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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. We want this podcast to equip Christians with a better understanding of the rich theology that undergirds our faith. And hopefully along the way, we'll be looking at some that have even been misunderstood or maybe threatened in the church's history. We'll point out the biblical evidence, the arguments, and work together to reshape our thinking, be transformed by the renewal of our minds with scripture and reason as.
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We think theologically together.
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Because, as the title of the podcast tells you, Doctrine Matters.
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We turn today to a new topic, a new loci in systematic theology, anthropology.
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Anthropos being the Greek word for man. So this is the study of man, study of men and women. And we look at man as created and fallen.
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So we're going to be dealing over the next few weeks with a number of interrelated topics today looking at the creation of man. And this is going to touch on man as men and women talk about marriage, image of God, sin, how sin is transmitted. That's where we're going in this broad topic of anthropology. When we think about the creation of man, and I'm using that word to.
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Refer to both male and female. When we talk about man, we must.
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Keep two things in mind. First, we must never forget that man is not God.
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And second, we must remember that man.
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Is uniquely like God. So not God, but of all created things, uniquely like God, God.
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So we are not only created beings.
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We need to remember that we're not God.
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There is this ontological gulf between God and his creation. We are part of that creation.
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So we are not. We are created beings. We are not the creator.
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At the same time, we are the.
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Crowning achievement of God's creation. Sometimes we talk about man as a worm, and that's true when we think about man as sinful. But man is also the crowning aspect of his achievement. There's a famous quip that someone said to Winston Churchill, or Winston Churchill said one time in a speech that we.
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May be worms, but I do believe.
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That I am a glow worm and it's good to have a healthy self esteem. But we see in Psalm 8, for example, David marvels that God made the moon and the stars and, and that.
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Then this same God should be mindful of man and care for him.
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We are, we are not those heavenly beings.
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We're not angels, we're not. We're not stars, we're not a sun.
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And yet, David rejoices that we have been crowned with glory and honor.
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We see the same two truths in Genesis 1. We are in a class of created beings along with the animals.
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The animals were also made on the sixth day.
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We are not the uncreated beings. There is only one uncreated being, and that is God.
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And yet it would be wrong to.
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Say, well, we're just another animal.
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Maybe science might classify us as a type of mammal, and that's fine, but.
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We are undeniably distinct. Unlike the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the earth, man was made in God's image after his likeness.
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We'll have much more to say about that in the weeks ahead.
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The biblical story, yes, is first of all about God. So we must be theocentric, but it.
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Is everywhere about man in relation to God.
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This means that the story of Scripture is not biocentric or geocentric, but anthropocentric. That is to say, the story is not about life in general. That's bios life biocentric. And it's not about the earth for its own sake. The story is about human beings. Now, this is important because some people.
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And I'm thinking sometimes about some aspects of modern environmentalism, and I think all Christians acknowledge that we want to care.
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For creation if that means to preserve.
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The beauty wherever we can, and we are glad to mitigate pollution and have clean rivers and water, we are for those things and to preserve different aspects of the created order.
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And yet God gave us this creation.
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To be used that that we are to man is given to cultivate the garden. That's not an aspect of the Fall.
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That'S before the fall.
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That's what I mean, that the way.
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To look at the story of the.
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World is not biocentric, first of all.
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Just about life and man happens to be one of those living things or.
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About the Earth, that it's really the story of the earth.
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And then man is seen as kind of an intruder upon this Earth. If there's one biblical insight missing from often from modern environmental ideas, it's this, that human beings are not alien to.
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The story of the created world, but.
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We are the most important part of it.
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Too often a model is assumed where.
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The Earth is a healthy organism and humans are like cancerous cells.
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You even hear that language sometimes that we're almost the.
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The pollute.
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All we do is pollute and pillage.
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And we just consume and destroy.
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And it's true that human beings can do things that are harmful and we.
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Would want to mitigate or eliminate and.
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Yet to think the world is somehow better off without human beings, or that we must always minimize our footprint at.
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All costs, that even that, that sort.
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Of language implies that wherever man goes.
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His footprint just leave something that is.
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Impure, something that is destructive.
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And if you see, ah, man's footprint.
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Has been there, then something has been spoiled. And again, it's true human beings can.
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Pollute and destroy, but we can also produce and develop.
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We are sub creators made in the image of the Creator. We are meant to tend the garden in paradise. We are meant to work in the world.
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So it shouldn't be that we say, ah, footprint. That's where man was, therefore something is now spoiled.
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But rather, huh, there's a footprint there. Maybe man is up to something good. Humans, by God's grace, have learned to.
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Feed more people, help people live longer, healthier, easier lives. So we don't want to see humans as intruders from another world, wreaking carnage and a pristine environment.
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And instead we see ourselves, here's a good word, as stewards.
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And what do stewards do? Stewards are there to take care of.
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What God has entrusted to us.
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We are called to subdue, protect, enjoy, make more humane God's fallen creation. So we don't want this romantic ideal, which is really a myth, that if.
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Only the earth could be untouched by human hands.
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Rather, we want to think carefully about.
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How we use our hands to make the earth more hospitable for more people, so we might enjoy the beauty, the grandeur, the creativity, the productivity of our Father's world. All of this is downstream from this.
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Big idea that though we are created beings, we are the crowning achievement, that this is what God made. And then step back and said, ah, all of this is very good.
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We are unique among all of God's.
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Created things and created beings.
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Well, let's think a little bit more then about the creation of man, and in particular as male and female.
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We'll come next week to think perhaps a little bit more about this as it applies to marriage and some other contemporary issues. But the big picture here, what does.
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It mean that man can be named.
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Both as man and translating the Hebrew word Adam, which you can hear, is also a proper name, Adam, but humanity.
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Can also be named in the plural as male and female.
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Genesis 1:26.
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Let us make man in our image, our image, just as God is a plurality.
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And I think that that hour is not the divine council of angels. But you know, without a full blown.
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Doctrine of the Trinity, it is referring to plurality in the Godhead our image.
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Just as God is a plurality in an analogous way, so is man.
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Of all the things that God could have mentioned about man in the Garden of Eden, he wanted us to know.
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That man is characterized by sexual differentiation. This is so important right there. The first thing we see in Genesis.
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1 about the creation of man.
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It may be so obvious to many of us that we can overlook it, but there are two absolutely indispensable things.
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God wants to teach us from the very beginning.
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Here's what he wants us to know. Number one, you're made in the image of God. And then number two, you are made male or female. That's right there in Genesis 1. As if to say the two most.
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Important things to understand your place in.
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The world and to understand God's design.
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Is he made human beings in his.
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Image and he made us as sexually differentiated beings as either male or female or female. Now how do we think about this sexual differentiation? That's a huge topic. I've tried to distill it when I teach on this and I'll give it real briefly here into A, B C, D, E, A, B, C, D, E. Now this isn't exactly the order that these things, these truths appear in the Bible, but it's easy to remember.
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A, so what? What's the difference? What does it mean to be male or female?
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That's what I'm thinking about. What, what does this sexual differentiation entail? A appearance. Classic passage is First Corinthians 11.
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Now there's lots of tricky things there.
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About head coverings and, and hair. But I, I think the overarching point is clear that Paul is making a.
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Universal statement about what we now call gender. There is a crucial principle there that men are not women and women are not men.
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That's why Paul says is it not a disgrace for a man to have long hair?
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Now Samson had long hair.
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He was very manly. So I don't think it's a. The absolute statement about well, how long.
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Is too long and how short is too short.
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But rather he's talking about if you see a man, you ought not to.
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Be confused that it is a man.
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You see a woman and you ought.
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Not to be confused that it is a woman.
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He says it is off putting.
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It is unnatural God made male and female on purpose.
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See, when we confuse the sexes and yes, there are going to be some of these are cultural markers. There's cultural dress there, there's things that can change. So it, it. You can't just make a list of forbidden things.
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Absolutely.
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For all time. You could never wear this, you could never wear that. You know, this kind of hat is male, this kind of hat is female. And yet, just because you can't always.
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Draw an absolutely clear line doesn't mean there isn't a line.
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It's like the old adage, you know it, you know, can you tell when a, a man has a beard? Well, can you say he doesn't have a beard?
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Yes, he does have a beard. Yes. Is there some area in the middle.
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You say, well, you know, is he just not shaved? Does he not know what he's doing?
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Is he a 16 year old boy?
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What's going on?
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But just because there's some fuzziness doesn't mean you can't actually say there's a beard and there's not a beard. Same way. Just because there are some cultural markers doesn't mean that you can't say, yep, that's what men look like and that's what females look like. And this is the point of 1 Corinthians 11. So making us male and female, there's.
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A difference in appearance.
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That's the ab body. Our bodies are given to us. Our bodies are to tell us something.
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There is a fittedness to our bodily design. And part of being a man is.
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That the body is designed for a woman.
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Part of being a woman is that you, your body was designed for a man.
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That's the logic of Leviticus 18 of Romans 1. So the body tells us rather than.
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The mind telling us or our emotions telling us. And then we change our bodies.
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No, our bodies are given, they're not identified.
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We don't identify as male or female.
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We don't choose to be, they are given to us. And First Corinthians 6 tells us to.
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Glorify God with our body.
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So there's a difference between the bodies that we are given. Male or female C. I call crowning characteristic. This would take more time to develop.
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Than we have here. But the Bible often associates the pursuit of beauty with womanhood and the pursuit of strength with manhood.
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Now it's not that beauty and strength are, you know, one is uniquely feminine and one is uniquely masculine. You, you can't have a say a.
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Man is beautiful or a woman is strong. Of course you can. But each is uniquely linked to one sex.
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God directs women to embrace the true beauty of a godly character.
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And he directs men to embrace the true strength of noble courage and self sacrifice.
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So there's a crowning characteristic. You know, sort of what, how, how are we wired? You Know, just in general. A lot of men spend a lot of hours watching sports.
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In general.
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No, there's exceptions. Many women will give great thought to what they wear. Time in front of the mirror is. Are these general characteristics telling us something.
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About what men and women are after?
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A strength, a beauty?
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Well, there's lots of passages in the scripture that then direct men to say.
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Okay, here's what real strength looks like. Women, here's what real beauty looks like. It's a crowning characteristic. A, B, C, D, Demeanor. There's a passage in 1st Thessalonians 2 that I find very helpful.
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Paul's talking about his pastoral approach, and he compares it to both mothering and fathering.
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So both men and women can have characteristics that are quote motherly and quote fatherly.
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And Paul does that with his own pastoral ministry.
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So we're not making rigid stereotypes. And yet, if you read 1st Thessalonians 2, it's clear that fathering there in.
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Verses 11 and 12 implies exhortation, encouragement, spiritual charge.
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When he talks about those sort of.
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Things, he said, ah, that's like a father. And earlier in verses seven and eight.
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When he talks about gentleness, he thinks about a mother.
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So there is a distinction in demeanor. For Paul, the picture of divinely aided gentleness is a mother, and the picture of divinely guided exhortation is a father.
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We see something different in the demeanor.
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Of male and female. So A, B, C, D, and then.
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E. It's a little bit of a stretch here.
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Eager posture, that is to say, according to God's design in the garden.
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The woman's posture is to be a helper. In particular there, the helper, because only.
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The man with the woman can fulfill.
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The creation mandate to be fruitful and.
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Multiply in the man's posture as the head, the scripture will teach, is to lead.
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So I say posture, not a rigid set of you must do this, can't do this.
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Though there's sometimes some of that in the Bible or an office, but a posture, sort of, what are you leaning into? Adam was created first. He named the animals. He was held responsible for the couple's sin. That says something about how God has formed the man.
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Not in flexible office, but what men.
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And women are intentional to find and happy to accept.
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That's what I mean by posture.
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Now, these will be seen, male and.
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Female, most clearly in marriage, but I.
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Do think the attitudes ought to be present outside of marriage as well. The application gets fuzzier outside of marriage. But if we're still sexually differentiated beings, which we are. We don't just become male and female in marriage.
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This sexual differentiation has something to say.
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And roles to play throughout all of life.
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So we must see that human beings.
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Are God's creational crowning achievement and that.
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He makes us male and female his.
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Good design from the very beginning.
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Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to doctor Matters and if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from crossway.
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Org.
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The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit crossway. Org.