Family Name Part 2

The second thing we get from image-bearing is a family job. In Gen 1:28, it says, “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, every tree that has fruit, every seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” We are given a job. Our job is to fill the earth, to rule the earth, and to subdue the earth.

 When I was young I didn’t want to inherit any kind of job from my parents. I didn’t want to be a counselor, and that’s what they were. But now at 41, I am starting to think that it would be really nice to just inherit the family business. Now I wish it weren’t as complicated as counseling. Maybe something like making tiddly-winks would be an easier job for me to inherit. But as I get older, I want to have a family job. Why would I want to inherit the family business? Because if I inherited the family business, that means I’d be working alongside my dad, and I would get it, and I would understand what I was supposed to do, and it wouldn’t be so scary out there because dad would have taught me how to do it, right? I want the family job. God, in image-bearing, gives us a job. A job to subdue, a job to rule, and a job to fill up the earth: to be fruitful and multiply.

Now, in image-bearing, we have a family name, we have a family job, and there’s one more thing. Gen 2:20: “So the man gave names to all the livestock [(God had brought all these animals before him)], the birds in the sky, and the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken from the man and He brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called “woman” for she was taken out of man.” For this reason the man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.” The third thing that we inherit as image-bearers of God is family-ties, or, relationship with one another. We inherit intimacy with each other: relationship that doesn’t involve conflict and shame. So yes, there’s intimacy between man and woman who bear God’s image, but there’s this idea here that we inherit family and relationship, and there isn’t any kind of brokenness in it. So we get the family name, we get the family job, and we get community as image-bearers of God. That’s what we have in the Garden. That’s what God intended for us to have: for us to have a name, for us to have a job, and for us to be in community together. It’s good stuff.