Why You Need to Start with a Biblical Understanding of Human Beings
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.
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“R. C. Sproul: A Life,” by Stephen J. Nichols
Nichols, one of Sproul’s successors, does a fantastic job at bringing the reader into the story of God’s grace through His servant R.C. Sproul. As you work through each page, it is as if you are listening to Sproul himself, sitting at the fire next to him and hearing his own story.
Down through the centuries, God has been pleased to raise up a long line of godly men who were ‘pillars of truth’ in their day. These men were identified as the “reformers” of their day in succeeding generations, calling men and women back to the Bible. Like the people in Nehemiah 8:1, they long to let the Bible loose and roar! As one scans the landscape of Church history, we find very quickly that most of these men were gripped by the truths of sovereign grace and emboldened to further the cause of Christ on the earth. Bishop J. C. Ryle identifies these men in the following manner:
“God stirred up and brought out [men] to do his work, without previous concert, scheme, or plan. They did his work in the old apostolic way by becoming the evangelists of their day. They taught one set of truths. They taught them in the same way, with fire, reality, earnestness, as men fully convinced of what they taught. They taught them in the same spirit, always loving, compassionate, and, like Paul, even weeping, but always bold, unflinching, and not fearing the face of man. And they taught them on the same plan, always acting on the aggressive; not waiting for sinners to come to them, but going after, and seeking sinners; not sitting idle till sinners offered to repent, but assaulting the high places of ungodliness like men storming a breach, and giving sinners to rest so long as they stuck to their sins.”[1]
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A Prayer Against Despair When You Battle Sin
Even though I am distressed, I am not broken. Even though I am overwhelmed and all I feel is despair, there is hope. Keep me from losing heart. Paul says that though my outer self is wasting away, my inner self is being renewed every day. Help me to see this. Help me to look not at the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. Give me grace to lift my eyes off my here and now and know that the battle I’m fighting in this moment isn’t pointless; it carries eternal weight (2 Corinthians 4:8, 16–18).
The following is meant to help those who are weary in their battle to overcome sin and need to know how to pray and cry out to God for help.
Father, help…help, God. I don’t know what else to do to get rid of this thing—why won’t you take this away?!
Sexual obedience? Integrity? How is that possible when the temptation chases, hounds, calls out to me day after day? Why do you allow me to feel these things and not have them satisfied? Will it ever get easier? Will I ever be free from this? Is this the cross to bear that people talk about, something that dominates every day of my life? How is this fair? These questions haunt me.
My feelings seem to have the loudest voice right now, so I’ll start there. Looking at porn last night felt good! Sure, it was horrible two hours later, but even though I know that stuff is evil, somehow it does help me forget about the rest of my broken life… so much that I can’t find the words to pray. I earnestly desire to fix my eyes on Jesus, but how do I do that when my feelings are just a swirl of inner turmoil? I feel like the man in Mark’s gospel who cried out to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24). I admit that it feels so hard to believe right now. Oh please, help me to feel differently, to think with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and to trust you. Help, God! My unbelief is wrecking me.
I resonate with the words of the Psalmist when he says, “My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me” (Psalm 38:10). My attempts to help myself have failed.
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The Deacon’s Merciful Service
The duties we have to the deacons are greatly outweighed by the benefits of their ministry. Through the deacons Christ continues his priestly work. The deacons are perpetual illustrations of God’s love for our bodies and our souls. They remind us that God cares for our cares. He overflows with compassion for us.
How do church deacons help establish God’s kingdom? Many of us might struggle to answer that question. For a number of reasons, the diaconate is often viewed as a non-spiritual administrative committee. Because deacons oversee church money and property we might mistake them simply for parochial accountants and custodians. But, according to Scripture, if we minimize the biblical office of deacon we miss a huge part of God’s plan for vibrant Christianity.
Healthy churches and healthy believers treasure deacons as invaluable servants of God, Christ’s official ministers of mercy. They help exposit the kindness of God, strengthen the communion of the saints, and preserve the fiscal integrity of the church. It is important for us to retain or, if need be, recover a biblical view of the office of deacon.
The Conditions for Serving as a Deacon
If we want the church to value the diaconate we need to preserve the high biblical standard for becoming a deacon (1 Tim. 3:8-13).
Deacons Must Be Spiritually Minded
The first deacons were men “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:3–4). “Likewise deacons must be reverent…holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless” (1 Tim. 3:8–10). Of course, deacons must be financially and administratively competent. But they must also demonstrate a God–like sympathy for the hurting and a heart given to service. The idea that unqualified men should be put up for deacon as a way of urging spiritual maturity is totally contrary to God’s will for the office. Deacons must be spiritual pacesetters.
Deacons Must Be Self-controlled (v. 8)
Deacons must not be double-tongued. A double-tongued man says whatever he can to please his current conversation partner. A deacon must be able to speak the truth to all people lovingly and tactfully.
Deacons must not be given to much wine. A deacon may drink wine; Paul urged Timothy to take up the habit (1 Tim. 5:23). But a deacon must show that he can enjoy God’s good gift of alcohol without abusing it.
Deacons must not be greedy for money. Without financial self-control no man can steward the church’s resources or set a positive example to the congregation. A deacon who is content with what he has will serve well and bolster the confidence of others.
Deacons Must Be Successful at Home
“Likewise their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (vv. 11-12). Deacons need not be a husband or father. But those who are must have a history of capable leadership. A deacon without wife or children must be sufficiently established so as to have some domain over which he exercises godly rule.
The Charge of a Deacon
Deacons are Intercessors
Since deacons exercise Christ’s priestly office they must reflect his ministry of mercy.
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