The same day the invitation to contribute to this book came to my mailbox, a Sydney newspaper reported on an online campaign to encourage Australian toy manufacturers and retailers to stop marketing products for girls or boys. They wanted toys to be grouped by themes and not by “gender stereotypes. “
In a way, it makes sense. Many children like to play with dolls and cook; and girls (like me) love airplane mockups and cricket bats. But the goal of activists is not just to eliminate gender stereotypes. Do you want gender to stop being an important part of what a child is?of who we are. They want a world where a person’s identity is not defined by the first label we received at birth: “Is it a girl!?Is he a boy?”
- They’re not alone in this case.
- Facebook has stopped offering the option of only two genres for user profiles and.
- To date.
- Offers fifty-six different gender identities.
These are just two examples of a growing trend that sees gender as a social construction: a phenomenon that is the product of social forces and the language we use to talk about life rather than something that is part of a biologically determined reality. and an increasingly noisy minority, this is a construction that has done its time.
However, we write here and you read here a book about women: a book that establishes not only that women exist, but also that gender is an intrinsic and essential asset, and a God-given part of who we are. Think about other questions about a woman’s ministry, we must first understand what it is like to be a woman (or a man) for God’s purposes.
As we have seen in Chapter 1, the Word of God alone provides the basis for faith and life, and the best place to start exploring gender issues are the first three chapters of the Bible, where (among other things) God gives us a lesson in biblical anthropology: an introduction to who we are.
Genesis does not begin with a single account of creation, but with two complementary narratives (Genesis 1. 1?2. 3, 2. 4-25). Both deal with the divine creation of all things, but they give different points of view and focus on complementary truths, they are not contradictory reports, but they are not the same either, they all teach the same but different truths about God, creation and humanity. .
Both accounts reveal that God is a sovereign creator, ruler, and loving legislator; he’s here first and foremos say. He sees everything, knows everything and creates everything. He’s generous and good. He is above creation, calling it to existence (Genesis 1), and is present there, forming, planting, and giving life (Genesis 2).
In both cases, chaos and lack of form are replaced by order, distinction, purpose, and productivity. God is always separated and different from his creation, reigns and is present, but he is not and is not even part of anything created.
However, interestingly, when do we reach the pinnacle of his creative work?Man or humanity we see that the Creator shares his divine image with his creatures (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 9. 5-6). Men correspond to him and thus relate to him like no other creature. They are your face for your creation, made in your image to care for and govern as your representatives.
But they are not sexless humans; they are male or female human beings, a humanity in two types, also made and appreciated by God, who also carry the divine image. Both are in charge of filling the earth and ruling it as representatives of God, but they are decidedly different: man or woman.
Now, you don’t need me to tell you that God made birds, bees and most other creatures like males and females too, but in Genesis this is implied This is not the case for humans!Our sexual differentiation is mentioned because it is meaningful, and this leads to God’s command that human beings should be fruitful, multiply, and produce more image bearers to extend God’s dominion through creation (Genesis 1:28).
But our sexual differences also help us tell ourselves who we are, as human beings created in the image of God. We have to be careful how we understand that. I once heard someone say that God created mankind as male and female because God is male and female, this is not what the Bible teaches. Being created in the image of God has something to do with the fact that human beings are male and female, but not because God is male and female.
God is spirit (John 4:24) and has no gender like us. Sometimes the Bible uses the female imagination to describe God, but God has revealed Himself as Father, Son (who became man, Jesus Christ) and Spirit (who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son), and we can only know God. Therefore, it is right to use male pronouns and titles for God and not to ignore their self-re-unveiling. 6 At the same time, yet God is not a man like men and children.
But does Genesis tell us that everything that has been done in God’s image has meaning for humanity, our role as its representatives, our capacity for moral judgment, relationships, creativity, etc. ?It also involves being raised as a man and a woman. We receive an indication that this is the case when God says, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1. 26), then the writer adds, “The image of God created him; Did the man and the woman create them?(V. 27). The Apostle Paul does something similar by linking gender differences with our creation to the image of God and places his discussion in the theological context of relationships ordained within the deity (1 Corinthians 11. 3, cf. 11. 7-8, 12). made in the image of God and being a man and a woman are related characteristics.
The man-woman relationship – a relationship of unity and differentiation of non-identical but equal parts of humanity reflects, in a way, the perfect unity and differentiation of the eternal people of the Trinitarian God: a God in three people, equal in divinity and personality, who love, act and relate in perfect unity.
However, despite this equality and unity, divine people are not interchangeable; nor their relationships or functions. The Father is the Father and not the Son or the Spirit. The Son is the Son, not the Father, etc. Moreover, the Father sends the Son and not the Son to the Father, the Son is begat by the Father, not the Father by the Son. The Son was incarnate, not the Father or the Spirit. Unity and differentiation. Uniformity and difference. And order without inequality. All this is true for the God of the Trinity.
Similarly, men and women are equal in humanity, dignity, courage, and purpose, but not equal, and let’s be married or not, our differences work together to create relationships of unity and complementarity. We’re not just people. We are men or women made for human society, built through relationships with people of both sexes.
Current trends in human sexuality should come as no surprise to us. Just as our face or image is not reflected in the mirror when we walk away, modern notions of diversity and gender flexibility and the agenda of the homosexual movement are simply expressions of our society that departs from what we are made in image. As we forget God, we lose our identity. But the fact remains: God created us with a binary gender polarity, and that is a good part of our God-given identity.