Genesis 2:7, 24-25 [Breathing Life]

I'm not troubled when I read things in the Bible that are self-evident, or are confirmed by what I can observe in the world around me. From time to time, I will mention passages that impress me or that reduce my doubt, because I do not want to dwell only on the negative. So far, Genesis 2:7 is my favorite, although it is a rather common-sense observation, and is not exactly proof that Genesis is the divine Word of God.

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

So far, Genesis has not been a very clean treatise on the origin of the Earth from a scientific viewpoint, so I am pleased with this display of knowledge that man comes from the ground. We know, scientifically, that this is true. We are what we eat, and we eat things containing the minerals found on Earth. Our bodies contain copper, magnesium, zinc, iron, calcium, and, among other things, lots and lots of water. When we die, our bodies return to the Earth.

I am not the only one who seems to like this passage. Coincidentally, as I was reading chapter two, I read in the news about a bunch of pro-choice "Christians" talking about how they support a woman's right to choose abortion, and they don't want the choice movement to be perceived as a bunch of godless heathens. I don't understand this at all. I can understand how a Christian woman might seek an abortion. We all sin. Christians have, in moments of weakness and temption, committed all sorts of horrible sins.

But how can you be a Christian and still say that abortion is okay, a choice, as if it is on par with deciding whether to supersize that burger combo? Well, the answer, they say, lies in Genesis 2:7. God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Life as a human being, therefore, begins with one's first breath.

Somehow, I can't picture those people actually believing this. If the Bible is such an authority on matters such as this, why aren't they following all of the other teachings which, taken together, clearly would not justify abortion as part of God's plan?

So I don't buy the "God approves of abortion" line of thought. But I buy the line of thought that says that sex, in itself, is okay. The Old Testament, from what I recall, is full of sex. And chapter two of Genesis builds upon chapter one's ringing endorsement of sex.

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruit and multiply, and fill the earth." (Genesis 1:27-28.)
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:24-25.)

That is not to say that I'm reading into it an approval of all sexual conduct. I know we are going to get into that a lot when we get to Leviticus. And, usually, when you think of someone as being of low morals, you are talking about sexual sin. Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because they were thieves and murderers. It was because they were sexually corrupt.

But God made us as sexual creatures. And He saw that it was good. So far, at least.