Hannah Holloway says, “I never really thought to myself, yes, I am a girl. Or, yes, I am a guy. I’m Hannah.”
Hannah’s story along with several others was reported in Sunday’s Kansas City Star in the Arts and Culture section. The Star devoted three full pages to the issue of gender identity. Hannah and others want to be classified as nonbinary. So, she doesn’t want to be called by the pronoun “she” but the pronoun “they.”
Another lead article discusses how the definition of transgender has continued to evolve. Kasimir Hazelwood thinks “normal” is a meaningless word. Hazelwood identifies as androgyne, someone masculine with feminine qualities.
Rogers claims to be “genderfluid.” That means sometimes Rogers feels like a male and other times a female. V is open to any sexual orientation and dates both men and women. “I like the label queer,” says V, “because it is not clear cut.”
So, now the new controversy in our culture is gender identity. This minority of mixed up people is clamoring for gender neutral public restrooms. Unisex locker rooms, and the right to identify however they choose on legal forms. Some applications provide the choice “Male,” “Female” and “Other.” Facebook now allows you to choose, “him,” “her,” or “their.”
How many others are there, you ask?
According to an ABC report they have identified at least 58 gender options. They include bigender, pangender, transgender, Agender, intersex, Cis, Trans, and something called two spirit.
Don’t you miss the days when life was simple? There were just boys and girls.
I don’t claim to understand this confusion. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I’m a preacher. So, I will offer a simple Bible explanation.
Gender crisis and confusion exists because people have strayed away from God. They have lost their spiritual identity. And they have denied the Creator and His purpose for their lives.
Our society is on the fast track to becoming like the pagan culture Paul described in Romans chapter one. “…They knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man — and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:21-25)
The Bible says that in the beginning God created the first pair “male and female.” He pronounced a blessing upon them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Gen 1:27-28). Later when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees a question relating to marriage, he responded this way.
“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:4-6)
The Bible does not give us free rein to choose our sexual preferences and gender identity.
Our culture has taken something simple, and obvious and made it so complex and complicated that it goes beyond the absurd! Yet, “enlightened” educators, politicians, journalists and sadly some church leaders, nod with some kind of knowing empathy that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, feelings, behavior and sexual identity or preference.
Our culture has lost its way. The real crisis today is a crisis of values. G. K. Chesterton was right when he wrote, “The danger when men stop believing in God is not that they’ll believe nothing; but that they will believe in anything.”
The solution is not to seek our gender identity, but to seek God. To desire spiritual communion with Him. And to accept who He created us to be.
Parents, preachers and Bible teachers must now emphasize to a new generation influenced by the confusion of their culture, that God created us. He made us male and female. He gave us distinct gender roles. And that our body does not belong to us, it belongs to the Lord.
–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman
ThePreachersWord 
Amen brother…Gen. 1; Matt 19 are plainly God’s plan for His creation. Rom. 1 is pointing directly at our society! Preach on Preacherman! Thanks for the reminder of this simple and concise teaching from God’s word!
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Thanks for your encouragement and kind words
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Good Article Ken!
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Well done ken. The book of Romans have said it all.
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This is overly simplistic and dogmatic. It fails to give a proper respect to the complexities of the issue.
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Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. It is simple. But dogmatic, only if you deny the inspiration of the Bible and the God who made us male and female.
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First of all, I will admit I am as confused as are more than a few folks, when someone wants to claim both genders. (I,unlike you, and like many others have no problems when someone wishes to operate- in all aspects- as a male or female, if their initial physical characteristics demonstrate the opposite. The genetics demonstrate this feasibility.)
But, I am positive that your creative pronouncements may be more related to the translation you elect to employ. I am not a scholar of the new testament. So, I won’t take issue with your quotations of an English version of an aramaic document- or even the Greek translation.
But, NOWHERE in the book of Genesis can your pronouncement be found. NO mention of “Pairs”- unless we are talking about the non-kosher animals that Noah escorted into the ark. (Even there the words are two-by-two, man and wife, male and female.)
So, you are more than welcome to espouse your views. Just not create your own translation to suit your needs.
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Roy, The Bible wasn’t translated willy nilly. It was translated with the purposeful intent of being accurate. I speak only English, but I have recently been dealing with my aunt’s Japanese family, due to her sickness and death three weeks ago. Her family in Japan speaks no English, except for one niece, who speaks a little. We have struggled in our communications, and often laughed about the “misunderstandings”, but ultimately we have sorted through those and we worked at it until we knew exactly what the other was intending to say. They understood that she was sick, what was wrong, and that she died. They conveyed that she told them how grateful she was to have us as her American family and they thanked us, too. If we could translate what the other was saying with a little effort, I am more than confidant that the scholars who translate(d) the Bible from the original Greek and Aramaic got it right. That being said…the Bible does indeed mention pairs. In some translations it says “in twos”, in others “pairs”. Whatever the actual verbiage, no one could legitimately disagree with it not meaning pairs…
From Genesis 7 NIV – The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
And from the KJV “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”
Verse 9 – There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Verses 15 and 16 –
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. 16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him
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Gen 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 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. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” NKJV
Gen 2:21-25
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said: “This is now 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 mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. NKJV
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MR Ackerman…what do you do with Romans 1:18-25? Was Adam a man or not? Was Eve a woman or not? Did God create them as such? I believe the answer to these questions is YES! The problem is that He also gives us free will. Obviously some have taken this way too far. God will NEVER give us permission to sin…but we do have the ability to do so. This is fact is not my “translation” but interpretation of a Divinely Inspired Book, we call the Bible. When it is all said and done…we all will answer for our choices. That day may be sooner than we think. 2Peter 1;3ff. tells us that through His Divine power we have been granted all things that pertain to a life of godliness…..” Gender confusion is not from God…but man. God is not the author of confusion, but peace….. 1Cor.14:33
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The way I see it is these people are telling us that when they were created, God made a mistake with their gender. As far as the bible tells us, God does NOT make mistakes!
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I agree with your conclusion on what the Bible says. However I think that the world should from Christians that they are loved before any other issue. Too often we are known for every issue we are against, but rarely the love we are supposed to have every single person.
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Yes, I agree. In that spirit, you may appreciate yesterday’s post. https://thepreachersword.com/2016/09/01/acceptance-does-not-imply-approval/
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Reblogged this on ThePreachersWord and commented:
In 2016 issues surrounding “gender identity” became a hot topic. This April post was the most read new post for the year and received the 2nd most hits of all posts for 2016.
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Very good article, thanks. It is amazing that these gender issues need to taught in the church today.
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THIS IS ALL CRAP MADE AND TRANSLATED BY MALES THAT FEEL A FEMALE IS UNWORTHY OF ANYTHING BUT BEING DOMINATED BY SOMETHING THAT HANGS BETWEEN A PERSONS LEGS WHICH IS BY THE WAY USELESS.
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CHOICE. This word changes many definitions concerning this topic. It is evident that when the people of Israel began choosing how they wanted to live instead of allowing God to be their leadership and guide, immoral living took it’s place amongst the people. The bible gives no indication of men and women being “created” with two sexes, but “male and female”. Where did this idea of homosexuality originate? Is it because we assume that since “immoral acts” are written in the bible that this is permission to continue living a life that God condemns? Yes, God loves everyone of his creations. But God is about obedience as well. Society refuses to accept the idea that living in sin (no matter the sin) is disobedient to what God wants for us. It’s not just homosexuality, it’s anything that goes against the order that God has deemed right and orderly. Leviticus 19 – 20 “Be ye holy, for I am holy”. Not only did the Lord command the Israelites to be holy, but in these two chapters the Lord gave specific examples of things they could do in their daily lives to obey this commandment. Each of these practices helped remind the Israelites to “separate” themselves from the world and its ungodly practices. Romans 12:2 – Paul writes, And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye (you and I) may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. So how do we “prove” the will of God if we are not will to deny ourselves of those things that is not holy and acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service? CHOICE is the dominate factor in all things related to sin. Free will gives us the ability to choose sin or deny sin. And we as God’s created work, know when we are doing something wrong. And yes, we try to justify our sin because it’s what our flesh desires. But in the end, SIN IS SIN. And WE CHOOSE to sin.
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