IT'S TIME FOR GENDER BENDING

Missouri State Representative Mike Moon (R-Ash Grove), has introduced a resolution in the Missouri Legislature urging our state's Federal Office-holders--Senators and Representatives--to aggressively seek the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obama-care) with "manly firmness."  You can imagine the outcry that has erupted from the supporters of Obama-care and those who are bent on deconstructing gender distinction. 

Rep. Moon borrowed the phrase "manly firmness" from Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  After asserting that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of holiness (well, actually happiness)--the Continental Congress listed their grievances against King George III. Among them, "He has dissolved Representative Houses (colonial legislatures) repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people."

As the brou ha ha in Missouri has intensified, I've been thinking more about gender distinction as defined in the New Testament.

1.  Our Lord Jesus referred to the distinction of gender in His teaching on the permanence of marriage, "...from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh."  (Mark 10:6-8).  God made them male and female. There are two genders, not twenty.  There are not "50 Shades" of gender. There are two.

2. Gender is a matter of spirit as well as body.  The Apostle was clear.  Husbands are to love and sacrifice for their wives just as Christ loved and sacrificed for His Bride--the Church. (Ephesians 5:24)  Men who are unwilling to sacrifice for their wives and family do not love as Christ loved and are in violation of His express command.  A sacrificing spirit--willing to "lay down his life," and "endure hardness as a good soldier,"--is the hallmark of Christian manliness.

My father was stricken at age 16 with a life-threatening heart attack.  Throughout the rest of his life he was unable to engage in strenuous physical labor or participate in sports.  Yet no one doubted His masculinity. 

On the other hand we have known of physically strong men, capable of lifting incredibly heavy weights, able to endure grueling hours of backbreaking labor, or even excel in sport events, who were of weak character.  Their lives were pathetic models of self-centeredness and selfishness. 

3. When God defines the kind of men He wants to lead His Church, He lifts up His desire--or ideal--for the men of His Church.  He wants men who are "vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity..."  (1 Timothy 3:2-4)  Later in the same letter He tells us that His men provide for their families.  (1 Timothy 5:8).  Men are to protect and provide for their families--physically and spiritually--to the fullest extent that they possibly can.  That's the New Testament measure of "manly firmness."

Some have wondered whether these virtues are unique to men.  Shouldn't women be sacrificial in their love?  Shouldn't women be of good behavior? etc.  Indeed they should.  But there is something more.

The greater mystery is this.  How is it that men have been called specifically to a self-sacrificing love, while women are specifically called to a submissive love?  (Ephesians 5:22-29). 

I can only imagine the Apostle's amazement and wonder when the Holy Ghost moved him to write, "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church." (Ephesians 5:32).  Here's truth that we would have never understood apart from revelation.  I see now!  

The God of the Universe ordained that the marriage relationship would open our eyes to spiritual reality--reality about our own natures--men and women, reality about His nature, and reality about His power to redeem and restore the nature of all those who seek after Him with all their heart.  It's time for every fallen of each gender to come to Him who is the great bender, able to straighten perfectly what sin has bent--and experience His great salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

Finish, then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee;
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Charles Wesley

PONDER THIS: 
Could it possibly be that the fallen natures of Adam and Eve inclined them to different sinful dispositions? 
Was fallen Adam prone to self-centeredness and would a sanctified Adam be given to self-sacrifice? 
Was fallen Eve resistant to leadership--even loving leadership, and would a sanctified Eve be desirous of godly leadership?


JOIN US THIS MONTH AT THE ST LOUIS HOLINESS CONVENTION WHEN ARTICLES LIKE THIS WILL BE THOUGHTFULLY AND PRAYERFULLY CONSIDERED.