Happy Friday everyone. We close out the week with a question from our email inbox. "Pastor John, I'm a mother of three sweet girls and my husband and I love them dearly. We are expecting our fourth child. We live in India where a boy is preferred over a girl. Many Christians around us tell us they are praying for us to have a boy now.

One pastor whom we know tells us the story that he once went up for a whole night on a mountain to pray for a son and he later received a son. We do value a girl the same as a boy. My husband feels that it is special to have a boy also, someone who carries on our family line.

And in the Bible, a male was prayed for and given, like Samuel. But is it right to prefer and ask God for a specific gender or should we simply trust in God's sovereignty and goodness to give us what he thinks is right for us? Or should we be persistent in our prayers for a boy?

And finally, in the Bible, is there a special blessing or inheritance for a boy which a girl cannot have?" Well, I hear two distinct and really good questions. Number one, is there a biblical basis for some kind of special blessing or inheritance for a boy that a girl can't have?

That's number one. Number two, is it right to prefer or to ask God for a boy or a girl at any given time? So let me take the first one first because I think it's by far the most foundationally important. And that's what I want to do is lay some foundations because, of course, there's just huge murderous effects of preferring boys over girls around the world because of the way abortion is used to get rid of girls and so on.

So we as Christians need to deeply, profoundly, biblically establish the destiny and the origin and the worth of womanhood. Okay, so I'm going to go there, even though it may be a little deeper than this question was asking. Let me start with Genesis where everybody would expect me to start.

"God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them." So there was an original harmony as both man and woman enjoyed God's favor and the extraordinary privilege of being in the very image of our Creator. And in that peaceful pre-fall condition, there was a harmony of complementary roles, which then in the fall was ruined.

The image was not destroyed, but it was damaged. And part of the damage of that image is how our roles with one another are so conflicted today that it's very hard to find our bearings in relation to one another now that sin has entered into the heart of every woman and every man.

Here comes a second crucial text about the place and the destiny and the dignity of woman. This is from 1 Peter 3.7. "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel." That's not a value judgment there. That's just a statement of fact.

Physically weaker. "Since you are fellow heirs of the grace of life." That's astonishing. And in 1 Peter, the term "grace" is clear what that means, and "life" is eternal. This is the grace of inheriting eternal life, and the stress in that culture, which is probably more shocking than ours, is that you live, man, Mr.

Husband, you live with a woman who's destined to inherit the world, because that's what you're promised in Christ. She will be a queen of the universe, and you sleep in the same bed with this stunning being. So wake up to the reality of what you're dealing with here. That's why he says it that way, I think.

And then there's one more, and this one's really surprising to people, the way Paul underlines the equal inheritance of woman and man, because it's right in a place where they think he's doing the opposite. So this is Galatians 3, and he says, "In Christ," I think this is verse 26, following, "In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith." Now a lot of people, a lot of women get their back up here.

Like, "Whoa, hey, you're leaving me out, because you're saying 'sons' instead of 'sons and daughters.'" Get this, when Paul says to the women in Galatia, "You are all sons of God," what he's saying is, "Sons in that culture, in many places today, had the right of primogeniture or the privilege of inheriting, and the daughters didn't.

I'm telling you, you are sons." Get this, women? I'm telling you, you are sons of God. You will inherit the way a son inherits from a father. If we cave on this translation issue here and translate that "sons and daughters," it loses its very power to say to the women, "You are equal to a son.

When I call you a son, I'm saying that you will inherit." And so he goes on like this, "For as many of you," men and women, "are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you're all one in Christ.

And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring and heirs, because you're all sons according to the promise." So women inherit the promises of Abraham as sons as much as men do as sons. That's the biblical starting point. There are differences, of course, in what daughters and sons will do in life.

She will be able to bear children. The son won't be able to bear children, so that's a blessing that she has that he won't have. He will be able to father children and lead a wife and family that she won't be able to do as a woman. There are differences in what you can be and do because of sexuality, but the massive important issue is that men and women have a common heritage in the image of God and in worth before God and in the destiny of inheritance from God.

Now the question is, can you pray for the one or the other? Should you even prefer one or the other? And I very much appreciate the question because I think everybody who has children has to ask this. And they do ask it, whether they even say it out loud or not, because you're wondering, "What are we going to have and what would you like to have?

And should I ask God to influence that process?" And when you get two girls, should you ask for a boy? And we had four boys, should we ask for a girl? Or we had a boy, should we ask for a girl and then another asked for a girl and then another asked for a girl and another, or should we not?

So here's my answer. There are dangers and there are warrants for praying this way. The dangers are, just to mention a couple, you might pray for a son or a daughter for wrong reasons. It would be wrong to pray for one sex because you failed to value the other one in a biblical way.

That would be wrong, and that's true around the world for a lot of people. It would be wrong to pray for one or the other for merely earthly or selfish reasons, like, "I need more help in the kitchen, for goodness sakes," or, "We need more help on the farm," or I just think those kinds of merely—and the word there is "merely" is important— merely selfish, earthly reasons would be wrong.

And so we have to guard. If we're going to pray, better pray really carefully. And a second danger is the wounds that could come to a child if the child felt, "I wasn't wanted. They wanted a girl and I'm a boy," or, "They wanted a boy and I'm a girl." That's a danger that every parent needs to be very, very alerted to.

But there are not only dangers, there are warrants. I think it is a God-given good desire for a mother to have a unique kind of desire for a daughter and a father to have a unique kind of desire for a son. And part of that is they both want, and rightly want, to build into this child something of what God has made them to be as they've learned how to be a woman or a man.

A woman has spent her whole life learning what it means to be a godly woman. She would love, she would love to build that into a little girl who grows up to be a godly woman. And a man has spent his whole life trying to figure out what it means to be a man for God.

And he'd love to build that into a son. Those are good desires, and to want the one or both is not wrong. A second warrant would be there may be some settings in life, in missions or in unique hardship, of a genetic danger. Say if you knew a girl had a unique genetic proclivity that the boy wouldn't have or something along those lines that you might say to God, "I would ask that you'd give me a son or a daughter." So my conclusion is test your motives by the scriptures and ask God according to your heart's desire and make clear to God, to your spouse, and to all the children, we will love God's gift to us.

Disabled or abled, male or female, living long or living short, we will love God's gift to us with all our heart, and we will believe that God knows best. Beautifully said, Pastor John. Thank you. We're starting to get a lot of questions from our global audience in Europe, India, Australia, and Japan, which is wonderful.

In fact, we have an email question on Monday from a listener named Pradeep in India. So please keep those emails coming to us. Sadly, due to the volume of emails that we now receive, we cannot respond back, but we do love to hear what's on your mind and in the form of a sharp and concise question.

And no matter how good or bad your English is, please send us your questions via email to askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Well, the weekend is upon us here in the States. Be sure to check out the Ask Pastor John apps for Apple and Android devices for our recent episodes that you may have missed, and you can also go to our landing page to get caught up.

Go to desiringgod.org, click on "More," and click on "Ask Pastor John." I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend. . .