"We cannot summarize who God is in his essence. We are finite creatures and God is infinite. Instead, we use the language that God has given to us because God is the one who gets to reveal himself to us."
Paul is talking about the order between God’s relationship with the church and our relationship in marriage. His comments are rooted in the Roman and Greek context of Corinth.
We can be transparent because Christ does not cast us out when we talk about our sins. Check out more of our video content on the Core Christianity YouTube channel.
We want to be sensitive to the fact that gender dysphoria is a real condition. But in terms of the way in which we talk about these things, we have to stick to what we have in Scripture.
What people mean by “deconstruction” is that they are calling into question and even rejecting many of the doctrines they were brought up with. And a lot of young people are shaped more by media, social media, and the broader culture than they are by the gospel.
We have this discussion where we say, “pastors should be men,” and then we stop right. All the while, women are wondering, “what is it that God has called me to do in the life of the church? Does this mean studying theology and understanding the Bible is only for men and we have to serve in the nursery?” But in the New Testament, it is amazing how God uses women for the advancement of his kingdom.
Eve... was not the villain in the story; she was a beloved, restored, redeemed child of God. The way we view her impacts the way we see ourselves and the women around us. Eve was not the mess-up and, for the sake of our hearts and the hearts of the women around us, we need to go back to her story and get to know her better. We need to cut through the misunderstandings that have clouded our view and remind ourselves of the truth of who she was before God—and who we are as well.
Hagar is an example of someone used and abused by the church, and there are many Hagars around us today. Pollsters tell us that the increasing number of “de-churched” people—those who used to attend religious services but no longer do—point to negative experiences in the church for why they’ve left. How does God feel about them? How does he feel about you, if you’ve been hurt by the church, and have fled into the wilderness like Hagar did?
It is curious that most men are not called to the offices of ruling or teaching elder either, but we do not question whether we can learn from men. It further perplexes me because we have women “tradents,” who think through and pass down theology and tradition, throughout Scripture, for a co-ed readership.