God’s Design: Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage

I hopped out of my car and walked casually into the College Ministry building when all of the sudden Jen went rushing by me and out the door. There was no wave, no hi…or any real acknowledgement that I was there. I did not think much of it in the moment besides the fact that it was kind of odd.

Once inside I found out quickly…no scratch that, I found out immediately why Jen had rushed by so quickly without even a glance. Before the door had shut behind me a freshman who was a part of that college ministry said, “Sean, you just missed it.” Missed what I thought…he went on, “Jen was just talking about how abortion is not always wrong. Then we saw you pull up and said we should ask Sean, he can help.” Her response, “Not Sean! He’s so judgmental!” And out the door she went without a word as we passed.

Everything made sense once I had been told of the brief conversation that took place before I entered. In that moment I was not glad that they had thought to ask me. I was not proud that my friends had sought my answer. I was nothing but ashamed that I had developed a reputation of being judgmental, a know it all, and known more for what I opposed than what I believed.

Have you ever been there? What about your church amid the community? Have you heard conversations of people talking about the judgmental attitudes of “christians” in their lives? It is true that the Bible prohibits and forbids particular ideas and actions. However, it also has much it affirms: This I believe or This We believe.

Last Sunday of Pride Month

Pride Month just wrapped up and on June 27th I preached on God’s design for gender, sexuality, and marriage (it was PG rated as well as this blog). My mentor and friend told me ahead of time not focus so heavily on what the Bible opposes before presenting what it affirms. That is good advice. I do not say it was good advice for any reason except that Jesus also seems to have taken this route.

In Mark 10:1-10 Jesus is approached by Pharisees with this question: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” That is a yes or no question…simple…plain…and straight forward…unless you are a good debater. Our Lord was more than a good debater, he was the Great Debater. Jesus does not say yes or no, but points to what the scriptures affirm from the beginning of creation. The question posed to Jesus about divorce is really the same as the questions of our day:

• Is it ok for two women to get married?
• Is it right for a man to become a woman?
• Is the idea of a male and female gender, two genders, merely made up by the culture and society?
• Who is to say there are right and wrong ways to understand and live out gender and sexuality?

These questions need to lead us to ask this question: What is God’s desire for gender, sexuality, and marriage as demonstrated in his creation and design of them of them?

Jesus’ answer (Mark 10:5-9)

And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 

Mark 10:5-6

“Hardness of Heart” – This is a lack of sensitivity to the laws and ways of God. Do me a favor…quickly pinch the back of your hand until you feel a little pain…then pinch the front of your hand…which one senses pain quicker? The back, right? It is not as hard… it is sensitive to what is happening. A hard heart is not sensitive to the leading of God. Jesus is teaching the Pharisees that the baseline problem regarding divorce in their day and back in the days of Moses and the law were the hard hearts of Israel. That was the problem. The issue lay with mankind not wanting to adapt to God’s original intent and design as put forward in the creation of man and woman.

It is there at the creation of our first parents, Adam and Eve, that we find Jesus’ foundation to the answer he gives. He clearly states that God created two genders: men and women. There are males and females. There are girls who become women and boys who grow up to be men. No fluidity, shifting, or crossing. The Bible affirms two genders/sexes in God’s original and holy design, and he said “It is very good.”

Paul affirms this in his writing:

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. 

Titus 2:2-3

Jesus, Paul, and Genesis 2 assume two genders/sexes. At the same time we find no verse in the Bible affirming any other number or growing number of genders/sexes.

Wait wait wait you may say, did not Paul say to the Galatians that male and female distinction no longer have a place?

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 

Galatians 3:27-28

What are we to make of this? CONTEXT!!! Context always always always! We must always look to see what the author’s greater point is in the given passage which surrounds the verse at hand.

Here we see Paul throughout Galatians 3 giving one of the clearest explanations of how one is made righteous in God’s sight. Here toward the end he is pressing the point that when we hear and believe the gospel that it does not matter your ethnicity, culture or social standing, not even your sex. Who you were outside of Jesus has no effect on who you are inside of Jesus. This is not an argument by Paul in which he flat out contradicts his statement in Titus 2. Paul affirmed distinct roles for men and roles for women.

Jesus did too.

…and he goes on to say:

‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 

Mark 10:7-8

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother” – Genesis 2 and Jesus assume that a man leaves a family made up of one man (“father”) and one woman (“mother”).

Paul also assumes this family structure in Titus 2:4, [older women] “are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children…”

Jesus closes with what results from the leaving: cleaving.

“the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.” – A covenant marriage of one man and one woman is the holy realm in which a male and female are both lawfully and joyfully to express the fulness of their sexuality. There two may experience oneness with their covenant companion emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We see this depth from the text, the two become “one”.

“[Marriage] is a fusion of two hearts– the union of two lives– the coming together of two tributaries, which, after being joined in marriage, will flow in the same channel in the same direction…”

Peter Marshall

By God’s design such depths and joys can only ever be experienced between one and one woman in the boundaries of God designed marriage.

From Creation, to the Son of God, to the Apostle Paul, God’s design of gender, sexuality, and marriage if affirmed and assumed. With that is the absence of any challenge to that order coming from within in the pages of scripture.

Closing Thoughts:

Whether the question is about divorce, LGBT lifestyles, or a husband cheating on his wife…it all roots back to idolatry. Namely, it is allowing or even encouraging our own desires to have greater weight on our minds and hearts than God’s design. Idolatry can be anything in our life that has a “god-like” weight on our lives. It is that ‘god-like’ weight, that idolatry that is at the foundation of sin.

A heart felt desire must not be allowed to have that kind of weight on us. Heart felt wishes and wants should only be allowed a place in our lives so far as they align with God’s design for creation and humanity. In short, we ought to desire God’s design. When we reject God’s design we are doing exactly what the apostle Paul warned against in Romans 1: worshipping and serving the creation rather than the Creator.

To ignore God’s design for gender, sexuality, and marriage, and put in its place something of our own design is to worship and serve creation, not the Creator.

One last thought to bring this home. We are all sexually broken. We are all creatures who have rebelled against the Creator from our very hearts. Ask yourself: “Has every sexual desire or act I have ever committed only ever been experienced within divinely designed marriage? Has every desire been toward the spouse God has given me? Did I wait to enjoy sexuality until I said my ‘I Do’s’?

In short: every desire, thought or act that has not been aligned with God’s design was a display of sexual brokenness. No matter if you are heterosexual or homosexual. We all need healing. Therefore we praise God for grace which bring forgiveness to our brokenness and begins to restore us. The gospel is not the message of the gay becoming straight, but broken sinners being rescued and healed by their Creator.