Great points! I have thought this often myself: that promoting restrictive, extra-biblical understandings of masculinity and femininity could actually lead those who don’t fit those definitions to question these sexuality.
Yep, came here to say this. As I once told a longtime friend of mine, she herself being very liberal re: LGBT, transgender, etc. (and she was very sympathetic to what I had to say), I was never transgender, but I avoided a lot of masculine stereotypes since my dad, a Navy retiree, just wasn't like that, and I saw and saw and saw from a young age just how awful a lot of the men and boys in my life surrounding me and my family were, including some family members. For a long time, I questioned the concept of "man-hood," not in terms of hiking and shooting firearms but in terms of abetting or openly endorsing blatantly ungodly behavior, particularly but not exclusively toward women and girls.
What great reflections, Rachel. "But we sin in another way when we try to self-actualize through stereotypically masculine or feminine behaviors," is such a helpful insight. You are so right that we as evangelicals have fed the gender confusion by insisting on American stereotypes as indicative of gender, calling ourselves and our neighbors to "roles." George Knight's gender "roles" has played into the hands of transgenderism. But there is more to it than just bodies. Perhaps the right starting point is what God is telling us about *himself* when he made us male and female.
There are four words God uses for the woman of Genesis 1-3, and all tell us something different about her as she reflects God and his plans: (1) In Gen. 1:27 she (with the male) is fully, irreducibly image-bearing adam (mankind). (2) In the same verse, over against the zakar (male), she is nekivah (female). Mankind (adam), like Elohim himself/themselves, is one and many. (3) At the end of Genesis 2, she is ishah (woman), taken from the ish (man). She proceeds from him, which brings us again to the God we confess. She is one in essence with the man, but her procession from him gives her a new identity. And I think there is more. Perhaps the ishah as second represents heaven, the Sabbath goal which will proceed from the earthly testing of their obedience. Heavenly Jerusalem is certainly what the woman represents in the OT prophets and Revelation. (4) In Genesis 3, she becomes Eve, Life. God graciously confirms her symbolism aligning with the Tree of Life and the River of Life in the realm of Life, despite the entrance of sin. Perhaps in this last and final sense, she is both mother and bride of the Second Adam promised in 3:15, representing the new Jerusalem, the city and people of God. Each name that she receives leads us beyond what we can know by nature to what God is telling us about himself and his plans for us, which is where our minds could go when we consider who we are as male and female. Why are we talking about exercise clothing, who does the dishes, and how women can give driving directions to men when the glorious mysteries of the eternal God are before us?
Great points! I have thought this often myself: that promoting restrictive, extra-biblical understandings of masculinity and femininity could actually lead those who don’t fit those definitions to question these sexuality.
Yep, came here to say this. As I once told a longtime friend of mine, she herself being very liberal re: LGBT, transgender, etc. (and she was very sympathetic to what I had to say), I was never transgender, but I avoided a lot of masculine stereotypes since my dad, a Navy retiree, just wasn't like that, and I saw and saw and saw from a young age just how awful a lot of the men and boys in my life surrounding me and my family were, including some family members. For a long time, I questioned the concept of "man-hood," not in terms of hiking and shooting firearms but in terms of abetting or openly endorsing blatantly ungodly behavior, particularly but not exclusively toward women and girls.
What great reflections, Rachel. "But we sin in another way when we try to self-actualize through stereotypically masculine or feminine behaviors," is such a helpful insight. You are so right that we as evangelicals have fed the gender confusion by insisting on American stereotypes as indicative of gender, calling ourselves and our neighbors to "roles." George Knight's gender "roles" has played into the hands of transgenderism. But there is more to it than just bodies. Perhaps the right starting point is what God is telling us about *himself* when he made us male and female.
There are four words God uses for the woman of Genesis 1-3, and all tell us something different about her as she reflects God and his plans: (1) In Gen. 1:27 she (with the male) is fully, irreducibly image-bearing adam (mankind). (2) In the same verse, over against the zakar (male), she is nekivah (female). Mankind (adam), like Elohim himself/themselves, is one and many. (3) At the end of Genesis 2, she is ishah (woman), taken from the ish (man). She proceeds from him, which brings us again to the God we confess. She is one in essence with the man, but her procession from him gives her a new identity. And I think there is more. Perhaps the ishah as second represents heaven, the Sabbath goal which will proceed from the earthly testing of their obedience. Heavenly Jerusalem is certainly what the woman represents in the OT prophets and Revelation. (4) In Genesis 3, she becomes Eve, Life. God graciously confirms her symbolism aligning with the Tree of Life and the River of Life in the realm of Life, despite the entrance of sin. Perhaps in this last and final sense, she is both mother and bride of the Second Adam promised in 3:15, representing the new Jerusalem, the city and people of God. Each name that she receives leads us beyond what we can know by nature to what God is telling us about himself and his plans for us, which is where our minds could go when we consider who we are as male and female. Why are we talking about exercise clothing, who does the dishes, and how women can give driving directions to men when the glorious mysteries of the eternal God are before us?
You’ve so clearly articulated something I’ve been thinking about recently. Thank you for this!
Very well put!