It is entirely right to use logic to work out what seems right and true. However, we should not make our logical reasoning ultimate. For one thing, it depends on our prior commitments as to what appears logical. Unless we are able to assess all our priors, whilst we will reason logically, commitment to logic alone won’t lead us to a helpful conclusion. What do we do, for example, when the Church says things that are contrary to our logical understanding? It may be that what the church is arguing is totally illogical; it may be that our logic is faulty. We might be right in not merely accepting every word that comes from the pulpit just because it is uttered in church, nevertheless, it isn’t necessarily wiser to slavishly follow what is logical to us. The Lord, by his own reckoning, does not always work as we believe he ought.

If you are in church leadership, it won’t be long before someone disagrees with something you do or some doctrine that you teach. And that’s okay, we aren’t expecting total agreement on every issue within the church membership. It is okay to disagree.
But when we disagree, there need to be clear grounds for doing so. All too often, we default to certain arguments that really aren’t credible. Here are some of the common ones.
I was brought up to think…
There is, of course, nothing wrong with drawing upon what you were brought up with. No doubt, if you have been to a bible believing church, there will be some good things that they established. But some of those things, that may well be legitimate, are not demanded by the bible. Other times, it may simply be a blind spot in our church that what we were doing wasn’t biblical.
When we hit upon other churches doing things differently, defaulting to ‘I was brought up to believe…’ doesn’t get us very far. Two people, brought up in two different places, might be brought up to believe two different things. Who is to say which tradition is right and which is wrong? This is not a solid ground for reaching a biblical conclusion.
Our tradition says…
This is usually a more nuanced version of the previous point. We might not be rooting things in our particular, individual church’s practice, but in the established practices of our denomination. That might be a legitimate thing to raise if you are in an Anglican Church, who claims to hold to Anglican doctrine, polity and practice, but you think might be departing from that tradition. It isn’t unreasonable to say that, assuming the purpose is to be in line with the tradition and not some biblical matter on which the tradition is being challenged. Even then, no tradition can be above the scriptures. The aim of any tradition should be to act in line with scripture, so even a reference to tradition may not end matters.
But let’s say you have moved beyond denominations. You clearly are not wedded to your denominational way of doing things. You are now dealing with two different traditions. Again, which tradition is right? We can’t settle that with reference to our particular tradition. Instead, we have to go back to the scriptures to reach a conclusion.
Everybody interprets the Bible differently
Well, that’s not entirely true. Some of us do interpret the Bible in the same way as a significant chunk of other believers. So, we might be able to establish a fairly consistent pattern of thinking. It isn’t quite true to say we all interpret differently; many of us agree on significant amounts.
But where there is a disagreement that arises from interpretation, what are we to do?
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To reject the sex binary is ultimately to reject the Creator-creature distinction. Despising our binary sexuality, we exalt ourselves to the position of creator. We seek to author and determine our own lives, acknowledging only the limits of our own preferences. Yet in reality we are not on any sort of spectrum with God. He is God and we are not, and he sets the boundaries of our life, and marks out paths of righteousness for us to walk in.

God loves binaries. In creation, he separated light from darkness (Genesis 1:4), the waters above from the waters beneath (verse 7), the sea from the dry land (verse 10). We should be glad for each of these binaries. A cycle of day and night is better than endless dusk. “Water everywhere” is only good news for fish; the rest of us want “water on earth as it is in heaven.” And hiking and sailing are both better than wading through mud all the time.
The Gender Binary
The noblest of God’s binaries, though, is found in humanity. God crowned us with the honor of bearing his image, uniting a physical body and a rational soul (Genesis 1:26, 2:7). Then he split the man into “male and female” (1:27, 2:22), forming a greater whole through the union of the first man and woman, and through every subsequent union of a man who leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife (2:24).
God’s binaries ennoble both the pair and each part. As an illustration, consider the binary pair of an electrical cord and a wall socket: one cord might be better than another, but cords cannot be “better” than wall sockets. In the same way, who could say whether they prefer heaven or earth? Birds must nest in trees, and earthlings must gaze at the stars. No one prefers the land or the sea absolutely, but everyone appreciates the beauty of a coastline and the safety of a harbor. In the same way, men and women cannot be “better” than each other. One man might be a better man than another. A particular woman will excel a particular man in some particular respect. But men in general cannot be “better” or “worse” than women. Each is a good and indispensable part of an even better whole.
God’s binaries are about union, not division. The sex binary does not separate humanity into two halves, each going their own direction. Rather, it enables a deeper union than would be possible otherwise. Without the sex binary, each of us as individuals could go our own way as a full representation of the human species. In fact, though, no one person can actually represent the fullness of humanity, because no one possesses all the human sex characteristics or a functioning reproductive system. Only the union of a male and a female presents us with humanity itself, and not merely one or more humans. Individually, a man and a woman are just two people; together, they are a family, a race, perhaps the beginning of a royal line.
The Most Basic Binary
The binaries within creation illuminate the relationship between God and his creation. The “Creator-creature distinction” sounds like it is all about keeping God and creation apart, but it is actually about keeping them together.
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I need a view of heaven in every situation. I need to be reminded of heaven in my relationships with Christians. I need to see eternity in regards to my finances and my job. I need to remember that heaven is coming when I make choices about my family and my friends and my enemies. What a shame it will be when we give an account to God for the grudges that we kept, for the good we refused to do, for the godliness we refused to walk in. These surely must be some of the tears that will need wiping away on that glorious day.

Moses asked God to teach us to “number our days” (Psalm 90:12). David prayed that God would make him to know his end and to “let me know how fleeting I am” (Psalm 39:4-5). James reminds us that we are “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Takeaway: Our life is short.
Jesus understood this truth and reminded his disciples often. He said things like, “For the Son of Man is going to come” (Matt 16:27), or “for the Son of Man is coming” (Matt 24:44). The Apostle Paul would go on to speak of “the Day” revealing and disclosing the secrets of the heart (1 Cor 3:13). Takeaway: Heaven is coming.
Based on these two truths, how then should we live? I have been burdened by these thoughts. Life is short and heaven is coming. We have 70, or by reason of strength 80 years on this earth, and then we walk into eternity.
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