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Ephesians 5:22-33 • 22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:22-33 • 28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Gender – God made them male and female • Ephesians 5:22-33 • Paul addresses husbands and wives • But this is after telling them to “Be filled with the Holy Spirit,” (5:18). • There is a central place for Spirit-filled living to express itself in the husband and wife relationship.
Gender – God made them male and female The view according to today’s culture: Sexual orientation and gender identity should be far more open and fluid. A major assumption related to today’s view: Individual’s must turn inward to find their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Gender – God made them male and female “Many of us go to work in places where sensitivity training has become an Orwellian nightmare; where sexual orientation is now considered a true category of personhood (who you really are); where biological sex is no longer considered a factual reality, offering God’s designed blessing for all of humanity, but only a psychological reality (its meaning subject to how you feel).” Rosario Butterfield
Gender – God made them male and female • Today’s assumptions did not emerge out of a vacuum: for centuries, we have been encouraged to turn to inward to ourselves to make or discover our identity. • Montaigne (1500s): “I study myself more than any other subject.” • Ralph Waldo Emerson (1800s): “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Gender – God made them male and female • Identity in Genesis 1:26-27 • 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Gender – God made them male and female • Identity in Genesis 1:26-27 • Our identity is… • Received • Reflective • Royal
Gender – God made them male and female • Identity and idolatry in Genesis 3:1-5: • 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Gender – God made them male and female • Exodus 3:14: God calls himself “I AM WHO I AM.”
Gender – God made them male and female • At a certain level, we all struggle with this fundamental temptation... • to turn to ourselves to try to fashion our identity. • My identity is my career success. • My identity is my financial success. • My identity is my attractiveness. • We are all guilty of trying to take up the clay that is ourselves and mold ourselves into what we think is an acceptable image!!
Gender – God made them male and female • The good news: • in Christ, we are given a new and magnificent identity by grace!
God made male and female equally in his image • Historically, the church has at times struggled to consistently value both men and women as equal bearers of God’s image.
God made male and female equally in his image • Genesis 1:26-27: 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. • Both bear God’s image • The first “royal couple” • Both are tasked with filling the world with God’s goodness (vs. 28)
God made male and female equally in his image • Genesis 2:18-24: • 18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
God made male and female equally in his image • Genesis 2:18-24: • 21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
God made male and female equally in his image • Genesis 2:18-24: • 1. It’s not good for man to be alone (vs. 18) • 2. None of the animals are suitable helpers (vs. 20) • Finally, woman is the long-awaited suitable helper (vs. 23) • - “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”
God made male and female equally in his image • Genesis 1-2 give us a picture of husband and wife • as equal bearers of God’s image. • John Piper describes this as • “profound, ultimate, overall, God-designed equality.”
