The Beauty of Gender

God gave us gender as a blessing, but it’s become a battleground.

I’m struck with the first two couple of times that gender is described in the Bible. The writer of Genesis switches from prose to poetry. It’s like there’s no way to describe our creation as male and female without a poem.

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
(Genesis 1:27)

In Genesis 2, Adam breaks into poetry when he first sees Eve:

This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.
(Genesis 2:23)

The poetry of gender was lost in the Garden (see Genesis 3:16), but it’s being recovered within the church. Or at least it should be.

I spoke at Liberty Grace Church last Sunday about gender and sexuality. My goal was to present, as best I could, the biblical truth on these topics. I especially wanted to challenge common views of gender, and to speak about the equality but glorious difference between men and women.

I spoke on this, but speaking’s not enough. We must also recapture the beauty of of the truth so that the gender becomes a blessing rather than a battleground.

• I dream of a church in which women are viewed as co-heirs of Christ, fully equal in dignity and value.
• I long for a church that holds to the equality of the genders and the glorious difference between the genders at the same time, and that encourages both men and women to play their roles in the Kingdom.
• I long for a church that rejects macho Christianity — a chest-thumping caricature of what real manhood is all about.
• I want to be part of a church that understands that many women carry scars because of the treatment that they’ve received from men, that stands up and speaks against sexual abuse and harassment, and that provides safety for those who’ve been hurt.
• I long for a church that makes room for people who struggle with issues of sexuality and gender, and that provides gospel, safety, and time.
• I want to be part of helping husbands learn to lay down their lives to serve and love their wives as Paul taught in Ephesians 5. And I want them to love it.
• I’d love to be part of a church in which women flourish.

The more that gender becomes a battleground, the more we must recover its beauty.