J. Matt Barber
Thank God men and women are different
By J. Matt Barber
A priceless vein of God's infinite wisdom and creative beauty can be found marbled throughout the marvelous and myriad differences He established between the two sexes – male and female.
Thank you God for blessing us with "the other."
"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'" (Genesis 2:18).
And so He made woman, thereby giving man a chance to think of, do for and partner with his spiritually, sexually, emotionally and physically compatible binary opposite.
And she for him.
Yet our culture today is more me-focused than ever before. We're entitlement-minded and obsessed with fatally flawed and pseudo-utopian notions of egalitarianism, as well as outcome-based, rather than opportunity-based, concepts of materialist "equality," "fundamental fairness" and "social justice."
Dr. Peter Jones, a world-renowned Christian apologist and founder of the truthXchange, gets to the root of this problem by way of a lucid "comparative antithetical hermeneutical system" he calls "Two-ism and One-ism":
"Paganism is built upon the fundamental oneness of all things (monism). Under the pagan worldview, all is divine, all shares the same substance. Under paganism the "two-ness" of biblical worldview is overturned. It is viewed as false to make distinctions if all is the same. Paganism seeks to achieve spirituality by removing the distinctions which God has made. Global spirituality seeks to obliterate the antithesis which exists between the truths of theism and pagan worldview.
"Pagan spirituality seeks to erase the distinctions between God and man; between man and animal; and between man and woman. Perversion is the inevitable result – the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter one that the overturning of created order will result in unnatural ways of living (Rom 1:24-27)."
"Unnatural ways of living," as Wegter puts it, is the disordered order of the day in our post-modern, post-Christian world.
For example: "Homosexual androgyny," says Dr. Jones, "is 'the Sacrament of One-ism.' It carries within it the very essence of what it means to worship created things."
Me, me, me. Same, same, same. Sex, sex, sex.
Marriage, on the other hand, authentic man-woman marriage, is a perfect representation of the Two-ist reality in which we all live – to include our pagan friends, who labor under the One-ist lie.
Two-ism, in effect, is what brilliant worldview analyst Nancy Pearcey calls "total truth."
Total truth is revealed to us pressed down and running over in both God's created order, so that we "are without excuse" (Romans 1:20), along with His infallible word, which is the handbook for life – an invaluable gift to all mankind in the form of the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Total truth remains totally true for all, regardless of whether we choose to recognize it or stubbornly, foolishly and pitiably choose to deny it. As Pearcey notes, "Christianity is the key that fits the lock of the universe."
Indeed, when we slip and fall, gravity hurts, in the physical sense, whether we're Christian or pagan. Likewise, when we fall from grace – when we sin – death, which is "the wages of sin," hurts in the eternal sense.
Eternally.
Though we have no salvation from gravity, we do have salvation from sin, in and through the person of Christ Jesus. He sits atop heaven's throne, along with God the Father, on the decidedly superior flip-side of our transcendental Two-ist reality.
There is we. And there is He.
God was the first defender of natural marriage. After all, he designed it. Jesus reiterated that design, making it abundantly clear and beyond refutation that marriage is, always has been and always will be the union of the binary opposite, magnificently different male and female of the human creation.
Declared Christ: "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Matthew 19:4-6).
Note that, rather conspicuously, Jesus did not say: "At the beginning the Creator made them lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). For this reason a male, female or shemale will leave his, her or whatchahoozie's father and mother, father and father or mother and mother and be united to his or her wife – and/or husband – and the two or more will become one flesh. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
So important, in fact, is the natural, God-ordained union of man and wife in the covenantal bond of marriage, that God uses this union as the metaphor for Christ's covenantal bond to His "bride," the Church.
Equality does not mean "sameness." In fact, when it comes to matters of sex, marriage, sexuality, family and procreation – which, by their very nature, require binary and biological compatibility – sameness becomes, quite naturally and necessarily, unequal. It's a nonstarter. A man cannot give birth to a baby (I demand "birth equality" now!) because men and women are different.
Likewise, a woman cannot give birth to a baby without a man. That's because, thank God and again, He made us different. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.'"
There is "marriage equality" and then there is marriage reality. Marriage exists in the Two-ist reality. "Marriage equality" persists in the One-ist fantasy.
Thank God men and women are different.
© J. Matt Barber
May 26, 2014
A priceless vein of God's infinite wisdom and creative beauty can be found marbled throughout the marvelous and myriad differences He established between the two sexes – male and female.
Thank you God for blessing us with "the other."
"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'" (Genesis 2:18).
And so He made woman, thereby giving man a chance to think of, do for and partner with his spiritually, sexually, emotionally and physically compatible binary opposite.
And she for him.
Yet our culture today is more me-focused than ever before. We're entitlement-minded and obsessed with fatally flawed and pseudo-utopian notions of egalitarianism, as well as outcome-based, rather than opportunity-based, concepts of materialist "equality," "fundamental fairness" and "social justice."
Dr. Peter Jones, a world-renowned Christian apologist and founder of the truthXchange, gets to the root of this problem by way of a lucid "comparative antithetical hermeneutical system" he calls "Two-ism and One-ism":
-
Two-ism:
All Is Two: We worship and serve the eternal, personal Creator of all things. God alone is divine and is distinct from His creation, yet through His Son, Jesus, He is in loving communion with it.
One-ism:
All Is One: We worship and serve creation as divine. All distinctions must be eliminated and, through "enlightenment," we discover that we also are divine.
"Paganism is built upon the fundamental oneness of all things (monism). Under the pagan worldview, all is divine, all shares the same substance. Under paganism the "two-ness" of biblical worldview is overturned. It is viewed as false to make distinctions if all is the same. Paganism seeks to achieve spirituality by removing the distinctions which God has made. Global spirituality seeks to obliterate the antithesis which exists between the truths of theism and pagan worldview.
"Pagan spirituality seeks to erase the distinctions between God and man; between man and animal; and between man and woman. Perversion is the inevitable result – the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter one that the overturning of created order will result in unnatural ways of living (Rom 1:24-27)."
"Unnatural ways of living," as Wegter puts it, is the disordered order of the day in our post-modern, post-Christian world.
For example: "Homosexual androgyny," says Dr. Jones, "is 'the Sacrament of One-ism.' It carries within it the very essence of what it means to worship created things."
Me, me, me. Same, same, same. Sex, sex, sex.
Marriage, on the other hand, authentic man-woman marriage, is a perfect representation of the Two-ist reality in which we all live – to include our pagan friends, who labor under the One-ist lie.
Two-ism, in effect, is what brilliant worldview analyst Nancy Pearcey calls "total truth."
Total truth is revealed to us pressed down and running over in both God's created order, so that we "are without excuse" (Romans 1:20), along with His infallible word, which is the handbook for life – an invaluable gift to all mankind in the form of the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Total truth remains totally true for all, regardless of whether we choose to recognize it or stubbornly, foolishly and pitiably choose to deny it. As Pearcey notes, "Christianity is the key that fits the lock of the universe."
Indeed, when we slip and fall, gravity hurts, in the physical sense, whether we're Christian or pagan. Likewise, when we fall from grace – when we sin – death, which is "the wages of sin," hurts in the eternal sense.
Eternally.
Though we have no salvation from gravity, we do have salvation from sin, in and through the person of Christ Jesus. He sits atop heaven's throne, along with God the Father, on the decidedly superior flip-side of our transcendental Two-ist reality.
There is we. And there is He.
God was the first defender of natural marriage. After all, he designed it. Jesus reiterated that design, making it abundantly clear and beyond refutation that marriage is, always has been and always will be the union of the binary opposite, magnificently different male and female of the human creation.
Declared Christ: "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Matthew 19:4-6).
Note that, rather conspicuously, Jesus did not say: "At the beginning the Creator made them lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). For this reason a male, female or shemale will leave his, her or whatchahoozie's father and mother, father and father or mother and mother and be united to his or her wife – and/or husband – and the two or more will become one flesh. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
So important, in fact, is the natural, God-ordained union of man and wife in the covenantal bond of marriage, that God uses this union as the metaphor for Christ's covenantal bond to His "bride," the Church.
Equality does not mean "sameness." In fact, when it comes to matters of sex, marriage, sexuality, family and procreation – which, by their very nature, require binary and biological compatibility – sameness becomes, quite naturally and necessarily, unequal. It's a nonstarter. A man cannot give birth to a baby (I demand "birth equality" now!) because men and women are different.
Likewise, a woman cannot give birth to a baby without a man. That's because, thank God and again, He made us different. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.'"
There is "marriage equality" and then there is marriage reality. Marriage exists in the Two-ist reality. "Marriage equality" persists in the One-ist fantasy.
Thank God men and women are different.
© J. Matt Barber
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