On Sexuality and Gender Dynamics
I’ve often heard it taught, “Do not cause anyone to stumble… (1 Cor. 10:32). In terms of sexuality and gender dynamics, this means that men and women must be conscious about how their actions (whether intentional or not) affect those of the opposite gender.
Sisters, be mindful of what you wear and do not use your sexuality to control men or win their affection. Although it is ultimately the guy’s responsibility to guard his eyes and his thoughts, women should serve their brothers by not flaunting their sexuality. This doesn’t mean dress like a nun. Please continue to celebrate the God given beauty you have, but also be mindful to not be provocative in how you do so.
Brothers, be mindful of your sisters emotions. Be careful to not emotionally manipulate your sisters, making them think they are more special to you than they truly are. Make sure you make your intentions clear with them from the beginning, and don’t lead them on by keeping them in the awkward “friend zone.” Be a good brother and guard their relationships with their future husbands, and don’t take advantage of their generous posture of love and affection toward you.”
If you’ve spent anytime growing up in the church, you’ve probably heard sermons like this when it came to teaching on gender dynamics. Generalizations like these are helpful, because they can help us identify the temptations we are most susceptible to fall into. In this case, it is often tempting for women to misuse their sexuality for attention and control and for men to emotionally manipulate women to fill their need for intimacy without commitment. However, it would be foolish to think that these respective issues are ones that men and women uniquely face. The reality is women are just as susceptible to lusting physically (so men, keep your shirts on…) and men are just as susceptible to being emotionally manipulated. Therefore, the application can be switched around very easily. Brothers, be mindful to not be physically provocative, and sisters, be careful to not emotionally manipulate your brothers.
The overarching teaching is clear- do not cause anyone to stumble by being mindful of one another. The proceeding specific instructions to men and women are then generalized instructions of how to apply this overarching teaching to typically observed gender dynamics. They are meant to be to interpreted in light of the overarching teaching to not cause one another to stumble.
With that said, have you ever noticed that the teaching found in Eph. 5:21-33 has the exact same structure? Why is then that so many Christians read it with a completely different interpretive lens? Read the rest of this entry
Photo Booth…
Dear Mei,
You are about to turn 11 this month. So crazy. It feels like just yesterday I went to see you in the hospital when you were born. It’s even more crazy that I was actually the one driving the car when I went with grandma. Tonight I looked at some of the old photo booth pictures we took together. I don’t know if you remember, but you use to love taking those with me. We spent hours taking dumb pictures together. But your interests are changing rapidly as you grow up. When I go home now, instead of begging me to play Monopoly with you or to take you out, you would rather play with your other friends or watch TV. But it’s okay. I know that you need to grow up, and I’m proud of the young woman that you are becoming. It just scares me to think that sooner than later your interests will move towards boys…. DAH!
Anyways, I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, but I just want you to know that I’ll always love you. Every time I see you and you give me that awkward hug to greet me, my heart melts with deep love for you. You are such a beautiful, smart, and talented girl. Your smile brightens up my day, and every time you call me “goh goh” it makes me just want to hold you… too bad you always get embarrassed and squirm away. Mei, I pray for you almost every night and even though I’m not there to show Him to you, I have faith that God will reveal himself to you someday soon. I’m sorry that I wasn’t around more as you were growing up, but I hope to be around a lot more in the future. You might not want to play with me as much and you’ll probably have better things to do than to hang out with your goh goh, but please don’t ever stop taking pictures with me. I hope we have many more together in the future, in many different places, with many different people.
I’ll love you forever, whatever you do, whoever you become, I’ll love you.
Love,
Goh Goh.
WCC 2012- Worship Sets and Charts
Dear WCC 2012,
On behalf of the entire worship team I just want to thank you all for an incredible weekend of seeking and meeting the Lord! Thank you for your willingness to try new things and be stretched in your expressions of worship. Most of all thank you for your openness to the Holy Spirit and what He was doing in our midsts. I know many of you have expressed what a blessing we’ve been to you, but I want to just share that we all feel the same way about each of you! As musicians, God really invited each of us into a deeper level of prophetic leadership through music this weekend and we saw the Holy Spirit lead us in new ways as a band. God also did incredible things in each of our lives individually through the conference.
Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing you all again. Here are the chords and links to youtube versions of the songs we did this weekend. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.
Blessings,
Joe and the WCC2012 Worship Team
