The current culture wants to identify and judge you according to what group you belong to and by your latest mistake, and once you’re labeled, that label sticks. This is a false view. The correct view—the biblical view—leaves room for change through repentance. You don’t identify with your sin; you identify with being made in God’s image. Upon repentance, you become a child of God, and no one is out of God’s reach. You are not your sin. You are not lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, two-spirit, or any of the countless other ways in which people choose to self-identify. 

Stop teaching your kids they can be anything they want. It’s not true. I have four daughters. The culture wants to tell them they can be anything, including boys. But no matter how hard they try, they will never be boys.
The idea that you can be whatever you want when it comes to sexuality and gender is based on an ancient lie. I say the lie is ancient because it’s the same lie the serpent used to deceive Eve in the garden of Eden: “Did God really say…?” This is the primal heresy, and humanity has been in rebellion against God ever since, thinking our ways are better than his. There’s more, though.
The ultimate battle is always over truth. Here, it’s the truth about the fundamental nature of what it means to be human. This is what’s known as anthropology. Having been heavily influenced by naturalism, our culture would have us believe we’re products of mutation and time. This view ultimately finds its end in the understanding that we are just matter in motion. But if we’re just matter in motion, naturalism can’t offer any transcendent meaning to life apart from what we arbitrarily assign to it.
Undergirded by naturalism, the story authored by the LGBTQIA2S+ culture goes a step further. They would have you believe you find meaning and identity in your sexual desires or gender identity. Not only is this a profoundly shallow view of what it means to be a human being, but also there are victims of this lie. This is evidenced by the rates of drug abuse, alcoholism, depression, and suicides in the LGBTQIA2S+ community. The thing they are searching for—mainly meaning, purpose, and identity—aren’t found where they’re looking.
In response, I suggest we offer a better view of what it means to be human, a higher anthropology. When we lead with a biblical anthropology, we accomplish four things.
First, we establish that human beings are much more than their sexual desires and gender identities. According to the true story of reality, humans are the pinnacle of God’s creation (Gen. 1:26–31), his handiwork, made with a purpose (Eph. 2:10). Sex and gender are part of God’s perfect creation, are intrinsically good, and serve a purpose.
Read More
Related Posts:

The attempts to redefine sex and marriage are nothing less than calling good evil and evil good. Sadly, many Christians didn’t realize how slippery the slope really was whenever they began to bend their convictions on matters like premarital sex and divorce. As we have seen from church history, we should hope to grow in doctrinal clarity through the present challenge. 

According to His long-term providence, God always uses heresy and false teaching to doctrinally sharpen His church. Don’t get me wrong. Heresy and false teaching are always bad news, and we should by no means take joy or delight in them. However, when we are forced to face them (which will prove to be inevitable in this life), we should take comfort that if we hold fast to Christ and His Scriptures we will be sharpened and refined through the challenge.
That was the case with the New Testament era of the church. Since the church began in Jerusalem, it began as a pointedly Jewish movement. Soon, however, the gospel began to go into the all nations, just as Christ commanded. And although Paul always made a point of preaching first in whatever synagogues he found, he usually went on to find much better reception with the Gentiles. Thus, it was natural that one of the first major questions facing the church would be regarding its relationship to Judaism. Particularly, where Gentile Christians required to be circumcised and practice other Jewish rites like the dietary restrictions? The Apostles’ answer was unanimous and very clear: no, “for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).
In the following centuries, the church faced a number of Christological threats, the most well-known being Arianism in the early 300s. Arius was an elder in Alexandria who argued that Jesus was the first and supreme created being but He was not God. The bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, maintained that Jesus was truly God, and the theological rift between Arius and Alexander soon spread throughout the Eastern Roman Empire. To resolve this debate, Emperor Constantine summoned bishops from across the empire to gather at Nicaea and settle the matter. That counsel wrote the Nicene Creed, and although Arianism did not vanish entirely (indeed, it is still with us today via Jehovah’s Witnesses), the deity of Christ, which most Christians had always believed by assumption, was given greater clarification. The Athanasian Creed would go on to clarify explicit belief in the Trinity, and the Chalcedonian Definition would clarify the hypostatic union of Christ.
During the time of the Reformation, salvation and worship were the theological battlegrounds. Things were irrevocably set in motion when Luther posted his 95 Theses, issuing a challenge for a theological debate, particularly over the selling of indulgences. For Luther, the struggle was for the scriptural reality that our salvation is through faith in Christ alone. The Reformers rooted their arguments in Scripture and expressed that glorifying God ought to be every Christian’s ultimate goal. We, therefore, rightly associate the Reformation with the five solas: Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and God’s glory alone. Clarity again followed. Calvin wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion to make instruction on the basic doctrines of the faith accessible to everyone, and while the Institutes are still very much worth the time it takes to read them, the confessions that we produced in the following hundred or so years better achieved his goal. Of course, Calvin and most of the other Reformers also wrote catechisms. Calvin went so far as to say in one of his letters:
Believe me, Monseigneur, the Church of God will never preserve itself without a Catechism, for it is like the seed to keep the good grain from dying out, and causing it to multiply from age to age.Letters and Tracts Volume V, 191
To be honest, I think that is a slight overstatement, since Christ will ensure the preservation of His Church; however, I do agree that catechisms can play a significant role in maintaining doctrinal fidelity in the church.
Of course, you may be wondering what exactly is a catechism, and since we are studying through a catechism, that would be a helpful matter to define. Gordon gives good summary:
Creeds and confessions were originally written to provide summary truths of the Christian faith in the face of great theological error. Catechisms in particular provided short, concise summary statements, in question-and-answer format, on some particular doctrine of the Christian faith. These documents are intended to help Christians, especially children and those new to the faith, to have their minds trained in what Scripture teaches on a given point of Christian doctrine.Page 7
Interestingly, the origin of creeds and catechisms appears to be one and the same. Ben Myers gives a wonderful description how the Apostles’ Creed was originally as baptismal catechism:
On the eve of Easter Sunday, a group of believers has stayed up all night in a vigil of prayer, scriptural reading, and instruction. The most important moment of their lives is fast approaching. For years they have been preparing for this day.
When the rooster crows at dawn, they are led out to a pool of flowing water. They remove their clothes. The women let down their hair and remove their jewelry. They renounce Satan and are anointed from head to foot with oil. They are led naked into the water. Then they are asked a question: “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” They reply, “I believe!” And they are plunged down in the water and raised up again.
They are asked a second question: “Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and Mary the virgin and was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was dead and buried and rose on the third day from the dead and ascended in the heavens and sits at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the living and the dead?” Again they confess, “I believe!” And again they are immersed in the water.
Then a third question: “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the holy church and the resurrection of the flesh?” A third time they cry, “I believe!” And a third time they are immersed. When they emerge from the water they are again anointed with oil. They are clothed, blessed, and led into the assembly of believers, where they will share for the first time in the eucharistic meal. Finally they are sent out into the world to do good works and to grow in faith.
Read More
Related Posts:

In our day when the culture is vehemently biting back, we must stand firm all the more in the truths of the mysteries of God—the gospel. We must not compromise the message in order to appease society. The message we are called to herald is a message that is offensive to the world. This truth, however, should not hinder us from proclaiming it without fear, without anxiety, without compromise.

A person should think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. (1 Corinthians‬ ‭4:1‬ CSB)
The Bible speaks of the “mysteries of God.” But what does that mean? To put it simply, the mystery of God is His plan for all of history to culminate with setting up His eternal kingdom for us. In short, you could say, the “mystery of God” is the gospel.
And it’s a mystery because, for ages, it was hidden and not fully understood (Eph. 3:5). But God, through the sending of His Son, revealed this glorious plan to save His people through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah.
Furthermore, what’s incredible is God has made us, His people, “managers” of this mystery. He has called us, commanded us to manage His glorious gospel. So, the real question we ponder is this: What does it look like for us to “manage” the mystery of God?
Preach it with undying conviction.
In order to manage the gospel with biblical fidelity, we must do so with conviction. The truths of the gospel—of Christ’s righteous life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection—must grip our hearts and never let go.
Read More
Related Posts: