, including both the man and the woman.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.-Genesis 1:31

Woman is not this inferior, lesser creation, made of a different design than man.  She is equal in the way she was created, in her purpose, and in her quality.  God called her good.  This, in Genesis 1, is all of God's original intent for man and woman.

The woman was  good.  She was supposed to bear children and increase.  She was to have dominion over the creatures in the earth.  

After the fall, it seemed like her position changed. Pain came in.  But still we see women holding places of authority through the Old Testament.  When Jesus came, it seemed He restored the woman back to her place in the Kingdom.  To learn more about that, see my series, Women in the Life of Jesus.