“We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church (Genesis 2:24; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; I Corinthians 5:1; I Corinthians 6:9; I Thessalonians 4:2-7),” the email added. “Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately.”
 
Grace Christian School “fielded hundreds, probably thousands, of phone calls Thursday, Friday, over the weekend, with just some of the most outrageous things: People threatening to burn my house down, threatening to kill my family,” said Barry McKeen, school administrator and pastor of Grace Community Church of Valrico, Florida, which runs the school.
The threats came in reaction to an article by NBC News, which published several paragraphs of a June 6 email in which McKeen reiterated to school parents the school’s commitment to biblical sexuality.
“We believe that God created mankind in His image: male (man) and female (woman), sexually different but with equal dignity,” read the email, and continued:
Therefore, one’s biological sex must be affirmed, and no attempts should be made to physically change, alter, or disagree with one’s biological gender—including, but not limited to, elective sex reassignment, transvestite, transgender, or non-binary gender fluid acts of conduct (Genesis 1:26-28). Students in school will be referred to by the gender on their birth certificate and be referenced in name in the same fashion.
“We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church (Genesis 2:24; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; I Corinthians 5:1; I Corinthians 6:9; I Thessalonians 4:2-7),” the email added. “Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately.”
It’s a bit surprising that NBC News would choose to cite a robust defense of biblical sexuality so extensively. It must believe that every word is damning.
Indeed, to this apologetic, NBC felt it needed to only add quotes from three anonymous former students who essentially confirmed the email accurately reflected the school’s policies. One left the school for another which allowed her to “just be myself.” Another, who graduated, said her identity as transgender “was not something I could be open about.” A third, who also graduated, objected to chapel messages preaching against homosexuality.
In response, McKeen published a video address on Thursday night insisting that the school would not back away from its commitment to follow the Bible. “Why we were chosen for this experience, I do not know,” he said. “Almost every Christian school has such a policy.”
But McKeen did know one thing. “I don’t answer to NBC,” he explained. “I answer to God. And so, if a lot of people are mad at me, I’m sorry. I don’t like that they’re mad at me. But at the end of the day, I answer to God.”
McKeen said “many things in the article” were true. Grace Christian School does have “a policy that does not allow students to [identify as] homosexuals or transgender.” But that’s because “they’re students. They’re young people. They shouldn’t be sexual at all. God condemns any sexual activity outside of marriage, and that’s also in the policy.” The policy didn’t single out LGBT identities; it also applied to heterosexual immorality.
“We have had these policies in our school since day No. 1, in the early 1970s,” said McKeen, who “has served in the church for 21 years.” He clearly explained that “God has spoken on those issues explicitly, aggressively.” There is no wiggle room. Therefore, “it is our policy now. It will be our policy going forward because … God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change.”
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Wisdom does declare to us certain important truth regarding marital intimacy. It declares to us that we must rejoice in our spouse alone, watch over our lives and remember our God. Yet, should you have failed to hearken to the voice of wisdom, hear now the good news of Christ’s redemption. Perhaps, you have fallen to the forbidden life. Perhaps as a believer you have allowed sexual perversion a foothold in some way. Perhaps, you are not a believer and are engulfed in sexual perversion. The good news of the gospel is that in Christ Jesus there is remedy for your sins, even sexual sins.

​It was the winter of 1986 when I first laid eyes on my future wife. Now, when I first spotted this radiant beauty, great confusion followed. For it was like I was seeing double, because I was seeing double. My wife is an identical twin. A little counsel for any young fella considering dating a twin: make sure you know which twin you want to go out with before asking one of them out. Otherwise, you might end up asking both of them out, as I did. Trust me, your beautiful bride will never let you forget the “mistake” of going out with her twin sister, as long as you both shall live. Well, all that took place in 1987, the same year that lovely girl became my bride, the wife of my youth. Thirty-five years later, I can affirm that a man finds a good thing when he finds a wife and has obtained favor from the Lord. I can likewise affirm the wisdom of Proverbs 5:18-19:

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

​Wisdom here instructs men to delight in the wife of their youth. Lest we misunderstand the meaning, the author is not speaking generically about the joys of marriage, but specifically about the delight one finds in marital intimacy. As one honors the marital bed (Heb. 13:4), one discovers the joy and delight of sacred union. So wisdom says to us to delight in the wife of our youth, and in her alone. So the ladies will not feel left out, wisdom declares the same message to you as well. Delight in that man of yours all the days of your life, and in him alone.
​Indeed, we must keep utilizing that word “alone,” for vv. 18-19 are set in a broader context, which warns against adultery. The author in vv. 1-14 and 20-23 warns men about the “forbidden woman.” That is the woman willing to engage in an adulterous relationship, a seductress who desires to use her sexuality, not as a gift to delight a husband, but as a tool to trap a victim. The author acknowledges the allurement of her seduction, but also warns against such an illicit relationship:
“Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray” (Proverbs 5:20–23). 
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Even as we rejoice in every one of God’s blessings and celebrate every evidence of his grace, still we long to be in that new land, that new home, that new place where we can—where we will—truly thrive, where we will display our fullest potential, where we will be all that God has made us to be.

The young woman entered her parent’s home for what she understood would be the final time. The funeral had been solemn but still sweet, for she knew that her father had at last joined her mother. It had been a good many years since death had parted them, but now they were together in the grave and together in heaven.
The door squeaked just a little as she opened it, but beyond it there was only silence—no familiar voice to greet her and no familiar arms to hug her. The house had already been packed up and most of her parent’s possessions already distributed. There remained just a few family treasures and meaningful knick-knacks that she wished to take as her inheritance and to keep as her own. Among them was a little chest that her father had indicated should go to her. Intrigued, she opened it and saw that it contained just one simple seed.
When she returned home she went straight to her garden and pressed the seed into the soil. She watered it diligently and ensured there was plenty of sun to warm the ground. And then she waited. She waited through the spring rains and summer’s first heat. The day came when she saw just the smallest hint of green breaking through the soil, then a shoot, and then the beginnings of a plant. Before long the seed had produced a lovely little shrub.
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