This is the Ask Pastor Alex podcast with your host, Pastor Alex.
All right, welcome back to the podcast, everyone. We are here with another episode and another
question. And the question for this episode is, what does the Bible say about gender and sexuality?
And full disclosure, this was one of the very first questions ever asked and submitted to the
Ask Pastor Alex podcast. But I have been putting it off intentionally, not because I’m afraid of
the topic or don’t want to address the topic, but it’s because I knew that I was going to be
recording this with my good friend, my buddy, my partner in ministry, the associate pastor of
George’s Creek Baptist Church, Pastor Jordan Massey. So, Jordan, welcome back to the podcast.
It’s great to be back. All right. Well, good to have you.
You might remember Jordan from our Easter episode when we talked about the resurrection of Jesus.
He is back now and we’re going to discuss this topic and dive in to what does the Bible teach
about gender and sexuality? And Jordan, initial thoughts on just the question itself and its
relevance for today. Yeah. So this is a question that obviously in our culture has taken over a
lot of culture. It’s a question that really can’t be avoided by Christians anymore, right?
And it just happens to be Pride Month as we’re recording this.
It does. And that wasn’t on purpose.
But it’s kind of a good reminder for us as Christians because I feel like a lot of
churches and believers try to just avoid it. And it’s like, you know, we know what we believe,
but we don’t really want to talk about it. But we need to.
And you do the church a disservice when you take that approach, because there are a lot of
young people in the church who are very confused on this topic and they’re being exposed to TikTok
and social media, their friends, schools, public schools, and they’re hearing the other side.
And if Christians don’t come at that same topic from the biblical perspective,
then they’re only hearing one side. So there’s a lot of people out there,
especially on the different social media apps, especially ones like TikTok, that people get on
there calling themselves Christians and say things like, well, the Bible doesn’t actually
condemn homosexuality. The Bible doesn’t actually say anything about these topics.
And so the church really needs to go at these topics and actually share biblical truth.
Yeah, that’s right. So we’re going to dive in.
We are going to just state at the beginning that this is going to be a long episode because
because I’m here, because Jordan’s here. But there’s also a lot that goes into this topic.
And we want to make sure that we do it justice, which we probably still won’t in one episode,
but we’re going to do the best we can. And we’re going to divide it into those two parts.
So what does the Bible say about gender and sexuality? And so we’re going to start with
the first part of that question, which is what does the Bible say or teach about gender?
And Jordan, you want to head that one up? Yeah. So this is once again where a lot of
confusion, sadly, ends up popping up when you just say the word gender.
Right. Right. And especially nowadays,
people will say that there is a difference between gender and sex.
Even though they rarely define what that difference is and it becomes a whole lot of muddy water and
really no way to prove them wrong or right based on how they define certain things.
Exactly. And when you actually get into a conversation with someone that tries to say
that, that gender is just like a social construct, when you actually get to the end of their
argument or their theory of it, it actually always boils back down to sex.
Yeah. And every time.
What it comes down to, especially as believers, is we didn’t come up with it.
Right. Right. This is something, you know,
I teach students and youth group all the time and something I tell them is if it’s something that
we created, then we can make the rules for it. That’s right.
But if we didn’t, if God made it, then he makes the rules for it.
So we look at when he created humans. Right.
What does the Bible say? That’s in Genesis 1.27, right?
When he says, so God created man in his own image,
an image of God created him, male and female, he created them.
Exactly. So in the beginning, when God’s creating everything and he finishes off his creation with
the pinnacle of his creation, creating this creature that’s going to be made in his own image,
which is unlike anything else he’s created at this point, he makes them male and female.
And so from God’s perspective and according to God’s design, not even just his perspective,
but according to his design, there are only how many genders?
Two. Two.
Okay. And so how would you address that with maybe someone who wants to disagree
about gender, sex, things like that? They might say, well, I don’t believe in the Bible.
Right. Well, that’s always a fun one to go at. Right.
And I think part of that still, again, goes down to what I was saying before about who created us,
right? That he gets to pick the rules. We didn’t create our gender.
Yep. Right. And at the risk of sounding a little bit harsh, a lot of it does come down to common
sense and looking at nature. The rest of nature points to the duality of gender.
Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good point.
Everything else has that. Are there some slight variations in certain creatures?
Yes. But look at humanity in particular. Now, one of the other things that a lot of people,
I’ve heard them say in argument to this is what about people born intersex?
Yeah. Very small percentage.
Which is a very, very small percentage. But also whenever that happens, we don’t look at that.
Doctors don’t look at that and say, this is a new gender. They say it’s a birth defect.
That’s right. Yeah.
There’s something wrong there. They’re intended to be something else or intended to be either male
or female. That’s a good point because I think
people look at that today and they would say that’s an example of something that is not
male or female. Therefore, there is a third option, at least a third, but they would say
obviously many more. Even though no one can tell you how many genders there actually are
when you ask them. But yeah, with intersex, the doctors don’t go, oh, we have this brand new
gender. This is amazing. They say, well, here’s a birth defect. You were intended to be one or
the other. Now some actions need to be taken in order to correct this birth defect.
Yeah. So yeah, that’s a good point.
What else should we say about gender, do you think?
Well, I think if we’re going to talk about gender, we need to talk about
the ways that we’re supposed to act or the way we’re supposed to be as the genders.
Okay. Well, real quick, before we move on to that, let’s talk about the issue because, I mean,
it could be the elephant in the room and that’s the issue of transgenders.
And so we’re seeing a lot today. So not only would people say there are
an infinite number of genders, who knows, we can’t even get a number, but we’re dealing with a lot
of people today who are claiming to be transgender. You’ll have a person who is biologically male,
and that person might say that they feel female. And so there’s some sort of disconnect happening
there. And what’s interesting to me is that you’re seeing this in large numbers as we’ve never seen
before. And so what’s interesting to me is if you look at the entire history of humanity,
you don’t really see any transgender, gender dysphoria, like any of this kind of stuff.
It’s just male and female, and throughout history there have been homosexuals and things like that,
but rarely have there ever been transgender. But now you look at what’s happening in our culture
today, and it’s like a large majority of kids are beginning to identify as a different gender.
And I think that’s a clear evidence of societal pressure, of indoctrination, of propaganda,
being at work in our children. So that’s an issue. But what would we say about how the Bible
addresses the issue of maybe transgenderism, gender dysphoria, things like that?
A lot of it comes down to, in my opinion, how our culture has dissolved truth.
We’ve let postmodernism run rampant, where we’ve said to these kids, we’ve said to each other
that truth is whatever you make it. That’s been the pillar of our culture.
Which is why it now has a personal possessive pronoun. When have you ever seen that before?
Your truth, his truth, her truth. What does that even mean? It’s always just been the truth.
Exactly. It’s always just been the truth. And I don’t think anyone, when the kind of move into this
thought process of postmodernism first started, that anyone was even thinking about this,
about this outcome. But when you start taking away truth, actual truth of what it is,
it leads you down a terrifying rabbit hole. And so for a lot of people, when they’re told,
oh, well, I truly can be whatever I feel like. Not whatever I want to be. That’s what we all
tell our kids. Like, hey, you want to be a doctor one day, that’s great.
Yeah. You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.
Right. But when we take that step farther, and we can say, you can be whatever you feel,
then that really messes things up. As Christians, we have to hold fast to what
truth is. And that’s got to be what we approach the rest of our culture with and say,
there is a truth. That’s right.
The Bible shows us, even nature shows us, that there are two genders,
that you are the gender you were born with. Yeah. And I think you’re making a good point
there, especially with emphasizing that word feelings, because I think we are living in a time
and in a culture when our feelings dictate everything. We are basically ruled by our
feelings today. You get a lot of the creation of safe spaces and triggers and trigger warnings
and things like that. I mean, you’re basically having to cater to people’s feelings, and we’re
dominated by them. And don’t get us wrong. There’s nothing wrong with necessarily being careful with
what we say to people. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, I’m not saying that at all.
Right. And I know you’re not, but I want to make sure our listeners know that’s not what we’re
saying. We’re not saying, especially as Christians, we’re not going out to offend people any more than
the gospel naturally does. Right. But like you’re saying, we’ve taken that a step too far.
Right. And so what’s happened, and Jordan and I were discussing this maybe a week or so ago,
is that a hundred years ago, maybe even 50 years ago, if a person had gone into a doctor’s office
and said, I know that I’m a biological male, but I feel like I’m a female, I want to do something
about it, the doctor would say, yeah, we do need to do something about it. But the solution back then
would have been to bring the emotive and the feelings in line with the physical reality
of the fact that you are a biological male. Something is out of line mentally, and so we
need to bring the mental in line with the physical. Right. Now, a lot has happened in our culture,
and you can thank the influences of people like Rousseau and Marx and Darwin and a whole bunch of
other people. I mean, there’s just been a lot of work and research done on this. They’ve had huge
influence on our culture today, but basically by their influence, we now live in a time where
we are no longer seeking to bring the feelings and the mental in line with the physical.
We are now attributing truth and ultimate value to feelings and to emotion, and we are wanting to
now bring the physical reality in line with this feeling that people have. Right. And so the solution
today would be, oh, okay, if you’re out of line in that way, if you feel like you’re a female,
but you’re a biological male, well, we need to bring your physical reality in line with how you
feel rather than vice versa. So it’s crazy how our culture has shifted in that way, but it’s important
that we recognize it so that we don’t think this is just something that happened by accident. No,
it’s a very intentional shift that’s happened where truth is no longer what corresponds to reality.
It’s whatever you feel at any given moment. Right. And now we’re seeing the very unfortunate
snowball effect of letting that happen that it’s trickled down to the children. Yeah. That we’re
letting emotions dictate truth. So now we’re listening to the most emotional creatures on
the planet. That’s right. Children. And let’s be real. When we were kids, we all dressed in our
opposite gender parents clothes because we thought it was funny. Right. Right. I was like, how in the
world does my mom wear high heels? So let’s put them on and walk around the house. And like, look,
mom, I’m a girl. Blah, blah, blah. And it was funny. Yeah. And never once did I actually
want to be a girl. Right. And your parents didn’t think, oh, well, Jordan put on high heels. Yeah.
I think I’ve got a younger sister. She grew up with two older brothers. I mean, she could hang
with the best of them. She’d go outside. She was rough and tough. She did all the things that we
did. And never once did my mom or a teacher or anyone come and say, hey, did you notice that
your daughter is acting this way? I think she’s actually a boy trapped in a female’s body.
Kids are being kids. Right. Boys will play with baby dolls sometimes. Girls will throw
footballs. I mean, it’s just kids being kids. We are over sexualizing constantly in our culture
today. We are over sexualizing our children. We’re over exposing them to sexual type stuff.
I mean, this is just what our culture is like now. And it’s pushing children into something
that they’re later going to regret. And I’ve done a lot of research on this.
And the majority of children who do end up transitioning at a young age, you know, so think
pre-purity or even shortly thereafter, after they transition, they ultimately will end up regretting
it, but it’s too late to go back and do something. And so they end up committing suicide. And so the
suicide rate amongst transgenders is exponentially higher than almost any other demographic. And
that’s not because they’re not accepted. They’re not loved. It’s because we have given them free
reign to go with a lie rather than the truth. And we haven’t given them the help they actually need
rather than, you know, people think they’re helping them, but that’s not the help they actually need.
What they actually need is for people to come alongside them and say, Hey, there’s something
going on mentally here. And again, we never condemn mental disorders. We never condemn any sort of
like mental illness. We are huge proponents here of mental health. You need to take care of your
mental health, whether that be depression, anxiety, you know, all sorts of other things that go into
mental health, prioritize that, take care of that, but understand that gender dysphoria is a mental
health issue and it needs to be treated as such. You certainly don’t need to alter the human body
to correspond to how a person with a mental illness is feeling at a given time.
Yeah. And I really hope that everyone listening from Christians to non-Christians hear our heart
and what we’re saying with this is one of the main reasons that we feel it’s so important and
needed to talk about this is because people are losing their lives. And these are people that
while we might disagree with on a philosophical and religious side, they’re made in God’s image.
These are human beings. They’re people that God loves. And they’re going through
something that’s made them make these choices. And way too often, the church isn’t talking about it.
Yeah. And we need to talk about it. And we need to show that we love these people, but also show
that a lack of truth is what’s brought our society to this point. And if we want to truly help people
not reach that point of depression, then this is how we do it. And see, this is one of my big
holdups because I know that people might be listening to us and they would say, well, I
disagree with what they’re saying. They’re mean, they’re bigoted. And that’s okay if people want
to think that, we’ll take it. But we do truly love people. We’re not going around saying, well,
I hope all the transgender people burn in hell and stuff like that. That’s not our heart.
We want them to meet Jesus. Yeah. We want them to know Jesus. We want them to know God loves them
and that there is hope and salvation and renewal and freedom in Christ. I mean, that is our heart.
We’re not condemning anybody. We don’t agree with them, but we’re certainly not condemning them.
I don’t agree with the sins I commit. Yeah, that’s right. I hate those things. So,
you know, like we’re not condemning, but we are saying that it’s coming from a place of love,
that we love these people. And here’s where it really gets to me is that many people in
our culture will say, well, Christians hate science. Christians are science deniers. You know,
just pay attention to the science. But when it comes to this issue, for whatever reason,
people ignore the science. It goes out the window. It goes out the window. They ignore the science.
And then, you know, I’ve seen in the culture where people will condemn Christian parents
for raising up their children in the ways of the Lord. And they’ll go, well, you’re indoctrinating.
You’re shaping them in a wrong way. But drag time story hour. But drag time story hour,
you know, stuff like that, or trying to convince your five-year-old son that because he played
with a baby doll, he’s actually a girl and he needs to transition, you know, just horrible
things like that. But at the end of the day, I just want us as a society to recognize that this
transgender movement that is happening, the science and all the research that is done on it,
and I always encourage people, you can go and check me on this, the suicide rate is so exponentially
higher that it should cause us to pause as a society and say, okay, maybe this isn’t the way.
Maybe this isn’t something that we should do. Maybe we need to take a step back and reconsider
what we’re doing in this area because it’s leading to just astronomical amounts of suicide,
and especially amongst younger individuals, you know, people who are not even pubescent at this
point. So this is a very serious issue. So just to kind of sum up, the Bible does say
that there are two genders. That’s it. There are male and female. That’s how God created us,
and that’s a good, perfect design. Listen, so if you’re out there struggling with that,
God didn’t make a mistake with you. If you are biologically one sex, but you feel another,
God didn’t make a mistake. He made you the way He wanted you to be made, and that means that
there’s something going on. I would seek help, you know, and there’s a lot of help out there,
but don’t feed into what the culture, or don’t buy into what the culture is feeding you because
the transitioning is not the way. It will lead to depression. It could lead to suicide, but at the
end of the day, there are only two genders, and God’s design is perfect. Right. So I think this
kind of leads back, and we can do this part pretty quickly, right, is you said God’s design of those
two genders is perfect, right? And I think one of the areas that people also get a little upset with
Christians and Christianity is how the ways that God made the two genders, or the jobs He gave them,
the rules He gave them, so much I hear, you know, the Bible is sexist. Oh yeah, I hear it all the time.
The Bible hates women, right, and it just comes from a, honestly, I think also a lack of clarity
on the church’s side of teaching it well. True. Again, one of those issues we want to avoid,
because it’s like, oh, that could be controversial, and it’s like, well, it’s better that people know
what the Bible actually says than assume what it doesn’t say. Right, and when it’s actually taught,
clearly, it’s really impossible to make those same claims. Yeah. Right. So like for the different roles
the genders have, right? So Alex, like, what would you say the role of the man is? God created the man
to lead. He is the leader of his family, of his household, and God also has assigned that position
of leadership for men in the church as well. And that’s simply because people miss this a lot,
is that the church is, in a lot of ways, meant to be a reflection of the family. Right. And so since
men are to lead their families, they are also to lead within the church. Exactly. And so,
and that’s a huge point, too. Everyone always goes to that Ephesians 5 passage, and they always take
it out of context, and they always use this as the big sexist verse, because they only read the first
part. That’s right. Wives submit to your own husbands. Yeah. Right. And then it’s like, then
they stop, and they don’t go any farther. And we’ll get to women in a second. But the charge that
Paul gives to husbands there is a really hard charge. Yeah. Right. He says, husbands love your
wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Yeah. That’s the standard. Yeah. Like,
how are y’all doing at that, man? Not great, my dude. Right. Exactly. So people want to be like,
oh, well, you know, the Bible says this harsh thing towards women, women submit to your husbands,
but they miss the part that God says to men, hey, you know, that perfect love that Jesus has for
his bride? You’re not willing this to be crucified. Yeah. Yeah. You’re to do that for your wife.
You don’t even deserve it. Right. Right. And then you say, you’re like, oh, well, I’m not doing that.
That’s terrible. I’m falling short of that all the time, you know? So it’s not easy. And it’s not,
like you were saying, it’s not just in marriage. And I think first and foremost though, it is in
marriage. Yes. It was the first institution God made. Yep. Before he even made the church,
he made the family. That’s right. Right. So men’s first and foremost role is to be that spiritual
leader of the family. And then, yes, it goes into the church that we are called to be leaders in the
church. Right. It would probably topic for another podcast, but the question, right. But the role of
pastorship, according to the Bible. Oh, yeah. I’m surprised no one’s submitted that, you know,
can women be pastors? It’s coming. I know it’s coming. But yeah, next time. But according to
the Bible, that’s supposed to be a man. Yeah, that’s right. Because again, the man in this case is
representing Christ in this relationship and is supposed to be the head of the church. Now, Alex,
you’re the pastor of this church. You are not the head of this church. No. And I tell people that
all the time. I don’t like the spotlight. I try to get it off me as much as I possibly can. Alex is
not the head of Georgia’s Greek Baptist Church. Exactly. Jesus is. And we need not to forget that.
Yeah. Right. But men should be in those roles of leadership in the church. Right. See, and I think
that’s an important point that gets often overlooked. And I try to make this point. So
we won’t make this about women pastors or anything. Right. I promise you we won’t. But
I do try to make this point when this topic comes up that it’s a relief that women are not called
to serve in that capacity. Yes. Whether it be a pastor, whether it be the leader of their
household and things like that. And hey, again, we’re not saying women can’t do these things.
No, we’ll actually get there in just a second. Yeah, we’ll get there in a second because,
let’s shout out to my mom. She’s the greatest woman I’ve ever met in my life. She raised three
kids by herself. She’s my hero. So shout out, mom, you did an amazing job. But so that’s not saying
they can’t do that. It’s again, that phrase that you were saying shouldn’t have to. Right. If more
men were stepping up and doing what God called them to do, then women would be more able to do
what God has called them to do. So this is actually an indictment upon men, as I always like to do,
call men out. All right. Because just think back to the garden, right? All the way back,
Genesis chapter three, you know, people want to say, well, Eve is the one who sinned first. She
took the fruit and everything. You read the Hebrew of that passage and you see that when the snake,
the serpent is actually talking to Eve, he’s using the plural form of you. Who’s the other person
there? It’s Adam. He is standing there the entire time that this snake is tempting his wife and he
is doing nothing. He’s passive. As a man, he should have stepped up. It was his role and his
responsibility given to him from God to protect his family, to protect the garden. Part of that
is keeping snakes out of your garden. And he’s just letting this snake talk his wife up, tempt her into
sin, and he does nothing. And so because he failed to do what God called him to do, the woman had to
assume a role that was never intended for her and she failed. It’s going to be the case because it’s
not God’s design. But it comes back to the man. He is ultimately who is at fault there because he
stood by twiddling his thumbs doing nothing. Right. All right. So let’s take that into the female
side of it. Right. So if the role of the man is the leader, then what’s the role of the woman? Well,
Genesis shows us that when God creates Eve. He uses a very crucial word. Very, very important word.
When he makes the woman. He says, it is not good that man should be alone, so let’s make a helper.
Helper. For him. Yeah. And that… The Hebrew word there is azair, by the way. And you might be about
to touch on this. I don’t know. Go ahead and finish that. I was going to say, yeah. So the Hebrew word
there, very important, is azair. It’s actually also where you kind of get the name Ezra. So shout out
to my youngest son. It means a helper. But what’s very interesting about that word azair in the Bible
is that almost every time it is used, it’s used of God. And so it’s not a derogatory term at all.
People will look at that and go, oh, a helper, a helpmate. That’s so mean and demeaning towards
women. Actually, it’s reflective of God because that word is most often used in the Bible to
describe God. Yeah. So let’s go to the family side of this, right? Yeah. Like you were saying with
your mom and how wonderful of an example of a woman that she is. Yes. Right? This idea of a helper.
We said for men in the family, because we have to start with the family. That’s what came first.
It’s supposed to be the job of the man to be the spiritual leader, right? But has every
man going to get that right? No, no. And so praise God that he can give us a godly woman
to be our helper. My wife, Jessica, you know, God forbid I ever fall away and start to wander from
the faith. But I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that if I did, that my wife is a suitable helper
to continue leading our household until I’m able to come back in. Yeah. And that’s another important
thing, right? She’ll be there to help our son Daniel and to help me. But hear this, everybody,
hear this, you know, women too. That’s also a challenge for them. It’s a challenge for the
women that they’re supposed to be able to lead in case the man can’t. Yeah. And there’s a great
example of that from the Bible, isn’t there, George? That’s Deborah, right? Or Deborah. Yeah.
We’ll say Deborah. Yeah. Because people like to point to her and they’ll be like, well, look,
God made a female judge. But go ahead, Jordan. Yeah. So I love teaching this topic. I’ve taught
it to so many teenagers especially. And like you said, Alex, everyone goes to Deborah. Oh,
but God made a female judge. Every time you see a woman have to step up, especially in the Old
Testament and the Scriptures, it is meant to be a slap in the face of Israel. It’s meant to be an
indictment on the men of Israel at the time. Because they weren’t doing what they were supposed to.
And the other thing I love though about Deborah is a twofold thing. First off, Deborah did an
incredible job as a judge. Yes. She was, she’s one of the few. She shouldn’t have had to. She
shouldn’t have had to. Got key phrase again, but she did. And I’ll even get back to that in a second.
Like Deborah was one of the very few judges that had nothing negative written about her in the
Bible. And that’s incredible. And Deborah was an incredible judge. But I think a lot of people also
skip over the very first thing Deborah does as a judge. Right? God calls her as a judge. So she
accepts the calling. Right? And that’s also a cool thing about Deborah. Yeah. Right? She hadn’t
happened before. And Deborah’s like, okay, I’ll do it. Sure. But the very first thing Deborah does
and her role as judge is she goes to the military leader at the time named Barak, who according to
what the judges were, the judges were supposed to be at that time, the spiritual and military
leaders. Yes. So according to that thought, this man Barak probably should have been chosen as judge.
That’s right. But for some reason he wasn’t there. Right? And so God chose Deborah. And the very first
thing she does is she goes to Barak and encourages him to lead. Yeah. She says, Barak, go lead these
men into battle. And then he looks at her and says, I won’t go to battle unless you go with me.
What a coward. Right? We see why God didn’t pick him. Yeah, exactly. Right? It’s an example of a
man not doing what he was supposed to do. Exactly. But look at what Deborah did. She didn’t take this
opportunity and puff her chest up and say, oh, God chose me. I’m better than the men. No, she was a
helper. Yeah. And she went to Barak and did her best to help him step up and be the leader. And
when still he chose not to, she did what God required of her. Yeah. But that was her first
concern. So women as helper, that should be your concern. This isn’t a lesser calling than the men.
No, it’s essential. And let me just take a moment here to tell you how essential this is.
I could not do what I do on a weekly basis if I did not have my wife. Amen. 100%, I fully believe
that. Anna is my rock. She’s my foundation. I mean, being a pastor, and especially like what our
church has gone through recently, so many hospitalizations and sicknesses and injuries and
just horrible things, I’ve been overwhelmed and depressed and beaten down. And there are days I
get home and I can barely even make it. And I’m like, I don’t know how much longer I can keep
going like this. And Anna’s there. And she encourages me. But let me just say twofold on this.
One, she sees what I go through and she would never want to have that burden upon her. All right.
That’s why I go back again and say it is actually a relief and a benefit to women that they are not
called to serve in this capacity because it is overwhelming and it is just, it’ll beat you down.
And so she does not want that, but she is a perfect Azair. She is there to help me and encourage me
and strengthen me. And she is just fulfilling that God-given role. And because I have that,
I’m able to fulfill my God-given role. So both parts are necessary. I can do what God has called
me to do because Anna is doing what God has called her to do. It’s a beautiful design.
I mean, because it’s God. He gets everything right.
Well, it’s like in that sense, like when the beautiful design happens as it’s supposed to,
that passage of the two things that are asked of us to do, as husband and wife, become,
I wouldn’t say easy, but beautifully possible. That we are supposed to love our wives like
Christ loved the church. So many people have a problem with that word that wives are supposed
to submit to their husbands. But let’s be honest, if more husbands actually treated their wives
with as much loving kindness and self-sacrifice and devotion as Jesus loves us, then it’s not
going to be a problem for wives to submit to their husbands because they’re going to look at their
husbands’ actual leadership and say, I want to get behind that and not just get behind it.
I want to help it.
Yeah.
Because that’s when that wife is going to step up and do her duty and say, hey,
I want to be a part of this. The Bible says when we get married, we become one.
Yeah, that’s right.
That’s what, again, there is no inequality here. There’s no…
Yeah, there’s not different values.
It’s not different values. It’s just different roles.
Yeah. God is not saying men are more important and more valuable than women.
He’s not saying that at all. God consistently comes down harder on men than women.
But he’s saying, I have created these two genders and they have their individual roles,
and both roles are equally as important and valuable and necessary.
Let’s use this example. We’ll probably move on shortly after this.
But it’s just like how God functions as the Trinity in that sense, right?
He exists in three persons.
One God, three persons.
One God, three persons. They have different roles that they fulfill as the Trinity.
But the Son is no more important than the Spirit.
Yeah, that’s right.
The Spirit is no more important than the Father.
And I love that we use that word helper as well. That’s what Jesus even called the Spirit.
That’s right. He’s the helper.
We don’t look… We’re doing horrible theology if we say the Holy Spirit is less important
than the Father or the Son.
That’s right. Jesus literally said, it’s to your benefit that I go away,
because then you get the helper. He’s great.
He’s great. He’s awesome. Women, that’s what you get here, is to be that helper role.
Men, we are called to be the leader role.
And both roles can be equally as hard.
Exactly.
I mean, leadership is hard, but also trying to be a faithful…
Because I know that there are some women out there who are strong Christian women
who are not married to Christian men.
And they are still called to be that helper.
And that’s just as hard, I think, if not more difficult sometimes than being the man in
leadership is being the woman who is having to be the helper to someone who is not walking
with Christ and remaining faithful to Him and remaining faithful to her biblical calling.
Right. Well, that’s actually… Peter writes about that in 1 Peter.
He says this, he says, likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even
if some do not obey the word.
Right? So that even if you have a non-believing husband, they may be won without a word by
the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
Right? What a calling, women.
Yeah.
So that even if you don’t have a believing husband, as so far as it’s not breaking God’s
commands, you still respectfully submit to that man’s leadership.
And if you do that, that’s going to… That will confound a non-believing husband.
And it has. I mean, there are examples in our church. I don’t want to say names on the
podcast, but I know of two couples, actually three in our church, where the woman was a
Christian, the man was not, and through the wife’s godly influence, the husband was one
to Christ. And now those three… Well, one of the men has passed to be with the Lord
at this point, but two of those men in particular are some of the most godly saints we have
in our church.
Oh, yeah.
And they didn’t start out that way.
Yeah.
But the wife was faithful.
Right.
So that’s pretty much, I think, Jordan, unless you have anything else to say, that’s pretty
much what we have to say on gender.
It’s already a lot.
It’s already a lot. We already said this podcast was going to be long, this episode.
We knew it was going to happen that way. But the second part of that question was equally
as important, and we’ve kind of touched on some aspects of it, I think. So what does
the Bible say about gender and also sexuality? And that second part’s a big one, because
sexuality these days is almost as fluid or, I mean, there are almost more sexuality types
as there are gender types these days, if you get what I’m saying. I mean, growing up,
there was just, you know, you were either heterosexual or homosexual, but now there’s
bisexual, asexual, there’s pansexual. I mean, there’s all sorts of sexualities that you
can’t even keep track of anymore. And I think one of the most common things I hear pretty
consistently is that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. Jordan, have you heard that?
All the time.
Yeah, they always go to, and I’m going to let you tackle this.
Yeah, we’re going to look at a bunch of verses.
You’ll be able to go into a lot deeper than I would in this sense, but a lot of it comes
down to that word, homosexuality. That they will say, well, let’s go to the original languages,
the word homosexual is not in there. Well, it also wasn’t written in English.
Exactly.
But the idea of that, and I’ve even heard an argument recently that homosexuality was
different somehow in times back then that they didn’t have the kind of big air quotes here,
healthy, monogamous homosexual relationships like we see today, that it was all abusive and things
like that. Even though there are actually a lot of ancient literature sources that show evidence of
the exact same kind of homosexual relationships that we have today existed back then. There was
no difference between what we call homosexuality now and what it was called in their language.
Yeah, that’s right. So this is a big issue for me. There was a book written a long time ago,
not that long actually, it was by Matthew Vines and it was called God and the Gay Christian.
I actually did my senior seminar on that book and it’s over there on my shelf right now. But
I just, this man Matthew Vines, he basically, he was gay and he wanted also to be a Christian. And
so he basically went to the Bible, found every passage that mentioned homosexuality, and then
he went and found a bunch of liberal scholars who would tell him what he wanted to hear in order to
justify his sin rather than knowing what the Bible actually says. And so I went through,
and I started writing a book-long response to that book and just going through each of the
passages myself because anybody who knows me knows I love the original languages. That’s my first
resource when I’m prepping for a sermon. I go to the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the Greek, whatever it is,
and I just love digging in. I love the languages. And I found that it was just totally wrong,
everything that he was saying. And I’ve heard arguments since then. I mean, Anna was telling
me about a post she saw recently on social media where this guy had shared an article that was
saying the exact same thing, that there is no passage in the Bible that condemns homosexuality.
It meant something different back then. The original languages don’t even condemn it. And
my ears perk up and I’m like, that’s not right. Of course they do, you know? So I thought it’d be
good to go through some of these key passages, just like six or seven maybe, and we won’t go as
deep into them as normally we would, but Jordan’s giving me a look right now. What’s that look for,
Jordan? Will we? Yeah, okay, we’ll see. We’ll see. But let’s just dive in. The very first one in the
Bible that we encounter is in Genesis 19.5. All right, so just for the context, if you’ll remember,
Abraham had just talked with God and God said that he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,
and Abraham was pleading with him to spare the city if only he could find this many righteous
people. And at the time, Abraham’s relative Lot was living in Sodom. And so God sent two angels
into Sodom to get Lot and his family to spare them. And this is what Genesis 19.5 says. So
basically the men of the city, once they saw the angels in Lot’s house, the men of the city come,
all the men. It specifically says men of every age came to Lot’s door. Genesis 19.5 says,
And they called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may
know them. Now, that’s a very important phrase there, very important word that’s used there,
because this is one of those passages where people will say, well, here’s a clear example of
homosexuality. But there’s another side that says, well, that’s not actually what’s being
addressed here at all. Do you know what people actually say, Jordan, the counter to this?
Might not know what you’re going at. Okay. So people will say that this has nothing to do
with homosexuality, that the sin of Sodom was in hospitality. I have heard that. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So when you read the story, it doesn’t really come across that way at all,
but they will compare it to Genesis 18. And they’ll say, well, Abraham was hospitable to
the three strangers who walked up to his camp. But then you compare that to the
men of the city of Sodom who were seeking to brutally rape these two angels. And I mean,
Lot, he wasn’t a great dad here because he’s like, hey, please don’t rape these two angels
that I have just come into my house. Let me, I’ve got some daughters. Let me send the daughters out
and you can have your way with it. So not a great showing on Lot’s part, but the interesting thing
is that the men of the city are persistent. They do not even want the females. So they have
the opportunity for young females who were obviously fairly young at this point, because
they’re going to give birth later on. They’re at that age where they can still do that.
They do not want young females. They only want these two male angels and they say,
bring them out so that we might know them. Now, here’s why clearly this passage is about
homosexuality. I mean, it’s just hard to get around that. You can’t say it’s about in hospitality
because that’s not even what’s going on here. This phrase that they use, bring them out to us
that we may know them. Now, I did a long, long research on this one time. I was doing a lot of
research on different words and phrases in the original languages used for sex and in
intercourse and things like that. Right. And there’s a couple of different ones used in Hebrew. The
interesting thing is this phrase, know them, almost always, I think there’s only like one time in the
Bible where it doesn’t, but pretty much always is specifically intercourse between a married couple
for the purpose of procreation. So think back to even in Genesis, Adam knew his wife, right?
Even it’s attributed to Cain. Cain knew his wife. So this word, know them, almost always,
I mean 99.9% of the time only occurs within the context of a marital relationship for the purpose
of bringing forth offspring. And that’s what they’re desiring here. So this is not just an
in hospitality thing. This is not just a mere attraction. They are literally seeking to have
with these angels something that is only meant within the confines of a biblical covenantal
marriage for the purpose of bringing forth offspring. And that’s going to be very important
later on when we get to another passage in the Bible that specifically condemns
homosexual relationships and what the sin of Sodom actually is. Well, I think you’ll probably,
sounds like you’re going to dive more into this when you get there, but I want our listeners and
us to keep this in our mind of I think this is God, the Bible’s written on purpose, but I think
the Bible’s written on purpose and God’s doing a very important thing here. This is the very first
time we truly get a look at homosexuality. And it’s using that word that’s meant to be for
intercourse for the purpose of procreation between a married couple, right? That’s exactly what
Satan wants to do to sexuality, to humans. He wants to destroy it. Sexuality is supposed to be
good. And so, God showed us from the very beginning of Genesis that sexuality was made to be a good
thing between a husband and a wife. So, the very first time we see this act here, it’s even still
using that exact same word that was meant to be a beautiful and good thing and it’s for a destructive
purpose. Yeah. And I was going to say that’s not to be hijacked by homosexual couples today saying,
well, if I have that desire to know and to have that intercourse within a covenant marriage,
you know, between a man and a woman, which I mean they couldn’t if they’re homosexual, but
it is impossible to have that as a homosexual couple because it’s not just intercourse between
a husband and a wife. It’s for the purpose of procreation. And you can’t get around that in
the Bible. I promise you. You can look it up. The Hebrew word is yadah there. And every time yadah
is used in relation to sexual intercourse, it is specifically between a man and a woman who are
husband and wife. So, they’re married and it is for the purpose of bringing forth children. I think
there’s only one exception to that in the entire Old Testament. So, that’s a very clear example
of where the Bible is saying this is a homosexual act and God is ultimately going to condemn them.
There’s a lot of sins that God ultimately condemned Sodom for. I mean, their destruction was
brought on by a lot, but this kind of puts them over the edge. I mean, this is the spark that
lights the wildfire. So, another really important passage is actually found in Leviticus. So, this
comes in the law. This is Moses giving the law to the people of Israel. And Leviticus 18 22 says,
you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Now, Jordan, you have any
thoughts on that verse? Heard anything said about it? Oh, well, I’ve heard many times that the Bible
never explicitly condemns homosexuality and this is normally one of the first verses I go to.
Yeah. And that word abomination, I think, is important. Toa vah. Yeah. It goes back to what
I was saying a second ago, is it is an abomination before the Lord. Yes. God made sexual relations
between a husband and a wife to be a, to literally be a picture of Christ in the church. Yes. That’s
literally what it’s for. It’s why it’s meant to be such a beautiful thing because it’s supposed to be
one of the most, it might sound weird to a non-believer listening, but it’s supposed to
be one of the most spiritual experiences you can have as a married couple. Yes. It truly is.
And so, Satan knows that. And so, anything that messes that up is truly seen by God as an
abomination. Yeah. Well, with this verse in particular, what tends to happen, and there’s
even a, I’m very, very tempted to say the name of the church, but I’m going to refrain. I’m going
to restrain myself for the sake of our… Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for the podcast listeners.
But there is a church in our area within 20 to 30 minutes of our church where their pastor wrote a
book and he specifically mentioned some of these verses and he was trying to tell his church that
he was an original language expert and stuff like that. And when he got to this verse, he said,
you know, the Bible clearly says, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an
abomination. He said this verse has nothing to do with homosexuality at all. They just go in camping
and like… Yeah, yes. In the tent next to each other? Yeah. So, he said this has nothing to do
with homosexuality at all. He said, basically, and I’ve heard others make this argument, that
it’s a condemnation of the pagan practices that were going on in the land that the Israelites were
about to inhabit. And what would happen is there was this type of relationship, you know,
peteristy, basically, where an older man would have a young child, I mean, could be 12 years old
or younger with him, and he would basically be using that child for sexual gratification. So,
it was an abusive relationship. It was something that was non-consensual. And so, they would say
that this verse is condemning the act of peteristy and that type of, you know, taking advantage of
someone and even rape in certain situations and things like that. But Moses is telling the
Israelites, hey, don’t engage in peteristy. Don’t be a guy who goes and finds a young male child and
takes advantage of them in that way. That is an abomination with the Lord. Well, that’s just wrong.
I mean, plain and simple.
And it’s an abomination for the Lord.
Yeah, that is an abomination. But that interpretation is just blatantly wrong. I mean,
I said a second ago that I did a whole lot of research on all the different Hebrew words and
phrases that were used for intercourse and sexual activity and things like that. And the one that is
used here, the lie with, it’s very interesting. It never occurs within a romantic marriage
relationship. It is always just, it’s basically, you can think of this phrase when you see lie with
as carnal sex. It’s just sex for pleasure of it, right? And what’s interesting here specifically
is this is written in a very interesting way in the Hebrew. Literally, in the Hebrew, it’s like,
in with a male, you shall not lie down the lying downs of a woman. That’s how it’s written in Hebrew.
And here’s why that’s important. It’s because it’s written emphatically. It starts with,
and with a male. See, Hebrew is not written with starting with like the object of something,
you know, like that. And with a male, you shall not lie down the lying down as a woman.
Typically, Hebrew will start with the verb and then sometimes the subject and object. Sometimes
it’s the verb and then the object and the subject, right? So you can think back to Genesis 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, in the beginning, so here’s our context, he created, so we have immediately our verb,
he created. What did he create? God. So the subject comes after the verb, he created God,
the object, the heavens and the earth, right? So if you were thinking in terms of this, you would
think it would say the lying downs of a woman, you shall not lie down with a man. It’s an abomination.
But when you want to say something emphatically in Hebrew, you begin with the object and the subject.
And so it starts with, and with a male. You see the importance here? It’s literally starting with
the thing that upsets God the most. With a male, you shall not lie down the lying downs of a woman.
It is an abomination to the Lord. And so this verse is actually condemning all homosexual
sexual activity. It’s blatantly condemning them because notice that it’s not even saying that,
hey, even if this was a monogamous consensual relationship, at the end of the day, it is still
lying down the lying downs of a woman. And so no matter if this is peteresty or if it’s consensual,
monogamous, whatever, any form of sexual activity within a homosexual relationship
is an abomination to the Lord. And this gets reiterated in Leviticus 20 13. It’s basically
the exact same verse again. It says, if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have
committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. Now, again,
notice that it’s even if this was consensual, even if this is peteresty, if it’s consensual,
if it’s peteresty, if it’s consensual, if it’s monogamous, if it’s committed, if they’re unionized
or whatever it is, you know, if they have a union together, if a male lies with a male as with a
woman, it’s an abomination. There is no getting around that. And I will challenge anyone who
wants to say that the original languages do not condemn homosexuality because brother, I’ll go
toe to toe with you on the original languages. And I will show you in the Hebrew how it absolutely
does condemn homosexuality. But that’s what a lot of people do. The guy who wrote the book that you
talked about. Yeah. What did he do? He went to the Bible. He started good. He went to the Bible,
but then he said, all right, now let me go get someone else’s opinion too. Yeah. Look,
he had a feeling he was trying to validate. Yes. If we literally let the Bible speak for itself,
it takes away the argument. Yes. We we’re not here to convince you of Jordan and Alex’s opinions on
this. That’s right. We’re here like Alex is doing to open the scriptures and just tell you what it
says. Yeah. That’s it. Which will get you in a lot of trouble. I know that personally. I can show
you the emails. But, but that’s our job. And that’s like going back to the truth thing. We’re here to
share truth and we didn’t come up with the truth that’s found in the scriptures. So like, like
Alex, you’re going to go to even some more passages here, but that’s our point is not to get our
opinion. We’re just taking what God’s word says. And to anyone listening who might have been
challenging this thought, I want, I want that to be a challenge to you. Take your emotions out of
the equation. Take your opinions out of the equation, especially if you, if you consider
yourself a Christian and a follower of Jesus, take your opinions out of this and see what God’s word
says. Yeah. Because oftentimes, I mean, that is exactly what happens. People will feel a certain
way and they’ll go to the Bible and they will find verses that condemn that feeling, you know,
maybe with homosexuality or other things. But then what they do is because they, they don’t want to
give that up is they, they seek another interpretation. Can someone please explain this to me in a way
that’s going to make me be able to continue doing what I want to do? You know, like I’ve heard this
one before, totally unrelated, but the passage that says you shall not neglect meeting together
as a church, as is the habit of some, you know, there are a lot of people who are very flaky when
it comes to commitment at church these days. And, and they’ll say, well, the Bible, that passage
doesn’t actually mean we need to come to church all the time. I’ve heard other people say this and
that and that. And, and they’re just, all they’re wanting to do is just find an interpretation
that’s going to allow them to continue living however they want to live. And at the end of the
day, you have to ask yourself, who are you ultimately trying to serve yourself or God?
Because we, we’re not called to serve ourselves or our own feelings. We’re called to submit ourselves
to God. And so this is what his word says. So that’s Leviticus. And what’s interesting,
there’s actually a passage that corresponds to this. And I wrote an entire paper on this from
Ezekiel chapter 16. Interestingly enough, there was another scholar who wrote basically the same
paper and published it in the journal, the Evangelical Theological Society. And I read it
and I was like, you know, I’ve got that paper on my computer. I just never published it. And she’s
like, well, it’s too late now. But he found the same thing that I did, which in Leviticus chapter
16 verse 50, this is the Lord talking to Ezekiel about Sodom and how Sodom was condemned for their
abomination. And it says, they were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them
when I saw it. Now here’s what’s very interesting about that. The Lord says they did an abomination
before him. Hebrew word there, toavah. Now, normally toavah would be plural abominations
and or it would have a definitive article, ha toavah, something like that. The only time
this phrase and abomination is used, can you guess, where the only other occurrence is?
It’s back in Leviticus chapter 18 and Leviticus chapter 20 verse 13. If a man lies with a male
as with a woman, both have committed an abomination. In other words, the only time that phrase and
abomination is used, the three times it occurs in the Bible is in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20,
Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 is referencing back to Sodom, which means, let’s put all the puzzle pieces
together, the sin of Sodom was not in hospitality. It was their homosexuality. That was the
abomination that caused the downfall of Sodom ultimately. The Hebrew language backs that up.
Just to go through another one very quickly for you, Romans 1. Jordan, you’re very familiar with
this? Yeah, well this is important too because, you know, well Alex, all of this is in the Old
Testament. All of this is in the old law, the old covenant. But that’s gone away now. That’s gone
away. We don’t need to deal with that anymore, right? Right. We’re New Testament Christians,
they say. Well, speaking of which. Yeah, right. Romans? Romans, chapter 1, verses 26 through 28,
it says this, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. And it’s talking about here
that people had chosen to turn their backs on God, right? That they’ve chosen to live in their sins.
So it says, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural
relations for those that are contrary to nature. That phrase there, contrary to nature, right?
Yes, key phrase. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed
with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves
the due penalty for their error. Yes. So that passage, how do people interpret it today?
Yeah. Anything but homosexuality. Right, right. Yeah. Basically. So the key argument here when
people interact with this, and again, we’re addressing those who would say the Bible in
no place condemns homosexuality, especially it never condemns monogamous, consensual,
loving relationships between homosexuals. They look at this passage and they say, well, hey,
their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature in the same way the
men did the same thing. They gave up what was natural to them for something that was unnatural.
And so the main argument in this passage is, well, if homosexuality is natural to you,
God is okay with that. But if homosexuality is unnatural to you, then God does not want you to
participate in homosexual acts because then it is an abomination, then it is wrong, then it is a sin,
if it is unnatural to you. But if it is natural to you, that’s fine. They would say, God just
doesn’t want you to go against nature. But is that what Paul means here? Not at all. Okay. So
how is Paul using nature or natural and unnatural in this passage? We’ll see. I’ll let you dig into
this one a little bit more. Okay. So basically, if you look at the entire context of Romans 1,
Paul is taking it back to creation. He’s saying, hey, God has made himself known in creation.
He’s made himself and his attributes visible in creation that you can look to creation and know
that there is a God. He takes it back to the creation of man and woman and then our sin
against him and how we exchanged the glory of the creator and began to worship and prefer the
creation. So it’s all about creation and how God created everything. So this is not talking about
what comes natural to you as a person and what you feel is natural to you as a person and what you
feel is unnatural to you as a person. It goes back to God’s creation. Again, context is king in all
situations. Context is king and the context is talking about God’s creation. When God created
man and woman, the creation, what was natural was for a man to be with a woman. And what was unnatural
was anything other than that. Anything other than one man, one woman in a monogamous relationship of
a marriage together was unnatural. So that’s to say that it’s not about what you feel is natural or
unnatural. It has to do with what corresponds to God’s creation. And so yes, this is another example
of God condemning homosexuality. And the Bible is saying that homosexuality is a sin because it is
unnatural to God’s creation. It goes against his design for humanity. You have anything else you
want to say on that, Jordan? Yeah, I think like you were saying, going back to what is natural,
it goes back to the beginning. It goes back once again to that concept of what actually is truth.
We said very early on in this that God is the one that created us. And so the laws of nature that
he put in place are what is true. And when he created, like I said, he created man and woman,
just to be frank, one of the main purposes he created us was to procreate. Yeah, absolutely.
Was to fill the earth. That’s right. That’s what we were created to do, is one of the major things
we were created to do. And so, like I said, just to be frank, homosexuality destroys that. That’s
right. It goes against God’s design and purposes. It goes against nature. And I mean, that’s not just
a spiritual argument. That’s a scientific argument. That’s a natural argument. You have to take truth
and science out of the equation to claim otherwise. Yeah. And I guess this is as good a point as any
to mention this, but it’s a very slippery slope. And I know people don’t like the slippery slope
argument, but it really is. Because if we’re going to just be affirming everything we feel,
right? So for instance, with this passage in particular, so I guess it’s not out of context,
because people today will say, well, hey, homosexual desire comes natural to me. I was born this way,
right? Now, there’s no scientific evidence to back that up whatsoever. And I think you would say that
no one is born homosexual, but it’s entirely possible for someone to be born with homosexual
desires and temptations and things like that. But again, just because that might come natural to you,
a homosexual desire or temptation might come natural to you, does not mean that that’s how God
wants you to be. I mean, if we start affirming everything like that and promoting it and accepting
it, you end up with this very scary world, right? Because if a person says, well, hey, I was born
this way. I can’t help but be unattracted to the same sex as me. It’s just what comes natural to
me. I need you to affirm me and accept me and allow me to love who I love, because that’s what
I say, right? Love is love. Okay. Well, how do we apply that to other people? What about the grown
men who say that they can’t help but be attracted to children? They were born this way. It’s what
comes natural to them. They can’t help who they love. Love is love. So are we to… And before
any listeners try to scoff at that and say that doesn’t actually happen, it does. Yeah,
there’s a growing movement right now. There’s a very disturbing growing movement. Of people who
want us to affirm and accept pedophilia. Yeah, they’re literally like asking… They want the
LGBTQ, whatever, group to add the P into that. Yeah. And they even came up with their own flag
and stuff. Yeah. That is a real thing that is happening. You can research it. Yeah. So
it is happening. So what do you say to that person? If we’re to be consistent, if you want
us to accept the homosexual and say, okay, we accept you and approve, you love who you love,
you have to say that to grown men. And then you’re gonna allow grown men to prey on young
children? And if you’re not gonna do that, well, how do you make the distinction? Because you would
have to say, well, this group says they love who they love. It comes natural to them. They can’t
do anything about it. But we have to condemn that in someone else. Where’s the standard there? It’s
just a shifting standard based on whatever we say in society. And that’s always changing every single
day. If you can’t tell a homosexual who to love, then why can you tell a pedophile who to love?
I mean, the whole argument falls apart when it’s based upon affirming how someone feels about
themselves. Well, the way you worded that, it all keeps coming back to this, right? The way you
worded that is important. How can you tell someone who they can’t love? Right. Fine then. You know
what? You don’t want to trust me and that. Pastor Alex, okay, we’re not saying it. Yeah. The Bible
is saying it. That’s right. When you do away with an objective standard, all you end up with is
either yourself or society. And you can’t dictate that. You have to have some sort of outside
objective standard in order to have any sort of order in a society at all. Because listen,
society changes its mind all the time. People will change their mind all the time. And there is no
objective way to condemn pedophilia without condemning homosexuality. If you’re going to
affirm one, you have to affirm the other. If you’re going to condemn one, you have to condemn the
other. It’s the only logical way. And interesting to note is that in that Leviticus passage where
it’s condemning homosexuality, it also condemns incest and bestiality. And what’s very interesting,
Matthew Vines, again, the author of God and the Gay Christian, he wrote that whole book about it.
He was very deceptive because I discovered reading the book, he hides everything in his endnotes. He
doesn’t use footnotes. He hides it in the back in the endnotes. And he admitted in that book
that if he is going to affirm homosexuality, he also has to affirm and be open to incest
and bestiality. Because there is no way to condemn one without condemning the other. There’s no way
to approve of one without approving the other. They all go hand in hand. And that while we clearly
don’t have time to talk and cover everything, I want to make sure people do know we’re not only
calling out homosexuality. I think we’re focusing on it because it was the question. It was the
question. It’s one of the more prominent things in today’s society. But all sexual sin is sin.
That’s right.
Promiscuity, infidelity, cheating on a spouse, sex before marriage.
Lust.
Lust. Just all of these things are condemned. And in the Bible, there are all things that are
incredibly important to God and need to be important to us. Again, we’re focusing on
homosexuality because of its prominence in our current culture. But we’re not leaving out these
other things. It would take three more podcasts at least to cover all of those. But all of these
are important. Like we said, God takes sexuality incredibly important. One of the first things he
made in the Bible. And so all of those things are important. I just want to make sure that
our listeners hear that.
That’s a good thing. So we’re not saying that homosexuality is the sin that’s beyond all sin.
That it’s the worst sin in the world. We’re not saying it’s the only form of sexual sin.
Listen, I would say that homosexuality is a sin just the same as if there was someone in my church
who was having premarital sex. I’d say that’s a sin.
It’s no worse.
It’s no worse or anything. It’s a sexual sin. It’s the same thing with lust and all the other
forms of sexual sin that Jordan was talking about a second ago. That all of these things are sin
according to God in his word. And so I guess really to wrap it up with the sexuality aspect is
that the Bible says that our expression of our sexuality is meant to be directed towards someone
of the opposite sex. That expression of sexuality also, I mean we didn’t have time to get into all
this either, but it should be, if you’re talking in terms of sexual expression, the only acceptable
form of sexual expression that is not sinful according to the Bible occurs within a marriage.
Exactly.
A marriage between one man and one woman covenanted together within marriage. That means
that polygamy is also a sin. People who are in these open relationships or polyamorous,
polyamorous things like that. All of those are sinful as well. The only acceptable form of sexual
expression according to God occurs within a marriage relationship between one man and one woman.
That’s it. And so that is what the Bible says about gender and sexuality. Jordan, anything to
wrap it up?
I think, and just to say as a reminder to people, because one of the other things I see people say
is that Christians hate sex or something like that, right?
That’s not true.
That’s not true at all. Because like I said before, we actually know why it was called
and we know why it was created. We know the real purpose of it. Christians don’t hate sex.
We appreciate it more than anybody else on the planet because we truly understand what it is.
God wants it to be this incredibly beautiful moment between a man and a woman in a covenantal
marriage. That’s what he intended it for. And so far be it from us to mess with his design for it.
He wants us to experience that everything from understanding what our gender roles are so that
we can fulfill his purpose for us well in this life to then understanding his purpose for
sexuality so that we can enjoy it in the way that he wanted us to enjoy it. And anything else
ruins that.
That’s right. So God’s not trying to keep something good from us.
He just wants something better for us. I tell our church all the time,
God wants more for you. God doesn’t want you to settle. And all these expressions of sexuality
that don’t occur according to God’s design, they are settling and they are lesser than what he
wants for you. And so God wants more for you. He wants you to enjoy sex, but it has to be
within his design. One man, one woman, a covenant of marriage, a monogamous relationship. And so
I would just say, you know, there are a couple more New Testament passages you can look at in
1 Corinthians chapter 6 and 1 Timothy chapter 1. We didn’t have time to get into all those,
but I do just want to conclude the podcast by saying that Jordan and I, again, we’re not
condemning anyone. We’re not approving. And we’re certainly not saying, you know, this is fine.
It is a sin according to the Bible, but we’re not condemning anyone. If you’re out there and
you’re struggling with gender dysphoria, if you are struggling, maybe thinking about becoming a
transgender person or something like that, we want you to know from the bottom of our heart,
we care about you. We love you because God loves you. And God wants what’s best for you.
He didn’t make a mistake when he created you. He created you exactly how you were to be. And so
we’re not over here condemning you. We’re not trying to, you know, hurt your feelings or anything
like that. Someone ask us a question. We’re just trying to give the biblical answer to that and
tell you there is hope in Jesus, that you can find freedom and you can find peace in Jesus.
Yeah. We share the truth with you, whether it steps on toes or not. We want to share truth with you
so that you can live in that truth and find that kind of freedom that we have found.
That’s what we want for people. Like you said, not to condemn them, not to show them hate,
not to be angry with them, but to show them how much we love them just like Christ loves them.
And we do that by sharing truth. We do that by sharing what Jesus offers.
Yeah. And that’s the thing too, is consider what we’ve said, but also do your research on
transitioning and the side effects and things like that, because I don’t want you to end up
depressed. I certainly don’t want you to end up taking your own life. And so look into it,
consider what we’ve said, and then understand that God doesn’t make mistakes. You are not a mistake.
He did not make a mistake with you. There is hope and there is freedom in Christ. And if you’re out
there, you’re listening and you’re thinking, well, these guys, they hate transgender, they hate
homosexuals. That’s not the case at all. Again, I’ve got a homosexual in my family and I love him
and he knows I love him. Again, I’m not going to mention names or what he is to me in my family,
just for the sake of his anonymity, but I love him and he knows that I love him. He’s never felt
any sort of hatred towards me. He is my family, but he knows that I don’t approve of his homosexuality.
I don’t accept it. And so we don’t hate homosexuals. We love them because again, God loves them,
but we do want to call them to repentance and say that what you are doing, it is sin. Whether you
want to admit that or not, whether that hurts your feelings or not, according to the Bible, it is sin.
I can walk you through every single passage in the Bible that mentions homosexuality or the topic of
homosexuality, and I can show you the original language. It is blatantly and explicitly clear
homosexuality is condemned as an abomination, so repent of that and come to Christ. Because the
Bible even says that there are homosexuals that change. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
he says all these people, some were cheats and scoundrels and this and that, and he mentions
and some were homosexuals. He’s mentioned all these people. He says, such were some of you,
meaning that they had changed. They had found freedom and renewal in Christ. And so that’s
offered to you as well. Alex and I, we’re pastors of a church. We’re no better people than you. If
you’re struggling with those sins, if you’re struggling with those temptations, we’re no better.
No, we’re not perfect at all. We had to repent of our sins. All the time. And we still repent
of our sins every day, and Jesus saved us from those sins. If you struggle with those sins just
because me and Alex have never struggled with that particular sin, you’re no worse off than us.
That’s right. You’re just a sinner in need of God’s grace just like us. Yeah, I tell our
church all the time, we’re all just sinners in desperate need of God’s mercy and grace.
Exactly. And so yeah, my sins might be different from your sins. Your sins might be different
than Jordan’s, but at the end of the day, God calls us to repentance. He calls us to faith.
And so I don’t want you to feel like we hate you. I don’t want you to feel like we’re condemning you,
but I do want you to know what the Bible says. And I want you to know that there is freedom
and there is salvation in Christ. And so we just call you to repentance, call you to faith in
Christ. And yeah, Jordan, appreciate you coming back on the podcast. We actually have another
one, spoiler alert. We’ve got another one that we’re going to be recording together soon. But
for whoever asked this question, sorry that it took us so long to get to it. I know it’s been
months, but thank you for your patience. And we really do appreciate the question and we look
forward to answering more in the future.