Jump Start # 2454

Genesis 1:27 “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

A friend called the other day wanting some advice. He was getting ready to have a conversation and a Bible study with a young man who now claimed to be a woman. His question to me was, “Do I call him by his male name or his female name?”

We are travelling down some treacherous waters these days. School teachers are forced to refer to students by the gender of their choice, not their birth. Churches are now having to address topics that they never have before. A boy is dating a boy, yet, the boy he is dating, claims to be a girl. Is that ok? There was a time, not too long ago, when people sitting down with elders to discuss placing membership within a congregation were asked about their marriage and whether they had been divorced and if so for what reasons. That was common. Now, it’s coming to a place where elders may have to start asking a couple what their gender was at birth. Boys are wanting to be girls and girls are wanting to be boys. It’s definitely a mixed up, crazy world as the Kinks sang about a long time ago.

But in all of these discussions about gender identity and changing gender, there seems to be one assumption that is overlooked. I’ve read where some claim that they are a female trapped in a male body. So, their entire life is a journey to escape from that and be who they were truly meant to be. Some have even been so bold as to say that God made a mistake. Does God ever make mistakes?

The assumption that these discussions often begin with is that a person has the right to be what they want to be. They have the right to be happy. If a person is unhappy as a male, then they ought to be able to change and become a female. But, where is it proven that a person has a right to be what they want to be? Gender identity strikes at the authority of God. There are certain privileges and rights that belong to God and God alone. To assume that we can usurp these rights is without Biblical precepts. In essence, we are dong what we have no right to do. We understand this in other aspects of life. The President of the United States can’t make laws. He can sign laws or veto laws, but he himself does not have the positon nor the right to do that. Bills are made through the legislature and they become laws when he signs them. He is without authority or right to make laws on his own. Unless you are the owner of your company, you cannot determine on your own what the company policy will be. There is a process and many people that form policies. A member, including the preacher, or the elders, can determine what a church will believe and practice. God has already determined that in the Bible. It is not within our rights to decide what we will believe or what we won’t. When driving, I cannot determine whether a red light applies to me or not. Now, I can run a red light, and, I might get away with it. But I could also cause an accident and I’d be at fault or I could be pulled over by the police and be given a ticket. I cannot justify running the red light by declaring, “I decided that red does not mean stop.” Not only will that not fly in a court of law, but it might be determined that I shouldn’t be driving at all.

Only the person with the authority has the right to set forth what is allowed. When it comes to determining our gender, no where in the Scriptures do we find God passing that right on to us. He did not give that right to prophets, kings or apostles. Some things belong solely to God. To take that right is to steal from God. If I took my doctor’s prescription and started writing prescriptions that would be wrong, illegal and dangerous. I do not have that right. Even though I could pretty much guess what the doctor would write, I do not have the authority to do that. Gender identity, worship, Bible doctrine, marriage are a few items that belong strictly with God. We must take our hands off of them and stop trying to adjust, change and restructure these things. They belong to God and God alone.

Especially, with gender identity, God has made it such that it cannot be changed. Sure a man can have an operation to change body parts, wear makeup, dress like a girl, change his name and tell others that he is a female, but what he cannot do is change his chromosomes. That is set at birth. God determines that. A person can try to change the outside of the package all they want, but what God has set on the inside cannot be altered.

The gender identity issue is just the latest in a long, long history of man robbing from God. Modern worship doesn’t look anything like you read about in the Bible. Who gave these church leaders the right to change what God has given us? The organization of most modern churches doesn’t model the N.T. pattern at all. So many look like corporate America. Who gave those folks the right to change what God set forth? Abortion rights. Same sex marriage rights. Now, gender equality rights. This is nothing more than a long stream of people stealing from God and getting away with it.

Years ago a group of teenagers took down a stop sign at an intersection as a prank. There was a car accident, because there was no stop sign. Someone was killed. The teens were caught, arrested and went to prison. It was not their right to remove a sign that said stop. Who gives us the right to remove God’s sign that says, “Stop”? No one. We just did it. And, the result is spiritual crashes over and over again.

Let God be God. There are some things that are off limits to us. Picking the forbidden fruit seems like fun, but it always results with someone getting harmed. Genesis says, “God made them male and female.” He did not say, “Who wants to be the boy and who wants to be the girl?” Nor did He say, “If you don’t like things the way they are, you can always change them.”

Male and female—He made them that way on purpose. Let God be God.

Roger