Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 2 | Date: December 12, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Genesis 2: A Prototype for Marriage

Genesis 2 again this morning. And as I mentioned last time, we’ll look one more time about the matter of marriage as it’s portrayed here, a prototype for all marriages. And we will, let’s begin with a word of prayer.

Our Father, we are grateful for Your great gift of Your Word. We’re thankful that You have given us a revelation of Yourself, of Your purposes for us, and You’ve revealed to us how we may live in a way that is both pleasing to You and rewarding for us. We pray that You will give us insight then into this passage of Scripture this morning. For Your glory and for our sakes as well, we ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.

All right, Genesis 1, remember, we saw verses 26 to 28, that God created man in his image and after his likeness, and he created man, male and female. So there are two genders that we mentioned, that we emphasize. Then we come to chapter 2. In chapter 1, verses 26 to 28, we have just a brief account, although Day six and the account of the creation of man in Genesis 1 is more lengthy than any other of the days of the creation week. It is still quite an abbreviated mention of the creation of man. We get to chapter two, he backs up and he zooms in and gives us some details. In chapter 2, verse 7, he gives us more specifics regarding the creation of man himself. The Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

And then verses 18 to 25, we have the account of the creation of the woman, Eve, where God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone. I’ll make a helper fit for him.” After he named the animals, recognized still his aloneness, God gives Adam a sleep, takes out a rib, makes Eve. And he then, the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” Therefore a man—this is Moses’ interpretive comment—therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

We saw that in verse 24 with Moses’ interpretive comment, he’s drawing on this reality of verses 22 and 23 where Eve is created from Adam, the woman is created from the man, and they are brought together and become one flesh. And he comments on that, drawing a conclusion that is applicable now to all of humanity and all marriages everywhere. That’s the sense of verse 24.

By way of just quick review, we saw that then God has created him, humanity, with two genders. There is a unity between them. This is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. They are, in a sense, one and the same humanity. There’s a similarity. There’s a compatibility between them. Both are created in God’s image. Both are to exercise dominion over the earth together. She’s taken from his rib. She’s part of him. This emphasis on the equality and the compatibility and the unity of marriage.

Verse 24, where Moses makes the relationship of Adam and Eve a prototype for marriage everywhere, we saw some of his conclusions. Number one, marriage consists in the union of a man and a woman, which needs to be emphasized in our day. Hasn’t needed to be emphasized very often in history. Number two, marriage consists of a union of one man and one woman. That’s the prototype. Number three, we saw that the marriage relationship is primary. Leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife. The primary relationship is not the parents any longer, it’s not the in-laws, it’s not even the children. The primary relationship is the husband and wife. When that’s forgotten, problems come into the marriage. The fourth observation we saw that the marriage relationship is permanent. Leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife. Jesus draws from that in Matthew 19 to show that this relationship of the two becoming one flesh is intended to be a permanent union and should not be put asunder. And then we saw the last observation from Moses’ comment is that the marriage is the exclusive context then for physical relations. Shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, the two shall become one flesh. It is the context for physical relations. It has several purposes that we looked at last time. And this command here lays the groundwork for what we find later in the Old Testament with the laws against adultery and so on.

By way of application last time, we said let’s unpack this idea of oneness in marriage. We saw that what’s emphasized in the passage is that the primary purpose of marriage is companionship, an experienced kind of oneness in every respect. So the ideal marriage is where the two become one, and the way we say it, their hearts beat together kind of a thing. Each recognizes the need of the other. Each cares for the other as our other self, as Paul takes it in Ephesians chapter 5.

A Brief Biblical Theology Of Marriage

Now before we move on, I want to give what I mentioned last time, a brief biblical theology of marriage. I probably should explain that. The expression biblical theology has come in the last generation or two, or couple of generations, to have something specific in mind. It used to mean just a broad term. Biblical theology is Bible doctrine, what the Bible teaches. But now it tends to be used in another more specific sense. There’s systematic theology: What does the Bible teach about X? And you take from all the Bible and you say, “This is what the Bible teaches about X.” Biblical theology, however, takes a theme as it begins and traces the development of that theme through progressive revelation through scripture until finally it reaches its climax in the eschaton. And so biblical theology, let’s take a theme and see how it develops. And that’s what I want to do. I’ll just do this in a thumbnail sketch with regard to marriage.

This is, in fact, one of the metaphors that is used in the Bible to carry the Bible’s story. It takes the marriage theme from Genesis 2 with Adam and Eve, and it tracks it through till it comes to the book of Revelation. So we start with Genesis 2, verses 23 and 24. The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” So here we have the two becoming one that we emphasized last time. And as I mentioned, this lays down the groundwork for the laws later in the Old Testament regarding marriage and divorce and adultery. In Exodus chapter 20, the seventh commandment: you shall not commit adultery. The book of Deuteronomy gives them specific instructions regulating divorce and so on. All of that to emphasize what we have here in Genesis 2, that marriage is to be permanent, an intimate, exclusive union. It’s never to be violated and it’s not to be ended except in death.

Well, then we come to this marriage metaphor that’s established then in all of that. And all through the Bible, we have marriage as a picture of God’s relationship with his people. They’re married, as it were. He’s the groom, his people are the bride. That becomes especially prominent in the New Testament, but we have it in the Old Testament already as well, where Israel is God’s bride. For example, if you want to jot down any of these passages, Isaiah 62 verses 4 and following, God is in covenant marriage. In covenant, he marries Israel to be his. In Jeremiah 31 verse 32, God says, “I was a husband to them.” Ezekiel chapter 16 in verse 8, we read, “When you were young, that is Israel, when you were young, I married you and made my vows to you.” So it’s pictured then as God’s relationship with his people where they’ve made covenant vows to one another. They each have their corresponding responsibilities.

Now that becomes developed in the Old Testament in a negative kind of way because Israel is unfaithful to her vows. She’s unfaithful to the covenant. She goes chasing after other gods. And so we have this harlotry image or metaphor that’s used in the Old Testament with regard to Israel. They’ve played the harlot. They have left God for other gods. They’ve been unfaithful in their marriage. The most prominent one of that, of course, is the prophecy of Hosea, where the prophet marries a woman who, at least as it turns out, is a prostitute. She’s chasing with other men. He chases her down and actually buys her back when she finds herself in slavery and brings her back to himself, and all of that is to be a picture of God going after Israel, who has been chasing after other gods, and God chases after her and wins her back in the end and brings Israel back.

But that’s the metaphor that’s established for us in the Old Testament. I could spend a long time with that, but that in a nutshell is what we find. Even though Israel has played the harlot and has been unfaithful in her marriage to God, still what we have is a people of God in the Old Testament pictured as his bride. And that theme is established. And I think even in the book of Song of Solomon, in which it’s the marriage relationship that’s in view, I think there are indications even in Song of Solomon itself—although many particularly in the Puritan age tended I think to be overly symbolic in their interpretation of the details of Song of Solomon—I think there are indications in Song of Solomon itself that that marriage relationship as it’s described in Song of Solomon with all of its intimacy and everything is intended to be a picture of God’s relationship with his people, and the tender affection that God has for his people and his loyalty to them and so on.

And when we get to the New Testament, that theme takes off. We come to John the Baptist, who’s presented to us as the groomsman who’s presenting the groom to the bride. My purpose here is to join Jesus to his people. And then of course Ephesians chapter five. And why don’t we go there because we’ll be there again later. Look at Ephesians chapter five where Paul picks up this figure as well and amplifies on it in some important ways. Ephesians chapter five verses 25 and following. So we have now the metaphor of marriage as the picture of the relationship of Christ and his church.

Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” There’s the Genesis connection. He who loved—bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh—love their wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Because we are members of his body. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother”—here he’s quoting Genesis 2:24—”hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Now notice his interpretive remarks. “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respect her husband.” All right, so we have several layers of imagery here that Paul is playing on. First, Christ as the groom, the bridegroom, fully devoted to his bride to such an extent that he gives himself, sacrifices himself for her good to cleanse her and to make her pure and to make her his and to bring her to God. And this is interesting and really fascinating imagery. It pictures now the cross of Christ as the means by which he has secured his bride and made her his. He’s promised to provide all that we need as his bride, promised to take care of us, and he’s joined himself, joined us to himself. We are now his body, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, so to speak.

And that then in turn becomes the model for Christian husbands. Verse 25 and verse 28 both emphasize that husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. But first and foremost, what we learn here is that original marriage in Genesis was intended from the beginning to be a picture of Christ and his church. Verse 32 here, “This mystery is profound,” this mystery of the two becoming one, not just physically, but there’s a sense in which the two have melded together. This mystery of husband and wife together is profound. “And I am saying that it,” that is the marriage relationship, Genesis 2:23 and 24, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, “I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” That’s what he says. Genesis refers to Christ and his church. It was intended from the beginning to be a picture of God’s relationship with his people through Christ.

And notice the eschatological outlook in verse 27, “that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.” This idea of presenting his church. The idea is Christ presenting the church to himself, but to his father as well, as we read elsewhere. And here’s the perfect bride that I have bought to myself. And I’ve cleansed her, I’ve made her mine. And so it has this long-term anticipation. Not only are we his people today, but in the end, there’ll be this glorious reunion, or we might say the consummation of the marriage when the two are finally brought together perfectly in oneness. So it pictures then, of course, the return of Christ and the marriage at last finally brought to its permanent consummation and the imagery finds its climax there. They’re brought together forever.

We find that in—actually Paul doesn’t make this up himself. Jesus talked about this in Matthew chapter 25, the parable of the virgins. You remember the parable of the 10 virgins waiting for the groom to come? Paul is picking up on that here. It becomes the blessed hope of the church that finally at last the wedding ceremonies will begin. And of course that comes to a climax in Revelation chapter 19 when finally the bride comes and we read the marriage supper of the lamb has come. And that’s significant also in the context of the final chapters of Revelation because in those chapters also we are finding a “back to Eden and beyond” imagery that we’ve talked about before in these studies. There’s the tree of life yielding its fruit. There’s the river and there’s the no more curse and so on. There’s the back to Eden imagery that’s going on and in that we have now this marriage imagery finally coming to its peak.

Now last time we talked about the blessedness of the marriage relationship as seen in the prototype there in Genesis chapter 2. But Genesis 2, verses 22 to 24—this oneness, the two being brought together and so on—are not just a prototype of the ideal marriage. It is that, and the Bible handles it that way. But it’s not just that. It is, first of all, the beginning and the launching of a developing theme that carries the Bible story and climaxes finally at the end in the book of Revelation. All right, any questions on that, just the imagery, how it’s played out in the rest of scripture? All right, with that, did I see a question? No, all right.

Marital Roles

With that in mind then, let’s go back and see how the original marriage and its fulfillment in its imagery in Christ and the church—say it again—let’s see how that original marriage in Genesis 2 and its imagery as it’s fulfilled in Christ and his church serves to be a model for Christian homes. Last time we looked at the marriage relationship, today let’s look just quickly at marital roles. I’m not going to expound on that at length, but I want to simply show how the scriptures lay the foundation for that teaching that Paul and Peter and others amplify on in the New Testament.

Paul’s purpose in writing here in Ephesians 5 has to do with the Christian wife, first of all, verses 22 to 24. “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” So we still have this imagery playing back and forth. His body and his himself, its savior. “Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Now these commands really are not difficult to understand. They are so politically incorrect today that they become charged with all kinds of emotion and even some misunderstanding. But this headship analogy here is pretty plain.

One of the contemporary takes on this headship analogy is to play backwards in the passage or forward in the passage on Christ sacrificing himself for his church. And so headship means, according to this contemporary take on it, serving your wife in that sense, sacrificing for her. Well, there is no question that Paul is teaching here that the husband is to give himself to his wife, to be sacrificial even in serving her and all of that, but that is not tied to headship. What’s specifically tied to headship here is the idea of an authority structure in the home. That’s how he takes it, first of all, with the wife in verses 22 to 24, that she is to be in submission to him as the church is to Christ. So what Paul emphasizes here is headship has to do with the authority structure that is analogous to Christ and his church.

Now, what I want to do then is back up and see how this idea of headship and authority structure is—the groundwork for that is laid back in Genesis itself. First of all, the idea of Adam’s headship in Genesis. In Genesis 1:27, as I pointed out before, both man and the woman, male and female, God creates humanity, two genders, but both of them are called man. And that ends up being significant. In fact, here, if you would like some statistics, in Genesis 1 to 5, we have the Hebrew word ha-adam, Adam, Adam, which simply means man; it occurs some 30 times in Genesis 1 to 5. All throughout the narrative, Adam refers to Adam, the individual man, Adam himself. But at the beginning of the narrative, Genesis 1:26 and following, and then Genesis 5, verse 2, bracketed at the beginning and the end of this whole narrative, this word man is used for mankind, referring to both man and woman.

So for example, look at chapter 1, verse 26 again. Genesis 1:26, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.” So here “man” can be used to refer to Adam, or it can be used to refer to them both. We have the same if you’d flip over a page to Genesis 5, verses one and two. “This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, this is Adam, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, he created them, and he blessed them, and he named them Adam (man) when they were created.” God named them man.

So humanity is inclusive of man and woman, male and female, and yet they are referred to as man. And this was intended to reflect man’s headship and his representative role. And we’ll see more of that in Genesis chapter three. In English, we have the word mankind, which is the older use of the word man, but in contemporary Bible translations, there’s been an emphasis so as not to be offensive, an emphasis of what’s called gender neutral translations, so that we render this something like humanity at times and things like that. And there’s something about that that’s right, and I don’t want to be overly critical over it, and there’s no sense being offensive where you don’t need to be. But something is lost, I think, of the biblical teaching when that’s what we do, because the Bible itself is teaching us that this word man is to be used in the representative sense of man and woman.

Another way in which Adam’s headship is presented for us in Genesis is not only are they both called man, but Adam gives Eve her name. That’s a function of authority. It’s a function of headship. In Genesis 2:23, we read Adam says, “She shall be called woman.” Genesis 3, verse 20, “Adam called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living.” That’s a function of headship. We find that elsewhere in the Old Testament many times. It’s a function of headship today: parents naming their children. We find it in Genesis 1, God naming the firmament heavens, and he names the dry land earth, and he names the waters, he names the sea—and God naming things. We have kings in the Old Testament conquering peoples and renaming them, like we find in Daniel, when Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Jewish people, he immediately brings some of the captives in to train them in the Babylonian way of thinking, and he immediately renames them. It’s a function of headship and authority. Parents naming their children today is the same. Adam giving his wife’s name is a function of his headship established at the beginning.

Another way that the Genesis account emphasizes this authority structure in the home is the order, the method, and the purpose of their creation. I’ll say it again: The order, the method, and the purpose of their creation is intended to reflect this structure in the home. So for example, chapter 2 verses 18 and 20, it’s emphasized that Eve was created to be Adam’s helper. Eve was created to be a helper for him. Now that’s not said of Adam with respect to Eve; it’s said of Eve with respect to Adam. There’s a difference in function. Now, being a helper does not mean—and we always gotta clarify this—it does not mean being a slave, doesn’t mean he’s to walk on her or anything like that, but it does mean that she’s created specifically with her orientation to helping him. And that’s, again, something said of her that is not said of him.

So both man and woman were created differently. Man was created from the dust of the ground to till the ground. In fact, the name Adam is related to the name ground. Adam, Adamah is the word for ground. Adam is an earthling, if you translate it that way. He’s man, and he’s related to the ground that he’s made to take care of. And woman was made not from the ground, but she was made from the man, and her orientation is to him.

Now, if you think that that’s overplaying it a bit, at least jot down 1 Corinthians 11 verses 3 and verses 8 and 9. 1 Corinthians 11:3, 8 and 9. Paul draws two observations. Why don’t we look at that, make sure that you see it with your own eyes. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3: “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the wife is her husband, the head of Christ is God.” Verse 8: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” So Paul’s saying here that the order of their creation and the purpose of their creation—she to help him—both of those were indicators from the beginning of this structure of authority in the home. The woman was made from the man and she was made for the man, not vice versa.

Now, if you would like to have some balance with that, lest that be overplayed, drop down to verses 11 and 12. “Nevertheless, in the Lord, the woman is not independent of the man, nor the man of the woman. Why? Because the woman was made from man originally, so now man is born of a woman.” There’s a mutual interdependence that’s built into the relationship of humanity. I think Paul just mentions that simply for that purpose, to lest this idea of headship be abused.

Another passage where Paul takes this up, you should see it, is 1 Timothy 2, verses 11 to 13. Now, 1 Corinthians 11, Paul’s dealing with the relationship of the wife to her husband. It’s in the context of the local church and the head coverings and all of that in 1 Corinthians 11, I just don’t want to get into right now. But the particular in view is the relationship of the wife to her husband within the context of the church, but the wife and husband. Here in 1 Timothy 2, the relationship in view is not the wife to her husband, but the wife, the woman in the church. 1 Timothy 2 verse 11: “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Why? Because Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

So Paul is saying here that the fact that God created Adam first was God’s declaration from the beginning of the authority structure in the home. Now I spent some time on this to point out these verses and then how the New Testament takes them to emphasize something that’s very important today in this discussion because it has become such a hot button item. I think—I’m not gonna chase that. It’s become such a hot button item. One of the counters that comes against Paul’s teaching here is, “Well, that is just a cultural thing from their day that Paul is reflecting. Our culture isn’t like that. It’s not required of us.” And what is of first importance to see in that is that Paul’s argument in both of these passages, 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2, his argument is not cultural. His argument is creation. He is not appealing to any culture. He’s saying this is the way God created it from the beginning, pre-fall even. In that pre-fall world, it would have been Eve’s joy to be his helper, and before pride, and before sin, before the curse, it would have been their mutual joy for him to lead in a responsible and a caring and a loving way.

Now, having said all of that, there’s the structure of authority that’s laid out and how the scriptures arrive at it. I want to clarify, and I always feel a little frustrated when I’m dealing with this subject. All of my ministry, I felt like any time I emphasize “wives submit to your husbands,” I’m thinking in the back of my mind, “I know there’s some guys who are gonna abuse that.” And so I’ve gotta go back and balance it out. And when I emphasize “husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church sacrificially,” and I know there’s gonna be some women who abuse that and make it say more than it does, and then you gotta balance it back out, and by the time you’re done, you’ve wondered if you’ve made either point. It’s always been a little frustrating, but in this context, when I’m emphasizing the authority structure in the home and the headship of the man, I do want to clarify that the ordering of the home is no indication of superiority. It is no indication of inferiority on her part. Both are created in God’s image. They both are responsible to carry out the creation mandate. There’s an equality between them. There’s an interdependence between them.

But there are different roles. That’s the point, both in the home and in the church itself. The woman is not commanded to submit to every man. She’s commanded to submit to her husband. And in the church, she’s not commanded to submit to every man in the church. She’s commanded to submit, just like her husband, to the leadership of the church, and she’s not allowed to teach. Simply different roles, that’s it. Equality, but different function. And in fact, the issue is not what a woman can or cannot do. Proverbs 31 gives us a wonderful model of an industrious woman who’s serving in the home and yet industrious with her own home business, it seems. It’s a model, I think, that in Proverbs 31 that any contemporary woman would find difficult to keep up with. It’s quite a model. She’s very industrious, she’s outgoing, but in the home she’s to be submissive to her husband and follow his lead—different function. So the point has to do with just her role with respect to her husband and how she relates to him. Equality and order and structure in the home, marked by leadership and submissiveness.

We find that in Ephesians 5, we find it in Colossians 3, which reads much like Ephesians 5: “Wives submit to your husbands,” and so on. Peter picks that up in 1 Peter 3. And the commands that are given are not difficult to understand. I said that at the outset. When Paul says wives submit to your husbands in everything as the church submits to Christ, that’s not difficult to understand. Maybe difficult to swallow. But I suspect that where there is a husband leading responsibly, lovingly, sacrificially as Christ loved his church, then finding the woman to be submissive will not be this difficult a problem. There are some, there are some that are just incorrigible, I’m sure. But on the whole, you find a man who loves his wife as Paul commands the husband to love, then the other side I think will not be that difficult. I remember preaching on the passage in Ephesians 5—we were going through Ephesians here some years back—and one of the ladies in the church mentioned to me afterwards, she said, “I think that the husbands have it more difficult in that passage than the wives do.”

Well, the point then is you can deny the equality of man and woman and be a faithful Muslim, but you cannot deny the equality of man and woman and be a faithful Christian. And yet within that, there is an ordering and a structuring of the home and the roles that they have. Now our society today—and we’ll talk about this more next time—we can’t even tell the difference between a man and a woman anymore, let alone distinguish roles, different roles within equality. In our day, equality has to mean sameness. And that’s just not necessary at all. And we’ll talk more about that next time. But if you can get this, I think it all fits together well. Equality, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Distinction of roles.

It’s always nice when you find something from the outside. This is from a Rutgers professor of ancient Jewish history. A man, I assume, himself is Jewish, Rendsburg, and he summarizes it this way. I think it’s a fascinating observation: “Open your Bibles at random, and you will notice something striking. Female characters abound, and it’s not simply a lot of women. It’s a lot of strong women. These women are the antithesis of what we might expect from a patriarchal society. They are not passive, demure, timid, and submissive, but active, bold, fearless, and assertive. They’re also not what we would expect based on contemporaneous Near Eastern literature in which women generally do not play leading roles in the narrative.” In other words, in the Bible he’s saying that women seem to know their equality and they behave accordingly, even if they also know that they are to be submissive to their husbands and function in that way in the home. There’s certainly abuse of women, even in the Bible, but it’s always recognized as just that: abuse and sinful distortion of what is intended to be.

In the ancient religions and ancient philosophies as well, it is routine to read of the inferiority of women, relegated to some low standard that really is offensive. But we have in Genesis 1 something that would have been shocking to the larger ancient Near Eastern world: that the woman, as well as the man, was created in God’s image. That was just shocking. In many of those cultures, it was just the king who’s in God’s image or something, but to read that the woman is created in God’s image would have been shocking. But again, today’s notion is just—we’re so confused today, we don’t know how to deal with any of this. But by contrast, we have, I think in the scriptures, a beautiful complementary harmony: that they’re equal and yet with different functions, recognizing each other’s worth, recognizing the interdependence, and yet functioning in the home as God has intended from the beginning. And finding, frankly, finding fulfillment in the exercise of those roles as well.

All right, next time we’ll deal more with humanity as male and female. We’ll try to address some contemporary problems. Any questions on this?