The CBMW Website: An Essential Resource in a Gender-Confused Age

I want to encourage you to go to a new resource on the Internet: the CBMW Gender Blog. This site, which debuted just a little while ago, is already one of Technorati's top-rated blogs. This blog, published by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, provides excellent, pithy material on the matter of gender. If you have not already, bookmark this site, tell your friends about it, and check it regularly. Led by President Randy Stinson, a man known for his robustly scriptural home, and directed by a godly, gifted man named David Kotter, it is fun to read, passionate about biblical truth regarding gender, and destined to educate its regular readers on things that matter.

Gender (by which I mean sex) is a matter of great importance. If you do not presently think this, I would challenge you to rethink your understanding of this topic. Gender is the fundamental earthly reality of the human race. Whether you are a man or woman determines almost innumerable things about the way you live, though you may not even recognize this. What's more, the Bible has a great deal of things to teach us about gender. The Bible is not a gender-blind book written to a sexless audience. There are many texts that apply equally to all people, but the Bible sketches from beginning to end a portrait of biblical manhood and biblical womanhood. There is of course no one book that touches exhaustively on this subject, but this is not the way the Bible constructs doctrine, is it? No, the biblical theology movement has taught us that doctrines and ideas are developed progressively through the Bible--there's a bit given here, a bit given there, and by the end of it, we've got a textured, many-colored understanding of a certain doctrine composed of the work of varied authors writing in varied times. Do not commit the easy fallacy of thinking that the Bible does not have much to say about gender roles simply because there is no one extended section on the matter. To repeat, this is not the way the Bible teaches us about most any important matter. All our major doctrines--salvation, the person of God, the afterlife, to name just a few--are developed over many years and through the writing of many authors.

With this apology for a clear biblical theology of gender thus stated, it is also true as I have said above that gender is the fundamental earthly reality of our existence. God's creation of Adam and Eve--each of a different gender--was not some divine afterthought in a creative jag. No, God was saying something to us when He created two people of distinct genders. He was saying that gender is hugely important, and He went on to show us that He gave distinct roles to men and women. All this to say that the CBMW website and blog reflects this reality and promises to educate a confused world--and, sadly, a confused church--about biblical manhood and womanhood.

Also, the Gender Blog is currently featuring a blog I wrote a few weeks ago on the "Goof on the Roof." If you have not read this piece, I would encourage you to visit the site. Read the piece. Then, read other pieces. There is a ton of good stuff on this blog. Join with me in supporting this important resource in an age when biblical gender roles are debased, forgotten, or just plain ignored, whether by the man in the street or the Christian in the pew.

The Goof on the Roof, and the State of Contemporary Masculinity

I was reading the Sunday edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal when I came across this news nugget in the sports pages (I googled it to find out more). Apparently, some guy in Baltimore (he doesn't deserve to be named here) camped out on the roof of a Baltimore bar as a publicity stunt until the Ravens, the city's football team, either broke their nine-game losing streak or fired their head coach. The stunt crashed when the ex-wife of the man called the police due to the man's failure to pay multiple years of child support.

So let's get this straight. This guy cares so much about the Ravens that he will sleep on the roof of a bar for weeks--in the bitter Baltimore winter--but he can't rouse himself over a multiple-year period to pay his child support? This is a situation for which no comment is worthy.

However, this is a blog, and I want to write, and you expect me to do so, and so I will. This little episode, I think, shows a great deal about the state of manhood in the current day. We have here a man so devoted to his sports team--his hobby--that he does not even support his child. This is an extreme situation, but does it not tell us something about men in the current day? We are so interested in games--the fixation of boys--that we neglect the things of men. This man is a particularly depressing spectacle, but he is one of many men in the current day who idolize games and pastimes and who neglect the basic duties of manhood, the responsibilities upon which love is held constant, children are cared for, and societies are built upon.

Not many Christian men will take their love of games to the extent that this man did. However, a story like this should cause men who very much enjoy sports--men like me--to take stock of the extent of their passion for games. It is not wrong to enjoy sports; sports can be a good gift to us if held in proper perspective; but we Christian men, who have families and churches and jobs, should take care that we do not allow sports to dominate our waking hours. We should make sure that our families come way before our pastimes. Most of us should probably turn the television off for a number of hours each week and dig in to the Word, play with our kids, and serve our churches. We cannot allow sports and games and hobbies to devour our lives, our homes, our families, as they do for so many men in America today. We have a family to lead, a wife to love, and a Lord, a Savior who gave His blood for a kingdom cause, to magnify.