It is essential to my argument that I begin today’s writing with a disclaimer:

** Before even beginning to address specific gender roles as they are outlined in the Bible – especially as it pertains to why God is consistently, throughout the biblical narrative, referred to with male pronouns – we must establish that we are discussing things from a strictly Christian perspective. It is easy to object to the biblical ideas of masculinity and femininity when considering the sinfulness of man and the oppression that submission might so easily espouse within power-hungry and demeaning individuals, but we must accept, going into the argument, that we are speaking from the ideal as established by God in His creation of man. In this, we must discuss matters such as submission, sacrifice, headship, and leadership not according to the negative connotations established by a prideful and lustful society, but rather according to the biblical standard to which we all must strive. When you give a man a gun, he may use it to either protect or to slay – we may guide him towards the former, but the option by which he uses it is up to him. All rules and roles in any governance or society stand the possibility of being abused; the Bible seeks to establish gender roles in a manner that is holy and set apart, glorifying to God for the betterment of mankind. A rational and concise conversation regarding such matters is impossible if we do not first establish a stable worldview which we can then extrapolate. Thus, for the purposes of this article, it is my request that we set aside secular ideologies and rather read the “He” of God the Father according to the Biblical context, that we might better understand Christian ideals and even more greatly come to grasp the beauty of God’s love towards us. **

I will begin my argument by stating this: God is spirit. Of course, He stepped into the flesh via the person of Jesus Christ and thus lived on the earth for approximately thirty-three and a half years as a Middle Eastern man, but from eternity past to eternity future God is, according to His divine nature, spirit. Thus, He is neither male nor female; however, the way in which God manifests Himself is masculine in nature, in that he designed man as an image meant to reflect Him. Therefore my thesis is that our use of the pronouns “He,” “Him,” “His,” etc. are essential in comprehending our own selves in relationship to God.

Billions of people, all going in different directions to their own destinations.

I look at them.

Some smile at the sight of someone looking their way; others look away as quickly as they can.

Some wear baggy clothes to cover insecure bodies; others wear tight clothes to accentuate the same.

I can see it in their eyes.

We had a guest lecturer in my Business class this morning.

He was a nice man, an entrepreneur and multi-time author who was wanting to teach us the methods of being successful, but no sooner had he posed his first question than division spread through the entire class. Motioning to two cardboard cutouts he had brought with him and placed in the front of the class, he turned to us and spoke three class-shattering words:

“Batman or Superman?”

He called for a vote. “Who likes Superman better?” he asked first. Twelve people – myself included – raised our hands, most of them timidly. “And Batman?” he asked. Over a hundred hands shot into the air, bold and unashamed.

This was very interesting to me. I like to consider myself a superhero fan – a nerd, some might even say – but the thing that has unfailingly amazed me is people’s absolutely love for Batman. I understand the interest in him and find him quite fascinating myself – the Joker is without a doubt my favorite fictional villain of all time – but how on earth is he more favorable than Superman? I’ve heard the various arguments, but none seem to hold up.

Doesn't it fall in line with God's character that He might place little Easter eggs of truth throughout the Bible for His disciples to find, little tidbits that help reaffirm those truths found throughout the rest of the text?

In this video, David addresses one of these possible "hidden messages," found in the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5, which traces Adam down to Noah.

“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Isn’t it interesting how the first sin is shortly followed by the first excuse? God sees Adam, Adam sees God, God asks Adam what’s going on, Adam says he’s ashamed because he’s naked, God points out that Adam isn’t supposed to know that he’s naked and the only way for him to know that was if he had eaten from the tree he wasn’t supposed to eat from, and then Adam blames Eve, and if that wasn’t good enough, he blames God too. “Well, you see, God, ultimately this is your fault. Things were fine until the woman came along, and didn’t you make her?” Adam is trying to deflect responsibility off of himself at all costs.

But God plays along. He turns to Eve, who proceeds to blame the serpent, which you can imagine ticks Adam off a bit, since it makes a lot more sense to blame the devil for your sin than it does to blame a holy and perfect God. Nevertheless, God continues to play along, and He turns to the serpent, who knows better than to provide an excuse. God reveals that it was in fact all three of them that were to blame, and their shared sin will affect not only them, but the entire world.

How often do we do the same thing as Adam and Eve?

Imagine a husband who stands before his wife, grabs her by the hand, looks into her eyes, and says, “I love you.”

The next day, he cheats on her with another woman.

Now imagine another scenario: A second husband stands before his wife, grabs her by the hand, looks into her eyes, and says, “I love you.”

Just a few hours later, he cheats on her with another woman.

Imagine one more scenario with me: A third husband stands before his wife, grabs her by the hand, looks into her eyes, and says, “I love you.”

Only a few minutes later, he slides into his car to drive over to spend time with his mistress.

My question to you is this: What do these three men in common?

It’s Sunday morning and your church is going up in a riot.

A crazy man from out of town is running through the entrance hall, knocking over the bookcases in the gift shop and spilling the money from the cash register all over the ground, yelling loudly and shaking with anger. Ignorant to anything more than the man’s name (because you have most definitely heard of him before), you turn to your friend and ask him to dish out more details.

He’s from a small town you’ve never heard of, but people speak of the town like it has a bad reputation. He is apparently a “teacher” even though he himself is uneducated, and he has grown in popularity thanks to his acts of witchcraft that he performs on a near-daily basis. He and his closest friends are all homeless, wandering from town to town just to argue nonstop with the local authorities; he preaches a message about the loving and goodness and holiness of God, but he himself seems to contradict this apparent “holiness” by constantly hanging out with well-known thugs, thieves, prostitutes, swindlers, murderers, and whores.

Just last night, I read the introduction to John Bevere’s Good or God?, a book that tackles the subject of how “good without God isn’t enough” – in other words, how doing good things does not necessarily mean that you are aligned with God’s will. I’ve been wanting to read this book for quite some time, but only recently did I find myself with the spare time to actually sit down and start reading.

However, as is the case with most books (and all other sources of entertainment, for that matter), I felt the need to go online and start reading reviews of the product prior to beginning it myself – I do this not so much to see whether or not I will enjoy it, but more so to see how well it holds up doctrinally and whether or not it is written to a standard that leaves people actually enveloped in what is being said, rather than bored to death due to lackluster insights and overall lack of passion by the creator of the piece. Good or God? received amazing reviews (4.52/5 stars on Goodreads), but there was a something I noticed: of the two “bad” reviews the book received, they both seem to address a particular touch subject…

“And my soul is getting restless for the place where I belong…”

As the final word of that phrase rang into the nighttime sky, the entire audience drew in a unified breath, chills passing throughout each of their bodies as raw emotion flooded the entire amphitheater all the way up into the open-air lawn at the very perimeter. From my spot upon that lawn, I could do nothing but close my eyes and soak in the moment, a second wave of chills passing over me as the audience suddenly broke into a chorus of applause, myself included. There was but one man standing on the stage before me – with nothing but a guitar in his hands and a microphone before his lips – but his voice as it burst across the arena was like that of church choir singing as one breath:

“—I can’t wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song.” I had never heard truer words in my life.