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Our visits to the pastor’s study in this series have focused on several of today’s hot-button issues connected with gender and sexuality. ROGD – Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria; Revoice and God’s Voice (on issues regarding homosexuality and the possibility of real change by the Gospel), and Can I be a ‘Gay’ Christian?  I urge you to listen to these information-packed programs.             

Several times in this series both I and my guests have emphasized that churches must be teaching what the Bible says about biblical manhood and womanhood, as well as about God’s design for sexuality and sexual relations. The rather obvious question that’s come to us for this month’s Open Forum is: 

So, what does the Bible say about what it means to be male and female?”            

For this entire topic, I cannot too highly recommend the outstanding volume Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. While the 26 chapters and other materials in this 566-page book are a response to evangelical feminism, so much of what is included in this rich volume applies to what we have been discussing in this series. Even though it was published in 1991 – nearly 30 years ago – its contents are as relevant for today (if not even more relevant) than they were then.  

Listen to what John Piper writes in chapter 1 of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood – keeping in mind that “today” is 1991:             

The tendency today is to stress the equality of men and women by minimizing the unique significance of our maleness and our femaleness. But this depreciation of male and female personhood is a great loss. It is taking a tremendous toll on generations of young men and young women who do not know what it means to be a man or a woman. Confusion over the meaning of sexual personhood today is epidemic. The consequence of this confusion is not a free and happy harmony among gender-free persons relating on the basis of abstract competencies. The consequence, rather, is more divorce, more homosexuality, more sexual abuse, more promiscuity, more social awkwardness, and more emotional distress and suicide that come with the loss of God-given identity.            

…Little help is being given to a son’s question, “Dad, what does it mean to be a man and not a woman?”  Or (to) a daughter’s question, “Mom, what does it mean to be a woman, and not a man?”… We are adrift in a sea of confusion over sexual roles. And life is not better for it.            

If that was true in 1991, how much more is this true 30 years later.            

In response to both your questions – and to the questions of the son and the daughter in the John Piper quotation - we’ll be taking two Open Forums (this week and next week) to consider the Bible says about manhood and womanhood.            

My guest on today’s Visit to the Pastor’s Study Open Forum is Pastor Ben Miller, who serves Trinity Church (OPC) in Syosset, Long Island, NY. I so value Pastor Ben’s thoughtful reflections on our culture, and his commitment to ask what the word of God really says to address these cultural issues. He gives us a good model of “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”  Today he’ll help us think through Biblical Manhood – what it is and how it can be taught effectively in our confused day.              

Here’s a link to the full program: 

                                                                            

Yours in the man, Christ Jesus,                                                                                    

Pastor Bill