An Help Meet For Him

Scripture: Genesis 2:18-24

Sermon preached at Gospel Light Christian Church, Singapore

on 19 May 2002 9 am & 11 am English service

Introduction: We continue in our series on relationships - with God and men. So far we have covered our relationship with God (which can be summarized by the two words, reverence and rejoice), with our parents (which can be summarized by the two words, honor and obey) and with our wives (which can be summarized by the two words, love and lead). Today we focus on wives' relationship with their husbands - a relationship which can be summarized by the two words, support and submit.

Because these two words conjure feelings of inferiority (which are stirred up by feminist sentiments), this subject is seldom dealt with even in Bible-preaching churches - resulting in dysfunctional Christian families that are not much different from non-Christian ones. The lack of biblical teaching on this subject is compounded by the lack of role models in our churches, by the romantic idea that when two people are in love everything will just work out, and by the materialistic idea that a woman's worth is measured by her earning power. Today, we will learn of God's design for the wife and deal with several common misconceptions of the wife's role as "helper."

"An help meet for him": God created a perfect man, Adam, who could name every creature that God had created - but God created him perfectly incomplete! Therefore, God said: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him". (GEN 2:18). The word "meet" means "suitable, adapted - ie, one who meets his needs." In other words, Adam could be likened to a perfectly written piece of sacred music without the words, a beautiful flower vase without the flowers or a perfect brain without a body. In my own case, I could have bought a house but I needed my wife to make it a home; I could earn enough money to buy food for my daily meals but needed my wife to make it a special family occasion, etc.

In simple words, God made a wife to be her husband's partner. She was not to be the same as her husband but was made to be a complement to him. When militant feminists fight for equality they mistake equality for "sameness" rather than equal opportunities to be the best that one can be, to be loved and valued, etc.

Common misconceptions of a wife's role as her husband's helper: The idea that God created women to be her husband's complementary partner - to help him - commonly conjures up the following misconceptions among wives:

1 . "... then I'm inferior to him!" - Are the words of a hymn inferior to the music? Are the flowers in a vase inferior to the vase? Different people might give different answers but the most reasonable answer is that they each just complement their "partner" beautifully and they would each be so incomplete without the other.

2. "...then I'm hindered from doing so many things!" - It is true that being a help to one's husband does indeed hinder a wife from doing certain things, eg. being the head of the house and making the final decisions for the family, doing whatever one pleases to do. But it is also true that when a wife is not busy about these things, she will be freed up to do many other things that God created her for - and enjoy these things. For example, the church organist who is not allowed to sing in the church choir because she is such a talented organist may feel discriminated against though it would be better if she saw the benefits of the "discrimination."

3. "Am I expected to be just a useless wall-flower?" - A person who is hindered from doing certain things so that he can concentrate on his strengths should not feel frustrated by what he cannot do but should rather concentrate on his strengths.

4. "It's so negative - I'm a positive person!" - The most positive person is one who focuses on his strengths and not one who moans about his weaknesses! There is nothing negative about maximizing one's strengths and enjoying them.

Conclusion: When we look at the wife's role in relation to her husband, we realize that it is a mirror of a Christian's relationship to God - a relationship that liberates us to be what we should be and enjoy the abundant life that Christ earned for us (JOH 10:10).