God Made Us Male and Female

Well, good evening. Let's try that again. Good evening. Yeah, it is good to be here. I always love an opportunity to come to Idaho, and this time my suitcase didn't love the opportunity to come to Idaho. So I would like to thank the rossover at tomorrow for having one shirt that I could get to wear to come over here for this evening, and please pray that my luggage makes it. They say, they say tonight at midnight, but they also said, let's last night at midnight, and we'll see what happens with that. So if you see me in this tomorrow at the conference, then then then you know, all right tonight again. This is this lecture series is about worldview and about clashes of real views. And we're seeing massive clashes of worldview in our culture. And these classes of worldview have become clearer and clearer around issues of masculinity, femininity, manhood, womanhood, and then and in the relationships between men and women. We're we're seeing clashes over what marriage is. We're seeing clashes over ironically what a man is or and what a woman is. We're seeing clashes over uh, the English language and pronouns. Right, We're so all of these things are happening, and what I want us to do I don't. I want us to look at this from a worldview perspective. Now, when we talk about worldview, there's several ways that you can discribe. Uh. A worldview is really your underlying assumptions that you rely on in order to interpret reality. Your worldview functions like a pair of glasses. We've heard the saying, you know, looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Right, whatever you know, your glasses are, they're going to color everything that you see. That's what your worldview does. Your worldview color is everything you see. Another metaphor we could use is your worldview is like it's like a map. I've been riding around town today looking for clothes to wear, and it's been interesting to have the GPS right, I mean an unfamiliar place and and the GPS will will orient you. Right, you look at a landmark, and then you look at the map, and that helps orient you. Our worldview does that for us as well. Our worldview orient saze. And then lastly, your world is like a puzzle picture. You know, if you've ever put together a puzzle, you get the puzzle, you get the box, and there's all the pieces in the box. You open the box, you pour out all the pieces, and then what you don't do is get rid of the box, right, because you need the box in order to determine where these pieces go, especially if it's one of these big old, you know, several thousand piece puzzles. So what you do is you pick up a piece and you look at the composition of that piece, and then you compare it to the picture on the box, right, and that box sort of helps you the finished picture, what it's supposed to look like when it's done, helps you to determine where a given piece goes. Your worldview functions in that way. Your worldview sort of says to you, this is what things are supposed to be like. So life throws you if you will, and you look at the composition of that puzzle piece and try to determine where it fits based on your worldview. So those are some ways that we kind of get our head around what we're talking about here. It's been really interesting for me living for the last seven and a half almost eight years in Zambia and South Central Africa. One of the most interesting aspects of it is you never really examine your worldview until you were exposed to other worldviews. Most of us just we don't think we even have a worldview, right, We things just are a certain way, right. We come to our world views uncritically, But when they're challenged, then all of a sudden we began to think about our worldview. Now, there's a couple of ways that we can communicate our worldview. One way that we can communicate it is the elements of our worldview. And you know, depending on how you want to categorize it, there are a number of different ways you can do it. But I like to categorize with these five. Right, your worldview helps you determine your view of God, Man, Truth, knowledge, and ethics? Okay, God, Man, Truth, knowledge, ethics? What you believe about God? Is there a God? Is there not a God? What do you believe about man? Where did men come from? This Man's purpose? What you believe about truth? Right? Is truth absolute or it's truth relative? What you believe about knowledge? How do we come to know things? Right? And then what you believe about ethics? Again, these are the five main pillars, if you will, of a worldview. But tonight, what I want us to do is. I want us to examine it from a different perspective, and that's from more of a a a narrative perspective, because another thing that your worldview does is it tells the story that explains the world. It tells a story that explains why the world is the way it is. And I want to do this by posing what I like to refer to as life's ultimate questions and then look at a few different world views and the way that they answer those questions. Particularly, I want to look at how secular humanism answers those questions, how Neo Marxism answers those questions, and then how a biblical Christianity would answer those questions. And I wants to look at a particular biblical text, your Colossians chapter one, in answering that and describing that. So my goal here is to help us understand where the differences lie, to help us understand why we can look at the same puzzle piece or the same map but be seeing very different things. And that's what's going on, right, That's why there's such a clash going on in the culture at large, because we're looking at the same things. For example, in the shooting that happened in Tennessee. It was just amazing to me. I saw a piece today from MSNBC, from Joy Reid's show on MSNBC, and they were talking about presumably the Tennessee mass shooting at the Christian school, but the headline read transgenders under siege in America. Yeah, just marinate on that for a minute. We're talking about these people, these nine year olds who were slaughtered at school. But when Joy read is discussing this issue, her that the headline is transgenders under siege in America. Okay, And by the way, under siege. That that's that's that's combat talk, right, that that's militaristic talk. It again, it's mind boggling. But this is a worldview issue. The guests that she had on some of the things that they were choosing to say, some of the ways that they were choosing, you know, to sort of position their arguments. It was quite amazing. But again, the difference is worldview. So let's look at that those four questions, who am I? Why am I here? What's wrong with the world? Because I'm wrong with the world? And how can what is wrong be made right? Every person who has ever lived, every person who will ever live? Is going to wrestle with has wrestled with these four questions, and your worldview has a meta narrative. It has a story, an overarching story that helps you to answer these four questions. Who am I? Or who is man? Why am I here? Or why a man here? What is wrong with the world? And how can what is wrong be made? Right now? Full disclosure? In order to do this in the time that we have, I'm going to paint with some broad strokes here, Okay, but I think you'll get the general gist. So if we pose those questions for the secondar human worldview, who am i? According to secular humanism at the end of the day, I am the result of random evolutionary processes. Okay, from the goo to you by way of the zoo. Right, I am the result of random evolutionary processes. Okay, that's the answer to question number one. The answer to question number one is some form of an evolutionary answer. Right, question number two? Why am I here? Well, if I'm the result of random evolutionary processes, then ultimately I'm here to do what. I'm here to consume, I'm here to enjoy, I'm here to you know pro create, I'm here to I'm here for those for those basic biological reasons, right, That's why I'm here. What's wrong with the world? Now, secular humanism usually comes down on one of two sides, and oftentimes both. What's wrong with the world. What's wrong with the world is that we are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. We're either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed, which leads you to a question number four. How can what is wrong be made right? More education, more government g U B M I N T government. Okay, And and and we see this, don't we Again, I'm painting with a broad brush here. I told you that full disclosure, painting with a broad brush here. But but we see this, we we we see these answers played out in the culture at large. We we see that again, who we are? Some kind of evolutionary answer, why we're here, some kind of biological answer? What what? What's what's what's wrong with the world? How do we define that? Again? We're we think wrongly, we're insufficiently educated, or we're governed wrongly, we're insufficiently governed. So again, we need to educate people, We need to govern people. Okay, that's that one view, and we'll play around with this a little bit more, but for now, let's look at the next one, the new neo Marxist warview. And I choose the neo Marxist worldview because really, in our culture, we've we've had this massive shift to where now the predominant assumptions from which people are operating are these neo Marxist assumptions, not necessarily classical Marxis assumption assumptions, but more neo Marxists assumptions, classical Marxist assumptions, more economic assumptions, right, naturalistic materialism as well. But you know, the separation between the haves and the have nots, the bourgeois and the proletariat, those who control the means of production those who don't. But in cultural Marxism, it's different than that we have this whole oppress or oppressed paradigm, this idea of hegemonic power. So in the neo Marxist idea, who am I? I am an intersectional representation of the various groups to which I belong? I am an intersectional representation of the various groups to which I belong. Okay, that's the cultural Marxist dancer. That's the union Marxist dancer. Again, underneath that is this same evolutionary idea. But at the end of the day, I am a representative of the various intersectional groups to which I belong. I'm a representative of the various constituencies that I represent. Okay, And we hear this all the time, right, we hear this in politics all the time. How's he or she doing with this group of people? How's here she doing with that group of people? Right? Not? Not? Who is this person? Not? You know, what are their positions? Not? What's the merit of their positions? How is their messaging doing with this intersectional group? How is their messaging doing with that intersectional group? And then we judge people not on the merit of their arguments or their positions or their track record, but we tend to measure them based on the merit of the various intersectional groups with whom they identify or who identify with them. So, if this candidate is popular with this intersectional group that we've deemed evil, white male, cisgendered, heterosexual, navy born, able bodied, right on down to Christian right at the end of that right, if you're doing with those good with those people, you're doing good with the oppressor group. And if the oppressor group likes you, doesn't matter what's coming out of your mouth. Right, the oppressor group likes you, then that means you're advancing the hegemonic oppressive power. You're a bad person because they like you. Okay, So why am I here? Well, I am here to participate in this power struggle. If I am part of the oppressive group, then I am here to oppress people unless and until I'm made to stop oppressing people. If I'm part of one of the oppressed groups, then I am here to fight the power of the oppressor, right, and to somehow get the oppressor to see power by force if necessary, and it's always necessary, Amen, because according to my worldview, the oppressor will never see power voluntarily. Okay, what is wrong with the world, Well, what is wrong with the world is that the hegemonic oppressors are in power. That's how we explain everything that's wrong. We define wrong by disparity. So if there's any kind of disparity, by the way, you gotta be really careful with disparity too, because it's disparities that we don't like. Right, the neo Marxists will say that they have a problem with disparities, but they don't mean that. What they mean is, we have a problem with disparities that we don't like, and particularly we have a problem with disparities until they don't fit our narrative. Okay, So if there's a disparity in incarceration that fits our worldview, that fits our narrative, we press that. If there's a disparity of more black people in the NBA sixty I mean NBA is like seventy percent plus NFL sixty percent plus, that's a disparity, But we don't talk about that. Those disparities are not evil. Other disparities are evil. If there's a disparity with you know, women in a particular career stem, that's oppression. That's oppression. More women in college than men. Stop talking about that. Not as many women digging ditches or picking up trash. Hush your mouth. Okay, So again we're selective about the disparities. Okay. But the problem what's wrong with the world, it's the hegemonic oppression. How can what is wrong be made right? The oppressor has to be forced to seed his power to those who are oppressed, and when that happens, it will usher in utopia. Just just don't read animal far just just don't just don't read animal far right. It won't happen like that. It won't happen like that because once the once the oppressor is gone, those oppressed groups will never ever oppress one another. Okay, So those are those answers again broadbrush or remember the remember the questions, who am I? Why am I here? What is wrong with the world? How can what is wrong be made right? But but how does a biblical worldview answer these questions? That's the worldview that I'm here to represent. So that's where what I really want to give my time to. For those of you who have a Bible, if you want to look on the Bible, if you've got the Bible on your electronic device like me, I have my Bible on my electronic device. Bear it's in the Book of Colossians, Colossians, chapter number one, Colossians, chapter one, and answer these questions. And as I answer these questions, here's what I want you to understand from me. I want you to understand why it is that this is the worldview that I've settled on that. Why this is my answer. And you know, I know you're probably like, well, you you settle on that one because you were raised in that one. Well, actually I wasn't. I was raised in south central Los Angeles, California by a single teenage Buddhist mother. I never heard the Gospel to my freshman year in university. So this was not the worldview with which I was raised, not by a long shot. Okay, not by a long shot, all right, And we can talk about that a little bit more later, but for now, let's just get into that. I just want to get that out there, Okay, for anyone who's going to have a hard time hearing what I'm saying because of some assumptions that you're making about me and the various intersectional groups to which I may or may not belong. All right, First question, who am I leave Verse fifteen Colossians one fifteen. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. By the way that he there is Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones of dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. Does a biblical world view answer that first question? Who am I? Here's the answer. I am the crowning glory of the creation of God as a human being. I am the crowning glory of the creation of God. There's nothing else in creation like us. We are the crowning glory of the creation of God. Genesis, chapter one, beginning of verse twenty six. And here's our theme. Then God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image and the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them in the image of God as God's image bearer, unlike anything else that God has created, having inherent dignity, inherent worth, and inherent value as a direct result of being created in the image of God. I listen. If you don't think this matters, then then riddle me this batman. We can take it from something small to something large, we can take it to something small. Like Johnny is, you know, is bullying Susie in class. Johnny, don't bully Susie. Why tell me, secular human worldview? Why should not Johnny bully Susie? If Johnny and Susie are just the results of random evolutionary processes, and they've gotten here because they were just better suited for survival than other organisms and entities, then the only thing that ought to matter is that Johnny's bigger and stronger than Susie and Susie's got something he wants. Well, no, we wouldn't answer it like that. No, you wouldn't answer it like that because you're inconsistent with your worldview. And what you would do is you would borrow from my worldview in order to give a moral reason for Johnny not to bully Susie, because secular humanism has no moral reason for that. But we need order in the classroom, says Oh, well, if we don't have order in the classroom, then we can't learn and we can't thrive. Who says that we should learn and we should thrive. Maybe we're weak and we shouldn't thrive. You follow Christian theism, the biblical worldview. Johnny, don't bully Susie. Why why shouldn't I? Because Susie is made in the image of God and has inherent dignity, inherent worth, and inherent value as a direct result of her being made in the image of God. And then I can even get more particular, because the Bible gets more particular when it comes to men and women and about men valuing women as the weaker vessel. See, we don't like that, we don't like that, but it's the truth. It's the truth, and it's a glorious truth that calls upon men to protect and value and esteem and cherish women. You call me whatever you want to call me. I'm not giving that up, not for me, not for my sons, and certainly not for my daughters. I got seven sons and two daughters. I'm not giving it up for narrow one of them. Okay, So crowning glory of the creation of God, that's who I am. There's another issue here, another question that's just a small one. That's Johnny and Susie. Let's go to another one. Let's go to slavery. My name is Vodie Bauchum, Bauchem nice, wholesome German name. And this German girl at an event a few days ago. I don't know where, we were, in so many different places whatever, and she's it was German. She said, your name is it German? I said, yes, it's German. She said, well, how did you How did you get a German name? I said, my family was slaves to a German family. And her friends looked at her and went, weren't ready for that one? Were you? And then she I mean, it was just one of those moments where the penny drops, you know. She was like, yeah, walked right into that, didn't. I like, yeah, we're good. Oh, we're good. We're good though, Right, I've never been a slave, you never owned a slave. We're good. You know why though? Why would slavery be wrong in an evolutionary worldview of any kind? Wouldn't it be the most right thing in the world in an evolutionary worldview, especially a worldview that deemed certain people as less fit due to their avenue of evolution? Right now? Christian theism says the crowning glory of the creation of God, made in the image of God with inherent dignity and inherent worth and inherent value as a direct result of being made by God in God's image. Whether you have magnificent levels of melanine like me or not so much, God loves you too. So that's the who am I question? What about the why am I here? Question? Verse sixteen. Therefore by Him all things were created in heaven, on earth, visible invisible, with the thrones, dominions rule as authorities. All things were created through him, and for him. He is before all things. In him, all things hold together. He is the head of the body of the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre eminent. In everything, he might be pre eminent. Why am I here to bring glory and honor to the one who created me? That's why not to eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow we all die. I am here to worship, serve, bring glory and honor to the one who created me in his image. That's why I exist. That's why you exist. That's why mankind exists to bring glory and honor to the one who created us. Why are men made the way men are and women made the way women are because it maximizes the glory that we bring to our creator. That's why. That's why, and that's why it matters. That's why it matters. So wherever we come down on this, we have to come down in a place that recognizes who we are and recognizes why we're here and presses that issue. If we're just here for biological reasons, again, just just try to imagine that. You Know. One of the fascinating things to me is there are many groups, especially in the Marxist worldview, who see, for example, marriage as a means of oppression. Right, marriage is a means of oppression. Marriage exists to oppress women. Marriage was invented and created by men in order to oppress women. And I'm just thinking, Okay, how'd that meeting go? Right? Guys, Listen, I know we're running around having our way with any woman that we want to. They get stuck with the babies. We don't. We're free to go around and propagate and do whatever we like to do. Okay, But I think there's a way that we could probably oppress them more than we're oppressing them now by just leaving them with babies and no protection. If we would commit ourselves to one of them for life and partner with her to raise the children that would show up. That makes no sense at all. It's protection for women and for children, the exact opposite of what's claimed. Right, we see the best outcomes for women and for children, and for men. We see the best outcomes. All right, sakeod time, let's let's go. So we get there's two questions we've answered a far. So who am I crying glory the creation of God? Why am I here to bring glory and honor to the one who created me? What is wrong with the world? What is what I mean? Really, what's wrong with the world is what's wrong with the world. That we're insufficiently governed and insufficiently educated is what's wrong with the world. Uh, the oppression of oppressors. By the way, there are people who are in sufficient educating. I believe in education. I'm a dean, amen. I believe in education. Okay, I'm not arguing that education is not important. To the contrary, I believe education is incredibly important. In fact, I believe what anyway, It's not that I believe that people don't need to be governed. I don't believe that for a minute. I do not want anarchy. I don't want that, okay, But but I don't believe that that's what's wrong with the world. I believe there is oppression. Did I mention that my family was slaves? Did I mention that I mentioned? Okay? So I absolutely believe that that's true and that that's real. But that's not ultimately what's wrong with the world? What's wrong with the world? If you go down to verse twenty one, you get the answer to the question, and you that's the answer what's wrong with the world? You like me too, but to a lesser degree. Right, Mainly what's wrong it's you? But look at what verse everyone says, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds? There it is, who am I crowning glory of the creation of God? Why am I here to bring glory and honor to the one who created me? What's wrong with the world. I'm alienated from the one who created me. I'm hostile in mind to the one who created me, and I'm doing evil deeds. In other words, I exist for his glory, but I'm living for mine. The Bible has a word for this sin, sin being alienated from God, hostels of God and doing evil deeds sin. What's wrong with the world? Sin from the fall of Adam in the garden, that's what's wrong with the world. That's how our worldview answers this question. It says that men are sinners, that men are evil. Are there educational issues? Are there issues of you know, oppression are their issue. Yes, But at the end of the day, underneath all of that is wickedness in the heart of man. People are wicked. People are wicked. You don't walk into a school and slaughter nine year olds because you're insufficiently educated or because you're in efficiently governed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just one more law, one more law would have fixed that. No, no, that's not the answer. There is real wickedness in the world. There is real sin in the world. People are sinful. You don't even have to watch the news for a week. Just watch it tonight. In fact, you don't even need to watch the news. Just take an honest look inside your own dark heart, the things that you think and I do. I've said this on a number of occasions, but I I've had the privilege of you know, being on college campuses and speaking on college campuses all around the country, and it never fails. You know, some first year philosophy student you know, wants to talk to me about the question of theodosy and they got to say theodosy right, like philosophy student. Right, How did you know? Because if you weren't philosophy student, you just ask me, why, good God, let's bad stuff happen? But you gotta say theodosy so that I know that you're a philosophy student, like whatever? Right? And if if if God is omnipotent and omni benevolent, yeah, philosophy student, God is all powerful and all good, continue, then then then then why why? What do you allow tragedies like that to happen to innocent people? That's the question, and I I don't answer the question. I don't answer the question. Here's why I don't answer the question because I'd much rather force people to acknowledge the fact that they're not being honest about the question. Then they're asking it the right way. I'll answer the question if you ask it the right way. And here's how you asked the question the right way. If God is so good, God is so powerful, and if God is so just, then why did he not kill me in my sleep? Last night because of what I thought, said and did on yesterday. You asked me the question that way, and we can talk. But you point outside of yourself and act like the only sin that are just and righteous and powerful God would deal with the sin of those people. Then you're arrogant or blind or both. Let's get into your wicked heart and you talk to me about your amazement that God didn't strike you down because of your wicked and sinful heart. Then we can deal with the issue. But right now you're not being honest. We usually don't go further than that. Okay, what's wrong with the world? Sin? Wickedness? And we get this. One of the first phrases that we learned to say with conviction is that's not fair. We know things ought to be fair, We know things need to be set right. We know that, So how can what is wrong be made right? Last question? Right? Who am I crowning glory the creation of God? While I'm here to bring glory and honors to the one who created me. What's wrong with the world? You sin? Right, but mainly. You? How come would is wrong be made right? Verse nineteen? For in him all the fullness of God was pleased as well, and throw him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. So here Paul is arguing that Christ is the son of God, that he's the God Man, that he's God in the flesh, that the fullness of God dwelled in bodily form, and that in his body he reconciled men to God through the blood of his cross Verse twenty one. Again, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind and doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you wholly and blameless and above reproach in him. Christ died for sin, once for all, the just, for the unjust, so that he might bring us back to God. Isaiah puts it this way. All we like sheep, had gone astray Easia was a turn to his own way. But God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. It's an amazing thing, an amazing thing that the perfect, spotless, sinless Lamb of God would live a perfect life so that he could obey where we could not, so that his righteousness could be imputed to us and then die a death that he did not deserve, so that our sin could be punished in him. So this, Paul says in Romans, God could be just because he pours out his wrath on sin and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus. How can would is wrong be made right through the person and work of Jesus Christ, through our sin being atoned for and us being transformed and conformed to the image of God's righteous son Jesus. That's how Christian theism answers those four questions. Now, here's what's interesting. We hear that, and the response oftentimes is well, okay, what about this? And then that doesn't seem right, that doesn' seem fair? And this about Jesus and you believe that about Jesus. How can you believe this about Jesus? How can you believe that about Jesus? And those questions are fair questions. However, again, I want to sort of set the table for asking those questions. It's amazing that people hear me talk about Jesus being God in the flesh, they hear me talking about a triune God, they hear me talking about penal substitutionary toement. And they're like, you know, how can an intelligent person believe that? And they're an intelligent person who believes that nothing exploded and gave us everything. But I'm the one who's reaching. Here's the deal. Secular humanism as a worldview, it's been tried and found wanting, Classical Marxism, Neo Marxism tried and found wanting. I believe Christian theism offers us not just superior answers to life's ultimate questions, but the only legitimate answers to life' ultimate questions. And at the end of the day, the only answers to life's ultimate questions that leave us with any real hope. And that's what I want for us. And I think so many times, you know, we have discussions about things like this, and you know, we talk about you know, homosexuality and trans gender and you know, same sex marriage, and you know, all of these issues surrounding sexuality, and we talk about you know, feminism and all these sorts of things, and and we we talk about it, and often my perspective is painted as one that is ultimately a power grab. Right. I want certain people to have things and other people do not have things, and you know I want to grab power for myself, and I again, what you're hearing tonight, hope is that this has nothing to do with a power grab for me. My desire is that Christ might have the full reward for what you died. That's my desire. I believe this because I believe it. I teach this, and I preach this because I believe it, and because I believe that you are made in the image of God, that you have inherent dignity, that you have inherent worth, that you have inherent value, because you're made in the image of God. I believe that you exist to bring glory and honor to the Most High as you, not as what I want you to be, as you, as you God created you to bring in glory and honor. What is wrong with the world is you don't do that. You try to define yourself, to please yourself, to worship yourself, to satisfy and gratify yourself, with no thought for bringing glory and honor to the one who created you. But I believe there is an answer, and that answer is the redemption that is available in Christ to all will who will repent and believe Okay, So there they are. We've got a couple of minutes over the time that was allotted. I hope that's okay. I've been riding around town all day trying to find a Sure y'all can give me three minutes, right, Okay, So we're going to take our break, I think, and set up, and then we'll do our Q and A. All right, So the first question, God commands that we speak the truth in love. There is a war on truth and an attack on parental rights and the nuclear family. How can parents protect their children and stand up for the truth and love and a world undermining those trying to defend the innocent. Yeah, I think the answer is in the question. Right, We've been told to speak the truth in love. We've been told to speak the truth from that place of love. I think what we really need to be careful about is allowing the culture to define love. So here's what the culture does. The culture says, because they know that we've been told to speak the truth and love, right, they know that God is loved, They get that, they get that we've been called and commanded to love. So what they do is they redefine love, and they redefine love as agreeing with me. Right, love means you agree with me. So then whenever we openly disagree, they can come back and say, aha, you're not being loving. That's not very Christian. Right, So no, we can't do that. I think what we need to do really is push back and start defining love for people, helping people understand what love is. Right, God is love and I love you know. They're in First Printhians thirteen. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. Right. Love does not rejoice in evil. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. So if there's wrongdoing, then the loving thing to do is to rebuke the wrongdoing. Right. So I think we need to help people understand what love is, and I think we also need to understand the difference between because sometimes people are not loving. Right. Sometimes let's just be honest, right, Sometimes people are jerks. I mean sometimes they are. Sometimes they're ungodly in the way that they interact with people. And if that's the case, then that needs to be rebuked. Right. But we need to understand the difference between us being out of line and somebody rebuking us because we're out of line, and somebody redefining love, So that they can just off balance us, right and keep us from engaging openly and honestly in the argument. And most times it's the latter and not the former. Thank you. Here's another question. I think it ties directly into what you were just saying there. How should Christians approach the topic of transgenderism with compassion? Can you ask a broader question? Yeah, we have to approach all topics with compassion, but I would say again that on this issue, we can't let people define compassion for us. So what's happened is that the culture has defined compassion as gender affirming care. Right, that's the standard. That's the standard in modern psychology, that's the standard in modern medicine. Right, gender affirming care. Compassion means whatever the child talking about children, particularly, whatever the child says, that's what the child is, and we affirm that that's that's the compassionate thing. Well, I reject that that's that's not compassionate, especially in the midst of a culture where let's just go and be honest, right, as Grandma would say, tell the truth and shame the devil. Right, we have a social contagion on our hands. The number of people who are identifying as transgender is skyrocketing, especially among young people. It's a social contagion. Okay, And listen to the de transitioners. Listen to the people who had some kind of gender dysphoria and then went and then acted on it, and then that gender dysphoria resolved itself and they had done things that were irreversible. Was that compassionate? It absolutely was not. Right. So, even for example, if we just take that, okay, and we say okay, fine, there are a bunch of people of detransitions. So I believe the compassionate thing to do is to hold people off, especially young people, to hold people off, right, because we know that in the overwhelming majority of cases that this this resolves itself without any kind of intervention, medical or otherwise. Right, So the compassionate thing is to hold people off so that they don't do things that later on can't be undone. Right. So again, we can't let people define compassion for us, right and then come and say, okay, now that I've defined compassion for you, right, respond to this issue in accordance with my definition of compassion. No, that's we can't do that all, right. Another question, My wife has loved your ministry over the years, but is now pretty scared to attend Christian events that specifically speak against the transgender movement because of the recent massacre. Where do we go from here? Yeah, it's I mean, these are interesting times. And you know, coming up on on April April first, right is the what is it the trans Day of Vengeance? Right, the trans Day of Vengeance. And you know, we got a lot of security around here as well, because you know, we're again in the world, not of the world. Why is it serpents innocent as doves? Okay, so I think we I think we need to do that, but I also think that, you know, we need to recognize that people become violent when they don't have an argument. Right, So last thing that you want to do is to shut down the argument. At that point, people become violent when they don't have an argument. People get angry and and and you know, they they become violent, they start cursing, they become you know, all of these unhinged things when they don't have an argument. And right now, that's what we're seeing there. There's there's not an argument. I mean, listen, we're you know, we're right here in Idaho, and you know, we're we're we're in you know in Washington. You guys know the name Rachel Dolazol. Right, Rachel Dolazol was the head of the NAACP, and was it Spokane, right, head of the NAACP and Spokane. She was identifying as a black woman, right, why as the day is long? Okay? And so when her parents came forward and when it was discovered that Rachel Dolazol was not white, then there was all this backlash, people talking about cultural appropriations. You know, you can't do that. Here's the deal. We look at Rachel Dolozol and we say, no, you're a bad person. You're a white person. You don't know what it's like to be black, and it's wrong for you to say that you're black. If Rachel Dolosol today said that she was a man, she'd be up for a end of the year. How is that not cultural appropriation? Because here's the deal, Rachel Dolozol is genetically closer to me as a black person than she is to me as a man. Do you see the inconsistency there? Right? It just again, as we say in the South, that dog won't hunt and we need to press that. We need to press that people are being harmed right now, and we need to press that. And I think as people become you know, unhinged, and as people become violent and everything else, I think it becomes even more important that we press this issue. And especially when you see like who saw that that special? Not that it wasn't a special, It was just on MSNBC with I just said her name just no no no no, no no no no, that was the special. But Joy read the Joy read, you know, when she had Jim Wallace and uh, the transgender person with her talking about the shooting and that heading. I just did a response, you know, video today with the Cross Politic guys, and I hadn't seen it, and they were like, you know, watching tell us to stop it, and so they put it up. I stopped it before it even started because of the heading transgender excuse me, transgenders under siege in America. I'm like, wow, talk about Orwellian right, slavery is freedom right. This is a transgender person shoots up, you know, a school, and and and the response to that is to get on TV and talk about transgenders under siege in America. So yeah, I mean, now's not the time for us to recoil. We don't, we don't have to be unwise, but but it's not the time for us to recoil. And and yeah, you know we we don't walk in fear. All right, directly tying off that we don't want to recoil on this question asks after removing our kids from the public schools, what can Christians do to reform public education and combat specific issues like transgenderism in their communities. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. Number One, I think people are doing They're doing good work in that regard, right, And I want to commend people who are engaging in the civic sphere on those issues. But I want to warn people who are engaging in the civic sphere on those issues, because we can get the schools to back down off of all things transgender, and they're still going to be anti Christian by federal mandate and unsuited for our children, right, So we need to be real careful that we don't that we don't fall for it, and we don't, you know, So you know these books are no longer in the library, and you know this stuff is no longer in the curriculum, and you know, these sorts of things. We're not having the drag Kring story hour, and so now everything's okay. No, everything that led to that will still be in place. The worldview that undergirds that will still be in place. And the school system, the government school system, do you be m I N T? Will still be anti Christian by federal mandate. So the underlying worldview, where it has this framework of oppression and power dynamics, is that compatible in any way, even a small way, with the Christian worldview? No? Not. Here's the thing, to the degree that there is oppression in the world, right, you know, no whole lie can survive. It has to borrow to steal an element of the truth. And we've all seen oppression, right, we all know that there are things out there that are oppressive. So in that sense, we as Christians, we recognize that there is satanic oppression, right, and in that sense we are at war with oppression. But what I'm talking about is this neo Marxist worldview that defines and understands all relationships as being defined by this power dynamic, by this oppressor oppressed power dynamic. Right, That's that's the difference. Right, all right, I. Think two more questions for tonight. These are going to be kind of a little bit on a different track. How would you respond to someone who insists that we need quote unquote proof for biblical truths? That defends depends on how they're defining true. I mean proof, right? You know? In one Peter three, as Christians, we're told to always be ready to give a reason to anyone who asks us the reason for the hope that is in us. So, as Christians, we ought always to be ready to explain what we believe and why we believe it. Right, So, to that extent, I agree, But that's usually not what people are talking about. Usually what they're talking about is scientific proof for historic events. And what I mean by that is this, like the scientific method. In order to apply the scientific method, something has to be observable and measurable and repeatable. Right. We got some science majors in here, right, Right, I got a hypothesis. You got to be able to test a hypothesis. Right, got to be observable, it's got to be measurable, it's got to be repeatable. You don't use the scientific method for historical events. They're not observable. Right, I can observe George Washington's presidency. So I don't believe George Washington's president presidency by the scientific method. I use an evidentiary method, right, I use I use the kind of method that you use in a courtroom. Okay, it's it's a it's a different approach, it's a it's a different standard. So oftentimes what people are asking for is something that doesn't exist for any kind of historical event. Right, So we have to be able to give a reason. Right, But the idea that that would be held up to the kind of scrutiny that nothing else in history would be held to, or that is, you know, philosophically inconsistent with the pursuit of truth concerning those types of events. Well, I mean that that's a non starter. Yeah, right, you can't go you can't really get anywhere to. The last starter, right, George Washington was our first president. Prove it scientifically, right, all right? One one final question. I'm also a a you know, a objection brought against the Christian faith. How do you address those who disagree with the premise that people are sinners and believe that man is inherently good? But just makes mistakes and you know, they do bad things, but inherently they're good. How do I address those people? Have kids? That's that's that's how I address those people have kids? Right, And you'll have to teach your kids almost everything sin will come naturally. It's in there. It's in there, and it will come out and you don't have to teach it. You don't have to teach them how to lie, how to cheat, how to steal. You don't have to teach them how to hate. You don't have that, you don't. In fact, it's the other things. You have to teach them how to respect other people's property, right, you teach them how to tell the truth. You know, you have to teach them how to you know again, people who are saying that, yeah they don't have kids. Yeah yeah, you have to teach him. Why why Billy shouldn't bully Susie? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's there. Then. The other thing, too, I think is that when people hear again, most people, when they think about Christianity, they have a caricature of Christianity in their mind. It's not the real thing. It's not what you find in scripture, you know, the husband wife relationship for example, right that they're not looking at Ephesians chapter five. They can't be looking at Ephesians chapter five. And you know, talking this feminist nonsense of marriage as oppression and YadA, YadA, YadA. Right, the same thing when it comes to sin. They have this caricature which sees sin as the most egregious things that people can ever do or have ever done. Right, And so you got Hitler is a sinner. You know, Genghis Khan is a sinner, right, Yeah, so you know, to be a sinner, you have to be this notorious world class written in the history books center. And so when they use that as their definition of sin, then they come back and they say, you know, people are not that. And I'm gonna say, first of all, okay, I'll give you that most people are not that. But second of all, I would say, all people have what it takes to become that. All people have in them what it takes to become that. And it is only the grace of God that keeps us from being as sinful as we could be. And the only thing I need to do to prove that is to tell you to take an honest assessment of some of the stuff that runs through your head when people do stuff you don't like, some of the things you visualize when you're driving. If you can't say amen, you ought to say out right. It's in there, and it is simply the grace of God, and nothing but the grace of God that keeps the majority of us right from being as sinful as we could be, or as sinful even as our thoughts run towards all right. Thank you very much, Pastor Bockham,