Courier Conversations
This Podcast of Courier Conversations will be a conversation of topics with a variety of guests that concern, inspire and inform Christians about current events Worldwide. We hope you'll find our stories informing and encouraging in your daily walk with Christ.
Courier Conversations
Made in His Image: Exploring Biblical Gender
A Supreme Court nominee unable to define "woman" and a President needing to officially declare only two genders exist – how did we arrive at this cultural moment where biological reality became controversial? Jeff Robinson and Travis Kearns tackle the increasingly confused topic of gender through a biblical lens, providing much-needed clarity with theological depth and practical insight.
The conversation begins in Genesis, where God's intentional design of male and female establishes not just biological categories but complementary roles with divine purpose. "God made them male and female, in His image, to multiply and fill the earth," Travis emphasizes, highlighting how modern gender ideology fundamentally contradicts this created order. When examining Romans 1, the hosts make a compelling observation that gender confusion appears as the first-mentioned sin after humans turn from worshiping Creator to creation – a profound insight into why this issue has become so culturally significant.
Drawing from Kevin DeYoung's framework, the discussion outlines five biblical distinctions between men and women: appearance, physical attributes, characteristic strengths, natural demeanors, and complementary roles. While acknowledging cultural variables, they maintain that Scripture provides clear boundaries that celebrate rather than minimize gender differences. Perhaps most intriguing is their examination of whether gender issues might have genetic components influenced by the Fall, while still emphasizing moral responsibility remains unchanged.
This episode offers a thoughtful, Scripture-centered response to one of today's most divisive cultural issues. Whether you're confused by rapidly changing terminology, concerned about cultural trends, or seeking biblical wisdom for conversations with friends and family, this discussion provides solid ground in a shifting landscape. Join us as we examine what it means to embrace God's good design in a world increasingly determined to redefine it.
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Welcome to the latest episode of Career Conversations. My name is Jeff Robinson, I am the president and editor-in-chief at the Baptist Courier, and with me is, as always, is my co-host, travis Kearns and Travis. This afternoon we're going to talk about a topic that it almost feels like I can't believe. I'm talking about it right Yep, in 2025, but I am.
Travis Kearns:It is a very confusing topic, I guess, for some.
Jeff Robinson:Some are confused. We're talking about gender this afternoon, and so, travis, tell us who you are again.
Travis Kearns:Yeah, travis Kearns, I'm the Associational Mission Strategist for the Three Rivers Baptist Association. We cover the northern part of Greenville County, so from the city of Greenville to the state line, the western third or so of Spartanburg County, about 100 churches in the association representing about 40,000 people in those churches. Yep.
Jeff Robinson:And I just happen to be a member of one of those churches.
Travis Kearns:You do yeah.
Jeff Robinson:Abner Creek and Greer.
Travis Kearns:Greer.
Jeff Robinson:Yep, or Duncan is right there. I'm a little confused, I confused. I'm still trying to learn all the lines and the boundaries and all that stuff. So, anyway, it's Greenville, right, spartanburg, whatever. Well, this afternoon we're going to talk about gender, because gender's in the news. Gender's been in the news a lot for the past four, five, six, really the last decade or so. It seems to me that there's a whole lot of confusion about something that seems to most of us, I think, to be a set reality.
Travis Kearns:And really it has come into the news in an astonishing way. When, just a few years ago, a then nominee for the Supreme Court bench was asked if she could define what a woman is, and her response was at that time I'm not a biologist. Well, she's a female. She should be able to define or anybody for that matter should be able to define what a woman is, but especially a nominee for an associate justice role at the United States Supreme Court. But just again, even having to have this conversation is mind-blowing.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and what? President Trump, the president who just took office? What now, six weeks ago? In his inaugural address or his acceptance address? I can't remember. There have been so many. He's in the media so often now. He said here in the United States we will now officially recognize two genders male and female Right, and to me that is just. My dad died in 1991. My dad's a World War II veteran. If he could come back and he heard that, he would say why is he saying that Right? That's very obvious, yep.
Travis Kearns:Yeah, it's been just mind-blowing to see the number of activists. And this isn't necessarily a Republican or Democrat thing, it's a larger cultural issue because even in the Republican Party of log cabin, Republicans who are traditionally a gay affirming side of the Republican Party, who I don't think would ask these questions necessarily, but still deal with these questions because they're asking about issues of homosexuality. So it's still a question on both sides of the political spectrum in the US if you look at both major parties. But yeah, it's just mind-blowing to think that we have to have this conversation, ask these questions and deal with this. But here we are.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and the Bible is way ahead of us on this. And the Bible makes it clear Genesis 1.26,. God made them in his own image, male and female. He made them. And of course, in chapter 2 of Genesis, adam and Eve come into sharp focus. And there you have male and female and God made them able to multiply. So again, this seems so obvious. God made them able to multiply. So again, this seems so obvious. It's one of the things I've kind of wondered aloud and Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, I believe I think it's verse 11, he talks about a strong delusion in the last days. I know we can talk about the last days and debate what that is, and everybody agrees it's the time after Jesus went back to heaven. But what you know, if we're living in the last last days? But that a strong delusion would be sent for those who are doing it. They would do that which is not normal, not natural, and it makes me wonder and I think I've written about this whether that is true, because it is just so obvious.
Jeff Robinson:And again, as you said, it's not a Democrat and Republican thing, although one party has seemed to have taken up the mantle for the fact that there are as we were talking before this show, I'd heard 100 genders.
Travis Kearns:You said 300 genders and I've never heard a description of any of those genders. Right, that's right. What are the deciding attributes of the? We know what they are for male and female. Well, what are they? If it's whatever those words are, yeah, for the others, yeah, you know, it's interesting. In Genesis 1, you mentioned Genesis 1, 26 and 27.
Travis Kearns:Verse 28, I think, is one that we miss, especially in this particular discussion, because not only did he create them, male and female, but he blessed them in verse 28. And God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. So it's fascinating to me that the reason that humans are created male and female is not just being created in God's image, but being created male and female in order to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. It's a pretty simple fact of not just of biology, but of general human makeup, physiology, that a transgender person cannot multiply. If you were to have a quote-unquote transgender female who is actually, or a transgender male who's actually a female, try to marry or have some type of union with an actual biological female, two females cannot, by definition, multiply. They can't do it. So you see this, just not in creating God's image, but also for the sake of multiplication.
Travis Kearns:I also think it's interesting that in Romans 1, when Paul is discussing the natural outworking of sin and how we worship creation rather than creator, that the very first sin that's mentioned in verse 26, after Paul mentions them worshiping creation rather than creator Romans 1 26, for this reason, god gave them over to degrading passions for their women, exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. In the same way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. So the very first sin that's mentioned after Paul talks about worshiping creation rather than creator, is not idolatry. Specifically, it's not murder, it's not lust, it's not envy or anything like that, it's homosexuality. It's the issue of gender, is the very first thing he brings up. So for us to be talking about it shouldn't be surprising, but at the same time it's surprising, it's shocking.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and that text in Romans 1, to me that's a key text in this whole discussion about the rightness and wrongness of even homosexuality because it seems like Paul was arguing there, and I remember after the Obergefell decision I preached over in Georgia at a church that I helped plant and I preached on Romans 1. I was asked to preach on Romans 1, and basically I argued that Paul is there saying that human depravity will stoop so low that they will begin to become lovers of the same gender. So in some sense it's almost like the ultimate sin. I don't mean that in the same sense he speaks of blasphemy yeah, blaspheming the Spirit being the ultimate sin, but I mean in terms of culturally, we will sink to that low depth. So it seems to me so do you think that holds water that I said basically this is the ultimate sin in terms of how low we will sink.
Travis Kearns:Yeah, I think it's interesting that if you look at Romans 1, the context, the first thing he mentions is homosexuality or gender issues. And then, in verse 28, he begins moving to other sins. So, just as they didn't see fit to acknowledge God verse 28, to a depraved mind to do these things which are not proper, so the depraved mind leads to gender confusion. And then, in verse 29, he also starts adding it up, as Paul likes to do and create these sentences that are 45 words long Verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, on and on and on he goes. So I don't know that it necessarily, if I would say it's the ultimate or even the penultimate sin, but it's the first thing we turn to.
Travis Kearns:It's almost like the natural inclination from Genesis 3 is to turn away from what God says in Genesis 1, 26 to 28. You're created, male and female, in my image, in order to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. So the first thing we do when Genesis 3 hits is we pull away from having this order that God created and go the opposite direction. So we go towards women loving women, men loving men, not in a brotherly type of way, but more in an affectionate, physiological, loving sort of way for a romantic type relationship, the Greek word eros for this romantic type of love. It's not a phileo type of love, it's not a storge type, it's not an agape type of love, it's an erotic type of love that is completely flipping the script from Genesis 1, 26 to 28, once you get to Genesis 3.
Jeff Robinson:Well, in that sermon all those years ago I guess it's been a decade now, hard to believe but I did argue that it's an overturning of the created order. That's how low we will sink. We will overturn the created order and even transgenderism. How much more is transgenderism a flouting of the law of God, of seeking to edit God? And I don't think I've said this on the podcast before, but I have a friend I grew up with, played ball with years and years ago who underwent transgender surgery. About 15 years ago began this transition away from being a man. This is a 6'4 left tackle football player who's now a 6'4. He thinks he's a woman and it started. His wife told me I was in his wedding actually it's a dear, close friend of mine in Georgia but he started with pornography but going away from being a man and basically it's insinuating that God made a mistake with him and he had to fix it, and so that's the self-idolatry that I think makes it such a flagrant sin.
Jeff Robinson:One thing the Bible talks about male and female distinguishes us, I think, in a number of ways, and today I'm reading a really fun devotional right now by Kevin DeYoung Daily Doctrine and Kevin's going through the systematic doctrines systematically throughout the year, and today it landed on male and female, and so I just want to share these with the listener and we can walk these one by one. It's a good way to, I think, a good way for us to kind of get at this. Just five ways. The Bible distinguishes between male and female and he uses letters A, b, c, d, e to remember this.
Jeff Robinson:But first is appearance, and it's interesting that this is where this friend of mine, he wants to level the appearances. I mean, he doesn't think there's anything in appearance, because you can look at him and he looks like a man. Even though he's got long hair and he's had the surgery he's had, I think, about $300,000 worth of surgery and he's taken the hormone treatments and all this stuff he still is like a man. And I've actually encountered him at a memorial service last year that I preached in Georgia. He was in attendance. It was really. I've got to tell you it was one of the strangest things, travis, I've ever experienced. I think I'm still trying to get my mind around it because this is an intimate friend and I'm talking to him and his voice sounds the same.
Speaker 3:Right.
Jeff Robinson:Because the change in his voice didn't work, evidently, with him. And yeah, he's talking about the same things playing ball and talking to my son and we're just. I just couldn't get my mind around this individual. And again, that's not the yuck factor. We have to get beyond that, but it's just. It was so strange to me. But the appearance Kevin talks about here in 1 Corinthians 11, 1 to 16, Paul says that nature itself teaches that long hair is a disgrace to men. He's not forbidding all long hair or anything like that, but he says there's just a principle there, a crucial principle of how men and women are to men. He's not forbidding all long hair or anything like that, but he says there's just a principle there, a crucial principle of how men and women are to look In general. Women are to have longer women hair and men are to have shorter male hair. In other words, a man's supposed to look like a man, a woman's supposed to look like a woman, and that is, interestingly, almost countercultural right now, isn't it?
Travis Kearns:Yeah, it is. It's interesting as well that we have to be very cautious. I just had a conversation this morning with one of our church staff members about something like this, about this particular topic. We have to be very cautious with appearance because appearance can be, and is most times, a cultural phenomenon. So, for example, we were talking about particular ways of dressing for Sunday morning when we were living in Salt Lake City during the summer, when it's 110, the overwhelming majority of evangelicals in the Salt Lake Valley would wear shorts and a t-shirt to church.
Travis Kearns:Now, here in the buckle of the Bible belt, I wouldn't be caught dead in shorts and a t-shirt in church because I'd be part of the prayer chain that afternoon as the you know heretical hellion on the block because I didn't dress nicely for God's house or something. And in the same way, you know, you might go to a Pacific Island or Sub-Saharan Africa and see men wearing sarongs, which we would call here skirts, and men here would say, oh, those guys must be homosexuals because of what they're wearing, when men there would look at us and say, why are they wearing pants? That's ridiculous, it's so hot.
Travis Kearns:At the same time, though, there is, at the very least, culturally accepted standards that match biblical definitions, and we don't take them because they're culturally accepted. We take them because they're biblical, but they're biblical standards for what a man is and what a woman is, and it's one of those things. You just know it when you see it.
Jeff Robinson:Right, and that's what I'm driving at, what Kevin's driving at. This next one is the body. Yep, in general, and of course there are exceptions, like you just said, there are things that are culturally constructed, but in general, men look like men, women look like women. You can see a man on an island, the man on the island walking, and you know he's a man. Right, there's the body structure the bone structure Physical aspect, sure, the muscular structure.
Jeff Robinson:I mean there are women who are bodybuilders, I get that. There are men, I guess, who are supposed to be beat up. Men, I don't know about that. But in general the Bible says the man is the stronger, physically stronger being.
Travis Kearns:And so I think that's what he's driving at. But again, that's very countercultural today it is. And what's fascinating is just yesterday I don't watch this show but I saw it as an excerpt on X on social media Just yesterday on the View they had a guest on named Dylan Mulvaney, who's famous for the Bud Light transgender ads, who is very much a male Don't know that I'd call him a man, but very much a male and was on there, obviously in makeup, long hair and a dress and all that kind of stuff. But Whoopi Goldberg on that particular show was talking about transgender athletes and defending having biological men competing against women. And here's what Whoopi's argument was these athletic women are very strong, they're very athletic.
Travis Kearns:Have you ever seen a woman compete? Who's a female athlete in these things? They are strong enough to handle men. And I'm thinking you don't know what you're talking about, because if you watch a biological man boxing with a woman, he's going to beat the tar out of her. We just had examples last week, when the president gave his address to Congress, of a female volleyball player who was playing against a biological male on the other team and he spiked the ball so hard it broke her face. It's not an issue of strength for a female athlete. Women can be incredibly strong, as you mentioned. It's a matter of actual physical genetic attributes that cannot be removed or replaced somehow by surgery or medications.
Jeff Robinson:Well, I'm a baseball fan, as you know, and so there will never be a woman who could hit Nolan Ryan's fastball in his prime, no way. And there'll never be a woman who can throw 100 miles an hour. It's just the way God's made us and that's not a. There's no slight in that. Yeah, it just is what it is. I mean, I just saw I was at my alma mater this weekend and seeing Georgia's baseball team playing, we went by the softball team that was playing. Those girls are, they're fantastic. It's no slight to them. I mean girls against girls. Sure, I love golf and we have ladies and men's tees for a reason.
Travis Kearns:They've always said that's never been disputed or seen as scandalous. No female will ever outdrive John Daly. No, no way, good Clemson alum.
Speaker 3:That's right, you had to get that in.
Travis Kearns:No female will ever outdrive him, ever. No female will ever outplay Tiger Woods. No, just not going to happen.
Jeff Robinson:No female could have beaten Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. God has made us this way, but it's a beautiful thing, it's worth celebrating. I mean we don't have to. I don't think we ever, ever, ever need to apologize for this, ever, because this is part of God's good creation. I mean, praise the Lord, my wife isn't like me. Praise God, she doesn't look like me. I mean, really, she's superior in many ways, in so many things. I mean, but the word we love to use, and I think this is a beautiful word. It'll sound like our president write a beautiful word, but it is a beautiful word. It's complimentary complementarianism. God made us to complement each other and that's part of God's glorious design.
Jeff Robinson:And overturning that you get into trouble. So Kevin goes on. The C is a crowning characteristic. So the Bible often associates the pursuit of beauty with womanhood, pursuit of strength with manhood, and those are kind of our crowning characteristics and I think that's right. My son lifts weights. He's 17. Like day and night, it seems like he's eating me out of house and home too. And my daughters? They don't and they don't want to, right, and that's part of God's good design, you know, and my daughters.
Travis Kearns:They don't and they don't want to. Right, and that's part of God's good design. Yeah, they don't want to be the big beefy weightlifters. No, overall majority of females in the world would say that Right Now. Are there exceptions? Sure, there are always exceptions to every rule, but just because there's an exception doesn't mean that it's right. That's right Now. I think it's interesting. Dr Moeller, who was our boss for a number of years, a few years ago came out and said that he thought gender issues were inherently genetic and he took all sorts of heat over that. And not to say they're genetic and then thereby you release responsibility for them being genetic, responsibility for them being genetic, but they're genetic in the idea that the fall is so deep into the human self that it even impacts our genetic structure.
Travis Kearns:We are genetically different after the fall than we are before. That's right, we're not ideal.
Travis Kearns:Right, but it doesn't release responsibility. We've seen studies that alcoholism is genetic, but we don't release somebody who gets drunk and then kills somebody when they're driving. There are a number of studies that show that people who are maniacal mass murderers that that is even genetic, but we don't release people from committing murder. In the same way, homosexuality may very well be genetic because our structure is so altered by the fall, but that does not release responsibility, because the Bible is very plain we hold people responsible for committing murder, for committing theft, for lying and for homosexuality. A sin is a sin is a sin.
Jeff Robinson:That's right, and I mean so. The debate over whether or not it's genetic really doesn't matter, because, like you said, there are those who have proclivity for alcoholism. But you don't say run out and embrace your alcoholism, just go to the ABC store and drink up.
Speaker 3:No, one says that Right.
Jeff Robinson:And yet with this one sin it's almost like a special category of sin and of course we're not surprised because of the fall and because of the sexual revolution and all that. But just the last couple things here the demeanor Kevin talks about mothering in Scripture implies gentleness and affection and sacrifice.
Jeff Robinson:Fathering implies exhortation and encouragement and spiritual charge, leadership, and in general, that's true. And the last thing, the eager posture. He calls it, according to God's design, in the garden, the woman's posture is to be the helper and the man's posture is to lead, and God's glory is seen in that. And so when we dare not give that away in the church although many churches have, and we'll talk about women's and men's roles in ministry here very soon on this podcast and we've got a couple of guests to come in.
Jeff Robinson:Hopefully our old boss will make an appearance here with us.
Jeff Robinson:We're excited about that possibility, but, yeah, we've not said everything that needs to be said here, because there's so much to be said, surprisingly, and I think this is going to continue to be one of the front sort of boilerplate issues in culturally moving forward Right, well, that's all the time we got now. It seems like we've only been talking for a couple of minutes because this is such a deep issue. But we appreciate you listening to us. Be sure and follow us on all the social platforms. Like us, give us a five-star review and don't miss our other websites our career publishing, careerpublishingcom. Baptistcareercom, our website that's updated with news and features every single day, five days a week and sometimes even on weekends. We have sports on there that my son is writing, so don't miss all that. And so we'll look forward to taking up the conversation next time here in a couple weeks, later this month in Courier Conversations. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3:We're glad you joined us for Courier Conversations, where we are informing and inspiring South Carolina Baptists and beyond Conversations, where we are informing and inspiring South Carolina Baptists and beyond. For more information about these topics and more, subscribe to our e-edition or go to our website at baptistcouriercom. The Courier is located in Greenville, South Carolina, as a multimedia ministry partner of the South Carolina Baptist Convention To comment about today's podcast email us at conversations at baptistcouriercom. This podcast, produced by Bob Slone Audio Productions,
