INTRODUCTION

What if I told you that sex is not about you?
What if I told you that sex is not about your partner?
What if I told you that your gender is not about you?

What if I told you that sex, gender, and sexuality are actually about a much greater and bigger story than you could ever imagine?
The purpose of this is not to argue, but to inform. There are many ideas about what sexuality is and how it should be used. You may have learned ideas from parents, friends, the media, or from personal experience. One question you may have wondered is, ‘Why are Christians so weird about sex, gender, and sexuality?’

Christ-followers believe that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible tells us everything we need to know about God, ourselves, and how to live. One of the many things the Bible talks about is sexuality. In fact, the Bible talks more about sex, gender, and sexuality than you might think.

The reason the Bible talks so much about sex, gender, and sexuality is that God says sex is good. God created gender. God made sexuality and He talks a lot about it in His Word. The reason God talks so much about sexuality is that ultimately, sex, gender, and sexuality tell a much greater story than just our attraction and physical pleasure.

This is about that story. Let’s explore together what the Bible says sex, gender, and sexuality are and why they were created.

OUR SEXUAL WORLDVIEW

You and I have a worldview about gender and sexuality. We have learned and formed our views regarding gender, sexuality, and other related topics largely by what has been modeled or explained to us. Often our views are formed by what people we admire uphold as right. Sometimes our views are formed in reaction to the views of people we don’t admire.

There is a problem with sexual worldview development today. The problem is that the church's voice has been very silent on gender and sexual issues. Because of this, many people assume that either God doesn't know what is right about sex, He doesn't care what we do, or sex and sexuality are bad things that God wouldn't want us to talk about. The result is that God, the Bible, and the church are often not seen as resources for developing a sexual worldview.

The problem with that idea is the Bible. The Bible is very explicit about what sex and gender are. In fact, the first things we learn about humanity in the Bible are in relation to their gender and sexuality (Genesis 1:27-28). The Bible includes an entire book on the joys and frustrations of pursuing right sexual relations. In their New Testament letters to churches, the apostles continually address questions related to sex and sexuality. The book of Proverbs even contains an entire chapter about how to enjoy sex as God's good gift!

You may not know it, but the Bible presents clear truth and a thorough worldview regarding gender and sex. God made sex. God made gender. God made marriage. He didn't create them for us to be confused or quiet about them.

We refer to God’s loving and protective design for sex, gender, and sexuality revealed in the Bible as ‘the circle.’

SEX AND THE BIBLE’S BIG STORY

Why did God create sex, gender, marriage, and sexuality? The answer is found by looking at a much bigger story. To understand our sexual world, we must first understand the full story of the Bible. This story can be broken down into three main sections: Creation, Fall, and Rescue.

CREATION

The very first words of the entire Bible are: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). These words tell us a few things. First, there is a God and He existed before anything that was created. Also, this God is powerful and sovereign enough to create. What did He create? Everything. The Bible says that there is a God and this God created everything.

As God creates everything in the opening chapters of Genesis, we find out God is a God of order, design, and purpose. He creates, distinguishes, and gives purpose to His creation. For example, God creates land and sea. He defines what land and sea are, why they are different, where and how they exist, how they interact, and how they will serve the rest of His good creation. God is intentional and purposeful in His design.  

As God's final act of creation, Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, says that "God created humankind in His own image." God created humankind as unique creatures with unique attributes and a unique purpose. Their purpose is to image (or display) God to the rest of God's creation.

But Genesis 1:27 says a lot more about how God created us. The full verse says, "So God created humankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." In His creation of humankind, God made gender. Just like with the rest of His creation, God gave gender boundaries, definitions, and purposes. How did God instill these differences and purposes? In creation itself. God's design for sexuality is written scientifically into our anatomy, biology, physiology, and psychology. God's design is also explained throughout the Bible - though not always followed. More on that later.

In the second chapter of the Bible, we learn more about the reason God created humankind and their genders. Genesis 2:24 says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh." God made humans - men and women - and told one man to unite with one woman in all of life for the rest of life. In doing this, God created what the Bible calls marriage.

What does it mean that God created a man and woman to become 'one flesh'? It means many things. Broadly, it means the two are now one. Marriage is a unique relationship between a man and a woman in which they share everything - even their bodies united together in the physical act of sex. Specifically, 'one flesh' means that sex is really important. The Bible says that the sexual act is the physical sign and seal of the marriage covenant between husband and wife. A husband and wife should have sex. Sex is for husbands and wives in marriage.

This truth is so important that every time Jesus is asked about sex and marriage in the Bible, He points back to Genesis 2:24 as the foundational reality. In Matthew 19:4 Jesus says, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female." In John 10:6 Jesus also affirms, "But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'"

The apostle Paul also points to creation in Genesis 2:24 to explain how husbands, wives, gender, and sex all fit into God's big story. He says, “'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.'“ This last sentence is foundational to understanding what Biblical sexuality is.

The Bible says that not only is God's creation of gender, marriage, and sexuality good, but it is designed with a unique purpose. The marriage between husband and wife and their sexual union are created to be symbols of Christ's relationship with the church. Certainly this idea is not something God takes lightly. If God created marriage and sexuality to display a very specific relationship, He has very specific definitions of what that relationship should look like and how it should be carried out. 

God created and designed sex to tell about Him and His story.

In summary of God's creation, Genesis 1:31 says, ”And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” What does this say about God, creation, sex, and gender? It says that all creation is God's, all creation has a purpose, function, and design, and that all creation was very good. This creation includes our bodies, our gender, our sexuality, and marriage.

FALL

If you are familiar with the opening chapters of the Bible, you know this perfect creation doesn't remain perfect for long. Quickly, Satan questions God's design, God's Word, and God's authority over His creation. Satan tempts God's precious people to take God's creation and redefine it using their own designs, purposes, and desires. They do…and everything breaks.

The rebellion against God by His creation is often called 'the Fall.' The Fall affected everything. The Bible says in Romans 8:22 that "the creation groans" as a result of the Fall.

The Fall is why the world we live in is so messed up. All of God's creation is now broken. The sun rises, but its heat burns and brings draught. People created to love and serve one another instead use hate and abuse to gain power over one another. Romans chapter 8 says that creation's design now exists like a shattered mirror in reflecting God's design.

This brokenness includes our bodies, our minds, our relationships with God and each other, and our sexuality.

How does this brokenness relate to sexuality? Interestingly, in describing what happened in the Fall, the apostle Paul specifically uses sexuality as an example of how humanity's broken rebellion against God and His creation is played out.

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes,

"Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator…For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error…Although they know God's just sentence - that those who practice such things deserve to die - they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them." (Rom. 1:24-28, 32)

Why does God care who we sleep with? Why does God care if men follow certain desires in this world and have sex with other men and women with other women? Not because He's prudish or mean, but because sex as God made it is important.

Sex was created with a truly good design and purpose. Any use of sex outside its design is outside of its purpose and ultimately is not truly good.

Sexuality is linked to the very nature of how God created humanity.

Sex is created as the defining marker of the marriage relationship that is meant to be a picture of God's big ultimate story. Breaking away from this design exposes the brokenness within us of wanting our passions and desires to define the Truth - not let the Truth define our passions and desires.

The question is bigger than why shouldn’t any two people marry or have sex at any time. The question is who gets to define what marriage and sex are; the Creator or the created? 

This question is at the center of today's cultural conversation surrounding sexuality. Dr. Daniel Heimbach explains,

“There is a shift from making sure that sexual experience is consistent with the character of God, to making sure the character of God is consistent with sexual experience…There is a shift from interpreting sex according to the Bible to interpreting the Bible according to sex…There is a shift from thinking sexual desires need to be disciplined because human nature is fallen, to thinking sexual desires should be unrestrained because there is nothing wrong with human nature…There is a shift from worshiping a God who became flesh to worshiping flesh that becomes God.”

When God created humanity, He gave them a circle of protection around sexuality.

Sex was given as the physical sign of the marriage covenant and was the tool through which God's command to populate the earth would be carried out. Marriage was the covenant bond in which children would be born, raised, nurtured, and provided for.

The Bible says that after the Fall, God's design and circle of protection for sex, marriage, and sexuality still holds. However, in following broken passions and inclinations, humanity has created many distortions of sexuality outside the circle of God's protection.

The New Testament uses one main word for anything outside of that circle of God’s protection. The Greek word 'porneia' is most often translated as 'sexual immorality' in our English Bibles. Porneia is the word from which we get our word 'pornography.' Porneia is the Biblical word for any use of marriage, sex, or sexuality outside of God's good circle of design and protection.

As you can see above, the Bible does address many of these distortions directly. Sex with animals, divorce, prostitution, mental lusting, rape, homosexual acts - all of these things are addressed in Scripture. The circle of protection is a marital covenant of one man and one woman in all of life for the rest of life. Sex is the physical sign of that covenant. Anything else is porneia.

What was just said is difficult for many in today's culture to believe. After all, we all have different sexual drives and attractions. Who is to say which is right and which is wrong?

The important thing the Bible also teaches is that we ALL are by nature outside the circle of God's loving circle of sexual protection. The Bible has no categories or levels of sexual sin.

Paul is clear in Romans chapter 3, verse 23 that 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." In the book of Matthew, Jesus said that if you even have lustful thoughts about someone in your mind, it's the same as if you had committed adultery against them. Why? Because our brokenness isn't just about our outward acts, it's about our broken hearts.

We are ALL sexual sinners according to the Scripture. We may not be drawn toward, or act on, all types of porneia, but we are drawn to some. Our hearts, our affections, and our sexuality are all broken. Just like after the Fall we have broken bodies, minds, and relationships, we also have broken sexuality. Our sinful nature is a packaged deal.

But, the Bible says, just because we have a bent toward brokenness does not mean that brokenness is who we are. It is not our identity. It is not what we must do.

There is rescue for the sexual brokenness in all of us.

RESCUE

Since we all are sexually broken, we all must choose between two paths of rescue. The Bible gives a clear path of rescue. Our culture does as well.

Our Culture's Rescue Plan

Our culture's rescue response is that the real, authentic you has been suppressed and cramped by external forces (i.e. religion, society, traditional morality). Therefore, it is up to you to rescue yourself. You do that by following your sexual urges and instincts. You must be true to yourself, be defined by these feelings, and allow them to lead you down a path to freedom.

Consider the modern discussion surrounding transgenderism.

The answer from the culture to a biological male who feels inwardly they are female is that what is broken is not their feeling. What is broken is their biology - their body - and everyone else's idea about it. Our culture’s answer for them is to conform their physical existence to their mental or emotional projection.

In order to do this, the culture traditionally offers a four-step approach to freedom. The first step is a social transition in which the person changes their name and begins to present themselves as the opposite gender (or no gender). The second step is to inject puberty blockers into the body that will stunt the body's innate biological trajectory (hair growth, breast development, vocal alteration, etc.).

Once puberty blockers have been introduced, the third step is an injection of cross-sex hormones into the body. Estrogen is given to biological males and testosterone is given to biological females. The final step is gender reassignment surgery. In this final step, one's sexual organs are surgically altered to outwardly resemble the biological sexual organs of one's preferred gender classification.

So does culture's answer for rescue from this sexual brokenness truly fix what’s broken? 

Dr. Michelle Cretella, Board Certified Pediatrician, and Vice President of the American College of Pediatricians, says 'no.' She observes,

"Our bodies declare our sex. Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA, stamped into every cell of our bodies. Human sexuality is binary. Either you have a normal Y chromosome, and develop into a male, or you don't, and you will develop into a female. There are at least 6,500 genetic differences between men and women. Hormones and surgery cannot, and do not, change this."

Dr. Cretella notes that puberty blockers are not tested on biologically normal children. When blockers are used to treat prostate cancer in men and gynecological problems in women, they often cause problems with memory. Puberty blockers chemically castrate gender-confused children. Cross-sex hormones permanently sterilize a person. Youth who begin this process are at increased risk for heart disease, strokes, diabetes, cancers, and even the very emotional problems experts claim to be preventing.

In a 2017 Supreme Court briefing, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, American psychiatrist, researcher, and University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, noted that roughly 90% of all children or youth who identify as transgender will ultimately end up identifying with their birth sex if natural biological processes are allowed to continue through puberty.

Endocrinologist Dr. William J. Malone (@will_malone) who holds degrees from Stanford, NYU Med., and USC concurs. He observes that,

"Fifty-six studies on cross-sex hormones and sex reassignment surgery have failed to provide convincing evidence that these interventions improve the psychological well-being of individuals with gender dysphoria. Sixteen studies of puberty blockade and cross-sex hormones in adolescents have also failed to show evidence of psychological improvement. In medicine, when it becomes clear that an intervention does not help (let alone harm) those it's intended to help, it is abandoned, and different treatments are sought. I believe we are at that point."

The culture's path to freedom for gender dysphoric individuals is to follow the feeling and desire - not the science that affirms God's protective circle of sexuality.

Since its introduction in the 1970s, the culture's path to freedom for people with gender dysphoria has been brutally harmful. According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, people who identify as transgender are ten times more likely to commit suicide than the average person. After completing transition surgery, this number rises to nineteen times (Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law).

A Swedish study of the long-term effect of sex reassignment concludes that surgically altered transgender individuals actually experience an increase in mental difficulties and suicidal thoughts ten years later. Thirty-four percent of trans people attempt suicide.

This is not a path to freedom. This should break our hearts.

The Bible's Rescue Plan

According to the Bible, there is only one path to rescue. The Bible openly admits that we are broken and cannot fix ourselves. We need someone who is not broken to rescue us - someone with infinite worth to pay the infinite penalty for cosmic treason we have committed against our Creator God. But only God is not broken and is of such worth.

The big question of the Bible is whether or not all that was broken in the Fall can be restored. The big answer to that question in the Bible is - Yes.

God the Son became a man as Jesus over 2,000 years ago. He had to be a man because justly, a human must pay the price for humanity's sin. Jesus took the penalty and paid the debt as the perfect sacrifice by laying His own life down on our behalf. This was the only way to justly restore a broken and sinful world. After His death, Jesus rose from the dead showing His power as God over all creation - even death itself.

The Bible says that God desires for us to lay down our broken lives, abandon our own paths of ‘freedom’, and follow Him in new life.

The Bible says in Revelation chapter 21, verses 1-5 that one day God will give those who trust and follow Him rescued bodies and minds. Today, however, by trusting and following Jesus in all of life for the rest of life, God offers us rescued hearts.

God promised His people in the book of Ezekiel that, "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God." Except for same-sex attracted people? Except for college students who struggle with pornography? Except for transgender people with gender dysphoria? No!

The Bible says sexual restoration is fully available to all through the restoring grace of God by following Jesus as King. The apostle Paul wrote to a very sexually broken people in Corinth, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality…will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

What does this restoration look like this side of heaven? We are still sexually broken - our desires and inclinations may be toward various forms of porneia. But our ultimate desire is changed. The right authority and Kingship is recognized. We see that God is right and we trust that He is good. We care more about God's glory than following our feelings. We see that God's ways truly lead to life.

God calls each of us to something better than sex. God calls us to holy sexuality. 

Heterosexuality is not the same as 'holy' sexuality. After all, a man can be attracted to women and still commit a host of porneia sins. According to Christopher Yuan (a same-sex attracted man who is trusting God's design for Biblical sexuality), holy sexuality consists of only two paths: chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage - as defined by God to be between a husband and his wife in covenant commitment for all of life. Yuan states,

"Holy sexuality is not anything new or monumental. From Genesis to Revelation, only two ways align with God's standard for sexual expression: if single, be sexually abstinent while fleeing lustful desires; if married, be sexually and emotionally faithful to your spouse of the opposite sex while also fleeing lustful desires. All of us stand together in the same fight for holy sexuality." (Christopher Yuan, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel)

APPLYING BIBLICAL SEXUALITY

If you want to trust and follow Biblical sexuality in this broken world by loving and sharing God's truth with others, there are several things you can do.

EXAMINE yourself. Consider whether your view of God aligns with what the Bible says. If you are a Christ-follower, examine whether or not you are treating those who wrestle with sexual sin differently than you as unworthy of the same salvation Christ brought to you. Do you view others as important to God, made in His image, and worthy of love, compassion and truth? How is this reflected in your life?

EQUIP yourself with truth. While numbers and figures can provide scientific and medical arguments, issues of gender and sexuality go much deeper than statistics. Ultimately, your disagreement with someone of a different view isn't about arguments, but worldviews. It's a battle over the authority of God or man. There are many resources you can utilize on this site to equip yourself to understand Biblical gender and sexuality, how to apply the circle in your life, how to explain it to others, and how to lovingly walk alongside those who may be at different places in their path. Equip yourself with truth.

ENGAGE others with truth. Our only hope in life and death is the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christ-follower, you know and experience this truth. You have God's Word. You are fully equipped to engage a world of sexual brokenness. Even if you don't know the answers to questions about sexuality, you do know The Answer in the person of Jesus Christ. Share Him in truth and love.

The church must be willing to ask questions of itself and our LGBTQ+ neighbors. While not agreeing with all of the assertions of LGBTQ+ activists, the church may need to engage channels of dialogue previously unopened.

Followers of Christ historically have been surprised at where Jesus' footsteps have led them - or more accurately, whom they have led them to. Jesus' disciples often found themselves in the homes of thieves, in the company of prostitutes, and in conversation with those they considered beneath their attention.

Why? Because that's where Jesus went - with truth and hope in the gospel. Followers of Christ must be willing to do the same.