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Gender and Sexuality EQUIP Part 3 | Redeemer Christian Church | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Gender and Sexuality EQUIP Part 3
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Summary
Core Theme
This content explores the biblical perspective on gender and biological sex, contrasting it with contemporary cultural views that emphasize self-identification and social construction. It argues that God's design, as presented in scripture, views male and female as fundamental and essential aspects of human personhood, offering a more stable foundation for identity than purely self-defined or socially constructed notions.
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As you're make your way back in,
we'll move into this um
And this one gets um more specifically
and we've been laying a lot of uh sort
of groundwork for the for these kind of
things. conversations have allowed us to
have some uh some of the conversation
already, but this one gets more
specifically into the um conversation
around uh gender around male and female
and those kind of things and sort of
God's design uh in that. Um are we ready
Is it coming up?
>> Okay, no worries. No worries. Um
Um
buy a dachshun.
>> What was it?
>> Why did the cowboy buy a dachshun?
>> Why did the cowboy buy a dachshun?
>> He wanted to get along little doggy.
That is a good one. Can I tell you one?
This is a I know you're a reader. Got a
lot of intellectual horsepower. So, this
is a good one. What thinks the unthinkable?
So, I told you it's a thinker. It's a
Titanic joke for anybody who's paying
attention. Not a good one, but it's a
Titanic joke. Um, all right. Uh, let's
jump in here. Oh, uh, we starting at the end.
Come on.
Probably doesn't matter how hard I press
the button. I'm acting like that does a
there we go. Made male and female. Okay.
So, in this conversation, uh we will
jump in specifically to this idea of
gender and biological sex and what the
Bible has to say on this topic. um and
why it's such a fraught uh issue for our
culture and why it really really matters
uh that we talk about this both
biblically um but also carefully
pastorally uh for those of us who were
kind of in that role but certainly um
lovingly and graciously as we step into
this conversation to start us off uh I
want to start with um something that I
got from a guide that was put together
by the LGBT foundation there's other
people who've uh tried to sort of get at
this kind of question there's a
documentary I know that was made around
uh this this title. Um but this comes
from the LGBT Foundation guide to uh
what is a woman and there's a couple of
it's a it's two or three pages um not a
lot of text but uh it gives you a couple
of give you a couple of quotes from that
guide says there are as many ways of
being a woman as there are women in the
world. Okay, so embracing like sort of
the uniqueness of what a woman is. Um,
and then this quote right here, a woman
is someone who identifies as a woman.
Uh, the reason I pulled these two quotes
out is because these two quotes, at
least as far as my reading of that guide
to what is a woman, um, these two quotes
are the most definition that the guide
gives about what it means to be a woman.
These are the most clear and precise
definition that that guide gives.
And that might seem strange to us
because neither of these define the
term, right? Like in that second quote
there, a woman is someone who identifies
I I I get at why they describe it this
way, and I'll talk about that here in
just a second. But oftentimes whenever
we're saying, "Hey, define a term for
me." It's a it's a rule that you not use
the term in the definition, right?
Because you're defining it. And so you
want to be able to use language provides
us anchor points, waypoints, uh
placeholders for us to be able to
gather, you know, you know, if you have
a sentence, you have a group of words,
concepts, and meanings. You want to be
able to gather those groups and concepts
to point to something else, right?
That's just word language communication
kind of stuff. And so you want to be
able to use pull on some common
language, some common concepts that you
and I have to be able to describe or
define something. And in that sentence,
I don't I don't understand what they
mean by that.
like honest as I can be, I I don't I
don't know what they mean by a woman as
someone who identifies as a woman
because I don't know how somebody
identifies as a woman if they if they
haven't been able to define that term.
And I think that really is part of the
process and it's actually baked into it.
like for them like for people who would
say that this guide is a helpful guide
to them and for people who um like for
many people in our our culture who are
trying as hard as they can to be
affirming and loving and including and
embracing of people who are struggling
with their gender identity. This is a
language that actually doesn't feel
inconsistent to them. Right? this um
they believe gender to be a at least
many of them. It is a prominent thought
in this community of people. It's not a
monolith of people. There's lots of
different ideas and uniquenesses and
those kind of things. But it is a common
idea among this group of people that
gender is a purely social construct.
It's just something that we've created
from culture and norms and those kind of
things that gender is a purely social
construct born out of personal
experiences and cultural narratives. So
for them there is no inconsistency in
defining a woman or a man purely in
experiential self-identified terms
because they believe it to be an
experience that is informed and
structured by a person's own feelings
and perceptions of how they are and how
they interact with the culture around
them. Right? It's a socially constructed
kind of idea.
But it it means that if you hold on to
this idea and I I can sort of get how
they get there. I just still don't know
what they mean whenever they say I feel
like a woman or identify as a man.
Right? I don't I don't know exactly what
it is they're anchoring themselves in.
But once we get there, we're left with
what I believe is a real problem for
people who are having some existential deep
deep
um questions that they need some answers
and some guidance to. Okay. And what
we're left with is a group of people
struggling for um identity without definition.
definition.
Again, our culture is obsessed with
self-identification in general and
gender identification in particular.
We've talked through that. Many of our
neighbors who advocate for loving and
affirming a person's gender identity
do not have in at their disposal a ready
definition for what a man or a woman is.
Because again, I'm I'm not saying that
they're not smart enough to figure that
out. I'm saying that their understanding
and perception of these concepts
precludes them from defining what that
would be for you and what it would be
for you because they believe it to be a
self-identified experienced thing that
is informed and sort of negotiated with
culture. But it means there's no real
firm ground to stand on when you say, "I
identify as a woman." And so often the
follow-up conversation to that is what
does that mean for you? Because you have
to define what a woman is to be able to
describe how you feel that way.
In fighting for the inclusion and
freedom of people to embrace their self-
constructed identity, the gender
movement has, I believe, tragically
erased the concept of gender,
which is particularly tragic for a group
of people who are so desperate to
identify that, to understand that, and
to align themselves with what that means.
It brings up some really difficult
questions, and I don't want to be
dismissive about this. This is why I
didn't bring up the documentary, What is
a woman? Because I understand the
project of that documentary, but I
believe there's a lot of swagger that
happens in that documentary that isn't
particularly helpful. Okay.
The there's there's real people who are
struggling with real questions about
this and looking for real guidance on
this and and there's a there's an
enormous cultural pressure to figure
this out for yourself. oftentimes at
incredibly young ages. You need to
define these things, identify and start
living this way with the true version of
who you are. And if we're saying there's
enormous pressure on you to to construct
your identity, to identify who you are,
and then to tell the world and to live
that out and to see the world respond to
that, that's an enormous burden to put
on anyone. It's certainly a really
enormous person, an enormous burden to
put on someone who is an adolescent
who's struggling with these very big but
also very common human questions.
What man in here hasn't had a struggle
about what does it mean for me to be a
man? What woman in here hasn't wondered
am I woman enough? Right? All of us have
wrestled with this at some point or
another. But it brings up some really
difficult questions. How does a person
deal with the enormous pressure to
define their gender when culture cannot
provide a definition of gender for them?
When nobody gives them a way point or an
anchor point for what that really means.
How does a child deal with the common
experience of feeling out of place in
their own body in this kind of context,
what is often termed as dysphoria?
What concepts of gender must they draw
upon to embrace who they really are?
this loss of gender distinction actually
creates more difficulty for people who
are struggling specifically with things
like gender dysphoria and a need to to
develop and construct their own sexual
and gender identity. They're told that
they should live in line with their
perceived gender, but they have no
actual basis to be able to define that.
So, how do you make the decision about
which gender you are?
It has to come from a self-constructed
or socially constructed perception of
what it means to be male and female and
then a self- assessment of whether you
feel you align with that perception.
Again, the process oftentimes for very
young people, but but always for people
who are desperate and earnestly trying
to understand themselves
like their project of defining their
gender identity has to come from a self-
constructed or socially constructed
perception of what it means to be male
and female and then a self assessment of
whether you feel you align with that
perception. This actually means that
many people who are a part of the trans
community have even stricter gender
norms than those who disagree with this
type of gender ideology.
Let me explain what I mean by that. If
you don't if if you have enormous
pressure to identify as a man or a
woman, but no one in this community that
you're looking to for these kind of
answers can tell you what it means to be
a man or a woman, then you have to build
that from your life experiences, from
what society has told you, what you
understand to be true about what a man
or a woman is. And then at this point,
right, you're abstracting these two
concepts. There's whatever a man is, and
there's whatever a woman is. And then
there maybe there's some space in
between those two things. And before you
can take on one of those labels or
define or or sort of like develop your
own label for who you are, you have to
have some concept of what these things
Culture tells you it can't be biological
sex. So you got to define it from
something else. Okay?
And if it's not biological sex, then how
do you as a 13-year-old or a 33y old
build out what it means to be a man or
woman outside of anatomy? You have to
build it on caricatures. You have to
build it on stereotypes. You have to
build it on your lived experience.
Which means that for this community, it
is often the case, you see this in the
language and in rhetoric, the the things
that 50 years ago, someone who is a part
of the LGBT community would have told
you or or part of like sort of a second
or third wave wave feminist kind of
conversation, they would have told you
you can't define women that way. You
can't say that all women like high heels
and pink and makeup and doing their hair
for hours. All those things that we kind
of used to push against those things
have actually now become a default
definition for what it means to be a
woman. So you hold yourself up against
whatever and it may not be that specific
kind of thing, but you have to have some
sort of concept that you that you just
pull out of the ether somewhere for what
it means to be a woman and what it means
to be a man. So the conversation around
toxic masculinity, right, about the
unhealthy parts about being too
aggressive and doineering and overly
driven by sex and never really good at
emotions or conversations or
relationships. Any of those kind of
things that you would lump into sort of
a general caricature or stereotype of
what about what it means to be a man.
That's the pool that you have to draw
from if you're living in this culture
that cannot define for you what gender
is and absolutely prohibits you from
defining it based on anatomy.
Like if you think that the evangelical
church has strict gender norms, just
wait till you get a hold of how the
trans community describes gender.
Again, they're not a monolith. There's
different ways that people talk about
these kind of things. But you have to
pull those concepts from somewhere, and
it often has to come from places of
caricature, stereotype, and just what
culture has said.
And then you determine from those
concepts whether you fit one of those
two things. And I'll be honest with you,
I get why at that point you start to
think maybe this thing's more fluid and
less binary than I thought it was
because I don't seem to fit in either
one of those boxes. Do any of you?
I played football. I like hunting. I can
tie a lure on a fishing line.
And if I want to go out for a party, I'd
rather just sit and talk with my
friends. I like music, right?
I think pink's a pretty cool color.
I like cooking.
If I have to fit within a strict one of
those boxes, and if I'm at an age or at
a moment in life when I'm really
struggling with how to fit and with what
it means to be a man, I'm not sure I fit
in this box. And that brings up some big
existential questions for me about who I
really am. If that's all I have to draw
on for what it means for me to be a man
or a woman, right?
key questions we'll talk about in this
uh little section here. Why am I the way
let's look at Genesis again. Man, we are
really putting those couple of pages to
work today.
Look at Genesis um
27 again, just to reaffirm some things
we've uh already seen here.
Um God created man in his own image. In
the image of God he created him. Male
and female he created them again. Right?
We have this um beautiful sort of uh
equality that we see in the image
bearerness between man and woman.
Whatever this sentence means, it can't
possibly mean that one of them is lesser
in value because they're both created in
the image of God. It also tells us
because this is in the Hebrew
exclamation point of what it means for
us to be created in the image of God of
the the things that are essential to our
nature. As we've already talked about in
other places, the fact that we are
embodied uh is uh deeply important in
addition to all the other things that
make you a whole and integrated human
being. But also this tells us that the
idea that we are created male and female
is important and fundamental to what it
again from Preston Sprinkle. What we can
say with relative certainty is this by
emphasizing sex difference. The author
of Genesis communicates that embodiment
in general and sex difference that is
being male or female in particular is a
central characterization of human
personhood. It is not a byproduct of the
fact that you have a body. It is an
essential part of being a human that you
were created male and female. I know
that raises some specific questions
about like uh development and people who
have interex conditions and we'll talk
about those carefully and briefly here
in a moment. We'll get to those
conversations in just a little bit.
Okay. But based just on like this conversation,
conversation,
the fact that male and female is a part
of that original conversation that God
has about human beings being created
means that it's priority that we cannot
easily do away with. Let's jump down to
uh chapter 2 verse 18. And then God
said, "It is not good that the man
should be alone. His socks are everywhere.
everywhere.
There is no one around that he's trying
to impress, and he is a mess."
Well, that's that's uh that's not true.
That's not anywhere in the Bible. But um
the the Lord God said, "It is not good
that the man should be alone. I will
make him a helper fit for him. Now,
let's jump into this idea of a helper
fit for him. Before we go any further
here, we've already seen in this
passage, we can see that um that it's
not like solitude is not the design for
humanity. And so, God says it's not good
that he should be alone. There's got to
be something else for all these purposes
and plans that God has for humans. And
so, he says, "I will make a helper fit
for him." Remember in Genesis 2, we get
that really intimate, beautiful uh
picture of God creating Adam from the
dust and breathing life into his
nostrils. We get the same kind of
intimate picture uh for Eve and for
women uh being created in this story as
well. And this uh idea of a helper fit
for him. There can be all sorts of ways
that you just sort of run through this
and you think like oh like Adam like you
could like if you took this in sort of
like the most critical way you could say
like oh God is saying that he needs
somebody to help him out because Adam's
doing the important stuff and he needs
somebody to come along and help him out
with that and that can't be what uh this
is about helper fit for him. You got a
couple of words um the u ezar word the
helper word is a is the Hebrew word
ezar. Everybody say Ezar. There we go.
Um that that it means helper. That's a
good way to translate it. It can't
possibly mean servant, underling, second
important, secretary, uh kind of like
sort of uh someone who's assistant to
the regional manager kind of definition
because the very next place we see this
used word, this word used is to describe
God's relationship uh to man. It's uh
Moses's eldest son is the first one who
the the next person who uses this word
and he says the God of my father helped
me and saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh.
This word and this kind of helping
cannot possibly mean subservience
if it's applied to God and his
relationship with human beings. It has
to mean something else, but it does mean helper.
helper.
And then the next word is a word called
condto. It's one of the rare compound
words we get in Hebrew. It's translated
often as suitable fit. Um, but it breaks
down from two uh different Hebrew words.
K or key, which means same as or alike.
And then this word neged. Everybody say
neged. No, not naked. Naked.
There's some West Texas in me that that
always said it that way. He's naked. Um,
that boy came out naked as J-Bird.
Neged. And this word means opposite or
in front of. So imagine someone sitting
across the table from you. They are
sitting in your opposite, but they're
not in the same place as you. So
opposite or in front of. You put these
two words together and you get this
strange mix of a person who is a helper
who is suitable because of their same otherness
otherness
all jammed into the same word. Ezo means
a helper whose nature is defined by same
otherness in relationship to them. Okay,
that's describing the definition of what
it means for man and woman to exist with
each other. There is this same otherness
that they inhabit with one another.
Genesis 2:20,
the man gave names to all the livestock
and the birds of the field and to every
beast of the field, but for Adam there
was not found a helper fit for him. God
builds the anticipation. He already
knows where he's going. He knows what
he's going to do, but he brings in a
line every other creature apparently in
front of Adam. I can't imagine what
these days were like just sitting there
and then something else weird walks in
front of you and you're like dog.
And then then the next one like just
some days like maybe you ate some good
fruit that morning, you're feeling a
little more peppy and so you're like
well that is a duck build platypus god.
Moving on.
Right. So each one of them like sort of
naming but identifying each one of these
things. It's this moment of analysis uh
for Adam and clear to him sort of
raising this anticipation that there is
no creature that is a suitable same
other helper companion for him. And so
the Lord God oh I jumped ahead. So uh
the Lord God um caused a deep sleep to
fall upon the man and while he slept
took one of his ribs and closed up its
place with flesh. And the rib that the
Lord God had taken from the man, he made
into woman and brought her to the man.
That's translated rib here, I think,
mostly because of the force of
tradition. Um, but this word here, um,
that's translated here as rib is a
Hebrew word cella. It's that same ts
sound. You can say it, cella. There we
go. Um, most other places we see it used
in the Old Testament, it is an
architectural term referring to the side
of a sacred building like the tabernacle
or the temple. It's the side, the
structure, maybe sort of a pillar or
wing of a building on the side of it.
Its use here,
I think, implies for us something we
already know to be true.
Adam's body is sacred and is referred to
in temple language as God builds from
Adam a woman. A same other companion
suitable for each other. Human bodies
are sacred like a t like a tabernacle or
The man said, "This is now bone of my
bone, flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called a woman because she
was taken out of man.
English translators typically format
this in a different kind of way because
it is widely recognized. This is Hebrew poetry.
poetry.
First words a man says whenever he
speaks to a woman when he realizes that
there is someone this same other
companion for him. We the first words
that pop out of his mouth are poetry.
We see affection, acknowledgement of
kinship and suitability. And we see purpose.
purpose.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father
and mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh. And the
man and his wife were both naked and unashamed.
unashamed.
We see
the man will leave his father and
mother, signifying a shift in his
primary responsibilities to be for this
new family. We also see intimacy and
openness in this relationship. Again,
we're reminded as we think about the way
that human beings interact with each
other and are suitable and are helpless
to one another, whether they're in a
romantic relationship or not, that sex
difference, that being male and female,
is a central characterization of human
personhood. And we'll talk about that
more here in a little bit. Now, in
general, as we uh make our way through
this, yeah, Genesis, let just to sum up
what we talked about here. Genesis
teaches that men and women are both made
in God's image.
uh differentiation is by design and
fundamental essential to human nature
and that they correspond to one another
in this sort of same otherness
and that it is integral it's functional
it's a part of God's plan to be fruitful
and multiply
um and we see in that last line of what
we read that they originally enjoyed a
in general like if we go to the rest of scripture
scripture
In general, the Bible does not address
the question of biological sex versus
gender. Okay? It doesn't treat that idea
of like sort sort of is gender and
biological sex the same because it's not
a question that the scriptures are
dealing with or asking. And we need to
be careful in biblical interpretation
not to press the scriptures too hard on
on questions that it's not answering or
speaking to. But I still think we can
learn from and draw principles from
carefully and with integrity to be able
to understand how the scriptures talk
about this in general. The Bible in
general teaches treats adult males as
men and adult females as women. Some
would call this a gender essentialist
view. Okay?
So if you're an adult male, you're a
man. If you're an adult female, you are
a woman. Right? Different than how um
much of our culture has this
conversation about what it means to be a
woman and what it means to be a man. the
Bible um overlaps in perfect concentric
circles. The vin diagram of biological
sex once you add age and maturity of
adulthood um that means you are either a
man or a woman. Okay,
this does not mean that the Bible is
incomplete or primitive in its
discussion of men and women. The reason
I say this is because oftentimes the
conversation or the question comes up,
would they even have been aware of the
things that we know about gender
identity and anatomy and biology and
psychology and some of those kind of
things, right? And there are certainly
some of those conversations that they
would not have been privy to, but
especially in the New Testament, which
holds, I believe, with this idea of
seeing um seeing gender and biological
sex uh as united uh in human personhood.
Um but that also holds a high value on
the human body and a high value on
gender distinction. Um that like people
in the New Testament who would have been
writing and hearing those things would
have been aware of people who lived and
dressed and behaved in ways uh that did
not line up with their biological sex.
It would not have been a foreign concept
to them uh that there would be someone
who might live and dress and act that
kind of way. some very famous people. In
fact, uh one of the emperors of Rome uh
like sort of married and then lived out
the rest of his life uh as a woman. And
so it would have been a known
conversation. I don't think that that
means that they had all the tools and
the conversations that we have about
gender and sexuality, but I don't think
that means that the Bible was just
ignorant of these ideas or possibilities.
possibilities.
And then lastly for this slide, the
Bible sees human personhood as wholly
integrated. person's gender can no more
be separated from their personhood than
could their age. Right? There is a
certain givenness to us and that
includes the fact that we are made male
and female.
A couple of things that um that I want
us to see in this conversation.
The the Bible does hold our bodies to be
important because it's part of who we
are. And it does hold male and
femaleeness to be a part of who we are.
Right. But it also because it is what
some people would describe as gender
essentialist, it also means that it
leaves a great deal of room for what it
means to be a man and for what it means
to be a woman
because it's not defined by a specific
merit or by a specific way of behaving
or some of those like kind of things or
whether you're macho enough or whether
you're feminine enough because it's it's
closely linked with biological sex. Uh
that means actually that it provides
more freedom, more liberty to live as a
male or female than often our culture
even does. Think of a couple of
examples. The Proverbs 31 woman, she
cares for her household. She cares for
her children. She cares for her husband.
Culturally, those might be things that
we would say line up with our
understanding of what a woman is. She
also makes her arms strong. She sells
her wares at the market. She fights for
social justice. she purchases land and
plants a vineyard. Some of those things
we would not typically or
stereotypically align with our
definition of what femininity or what a
woman looks like, right? But that
Proverbs 31 is held up as a high
standard of what we see uh as of
womanhood in the Bible. King David, a
warrior, a general, a king, things we
might closely associate with a
stereotypical definition of what a man
is. also an undignified dancer, a harp
aficionado, and had a kind of friendship
with his buddy Jonathan that would make
most Western American men very nervous.
Right. When was the last time you
actually gave your buddy a brotherly
Richie, I'm coming for you. Okay.
But Proverbs 31 woman and King David,
like when they were when when he had his
harp, his manness wasn't being called
into question. When the Proverbs 31
woman is fighting for social justice and
apparently just getting some ripped out biceps,
biceps,
her womanness is not questioned.
Right? This gender essentialist view,
while I recognize for some people and
for some reasons feels like a
restrictive view, in the scriptures, the
way it plays out is that it actually
leaves more room for the fact that your
manhood and your womanhood will not be
questioned because you may not align
with specific cultural definitions of
what those mean. Now there are some
places where the scriptures speak to um
acting outside of what a man should do
or what a woman should do.
Is that the next slide? Yeah. This is
reiterating some of the things I already
said. Bles make Yeah, here we go. Bible
does make clear that there are certain
things that are uh open to one gender
and not to another. Whenever scripture
mentions some sort of cross-gender
behavior like men acting like,
presenting as or identifying as women
and vice versa, it does speak negatively
in specific instances, right? It's not a
culturally rigid kind of definition of
that sort of stereotypical manhood or
womanhood. But we do see some instances
uh where the Bible expects men uh to act
in ways that are natural and normative
for men and women to act in ways that
are natural and normative for women.
Here's some examples. Deuteronomy uh
22:5 prohibits men dressing like women
and and women dressing uh like men. Now,
I put a little asterisk here because
Deuteronomy is a tricky place for you to
really camp out and and plant your flag
in in the sand here if you're trying to
say, see, men shouldn't dress that way.
Okay? Because Deuteronomy also says you
shouldn't have you shouldn't wear
fabrics of mixed clothing.
You shouldn't wear clothing of mixed
fabrics, right? It also has some pretty
specific definitions that would make
farmers nervous about how they plant
their crops and when they do certain
things. There's a whole lot of things
Deuteronomy that we got to like be real
intentional with and careful with. But I
do think we can see especially over in
places like 1 Corinthians 11 um where
this idea that men ought to generally
present themselves as men and women
ought to generally present themselves as
women where that holds over even in the
New Testament. And we can see that again
over in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 where
Paul he doesn't major on gender
distinction. If you think about most of
the commands in the Bible, right?
They're not gendered commands, right?
You think about the sermon on the mount,
which should make any of us quake and
shiver trying to like live up to that,
right? Like if you wake up in the
morning and you read the sermon on the
mount and then you try to live your way
your life that way, you're going to be
broken by breakfast, right? But those
commands are universal. They're not
gendered. Most of the commands we have
in scripture are not gendered. We do
have some specific places where we see
that um God intends for men and women to
present themselves in that way and to
act in line with the way that he has
designed us. Another example is 1
Corinthians 6:9. Uh this is one of the
passages that people often look to uh to
talk about uh homosexuality, though I
don't think it's actually um uh the best
verse for having that conversation, but
it talks about um malachoy or soft and
effeminite men. Most scholars recognize
that the Malachoy were biological males
who acted in culturally female ways. Um
we've we've got some young ears in the
room with us. And so I'm going to leave
that there.
Um Romans 1:26, which actually is kind
of the key passage that um in the New
Testament that speaks to uh um speaks to
homosexuality and why um I believe that
it's not designed for human flourishing.
Um but it says uh it prohibits same-sex
relationships. And if you look at it in
the context of Romans chapter 1, it is
primarily concerned with the fact that
such couplings confuse natural gender
distinctions that we can see by God's
good design, by his good plan. Uh that
male and female were meant for each
other both for enjoyment and
companionship and relationship and love
for another for each other and uh for
the potential for reproduction.
The Bible is gender essential
essentialist. Adults are adult males are
men. Adult females are women. The Bible
does say that men and women should live
in accordance with their design nature.
The Bible also offers a wider range of
what is manly and womanly than often our
culture is able to offer. Now,
Now,
like this isn't like I'm not pulling
this from like, you know, Leviticus
chapter 30 uh here to to bring this. But
what I'm saying is that we can see that
there is a need for us to be able to
talk about how the scriptures seem to
talk about what it is to be a male uh or
a female. And so, I'm going to describe
that for us here. Again, I'm not saying
this is a perfect definition. I can keep
working on these kind of things, but I
think it's a useful handhold for us to
move forward in this conversation. A
woman is an adult human whose body is
organized around the potential to
reproduce human life within her own
body. Okay. On the flip side of that, a
man is an adult human whose body is
organized around the potential to
reproduce life outside of his body. From
a sort of biblical sort of gender gender
essentialist kind of view, these two
things can be true. Let me go back and
and do them again just to make sure
we're clear about these things. A woman
is an adult human whose body is
organized around the potential. It's a
key phrase in that to reduce human to
reproduce human life within her own
body. And a man is an adult human whose
body is organized around the potential
to reproduce life outside his body.
It's important that we dial in on that
idea of organized around the potential
to because we live in a world that still
groans. Romans 8. Right?
We have to recognize that we live in a
world where some things are broken and
there are some things that are just
But brokenness and limitations have
never we can see this throughout
scripture. Brokenness and limitations do
not detract from personhood. What is
that second slide? Yeah, we'll get to
that in just a second.
The reason that it's important that we
recognize that the these understandings
of what it means to be a man uh and a
woman that that it's that a woman is
someone who's organized around the
potential to reproduce life within her
body and a man is someone who's
organized around the potential to
generate or contribute to the
reproduction of life outside of his
body. It's important that we recognize
the the idea that it's potential, right?
is because it's an organizing principle.
And someone's inability, in incapacity,
limitation or or or sort of like
developmental inability to be able to
have those things does not detract from
a manness or womanness. Think about the
women that we see over and over in
scripture who have difficulty uh with
fertility. Their womanness is not called
into question, right?
Like think about how uh the the
Ethiopian unic is responded to. His
personhood is not called into question
because he's a unic, right? And there's
the conversation around unic is a whole
other one that we don't have a slide
for. Um and I know it's a conversation
that comes up in some of these
conversations about the Bible and gender
and those kind of things. And so if you
want to ask a question about that, I can
do my best to try to speak to it a
little bit. But that means that someone
who is a man who at one time had the
capacity to be able to contribute to
reproducing life outside of his body and
then through some sort of accident,
injury or operation loses the capacity
to do that. His madness is not called
into question. It means that a woman who
is having difficulty becoming fertile or
who has uh is taking medication or at
some point has had an injury or
operation and no longer is able to
reproduce uh human life within her own
body. That does not pull away from her
humanness. The idea is that these bodies
are organized around the potential to
these things. Your manness, your
womanness are not taken from you because
you are single.
You can be woman enough and be beyond
the capacity in age to be able to
reproduce life within yourself. You can
be man enough and have looked for and
longed for a partner and someone to
build a family with. And that has not
been a part of the plan. And it has not
been something you've experienced in
your life. And your manness is not in
question because this is about human
anatomy being organized around a
specific potential. and limitations and
brokenness do not detract from our
personhood. And that's not just with
sexual sexuality and gender. It is
through all of human experience.
Humanness and limitations do not pull
away from your personhood. Right now,
let's talk briefly about what I
mentioned earlier. This idea of interex
conditions. And again that we need to be
very loving, very gracious and very patient
patient um
um
in having this conversation. This must
be discussed gently and wisely. These
are people image bearsers and should not
be used as an easy point to win an
argument. I bring this up because when
I've heard the term interex,
it is most or read the term interex, it
is most often because somebody is
bringing it up as part of a debate or
conversation or argument. And I rarely
hear it talked about otherwise. And if
you talk to people who are a part of the
interex community, that's a deeply
painful thing. To only be brought up in
terms of winning an argument about
somebody else's lived experience
makes them utilitarian at best. and in
invisible at worst to not talk about or
care about or be concerned about the
very difficult painful experience of
what it might be like to live with one
of these uh conditions only to use it
for an argument. That's a dehumanizing
kind of thing and we don't want to be a
part of that.
Interex people exist. This is how I've
often heard it seen and read and and
brought up in conversations. Therefore,
trans people exist.
often brought up to refute what some
believe is an arbitrary socially
constructed binary between male and
female. So the argument kind of goes if
you're like stripping into these
conversations that people say, well
look, you can just look at human bodies
and you can tell that one is designed to
be man and one is designed to be a
woman. There's obviously a binary
between genders. There's just one.
You're either male or you're female. you
can't uh adopt some sort of like sort of
gender fluid or non-binary
uh kind of identity for yourself because
we don't see that existing in nature,
right? And people will say, well,
listen, interex conditions exist and so
transgender and non-binary people can
exist too because we see that in nature
it's not always the case that you are
male or female. That's how the argument
tends to go.
Now, I need to be clear. These
conditions absolutely do exist. These
people matter deeply as people, as
imagebearers, as people that God loves,
as people that ought to be worthy of
love and dignity and respect. These
situations are unbelievably difficult
and the families and children um who are
affected by these conditions need love,
ongoing care and support from the church.
church.
I talked in preparing for presenting
this material to our church the first
time around. I read a bunch of books and
then talked with three different OBS uh
who live in our town and talked with
them specifically about this uh
conversation about interex conditions.
And oftentimes whenever if you I don't
know if if you all have spent much time
reading or having some of these
conversations oftentimes that people
will quote a number that up to 1.7% of
human beings have an interex condition
and that includes a whole lot of
conditions that are that are a wide
array of things and I I don't know and
understand all of those kind of things.
That's not my field to be sure. Um, but
in most of those cases that are that are
kind of pulled into the idea of 1.7 1.7%
of human beings having an interex
condition, in most of those cases, the
biological gender is actually not
ambiguous. So if you hear that number
kind of being talked about, it's
including some things that are certainly
interex conditions. Um, but it doesn't
mean necessarily that because it's an
interex condition that their biological
sex or their gender is necessarily in
question. In the vast majority of those
cases, it it is a a physician and even
the parents and people who get to know
that person would be able to discern
this is a male or female. There is a
group um of people who live difficult
lives and whose families have to make
very difficult decisions in loving and
caring well for their children. where a
highly trained physician and an
excellent genetic test and uh someone
doing a serious examination and spending
a long hard time thinking about it would
not be able to discern for you whether
this is a biological male or a
biological female. Those conditions do exist.
exist.
Just try to put yourself in the shoes,
right, of someone living with that and
what it means for us to have
conversations about gender and sexuality
without recognizing that that person is
around and in the room. Think about what
it looks like for you to have a child
and the doctor says
like developmentally, biologically,
anatomically, hormonally,
there is a blending of things that is
happening in your child's body. And I'm
not able to tell you whether this is a
biological whether your child that you
love deeply is a biological male or a
biological female. What do you do? How
do you raise them? What do you name
them? What clothes do you pick? What
color do you paint the walls?
These are really difficult conversations
and ones we need to have a whole lot of
grace and patience for. And our church
needs to surround these folks and love
them and care for them and support them.
Okay. Now, folks like Preston Sprinkle
and others make the point that one, this
shouldn't be used as a point of argument
or winning a debate, but two,
the the point of trying to use inter
really difficult interex conditions to
say that that means that there are
options for gender outside of what it
means uh to be male or female
conflicts and confuses the issue because
what we
medically and scientifically, again, I'm
not an experience here, is actually the
blending of male and female in those
conditions, not a separate new uh sort
of gender or biological sex being
created as a result of those interex
conditions. Does that make sense? It's
actually a blending of the two such that
you're not able to make a distinction.
It's not a separate and new kind of
conversation. So, I don't think it functions,
functions,
it shouldn't be used as all at all as a
point of argument. But even as a point
of argument, I don't think it functions
the way uh that people who use it hope
that it might. Okay. Again, really
difficult conversation. Gendered
faithfulness. We are made male and
female for God's good purpose and by his
good design. Our differentiation
certainly and primarily points to God's
calling to be fruitful and multiply.
That there's obvious implications there
uh for God's purposes for us in that
sense. But gender is also a component of
our faithfulness and love outside of
procreation. I don't like the term I
don't like the idea that gender is
socially constructed. It seems to be
that it's this arbitrary kind of thing
that a culture just gets together and
decides this is what it means to be a
man, this is what it means to be a woman
and that it has no uh root in anatomy,
in biology, in design and in the order
of creation. So I don't like the idea of
social construction. What I do think is
necessarily true and that I think even
the Bible recognizes is that gender is
in some terms socially negotiated.
Right? Again, let me reiterate your
manness and your womanness are not
detracted from by whether or not you are
manly enough or womanly enough. Right?
But there are some things about what it
looks like for you to interact with the
people and the culture around you that
are socially negotiated. Right? Think
about the fact that historically, right,
men are drafted to go into the military
whereas women typically are not drafted
at least to go into places like
frontline kind of combat, right? That's
because generally speaking, right, if
you soak a baby in uh in testosterone in
certain moments in uterero and h have an
enormous surge of testosterone that
happens in uh sexual development and in
puberty, you tend to have a human being
who is generally taller, has more muscle
mass, is able to move faster and lift
heavier things. And so we have generally
identified the fact that whenever it
comes to combat and labor intensive uh
kinds of vocations that we believe that
there's a social negotiation that says
that is a role that is often the case
for men. That doesn't mean that there
aren't some women who are taller than
men and that there aren't some women who
are stronger than some some men. Right?
Some of you I'm certain are absolute
beasts and I fear your might and power. Okay?
Okay?
But if you take a thousand human beings
and you rank them in order of strength,
they're like physical strength. The top
10 of those thousand human beings are
going to be men and the bottom women,
the bottom 10 are probably going to be
women. There's going to be a mix in
between. You do the same thing with
height. It's generally going to be true.
And there's other things that are true
just anatom anatomically and
physiologically that indicate some of
these kind of things. But it's also not
just based on some of those
physiological kind of things, right?
Some of these things are socially
negotiated and so we can see that
there's differences from culture to
culture. Right here, one of the last
sort of like gendered clothing items is
like dresses and skirts. Those are still
in our culture primarily though Harry
Styles is trying to push the boundary.
Those are still primarily um like sort
of reserved for women or in our
conversation people who identify
themselves as women. But that's not true
in all cultures, right? you look at some
uh South Pacific kind of cultures or you
look at uh Scottish culture, there are
people who wear kilts. And if you ever
have seen a guy wearing a kilt throwing
a log, you've never looked at that guy
and thought to yourself, he looks
particularly feminine,
right? It's socially it's it's it's a
socially negotiated part of what it
means to be a man. And there's other
things that are socially negotiated well
as a part of our given nature, right?
Um, so like there are some conversations
that happen in the church like
disciplehip or care that would be
appropriate for pastor David to enter
into on his own and for him to be the
primary one discipling someone. And
there are some conversations where it's
necessary for faithfulness and for care
for him to bring in someone uh who is a
woman. There are some conversations that
you feel comfortable entering into, some
relationships that you feel uh
comfortable building a certain level of
intimacy and familiarity precisely
because you are a woman building this
relationship with a woman and you are a
man building this relationship with a
man. Some of that is socially negotiated
uh as well and as a part of what it
looks like for us to be faithful in
being gendered people. But it's not just
to do with gender and sexuality. There
are some things that are a part of our
giveness that are socially negotiated
about our age, right?
Like a child interacts with people
around them always as a child. They they
cannot that cannot be changed. An older
woman interacts with people around them
as an older woman. Right? And the only
time that that shifts is whenever she's
interacting with someone who is around
the same age as her. And so then the
relationship shifts as peer-to-peer.
So there's part of our giveness that
dictates and has some sort of u has some
say over how our faithfulness and our
interactions work with each other. All
these things are things, you know, I'm
just bringing them to light, saying them
out loud so that we have some context
for some of these things um to have this conversation.
conversation.
Some of the key questions that we talked
about here, why am I the way that I am?
And am I enough?
Why am I the way that I am? By God's
good design, you are fearfully and
wonderfully made. You are a whole
beautiful human being with a mind and a
heart born at a specific time in a
specific place.
You got you got the dimple thing or you
didn't get the dimple thing, right? You
got the ability to wiggle your ears or
you didn't. Right? You have a capacity
and potential to grow to a certain
height and that might be what you want
and it might not be. Right?
and all the other things that are true
about being a human. And you were born
male or female. You are fearfully and
wonderfully made by good God's good
design. You are all of you.
You are more than the parts that make
you a man or a woman, but you are not
less than them. You are every bit of you.
you.
Your personhood cannot and should not be
If someone is feeling at odds with their
gendered body, with their sex sort of
sexually differentiated body, we must
enter into that situation with care and
patience and love. Mark Yarhouse is a
Christian psychologist who's written a
few books and um if you are wanting to
get more into some of these
conversations that I don't have the
capacity to walk through um he might be
a good place to start. Again, swallow
the meat and spit out the bones. Um,
here's some things that he recommends
for some of these kind of conversations.
If someone is feeling at odds with their
gendered body, we enter into that
situation with care, patience, and love.
We recognize like if someone has said to
you, sometimes I feel like I'm born in
the wrong body. Sometimes, I don't feel
like I'm supposed to be a girl or I
don't feel like I'm supposed to be boy.
And they confide in you about that.
There's some key things we ought to do
in that conversation. recognize their
fear and vulnerability. Can you imagine
saying that out loud even to close
friends? It would be difficult for you
even if you were a mature adult. So
oftentimes, especially for people who
were children who are having this
conversation, it is a terrifying idea.
And the fact that they've trusted you
with it is a huge sign of the
relationship that you have with them.
Recognize the fear and vulnerability and
acknowledge the trust that they've shown
you. Pray, listen, learn, and ask questions.
questions.
Pray, brother. Pray sister for your
relationship, for this conversation, for
the relationship to be able to continue
for beyond this conversation. And pray
what I often pray as a pastor. Holy
Spirit, remind me that you are here with
me. I'm not alone in this conversation
because I'm worried I'm going to mess
this thing up.
Pray and pray and pray. Listen, learn,
and ask questions. Say, you can say
something like this if you need like
sort of a handhold for having some of
these conversations. Somebody tells you,
"I'm not sure that I'm supposed to be a
boy or I don't feel like I'm a man. I'm
I'm a woman." And they have this
conversation with you, then you can be
honest. They don't expect you to
actually be an expert in gender
identity. You can be honest and say,
"I'll be honest. This isn't something
I've experienced. Could you tell me
about more tell me more about what this
is like for you?" And the reason it's
it's important that you ask them is
because then you're inviting them to
share more about who they are, about who
they believe about what they believe is
a core part of their identity. Everybody
loves that question. I'm fascinated and
interested in who you are. Everybody
wants to be a part of somebody who cares
about who they really are, right? So ask
that question, but also recognize that
whenever they say, "I feel like I might
be transgender,"
they're not using a common definition
that everybody else has for what that
means. They're describing their own
personal experience for what it looks
like for them to wrestle with what it
means to be a boy or a girl or a man or
a woman. Mark our house is fond of
saying, "If you've heard one trans
story, you've heard one trans story. If
you've met one trans person, you've met
one trans person." There's a wide range
of of reasons that somebody uh might uh
struggle with their own gender identity
or have reasons for why they want to do
that. Like I've heard stories about
people who struggle with it because from
an early age they felt this sort of
electric current and sort of chronic
pain of dysphoria with uh living in
their body and it feels absolutely wrong
all the time. They can't shake it and
sometimes it leaves them bedridden for a
whole day. I've heard that story and
that's why someone then comes to
identify as transgender. But I've also
heard stories about somebody who grew up
in a house where mom was abused and
there were no brothers or uncles or men
around to protect mom. And so this
person said, "If I become a boy, I'll be
safe and I'll be able to protect the
person that I love."
Right? That's an understandable
statement for somebody in an impossible
situation. So if you've heard one trans
story, you've heard one trans story. So
tell me more about what this is like for you.
Again, if someone's feeling at odds with
their gendered body, we enter into that
conversation with care, patience, and
love. And Mark Yur House recommends that
we engage with other aspects of their
life. We're recognizing that they are a
whole human being. They're having
trouble aligning themselves with and
understanding their own identity. They
also love Pokemon and are big into tacos
and they have certain TV shows they like
um and they come from a particular kind
of home. All of these things are true.
They have fully orbed lives and stories.
So engage with other aspects of their
life. Don't treat them as just this one
particular issue because they're a whole
human being.
Patiently help them broaden the circle
of people uh they trust with this
struggle. This is just good advice in
general when somebody's going through
difficulty or crisis.
Man, I have just like personal failure.
There have been times when somebody has
come to me, not about this particular
issue necessarily, but when somebody has
come to me and said, "Hey, this happened
in my marriage and I can't bear the
weight of anybody else knowing, but I
felt like I had to talk to somebody
about it." And because I want to honor
them and honor that confidentiality, and
I think I'm supposed to be some sort of
like super pastor, I try to hold that
form. And you know what that means? That
means that I become their whole church
for that issue.
All of the pressure that is supposed to
be distributed among the body of Christ,
loving each other and bearing each
other's burdens, like all of that is
placed on me and it absolutely crushes
you. The same is true for this kind of
conversation. We need to patiently,
lovingly, graciously, and with a lot of
wisdom help them broaden the circle of
people they trust with this struggle.
But that is a hard thing and it's
something that ought to be done. um
um
advisedly and often slowly.
This is something you cook in a
crock-pot, not in a microwave. Does that
make sense? Um especially if that's
going to involve having conversations
maybe with a pastor, maybe with their
friends. It's going to if if you're not
their parent and they're coming to you
first and that conversation needs to
start to involve their parents and
that's going to that's going to mean a
lot of prayer and conversation. you
helping them to get ready for that
conversation with them, preparing them
for that kind of conversation. It may
involve if there's the trust in the
relationship there, you having a
conversation, a pre- conversation with
the parents to help prepare them for
that conversation. Probably involves you
asking some advice uh from some other
people about how to help them navigate
this. But it's important that they start
to have more people that they can trust
and have this conversation with.
Am I enough?
Lots of us struggle with questions of
worth and whether we could be loved by
somebody else. This is not unique to
conversations about gender identity or sexuality.
sexuality.
Many of us wonder if we are man enough
or woman enough.
This is an opportunity to speak grace
and love. And this is an opportunity for disciplehip.
disciplehip.
I'm not saying like in fact I'm I'm I'm
not recommending at all that if somebody
comes to you and has this one of these
conversations with you that the first
thing you do is that you like pull up
J.R.'s slides and they say like let me
tell you about Ko Genesis. Um that's not
the first place to start. But there is a
this is a deep and important
conversation. It's why it's so important
for us to ask questions and listen and
learn and pray and seek wisdom and
advice and those kind of things because
there could be if somebody trusts you
with this conversation in a vulnerable
terrifying moment in their life. There
could be this open door for you to have
the kind of relationship that loves them
and welcomes them in and helps to love
them through a very difficult time in
their their life and may provide some
opportunities for you to say like whoa
whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whether you figure
this out or not, whether you figure out
the absolute perfect definition for your
identity and for your gender, whether
you figure that out or not, you are
deeply loved, you are deeply important
because God says so. And nobody gets to
take that away from you. You are here
for a reason, by God's good purpose and
by his good design. So you can start to
walk through some of these things that
we've talked about to assure them of
some truths that can help them to feel
like if because part of the time you
feel like if I don't get this right and
communicate this right then my whole
world falls apart and the friends around
me are going to run off and my parents
are going to abandon me or the new
friends that I've created because I've
started to embrace some of this identity
with them that they support and advocate
for. If I if I if I start to backtrack
on that or if I start to think about
this differently, then I lose all those
friends and I've already lost some other
friends on this side and then I'm going
to be alone and then I'm not going to be
loved and I'm not going to be enough.
Right? There's all of these kind of
conversations that are swirling in the
mix of this, which is why it's got to be
slow and patient and so prayed over. But
there is a beautiful opportunity if
somebody trusts you with this for love
and care and long-term disciplehip. And
it's why it has to be true
that somebody who is willing to open this up and have a conversation with
this up and have a conversation with you, if they say, "Do you think it'd be
you, if they say, "Do you think it'd be okay for me to come to your church?" It
okay for me to come to your church?" It has to be true that they get to come and
has to be true that they get to come and worship with us.
worship with us. It has to be true.
We've we talked through how the culture would guide them and instruct them and
would guide them and instruct them and care for them.
care for them. Would
Would we give someone we love over to that
we give someone we love over to that conversation?
conversation? It has to be true
It has to be true that we can love them and walk with them
that we can love them and walk with them in disciplehip and that we can slowly
in disciplehip and that we can slowly broaden the group of people who will
broaden the group of people who will love them and care for them. Especially
love them and care for them. Especially if those group of people share our
if those group of people share our beliefs. You are valuable. You're made
beliefs. You are valuable. You're made in the image of God. You're here on
in the image of God. You're here on purpose. Your body is important. It
purpose. Your body is important. It matters because you matter. if they can
matters because you matter. if they can share these ideals with us and be
share these ideals with us and be speaking that beautiful life and truth
speaking that beautiful life and truth as they walk patiently through the pain
as they walk patiently through the pain and the heartache and the difficulties
and the heartache and the difficulties and the surprises that come along the
and the surprises that come along the way in this conversation. We can be a
way in this conversation. We can be a part of that and that's a beautiful
part of that and that's a beautiful gospel opportunity for us.
gospel opportunity for us. So, just to recap all that we've talked
So, just to recap all that we've talked about this morning, we got a couple of
about this morning, we got a couple of different visions that design our
different visions that design our origins or from God's good purpose
origins or from God's good purpose identity that we are not our own, but
identity that we are not our own, but God has given us a specific identity of
God has given us a specific identity of what it means to be human.
what it means to be human. What it means to be human includes this
What it means to be human includes this idea of the self that we are embodied
idea of the self that we are embodied souls with a givenness and a calling to
souls with a givenness and a calling to love and that our bodies matter and
love and that our bodies matter and they're made male and female
they're made male and female as opposed to um a vision that we have
as opposed to um a vision that we have often seen that we've described as we
often seen that we've described as we walked through this a design that comes
walked through this a design that comes from chaos identity that is personally
from chaos identity that is personally defined an exhausting uh desperate task.
defined an exhausting uh desperate task. um the self, which is sort of this like
um the self, which is sort of this like dis disintegrated self um that has to
dis disintegrated self um that has to diminish or overcome certain parts of
diminish or overcome certain parts of the body to become your true self. And
the body to become your true self. And this um idea that uh biological sex that
this um idea that uh biological sex that our bodies uh can be at war with
our bodies uh can be at war with themselves because biological sex um
themselves because biological sex um cannot be brought into the conversation
cannot be brought into the conversation about what it means to be you.
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