Logos School Assembly: Life Between the Sexes
Introduction
There are basically only two options for facing and interpreting what it means to be human, and specifically what it means to be male and female members of the human race. Either meaning is created or discovered. If the meaning of manhood or womanhood is non-existent until we create it for ourselves then there is no right or wrong, no better or worse, and most depressingly, we are left in a literally hopeless situation because hope presupposes something good worth striving for outside of ourselves. If the meaning of sexuality can be discovered outside ourselves, there is something to work toward, there is hope.
The Hope of Sexual Glory
God confronts our hopeless condition with the hope of the gospel (Rom. 5:1-5, 15:4, 12-13). When Paul says that Christ in us is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), he means that being a Christian is fundamentally all about believing that God in Christ is restoring human beings to the glory they were made for, including the complete redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:20-24). In other words, the Christian hope of being human as men and women is not left up to us to create from scratch, rather it is a glory that God has already stored up for us and intends for us to discover, to realize (Eph. 1:18). This means that the best place to begin to trace this glory is in the beginning when God first created the respective glories of male and female people. Learning to be faithful as a man or a woman is learning to love the glory that you have been given and learning to honor the glory others have been given. All sexual sin is fundamentally a refusal to receive and honor the glory that God has given. All true sexual glory is grounded in the determination to discover the glory that God has for us here.
The Glory of Man
Part of the glory of being male is the glory of being made first. God made Adam first, and there is true glory in being created first. But it is folly to think that this means that a man is better. The Bible shows and explains that the man was made first so that he could die first. Men were made to embrace dangers first, to be first responders, to be defenders, to bear hardship for the sake of those around them. This is why the Bible says that the glory of young men is their strength (Pr. 20:29). You were made to protect and honor all women as mothers and sisters, and you were made to protect and honor one woman as a wife. The converse of this is seen when a man refuses to honor and pursue a woman like a man: he is like Sampson giving away the source of his God-given strength (Pr. 5:10, 7:26). The reason sexual sin takes down many strong men is because it is a subtle offer of a false glory and strength. The scantily clad woman in the magazine is portrayed as a compliment, but it’s not real because you didn’t need to die to get her.
The Glory of Woman
The glory of being female is being created second, and being taken out of the first man. The first man was “made” out of dirt, but the first woman was “built” out of a man (Gen. 2:22). She is a work of art, a thing of beauty. This is highlighted in Genesis by the fact that Adam is called an “Eesh” only after he names the woman “Eeshah” (Gen. 2:23). She is the glory of man. In fact, Adam uses the Hebrew superlative when he says that she is “flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones” (Gen. 2:23). Woman is man glorified. Woman was made to bring light and life and beauty into the world. Men were made to use their strength to honor and protect the beauty of women, and women were made to embrace their calling to be beautiful and to bring more beauty into the world. Women frequently sin by thinking that this beauty is merely physical, but physical beauty is a fading sign (Pr. 31:30). It’s a true sign, but it points to what is really precious in God’s sight: fearless grace, chaste conduct, submission to one man, childbearing, and fruitful households (1 Pet. 3:4-6, 1 Tim. 5:14, Tit. 2:4-5). It should be pointed out that this kind of Christian feminine beauty (inside and out) is a powerful weapon that God has entrusted to His daughters and ought not be received lightly.
Conclusion
So this is what we are after here at Logos School. We want a school culture that embraces and honors the unique glories of being made male and female. This is why you are taught to stand to wait for the ladies to be seated first. This is why you hold doors. This is why you are encouraged not to be too casual with one another. This is why we dance the way we do. This is why we feel horrible about the casual dating and hookup culture around us. This is like slurping a fine wine through a straw. This is like drawing faces on a rare baseball card.
Christians should not be embarrassed about their sexuality, or ashamed of being given male and female bodies. We are not ashamed of this any more than we are ashamed that Jesus rose from the dead with a real, physical, and male body that can never die.
Shame and guilt come from sin, but hope comes through Jesus Christ. Do not place your hope in the glitter of worldliness. It’s like a mouthful of flavorless, sugary icing. And do not grow hopeless in your own failures or sins. The gospel of Jesus is for you. The gospel of Jesus proclaims the hope of glory, the hope of glorious bodies, and the hope and glory of being made humans who are male and female.
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