Embracing God's Design for Gender in Today's Culture
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"Every once in a while, a title actually declares in itself basically everything you need to know. It begins with who defines reality, the very author of that reality. It goes back to the fact that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and He is the ultimate authority for everything that will follow." [00:01:32]
"And not only that, the biblical worldview reminds us that, if it's God's design, it simultaneously displays His glory and is for our good, for human flourishing. And then you get to those words 'male' and 'female.' I want you to ponder for a moment the crisis point at which we have arrived." [00:02:12]
"This is, this is the breakdown of all meaning and it is truly horrifying if we understand it because we've now reached the point where words that are required not only for the stability of language but for the stability of meaning are now being subverted, and it comes right down to words like 'male' and 'female,' 'husband' and 'wife,' 'boy' and 'girl.'" [00:06:01]
"But what's at the very center of this is not so much the creation of something new -- which we don't even believe is real but, nonetheless, we understand is now a legal reality -- it is the denial of what is actually real. It is not just that, in this culture, there is now something 'new' like same-sex marriage, it is that what is being destroyed is marriage." [00:07:09]
"Christians understanding this from a biblical perspective understand that marriage is not an accident. It's not a social innovation. It didn't come along by sociological evolution as a part of God's gift in creation. We begin the Scripture with that most crucial beginning point of the Christian worldview -- 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'" [00:07:38]
"How basic is that to our human identity? It's so basic that from the very first mention of the human creature in Scripture, it is a creature that is male or female. Now theologically, that is now so basic that it tells us that we are stripped, biblically, of any illusion that there is some kind of neutrality, or of some kind of plastic ability to turn the one into the other, or to deny the meaning of being 'male' and 'female.'" [00:08:16]
"And already there was the denial that there is any ontological or theological significance to being male or female. We were being told that gender is just a social construct; that being male or female, man or woman, boy or girl is simply something foisted upon us -- biology not being incidental, but being merely suggestive." [00:09:47]
"The biblical worldview begins with the very fact that to be human is to be made male or female. That is the norm. It's the ontological reality of what it means to be human. And it is also a statement about purpose. And we don't have to infer that; it is absolutely explicit." [00:12:22]
"Now there's a lot embedded in that, in terms of an entire theology -- complementarity -- but here's a part of what it means: Adam could not be all that Adam was meant to be without Eve. And there's biological inference to that. There -- It would've been meaningless -- Let's put it this way: Adam, before Eve, was male, but was not yet a man, in terms of being able to fulfill even what we have in the creation mandate in Genesis 1, verse 28." [00:15:15]
"We are called to be cultural subversives, deeply subversive in this society. And this is a challenge that comes to this generation of Christians in a way that previous generations did not bear. And this is something we need to keep in mind because we are now facing the challenge of insisting that 'male' and female,' that 'man' and 'woman,' 'boy' and 'girl' are actually not only meaningful terms, but essential terms, not only to linguistic sanity, but to human happiness and human flourishing." [00:18:11]
"We also know that the scriptural worldview would have us to understand that, even as every life is God's gift, that every single one of us is known by the creator before we are, we are known not only as a human being, but we are known, by God's design -- for His glory, and for our flourishing -- as 'male' or as 'female.'" [00:19:05]
"But as I said in the beginning, it all comes down to the fact that the title of this particular session has to be recognized as every word being a fighting word. So we're in the fight together not just for intellectual combat in the midst of a worldview collision; we're in the fight together because it matters. It matters, first of all, to God who displays and reveals His design for male and female." [00:20:08]
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"And not only that, the biblical worldview reminds us that, if it's God's design, it simultaneously displays His glory and is for our good, for human flourishing. And then you get to those words 'male' and 'female.' I want you to ponder for a moment the crisis point at which we have arrived." [00:02:12]
"This is, this is the breakdown of all meaning and it is truly horrifying if we understand it because we've now reached the point where words that are required not only for the stability of language but for the stability of meaning are now being subverted, and it comes right down to words like 'male' and 'female,' 'husband' and 'wife,' 'boy' and 'girl.'" [00:06:01]
"But what's at the very center of this is not so much the creation of something new -- which we don't even believe is real but, nonetheless, we understand is now a legal reality -- it is the denial of what is actually real. It is not just that, in this culture, there is now something 'new' like same-sex marriage, it is that what is being destroyed is marriage." [00:07:09]
"Christians understanding this from a biblical perspective understand that marriage is not an accident. It's not a social innovation. It didn't come along by sociological evolution as a part of God's gift in creation. We begin the Scripture with that most crucial beginning point of the Christian worldview -- 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'" [00:07:38]
"How basic is that to our human identity? It's so basic that from the very first mention of the human creature in Scripture, it is a creature that is male or female. Now theologically, that is now so basic that it tells us that we are stripped, biblically, of any illusion that there is some kind of neutrality, or of some kind of plastic ability to turn the one into the other, or to deny the meaning of being 'male' and 'female.'" [00:08:16]
"And already there was the denial that there is any ontological or theological significance to being male or female. We were being told that gender is just a social construct; that being male or female, man or woman, boy or girl is simply something foisted upon us -- biology not being incidental, but being merely suggestive." [00:09:47]
"The biblical worldview begins with the very fact that to be human is to be made male or female. That is the norm. It's the ontological reality of what it means to be human. And it is also a statement about purpose. And we don't have to infer that; it is absolutely explicit." [00:12:22]
"Now there's a lot embedded in that, in terms of an entire theology -- complementarity -- but here's a part of what it means: Adam could not be all that Adam was meant to be without Eve. And there's biological inference to that. There -- It would've been meaningless -- Let's put it this way: Adam, before Eve, was male, but was not yet a man, in terms of being able to fulfill even what we have in the creation mandate in Genesis 1, verse 28." [00:15:15]
"We are called to be cultural subversives, deeply subversive in this society. And this is a challenge that comes to this generation of Christians in a way that previous generations did not bear. And this is something we need to keep in mind because we are now facing the challenge of insisting that 'male' and female,' that 'man' and 'woman,' 'boy' and 'girl' are actually not only meaningful terms, but essential terms, not only to linguistic sanity, but to human happiness and human flourishing." [00:18:11]
"We also know that the scriptural worldview would have us to understand that, even as every life is God's gift, that every single one of us is known by the creator before we are, we are known not only as a human being, but we are known, by God's design -- for His glory, and for our flourishing -- as 'male' or as 'female.'" [00:19:05]
"But as I said in the beginning, it all comes down to the fact that the title of this particular session has to be recognized as every word being a fighting word. So we're in the fight together not just for intellectual combat in the midst of a worldview collision; we're in the fight together because it matters. It matters, first of all, to God who displays and reveals His design for male and female." [00:20:08]
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