Day 36 — Naked and Unashamed
Opening Prayer
Creator God, thank you for making us in your image and giving us bodies, relationships and sexuality as good gifts. As I read your word, teach me to receive your design with gratitude and to honour every person as one you have made and loved. Amen.
Headline
God created our embodied sexuality as a good gift to serve faithful, covenant love—not self-centred gratification.
Genesis 2:18-25
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 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. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 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.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Comment
Last week, we considered how God’s good gifts can be distorted by indulgence. This week we turn to sexual desire, another good gift which can be disordered. Before Scripture exposes lust, Genesis shows us the goodness that lust corrupts. The Bible’s first word about our embodied sexuality is not embarrassment but gift.
God first says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (v.18). Human beings were created for relationship. In this passage God answers Adam’s aloneness by creating the woman and establishing marriage. Yet this does not mean that everyone must marry to become fully human. Jesus was single and perfectly human. Marriage is one form of God’s relational provision, alongside family, friendship and the fellowship of his people.
The woman is called a “helper suitable for him” (v.18). This does not describe an inferior assistant. Elsewhere Scripture frequently calls God a helper. The expression means someone corresponding to Adam: like him, yet distinct from him; sharing his humanity and able to stand face to face with him. None of the animals could offer this mutual human companionship.
God forms the woman from the man’s side and brings her to him. Adam’s response is delighted recognition: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (v.23). He does not meet a body provided for his consumption, but another person who shares his nature and dignity. Sexual attraction belongs within that recognition of the whole person; it must never erase it.
Verse 24 then gives sexual union its covenant setting. A man leaves his parents, is united to his wife, and “they become one flesh” (v.24). Married sex is therefore more than a pleasurable experience between two bodies. It can express and strengthen the faithful union in which two people give themselves to one another and share a life.
The passage ends with a picture of profound safety: “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (v.25). They are physically exposed without being exploited, and personally known without needing to hide. This is intimacy without manipulation, fear or possession. Marriage never turns another person’s body into our property, and sexual activity obtained through pressure, fear or force contradicts God’s design.
Genesis 3 will fracture this harmony. Shame, hiding, blame and domination enter human relationships. Lust belongs to that fallen world. It takes sexual desire out of its place within faithful love and turns another person into material for gratification. The problem is not that desire is too embodied, but that it has become curved inward and detached from the other person’s good.
Chastity begins by receiving again what Genesis teaches us: our bodies belong to God; sexual desire is a gift rather than a master; and the person before us is never an object. Chastity honours sexuality by ordering it towards faithfulness, tenderness and love—whether we are married or single.
Why does God want me to hear this today? Perhaps because I either distrust sexuality as something shameful or treat desire as permission to take. God offers a better way. I can thank him for his good creation while refusing every desire that reduces another person. His gifts are truly enjoyed when they remain ordered by his truth and another person’s good.
Reflect
- Do you tend to regard sexual desire primarily with shame, entitlement or gratitude?
- How does Genesis 2 challenge the idea that another person exists to meet your needs?
- What would it mean to honour someone as a whole person rather than reducing them to their body or their usefulness to you?
Action
Practise seeing one person more fully today. Choose someone you might easily reduce to their appearance, role or usefulness. Name before God three truths about them beyond what they can offer you: they bear God’s image, they have a story you do not fully know, and they are called to be loved as your neighbour. Let those truths shape the way you look, speak and act.
Closing Prayer
Creator God, thank you for the goodness of our bodies, relationships and sexuality. Forgive me when shame distorts your gift or desire turns another person into an object. Teach me to receive your design with gratitude, to honour others as whole people and to seek their good in faithful love. Amen.
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