Hopefully you plan to attend the Family Meeting Sunday night at 5:00pm. Here’s something to read ahead of time that will help provide fuller insight. Some really good questions have been sent in for the Q&A with the pastors. The reason we are doing a Q&A is because there are weighty matters in our society that are on everyone’s mind. Our pastors want to help point the way through these things by firmly holding to God’s word alone as our guide.
One of the questions that was asked is about the use of transgender pronouns. Should Christians just try to be polite and use whatever pronouns a person says they prefer or should we only say things that are true and honoring to God?
To answer this question we want to point everyone to The Nashville Statement for guidance. What is this statement? Go read the statement here. Go read more about it here.
On August 25, 2017 the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood hosted numerous Christian leaders at a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. The meeting was designed to give a voice of unity for Christians stating what the historic teaching of the church as been concerning sexuality and transgenderism. The result of the meeting was this statement. It was originally signed by 150 evangelical leaders such as Wayne Grudem, James Dobson, D.A. Carson, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Rosaria Butterfield, and all six presidents of the six Southern Baptist seminaries. See the original signatories here. It was later signed by more than 24,000. See all 24,000+ signatories here.
The pastors of Koinos have adopted this statement as part of the confessional affirmation of our church. This statement affirms our own position on what the Bible says on the matter. We did this in order to be able to give a clear response to our church and community when questions on this issue arise. We will answer the question on transgender pronouns at the Q&A Sunday night. But we thought it would be helpful for you to have time to look into this more fully ahead of time. We hope this will provide a more complete understanding of our view as shaped by Scripture.
Here are some highlights from the Nashville Statement:
- The gospel is for all sinners including homosexuals and transgender persons.
- There is only male and female as created by God. It is foolish to try to make ourselves what God did not create us to be.
- Male and female are identified by the reproductive structures created by God.
- Male and female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in Scripture alone.
- It is sinful to approve of homosexuality or transgenderism. Doing so is an essential departure from Christianity.
- We have no obligation to speak in any way that dishonors God in His design of people as male and female.
This is a difficult matter to navigate in a number of ways. But no matter how hard it may be we must strive to honor God above all. And we must remember that it is honoring to Him for us to strive to be courteous to all people (Titus 3:1-4), speak evil of no one, be gentle with everyone, and be ready to do the good work of helping all people find lasting joy in Jesus.
We must also realize that Christians are going to make mistakes in these things even when they try hard not to. So if you hear a brother or sister say something that does not sound right to you, please do not leap to any conclusions or make any judgments about them. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19). Remember that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). Don’t dismiss your brother or sister. Don’t forsake unity with them. Rather remember that we are all called to honor Jesus and help one another grow to become more like Him even as we work together to help lost people around us come to saving faith in Jesus.
