(upbeat music) - A very common question we receive is reflected in a question from a podcast listener named Ruth, who asked this, "Pastor John, how should we respond "when LGBT friends want us to refer to them "by a different opposite gender name, "like when a female asks everyone "to now call her by a male name?

"Should we call them by that male name?" Samantha likewise asks this, "In light of the Bruce Jenner interview "and other celebrities pushing the LGBT agenda, "how should a Christian treat a person "who identifies under one of these labels? "Should I treat a transgender person "as the gender they choose "or the one they were born with?

"Pastor John, help us with these questions." - Before I give three guidelines that I thought of that would guide behavior in specific response to those questions, I really do need to lay the foundations here because we're assuming some things that would not be assumed by a lot of people and we need to give an account for why we assume them.

I'm going to assume, I'm gonna try to argue for now, biblically, that gender, even though the world considers it distinct from sex, for the Christian, should be in sync with the biological genetic sex and there are biblical reasons for that. Manhood and womanhood are understood and intended, in the Bible that is, intended by God, our creator, as biologically or genetically, of course the biblical authors didn't know anything about genetics, but I'm throwing it in because we do and it's in sync with biology, which they did know.

They're assuming, the biblical writers are intending and assuming that our sex is biologically or genetically identified. There is vastly more to the meaning of manhood and womanhood than biology and genetics in the way we relate to each other, but not less. In other words, manhood and womanhood are glorious, personal realities that transcend genetics and biology, but are never intended to be severed from biology and one of the clearest ways to see this in the Bible is that there are so many references to male child or female child.

I did this, I looked 'em up just to make sure. This is so obvious that people wonder, why are you even arguing, but we need to. In other words, before children were old enough to express any gender-specific behaviors or desires or preferences, they were identified as male and female and this identity defined their lives.

For example, sometimes in matters of inheritance and others, other ways. There is no thought in the Bible of the possibility that the sex biologically identified could change because of its rooting in biology. And when Genesis 1:27, therefore, says, "God created us male and female," there is every reason to think that this included our biological genetic nature at the root of all the other transcendent aspects of male and female personhood.

So we have a pervasive biblical warrant to say that God wills for our sexual identity to be one, to be of one piece with our biological genetic identity. Now that's my biblical premise. And let me just mention an exception. We all know that there are very, very rare situations of heartbreaking biological anomalies where the anatomical sexual organs are ambiguous or compromised.

In those cases, we face very unusual challenges. And if I were a parent and a child was born in that situation, I think I would ask for, which you couldn't do generations ago, genetic testing and opt for surgery that suits the child best for what his genetics say he or she is, and then raise him or her with that expectation.

But that is very, very rare. And we are talking mainly here about clearly identifiable sexual organs at birth and through life that should define the trajectory of the sexual and gender life and understanding. Now, how does all that play out in culture where there is an increasingly aggressive effort to force all of us to treat so-called same sex, I mean, so-called sex change surgeries as really changing the sex of a person?

Or even short of surgery, we're being asked in Minnesota to treat boys as girls who want to be treated as girls and vice versa so that it determines what team they play on in high school, the girls team or the boy team, and what locker room they use, what restrooms they use.

And as Ruth said, who asked this question, we're being asked to call Bob, Mary, and Sally, Jim. And this will make obedience to Jesus in the coming days increasingly costly for us. So now finally, here are my three guidelines. Number one, in one sense, the names Sally or Jim are culturally arbitrary.

And we can name our kids whatever we want. We can name them after cars, planets, or Greek virtues, or grandma. And calling someone by that arbitrary name that their parents may have chosen or they may choose halfway through life may not imply agreement with all that that name was created to signify by the person.

So if I had a neighbor next door to me, which is very feasible, who was biologically male and everybody knew it, and he introduced himself to me as Sally, I met him for the first time, and I saw him the next day, I might avoid calling him anything, but I would probably default to Sally.

I probably would until there was a relationship that would go deeper to see whether I could be of any help. So that's one concession I'm gonna make because of the arbitrary nature of names. And then it's gonna get a little more dicey and divisive. Number two, however, if in the office where we worked, I was compelled to identify every so-called transgendered person by the pronoun they preferred in all of my emails or conversations, suppose in emails and conversations, I had to use she for a he or he for a she, or I'd get disciplined in the office, at that point, I would say to my superiors, I cannot treat he's as she's and she's as he's.

I cannot buy the whole package. I would be lying. I would be lying to call a he a she. I'm not lying to call a male Sally. That's a culturally arbitrary, weird fluke. But I'm lying if I say about a true Jim who wants to be called Sally, she.

And it would be contrary to my understanding of sexuality, and I would start looking for another job. Third, same thing with regard to bathrooms, locker rooms, hotel rooms, with women who identify as men or vice versa. I would refuse to have a roommate, have a hotel roommate who said she was a man.

Even though I share a room, I travels with my assistant all the time, he's a man and I know he's a man, and that's a perfectly normal thing to do. But if they insisted that I share the same bathroom, share the same locker room, share the same hotel room, I'm looking for another job.

So in summary then, the question is, are we forced to call them a name that they prefer, which I'm going to go ahead and probably in the short run, at least submit to, or are we forced to identify them as a different sex than they really are? Naming may have a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness to it, but the language of he and she and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not.

And I will anyway, draw a line and say, I will not call he, she, I will not call she, he, and I will not intrude on the sexual privacy of a person of the opposite sex or walk into a situation where they would intrude upon mine. - That is wise.

Thank you, Pastor John. We live in an age where these questions are going to keep coming at us and then they'll need a thorough biblical response. Questions like whether or not we should attend a gay marriage ceremony. That was a question we addressed in episode 191 and you can find it in the archive.

Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)