Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Gender (07/06/23)
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TITLE: A Gender Bender | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
07/12/23 -
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Before the Fall of Man, Adam and the woman (later named Eve) lived in a perfect natural environment, and in harmonious relationship with God, and with each other.
Man was created as a trichotomous being, consisting of a body, a soul, and a spirit (1).
God created, prepared, and provided for Adam, a male body from the dust of the ground (2).
God created, prepared, and provided the woman (later named Eve) with a female body that He made from the rib of Adam.
In each case, they were given a body with a gender suitable for the general and individual plans and functions that God had in mind for each one of them.
Through the reproductive process that He established, God continues to provide a body with a specific gender that is consistent with the plan that He has in mind for each individual. Man reproduces the body; God creates and implants the soul and spirit (3).
As a result of the Fall of Man, much changed (for the worse) in their natural environment, their personal relationships with God, and in their personal relationships with each other (4).
Scientific statistics tell us that one to two percent of the bodies produced by the human reproductive process come into this world with both male and female reproductive tissue and organs. This raises gender-identity issues and ethical questions as to how those involved are to respond.
In this presentation, we will focus on the 98-99% of the human population, whose gender is made clear, evidenced by the exclusive male or female characteristics of the specific body in which God chose to place each one of us in at birth.
Both Old and New Testament (Church Age) Scripture address marital authority and role function based on gender (5). Both Old and New Testament (Church Age) Scripture forbid sexual activities outside of heterosexual, married couples (6).
The desire to alter the gender-based marital roles comes from the fallen nature that is in all of us (7). Knowing the significance of marriage in the plan of God, such alterations have the full endorsement of the devil (8), seeking our destruction.
Satan appeals to the fallen nature is inherently hostile towards God and or the “things” of God. Among the “things of God” are the general and individual plans that God has in mind.
God has a general (9) plan for each dispensation (period of time) in His master plan for the human race, and an individual plan (10) for every soul that He creates.
God supplies ALL that we need (11) to accomplish His plan. This includes a body with a gender to facilitate that plan.
Marital authority based on gender is to be respected, but not abused (12).
Individuals can choose to use their bodies to please themselves, or to please God (13), but born-again believers will give an account of what they did with the temple of God (14).
It’s true that those who experience alternative desires were born that way (with a fallen nature), that is bent on doing evil (15). So was/is everyone else!
The sin nature does not raise the same temptations in everyone. What is of no interest to one person, is a sin that can so easily entangles (16) someone else.
Romans 8: 23 and James 2: 10 points out, no one is in a position to judge anyone else, but advancing disciples are all in a position to inform others on what basis we will all be judged or evaluated by God.
To follow the lead of our fallen nature into any area of sin are choices that we make. We can use our God-given free will to choose to avoid, embrace, repent of, or forsake the desires of our hostile sin nature (17), setting the stage to reap either the blessings or the consequences of those decisions.
If God’s individual plan for any one of us called for a body with a different gender, He would not have placed us in the one that He did.
“… lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matt. 6: 13 NASB2020).”
Evil is anyone or anything that would draw us away from identifying and or executing the general or individual plans that God has in mind.
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(1) 1Thess.5: 23 (2) Gen. 2: 7 (3) John 3: 6 (4) Gen. 2: 17/Gen. 3: 16-19 (5) Gen.3:16/Eph. 5: 24 (6) 1Cor. 6: 18-20/Heb. 13: 4 (7) Rom. 7: 23 (8) 1Pet. 5: 8 (9) Matt. 28: 19, 20 (10) 1Cor. 12: 4, 11 (11) Phil. 4: 19 (12) Eph. 5: 25 (13) Romans 12: 1 (14) 1Cor. 3: 16 1 (15) Gen. 6: 5/Rom. 8: 7 (16) Heb. 12: 1-3 (17) 1Cor. 6: 10, 11
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