It almost seems like it would be easier to defend a cottage against angry villagers armed with torches and pitchforks than to speak a word today in defense of the traditional covenant of marriage.  Some object to the "until death do we part" duration of marriage and instead treat the institution as sequential contracts through life with different partners.  Others seek to redefine marriage as the holy union of two men, two women, a human and a robot, or one presumes eventually some combination of people, higher primates, or other creatures. Many others now consider marriage to be irrelevant, simply one option that some prefer for living together or parenting children.  Nevertheless, marriage as instituted by God will endure.

The divine origins of the institution of marriage are evident in its resiliency in the face of these assaults from many fronts.  Any man-made institution would have crumbled to dust long ago.  Rather, the Bible is clear about how we should view marriage, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous" (Hebrews 13:4).  Churches that teach this truth and help believers live it out in vibrant, healthy marriages will stand out more and more in a culture where the prevailing view of marriage is increasingly dishonored.  Two recent television ads illustrate this erosion:

In a recent PETA commercial airing in ten states, a mother and father sit down in their daughter's bedroom for an important talk about sexuality. However, in crass terms the parents encourage their daughter to pursue premarital sex, and "a lot of it."  Shrugging off his daughter's concerns about becoming pregnant, the father exclaims, "So what? You should pop out all the kids you want.  We will just leave them in the shelter; dump them in the street."

In explaining the ad, Melissa Karpel, spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, explained, "This is a way to get the message into the mainstream. It is irresponsible to let your children have unprotected sex and it's irresponsible not to spay and neuter your animals."  I agree that animals are an important part of God's creation, but it requires an extremely low view of marriage to link the one-flesh union to concerns about the overpopulation of cats and dogs.

Another commercial for Heinz mayonnaise in Britain was intended to convey that the product "Tastes as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen."   To this end, the spot features a brawny short-order chef with a Brooklyn accent making sandwiches in a home kitchen.   A young boy and girl refer to him as "Mum."  Before the father figure leaves for work, he plants a kiss on the lips of the deli man.  Lest the viewer miss the point, the chef calls after the father, "Love ya! Straight home from work, sweet cheeks."

Both ads are intentionally shocking, using premarital and homosexual sex to communicate an advertising message in a memorable way.  But the marketers know better than to use an electric chair or a reference to the Holocaust to sell condiments, because by today's standards that would be unacceptably shocking.  The ads clearly use carefully-chosen acceptable shocking situations in a way that essentially winks and gives approval to the underlying behavior.  Imagine the outcry if a baby duck were injured to "shockingly" convey the same message!

In God's providence, there are three reasons for believers to find encouragement in these dismal commercials.  First, the fact that people still find them offensive shows an deep, if unstated, respect for God's gift of marriage.  Because marriage is still held in some regard, the ads evoke offense rather than indifference.  Second, the second commercial was pulled from the air after concerned citizens took the time to register formal complaints.  We can be grateful to God that the respectful voices of many people calling for decency still carry weight in this world.

Third, it is likely that few youngsters saw the Heinz commercial because the British government has child-protection rules which limit the broadcast hours for commercials advertising unhealthy products like mayonnaise which are high in fat, salt and sugar....

Recently, Randy Stinson addressed the problem of self-preoccupation among modern men, but, the principles he set forth apply to women as well. He explained that biblical manhood should not be characterized by an excessive delight in self-pampering, but rather a Christ-like, self-sacrifice that places others wants and needs before our own—all so others might see Christ. In the same vein, Christian womanhood should include more self-sacrifice than self-preoccupation. This is not to say that women should give up on proper hygiene, shopping, or even getting their nails done. The Bible only says that women should not be hoping in those things for their value and worth—rather they should be hoping in God (1 Peter 3:3-5). It is important to note that the Bible is not silent about beauty. God has much to say about such things.

Mrs. Mary Mohler, wife of seminary President and Council Member, R. Albert Mohler Jr., addresses beauty at the Capitol Hill Baptist Church women's retreat. Mrs. Mohler's teaching and humble spirit is a tremendous gift to all in the church, especially women. She encourages us to see that beauty is important to God. While dispelling the notion that femininity equals frumpiness, she also dispels the idea that femininity equals "dressing to the nines" all of the time. God, being the Creator of the Universe, has created beauty and the beauty that displays his creation is what we should pursue.  But, beauty is not simply defined by external appearance. There are examples of biblical characters, like Absalom, who destroyed themselves, and others, because they did not give praise to God for their beauty—their beauty was merely external. Beauty is both an internal and external desire in the life of the believing woman.

But we must separate biblically defined beauty from worldly beauty. Worldly beauty is empty. After giving us a framework for seeing beauty, Mrs. Mohler exhorts us to see that the world's understanding of beauty is empty. She discusses the danger of vanity and cautions us to not make an idol out of worldly beauty because it will eventually fade. What doesn't fade is the beauty of a woman who has spent her life in front of the mirror of God's Word, rather than the mirror in her bathroom.

God cares about beauty. But the point of beauty is not our own glorification. God designed beauty for our enjoyment and for his glory—so we should take an interest in how we look, but not for man's empty praise. We should care about how we look because we want the Creator of our features to be praised for his handiwork. If we spend our time adorning ourselves only, we will miss the point. We cannot hope in the empty promises of a $90 straightener and Great Lash mascara. Rather we should be adorned by the Word of God. This looks differently in other women, but the goal of our femininity is so people will see Christ in greater measure, not our fancy clothes and manicured nails. So let us not be ashamed to recognize true beauty as we see it, but let us also put our hope in Jesus blood and righteousness, lest we think on that final day that it's our trendy outfit and size-2-body that will save us.

Mrs. Mohler's messages are excellent, and I would highly encourage you to follow the links to listen to them. May God bless you greatly as you listen. You can access her talks here and here

How will you respond when your local church is asked to perform a wedding ceremony for two women, or two men? We do well to have a gentle, but firm, answer ready for just such an occasion. There are specific groups who are advancing the homosexual agenda aiming to legalize same-sex relations, and the naïve cultural acceptance of immorality as legitimate behavior.  The biblical view of marriage is under assault—and nowhere pricklier than in the local church.

Recently a wedding photographer was fined $6000 for refusing to photograph a same-sex ceremony. In an article for the Christian Science Monitor staff writer Ben Arnold draws our attention to the fact that many churches find themselves in the role of ‘conscientious objector' when it comes to same-sex ‘wedding' ceremonies.  There is legal footing in some states for contra-natura unions. At the same time, other states have pledged to recognize, if not create, such alliances.

This trend should come as no surprise since the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 described what John Piper calls, the dark exchange.  "...Women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,..." (Romans 1:26-27).  When this exchange knocks on a pastor's office door seeking a blessing on its existence, how will we respond?

A good start includes an in-house policy explaining how Christian marriage can only mean the joining of two dissimilar human sexes, who are saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and are willing to undergo some regimen of pre-marital mentoring.

Yet there's more. Make much of godly marriage and godly singleness among the young people of your church. Surely, we must shore up the marriages of our churches with retreats, curriculum, sermons, couple-to-couple mentoring, conferences and a library of great resources. This will help to spiritually inoculate them against unholy particles floating in the cultural air.

Pray often and deeply for your pastor and church leaders.  And speaking of church leadership, it might be wise to identify a godly, trusted attorney in your church or community that you or your leaders can turn to in times of legal uncertainty.

Most important of all: make much of God in the local church. He created marriage for his own glory. He alone has the right to determine how it is carried out. His plentiful resources enrich those who stand against assaults upon his Son and his Bride.

Marriage must not be surrendered. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Marc Handley Andrus suggests that the church give up its claim on marriage and leave it completely to the civil magistrates to conduct. I cringe. Courage, not collapse!

Legislative exemptions from immoral laws currently exist, but only God knows for how long. He also knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and is surprised by nothing.  And his promise to his people is that he will keep us blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My son performed the run-down between third base and home plate precisely as he had been taught: run toward the trapped base runner and make only one throw or outrace the base runner and tag him yourself. He took the latter option, catching the opposing player and slapping a firm tag on his shoulder. The runner, off-balance from trying to escape the "hot box," fell uninjured to the ground.

What happened next might fall under the category of "Christianity tested:" the base runner, angered by being tagged out, began to upbraid my son and strutted toward him, his chest puffed out, teeth fully gritted. For the first time, all the biblical lessons we have sought to teach our son during family worship and catechism time were being tried in a very public Romans 12 sort of way. How would he react?

Without a word, my son (to his father's absolute delight!) simply turned and walked back to his position. The other child continued to yammer words at my son, but my son, as he had been taught ("Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all...Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God." Rom 12:17, 19) waited—unprompted by me, his coach—at his position until the opposing coach removed his disobedient young charge.

After the game, we discussed the incident and sought to apply the "Gospel value" of it in terms of Rom 12. All told, in his first season of baseball in which he is not hitting off a tee, my son has caught several subtle glimpses of the Gospel, learning that:

• "Give" and not "receive" is central to genuine Christianity. This season our players learned how to bunt. My son quickly questioned the rationale of this strategy because in executing it, a player intentionally makes an out, sacrificing himself to help his team by moving a runner into scoring position or bringing a runner home from third base. I once saw a baseball-themed Christian T-shirt emblazoned with the words: "Christ: His sacrifice for our errors." I'm not big on evangelical novelties, but that slogan worked: bunting reminds us, in a small way, of that far more supreme sacrifice.

• The body of Christ is made up of many members who possess diverse and complementary gifts (1 Cor 12:14,20: "For the body does not consist of one member, but of many...As it is, there are man parts, yet one body." In baseball, a shortstop cannot throw out a runner at first base without a first baseman; a runner cannot get home from third base without a teammate driving him home; a pitcher cannot win a game without his teammates scoring runs. Baseball, as with other team sports, teaches us something of the value of each member of the church along with invaluable nature of the different yet complementary roles He has created men and women to play.

• The Christian life is more like baseball than a 50-yard sprint. There is no clock in baseball; the game unfolds slowly, methodically—sometimes dramatically—over several innings and, at the big league level, teams must survive a grueling schedule that encompasses 162 games over six months time. It requires perseverance, patience and discipline; it is fraught with temporary failures (hall-of-fame hitters fail seven times in 10). Bunyan was spot-on with Pilgrim's Progress and baseball, by its very nature, illustrates this truth well.

There certainly are additional "Gospel lessons" and principles for biblical manhood for my sons (assuming my six-month-old catches baseball fever from his dad and older brother) to glean from baseball. Perhaps more than anything, we our learning together that our sovereign Lord wastes nothing in growing and encouraging His people—not even baseball.

As the pageantry and athletic drama of the Olympics unfold with billions of people watching around the world, a laboratory is quietly working in the background to ensure the integrity of the games.  Officials have set up a "gender determination lab" to distinguish between male and female athletes and to ensure that disguised men do not unfairly win medals in women's events.

Unfortunately, this concern is not unfounded: in the 1936 Olympics, the Nazis secretly forced a man to compete as a woman in the high jump event (he finished fourth).  Also, in the 1968 Olympics certain Eastern European athletes competed in women's events with such masculine physiques and performances that their true gender was not immediately obvious. Despite the flattening effects of feminism in the culture, it is still generally agreed that women should compete only against women and not men, and vice-versa. 

Amazingly, there is radical disagreement over a methodology for distinguishing a woman from man, and whether or not such differentiation is even possible.  Jennifer Finney Boylan believes the labs are a mistake, and that "the Olympic hosts seem to want to impose a binary order upon the messy continuum of gender.  They are searching for concreteness and certainty in a world that contains neither."

While the labs objectively evaluate athletes based on chromosomes, hormones and physical appearance, Boylan contends that the lab tests "are likely to produce the wrong answers, because they measure maleness and femaleness by the wrong yardsticks."  She cites a statistic that one in 20,000 women carries a Y chromosome, which is supposed to be the immoveable marker of manhood.  Eight female athletes at the Atlanta Olympic games in 1996 tested "positive" for maleness because of this condition.  Such women are "androgen insensitive" and their bodies do not respond to the information coded on the male Y chromosome.  In light of  this evidence, Boylan observes:

It would be nice to live in a world in which maleness and femaleness were firm and unwavering poles.  People can be forgiven for wanting to live in a world as simple as this, a place in which something as basic as gender didn't shift unsettlingly beneath our feet.

She concludes that "gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than be afraid of it."  She understands that gender can only be determined by the heart of the individual and how that individual lives in daily life.

Unfortunately, the Bible does not consider a sin-tainted heart to be a reliable guide; rather "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9).  A male athlete who feels in his heart that he is a woman should not trust his heart.  Instead, he should rely on the Word of God and find some male opponents. 

Scripture presents gender as a binary condition, not a shifting continuum from male to female.  When God created man in his image, the Bible says, "male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27).  The Bible does not provide an explicit list of characteristics to distinguish a woman from a man, because it was understood to be self-evident (c.f. the reaction of Adam in Genesis 2:23).

Boylan's statistic is consistent with this divine truth and actually argues against her position:  if 1 in 20,000 women carry a Y chromosome, then 19.999 in 20,000 do not.  Any lab test that can objectively identify a female 99.995% of the time would be considered an extremely reliable guide to a binary understanding of gender.  Even among the exceptional .005% of women who carry a Y chromosome, most are feminine in appearance and are able to bear children.  Because this is a fallen world, there are birth defects that affect all parts of the human anatomy, but these extremely rare defects do not invalidate the binary nature of God's good design of manhood and womanhood.

(In any case, what in the world would a guy do with a gold medal won in a woman's event?  It's not the kind of thing to display on the mantle for all of your buddies to admire...)