The Holy Sexuality Project - Christopher Yuan

Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Well, how do you effectively teach teenagers about biblical sexuality? Parents and grandparents will want to hear more about the Holy Sexuality Project on today's program. I think this is going to be one of those resources that will help a mom and dad, grandma, grandpa who are facing all of the changes in the culture about sexuality and identity and really give solid biblical direction.

So excited we have Dr. Christopher Ewan with us today. Gary, this is a huge issue in the church and in the culture, isn't it? No question about it, Chris. Just recently in our own church here, our pastor, or I should say our pastors got together and said, you know, we've got to address some of these issues.

So they just kind of taught us six weeks, you know, course dealing, just dealing with some of these things. So yeah, this is very important in our culture. And I'm grateful that we have Christopher with us today to discuss this. I hope our listeners will stay tuned because this is going to be extremely helpful. Well, let me introduce him. Dr. Christopher Ewan is a 2005 graduate of Moody Bible Institute. He received a master's in biblical exegesis in 2007, a doctorate in ministry in 2014. His speaking ministry on faith and sexuality has reached five continents. He and his mother, Angela, co-wrote the memoir Out of a Far Country, A Gay Son's Journey to God, A Broken Mother's Search for Hope.

It sold more than 130,000 copies in eight languages. We've talked about his book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel here on the program, which was named the 2020 Book of the Year for social issues by Outreach magazine. Now that book has been adapted as a video series. It's called The Holy Sexuality Project. It released in June of 2023, and it's a 12-lesson, 36-video series on biblical sexuality, specifically for parents and grandparents and their teens or preteens.

That's what we're going to talk about today. You can go to holysexuality.com to find out more, or you can find the link at our website, buildingrelationships.us. Well, Dr. Ewan, welcome back to Building Relationships.

Oh, thanks so much for having me back, Dr. Chapman. Now, you were with us four years ago talking about the book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. Tell us about this new video series and what's the purpose behind this new effort? Well, you know, very much like the book, I wanted to help Christians to have a really solid biblical theological foundation. Oftentimes, we want to kind of jump into doing right, but we need to think right before doing right. And I think once we have that foundation, there's going to be so many different things. I mean, we're seeing all this kind of surprise as we see as we're dealing with sexuality and gender, but new things are going to come in five or 10 years.

And when we have a solid foundation, we're going to be able to kind of build on that. So really, the purpose behind this video series is to empower parents and their teens and preteens to understand, embrace and celebrate biblical sexuality. We don't want just people to understand because that's just head knowledge, but we want them to embrace it for themselves.

This is so good that I'm going to live it out for myself. But, you know, it's not just so good for myself. We want them to celebrate. And that means we're going to tell others about how good is God's truth when it comes to sexuality relationships. Well, certainly a needed area in our culture today, for sure. For those who don't know your story, can you give a brief overview of how you became a Christian and your own background?

Sure. I wasn't raised in a Christian home and I wrestled with my sexuality from a young age. I came out of the closet, as I would have said it back then. I told my parents, I broke the news that I was gay, devastated my mom and dad. But through that crisis, this is what's so cool, Dr. Chapman, my mother came to faith. And then my father did as well. And after, you know, I saw the change in them, but I thought, good for you, not for me. I went the total opposite direction.

I'm originally from Chicago. I was in Louisville, Kentucky at that time, pursuing my doctorate in dentistry. And I just went, did what all my friends were doing at that time, which was have fun, party. I was spending a lot of time in the bars and the gay clubs. And this whole time, my parents had no idea. I was not only, you know, spending time in the clubs, I started experimenting with drugs and this whole time while I was a graduate student. I was eventually, unfortunately expelled from dental school. I was not only doing drugs, but selling drugs.

I moved from Louisville, Kentucky to Atlanta. And there I kept doing what I knew how to do best, which was live in the world and have fun, quote unquote fun. And I was not only doing drugs, selling drugs, but also supplying drugs. Like I said, my parents didn't know all the depths of just rejection of God and his ways, but they knew that I needed to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. So they tried to reach out to the love of Christ.

I wanted nothing to do with it. They came to visit me one time in Atlanta. I kicked them out. And, you know, here's the funny thing, Dr. Japman, that we hear that the narrative is Christian parents cannot love their gay children. They have to actually throw the Bible away. They have to become a so-called progressive Christian to love their gay child.

I had the exact opposite experience. My parents were not Christian. They rejected me.

It wasn't until they became followers of Christ. They could do nothing other than to love me as God loved them while they were still sinners, while they were enemies. So I began. I just rejected them, kicked them out. My dad, before he left, gave me his Bible.

I threw it in the trash can. And it was so obvious that I was hopeless. But my parents committed not to focus on hopelessness, but upon the promises of God. And along with over 100 prayer warriors, they began to cry out to God for me. My mom began to pray a bold prayer.

Do whatever it takes, God, to bring this prodigal son to you. Well, that answer to prayer, when she fasted every Monday for seven years, 39 days one time, that answer to prayer came with a bang on my door. And it was 12 federal drug enforcement agents, Atlanta police, two big German Shepherd dogs. So I found myself in jail. And a few days after that, I was walking around the cell block. And you know what I found, Dr. Chapman? A Gideon's New Testament on top of the trash.

Took it back to my cell block, to my prison cell. And I began reading it and not thinking that, you know, this is a good book. I just thought I've got tons of time on my hands. Well, as we know, God's word is sharper than any double-edged sword. And it began to convict me. And I thought things going to get worse. Well, it did. I got news that I was HIV positive.

I was called in the nurse's office and I got that news and I was just devastated. Well, a few days after that, I was laying in my cell and I look up at the metal bunk above me and someone had scribbled, if you're bored, read Jeremiah 29, 11. There could have been any verse for, I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a future and hope. I mean, this verse was written to Judah in rebellion and exile. And I knew that if God could still have a plan for Judah, he may even still have a plan for me.

Well, I don't know what that meant. And I just began diving myself into the Bible and I just thought, well, maybe I could have my cake and eat it too. Maybe I can have God and still live in this way that doesn't align with his truth. So I went to a chaplain and I asked him his opinion. And this chaplain, this is so shocking. He gave me a book explaining that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. And I thought, great. I had that book in one hand, the Bible in the other.

Everything inside of me wanted to affirm it. But it was God's indwelling Holy Spirit that convicted me that this was a distortion of God and his word. Gave it back to the chaplain and I turned to the Bible alone. And I realized that God, that I had put my identity in the wrong thing. And God was not calling me just to change my desires.

That was so limited. He was calling me to holiness. And so God called me to, and also don't put my identity in my sexuality or in anything alone.

My identity need to be in Jesus Christ alone. So it was during this time God called me to ministry while I was in prison. I applied to Moody while I was in prison.

And you'll love this, my references were prison chaplain, a prison guard and another inmate. So amazingly, I was accepted, released from prison July of 2001, started the very next month. And so I was so excited to be at Moody. And I finished at Moody 2005, went on to my master's in exegesis, as Chris was saying.

And I actually taught at Moody for 12 years, which is an enormous blessing. And I had the great honor to co-author book with mom called, Out of a Far Country, A Gay Son's Journey to God, A Broken Mother's Search for Hope. And then write this book. Well, that original book was a powerful story. And what you've just shared with us is a powerful story of God's work. You know, he knows how to find us where we are and to bring us to himself.

So, wow, thanks for sharing that. I think it's important for our listeners to understand who you are and the journey you've been on. You know, as we've come to discuss this new book. So is it fair to say that you want young people to know what the Bible really says about sexuality instead of a caricature that they may have heard from coming from common culture?

Absolutely. You know, when we see right now what's going on in the culture, especially among our kids, not just teenagers and preteens, but our kids in grade school. As a matter of fact, our ministry team, what we really want to do first, they wanted, my parents, they wanted to do a video series for kids because that's really where they're being started to be attacked by this information. And I kind of vetoed it because I thought we need something for preteens and teens first. And then, so actually our next project is the Holy Sexuality Project for children and for kids.

But there, I feel like there is a tsunami of misinformation from the culture and from public school and from their peers and from media and from Disney, from Google. And so we need to help our kids to see that there are healthy boundaries. Just as parents provide healthy boundaries for their children, God provides us healthy boundaries in life.

And we need to know what those are, not just God's no, but also God's yes. And so we have to be able to help our kids to see the goodness of biblical sexuality and that how this is provided by God for our good to thrive. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

Well, there are so many parents and grandparents who will benefit from our guest resource. Dr. Christopher Ewan is talking about the Holy Sexuality Project, a 12 lesson, 36 video series on biblical sexuality. You can find out more at our website buildingrelationships.us or go to holysexuality.com. So Christopher, what makes the Holy Sexuality Project different from other presentations on sexuality? Yeah, you know, I think there's been a few resources in the past that help our kids to understand while they're kids, while they're teenagers, how there needs to be some limitation and some boundaries. But it sometimes comes off as just this, don't do this, don't do that, don't do this.

And to be honest, Dr. Chapman, those actually are very important things we need to be teaching our kids. In general, not just on sexuality, this is what you should not do. But we can't stop there because we can't build a Christian life just on God's no. What is God's yes?

We need to know God's no and God's yes, not only on sexuality, but in general. And so that's why I kind of wrote my book. And also I knew I needed to communicate this with this video series for parents in their teens and not just for parents, but also for grandparents in their teens. And so we see that relationships are so, so important. One of the most important relationships that we have is between a parent and a child. And yet, unfortunately, as we're seeing in the world now more than ever, that relationship is trying to be hijacked, if you will, it's taken away. Public schools, government, they give this impression that they can do a better job, especially if you are a Christian parent, you might be giving information to your children that's harming them. That's essentially the message that we're hearing today. And there's now pushback, which is good pushback because that's incorrect. But here's something else that's happening. We can see how that's being almost enforced on us through the public schools and the government today. But I think there is almost a sense where Christian parents are kind of forfeiting their responsibility of parenting to someone else.

Where does that happen? I think, unfortunately, it's sometimes happening in the youth group. Now, this is not intentional, but I think sometimes parents think, well, I'm going to drop my kids off at youth group and the youth pastor is going to do my job.

What is that? They're going to do the job of discipling my children. Now, should youth pastors disciple their children? Absolutely. But they shouldn't be the primary disciplers. So what sets this apart different from other presentations is we're actually very intentionally not designing this to show to youth groups. Now, is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.

I think that's good. But here's the issue. I haven't really found any resources that are primarily not for youth group and they're primarily for the home. Because these discussions about biblical sexuality need to be primarily done not so much in the classroom, not so much in the youth group room, but in the living room and the dining room and the family room. So this is what I think sets us apart where we are actually strongly encouraging home to sacrosanct. And that takes a lot of paradigm shifting and breaking of paradigms, because I think even in churches, we are kind of inadvertently giving this impression that parents give us your kids and we'll do your work now.

I mean, the schools, they will teach our kids about math and science, et cetera. But when it comes to sexuality, that has to happen primarily at home. So that's really, I think, what sets this video series apart to really empower parents and grandparents to do the job that God has ordained them to do.

Yeah. Greatly, greatly needed in our culture today. You mentioned grandparents. I was speaking recently and a host told me that in their state, 60% of the children in that state are being raised by grandparents, primarily because the parents are either on drugs, they're in prison or they've died. And I know that you have a heart for those grandparents and what they're up against in today's culture as well.

Yes, I really do. And this comes a lot from my mom and dad. My dad went home to be with the Lord. He was 82.

My mom now is 81. And so, you know, she knows as being a grandmother, a spiritual grandmother, the need for grandparents, because right now it's all hands on deck, Dr. Chapman. We need everyone. There's such an onslaught.

There's so much misinformation. And like you say, I mean, parents, sometimes they're not there, but also parents, they're busy. They have to work. They got to provide. They've got other children.

So we need grandparents to come alongside. And why is that important? Because God has ordained them to be a part in discipling their children. We know Deuteronomy 6 very well. That's where we've got the greatest commandment. It says, hero Israel, and it says, you know, to love the Lord your God, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

Well, what's the context of that? Right before that, it says that we need to teach these things, teach them diligently to your children. Well, I want to challenge parents and grandparents. Are you teaching your children diligently the ways of the Lord?

Not only that, but also biblical sexuality, because I'll tell you right now, who's tried to do that diligently? The world, their peers, the media. And we need to be even more diligent in doing this. But here's something else where it gets to your question, Dr. Chapman, when it comes to grandparents. Well, at the beginning of chapter 6, in verse 2, it says that we need to teach them to fear the Lord your God, who?

You, your son, and your son's son. So actually, right here in the greatest commandment, the context of that is discipleship by parents and their children. But also right here, let's not miss this, grandparents and their grandchildren.

There's so many reasons why this is so important. I mean, first of all, grandparents usually have more time. Well, when I say this, I often get grandparents and they shake their head. No, I'm busier than ever.

Yes, you have more flexibility, but let's redeem that time. Are we simply just relaxing or do we realize actually God has ordained grandparents right here in Deuteronomy 6? Grandparents to be some of the people that are diligently teaching their grandchildren. Now, have fun with your grandchildren, but having fun does not save our kids. Are we passing on a legacy, a legacy of the Lord that will be eternal? Having fun, taking them to soccer games and all that stuff, that's temporary. Even providing resources, even providing monetary legacy, that's temporary. Let's pass on a legacy that is eternal, that's grounded in God's truth. Yeah.

So important, so important. You alluded to this earlier, but paint a picture of what's happening with sexuality in our culture. That is, how far away from biblical framework are we today? And along with that, talk about sharing the gospel with a gay friend or a family member. What do Christians not understand about that?

Yeah, very much. In our culture, having lived as an unbeliever, as an agnostic for so many years, for the majority of my young adult years, and identified as gay, this is who I was. If there is one thing that I believe that we don't fully understand when it comes to sharing Christ with those in the gay community, with understanding our loved ones who identify as gay or lesbian or transgender, it's how the world has conflated sexuality with personhood, how the world has conflated even transgender, even one's perception of themselves, a very subjective reality of their gender with who they are.

Because this is not just an issue of quibbling over terminology. For myself, Dr. Chapman, I do not identify as gay. I am not a gay Christian.

I am a Christian. My good friend Rosario Butterfield, she was an English professor, so she loves words, and she always says words matter. Words have meaning. An adjective, the purpose of that is to modify the noun.

In other words, limit the scope of the noun. I don't want there to be any limitation to who I am in Christ. See, sexuality, when it comes to sexuality, it's about our attractions, our actions, what we feel, the desires we have, and these could be strong desires and often unchosen desires that we've had as long as we remember.

And yet, no desire, whether sexual or romantic, should ever be who you are. And we need to understand that, because how can we discuss with others who don't know Christ or they have a distorted view of the gospel, how can we talk to them that this is sinful behavior when they don't even view it as behavior? If we were going to go back 20 years or more ago, before I knew Christ, and you were to tell me that this was sin, I would not hear you say that what I'm doing is sin, or my attractions are, or my desires are sinful, or my relationships are sinful. I would hear you say that my whole person, from head to toe, is reprehensible to you and to God. Before I knew Christ, I could not hate my sin without hating myself.

Now that I know Christ, I can hate my sin without hating myself. So, I think to share the gospel and to better understand what's going on in the culture, we need to start there. I think this is the most important starting point, even as we're looking at.

I think this is kind of a litmus test to see different approaches today. Are we getting identity right? This is not just a label.

Are we getting this terminology right? Why would we ever use a terminology, a word, that's rooted in our brokenness and in the fall and in sin to try to win people to Christ? Because that's more of a bait and switch. We just need to use the power of the gospel and how we all are new creations in Christ to win them to Jesus.

That's a message I think that Christians need to hear and think seriously about. You know, we haven't talked yet about the term holy sexuality. Can you unpack that for us?

Sure. I know that for many people, that's a brand new term. What does that mean? Well, it came out of sort of my frustration that I was actually pigeonholing myself. I feel that many Christians, we pigeonhole ourselves into the wrong framework. That framework is heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, which essentially divides up humanity, categorizes humanity according to our sexual desires.

That's not what God intended, that we need to kind of put ourselves in different groups according to what we feel and the desires that we might have. And whenever I see a secular, it's a Freudian framework, I always want to choose a biblical framework over a secular one. And what is that biblical framework? It's a framework that doesn't divide ourselves according to our sexual or romantic desires, but one that is grounded in holiness. So it's not heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality. I think we should set that whole framework aside. And to be honest, even those terms heterosexuality or heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, gay, straight, bi, those actually do not describe people.

They describe our feelings, our actions, our experience. A desire is not a person. So it's not heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, but holy sexuality. And what is holy sexuality? Well, reading through the full counsel of God, there's actually only two paths that God lays out for us.

The first path is if when you are single, be sexually abstinent. And then the other path is if you marry, and I'm just using the biblical definition of marriage, not the one that the state and the world has changed the definition. But this is actually affirmed by Jesus himself in Matthew 19 and Mark Chapter 10, that marriage is between a man and a woman, a male and a female.

So if you marry, how are you going to live? You're going to be faithful to your spouse of the opposite sex. So quite simply, holy sexuality is chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage.

And that is good news for all. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, New York Times best selling author of "The 5 Love Languages" . For more ways to strengthen relationships, just go to Building Relationships.us. You'll find upcoming seminars with Dr. Chapman, and a link to our featured resource, Dr. Christopher Yuan's video series, The Holy Sexuality Project. Go to buildingrelationships.us or go directly to holysexuality.com In the program that we're discussing, The Holy Sexuality Project, which you've done to help parents and grandparents. In the first lesson, you say, and I'm quoting here, the ultimate goal when it comes to sexuality is to glorify God by denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Jesus. Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, I'd love to. So in this video series, I was kind of pulling on some traditions of the church for the past several millennia. And that's catechism. So when it comes to our children, we catechize them in God's truth. And I think that's kind of taken from Deuteronomy six.

But here's something that's kind of sad. I think sometimes we're not doing a diligent job in that, but the world is catechizing our children. And in this tradition of catechisms, catechisms for so long, for many centuries and millennia has been essentially a question and an answer, question and answer question. So we would teach these to our kids. What's the question?

What's the answer? So I kind of pulled on that with this video series, even though the medium is very new. But this is old traditions, question and answer. So all these 12 lessons all have a question and answer.

Some of them have a couple questions and a couple answers. And so with lesson one, which just started with my testimony, the question for that lesson was, what is the ultimate goal when it comes to sexuality? And that answer, I really wanted to frame this entire video series, all 12 lessons with that lesson one question and that lesson one answer to make this Christocentric. I wanted to lift up the supremacy of Christ. As I was reviewing many of the resources out there, I thought a lot of them were helpful, but it had this tendency to focus a bit on human effort. This is what you needed to do.

This is what you needed to not do. And it kind of made secondary our relationship with Christ and submitting joyfully to Christ, whether it was the don't do's in the past and some of the newer ones that give this impression of, well, we just need to be nicer. We need to just love. And if I could even say here, should we love? Absolutely. My issue is not with loving.

My issue is with the just. I get this a lot, Dr. Chapman, where people say my job is to just love. Now, should we love?

Absolutely. But should we just love? That then makes love an end in itself. We need to make love a means to an end.

And that end must always be Christ. Should we be more loving? Should be more gracious?

Absolutely. But we need to be careful that we shouldn't think that we were we are where we are today, 10 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, I think Christians, we were kind of at the risk of being more truth at the expense of grace. So we need to be more gracious and compassionate.

That's not where we are today. Today, what I'm seeing among our youth, our young adults, and even some of the approaches is that we are grace at the expense of truth. We need to be like Jesus, John 1 14, full of grace and full of truth. That's what Christ was full of grace and full of truth. So the goal of this whole video series is to lift up the supremacy of Christ and that we ultimately our goal is to follow Jesus.

And what does that mean? To deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. That foundation applies to whether you are a single guy, a single girl, whether you are married.

We all need to deny yourself, take up a cross and follow Jesus. With that as a foundation, what are some of the topics that you cover in this series? Yeah, we have 12 lessons. And in this video series, we start lesson one with talking about my testimony. Lesson two, because identity is so important. I actually talk on what how sexuality is a false identity. And then lesson three, I talk about what is our true identity that it is the image of God. You know, we identity is so, so important.

And I think this is the one thing that I think sometimes we miss that I actually spent two whole lessons talking about identity. Then lesson four, I break down the concept of attraction, desire, and temptation. A lot of there's a lot of discussions about saying such attractions, is it sinful or not? And I think the problem is, we when we're talking about biblical things, we need to use biblical words. And attraction is not a word found in the Bible.

And so when we're trying to figure out, well, is this right or wrong? Is it sinful or not? I think it's always best to be as clear as possible to use biblical terminology, desire, and temptation. And I help kids to realize temptation is not sin, it could quickly lead to sin. But desire is something that is sinful, is sinful in itself. That's from Matthew five, where Jesus says, if a man looks lustfully at a woman, and that word lustfully in Greek is the same word that we translate as desire.

That temptation, that if we look lustfully at a woman, that's already considered lust. Lesson five, I introduced this concept of holy sexuality, which we just talked about. And then lesson six, singleness, what it is, what it is not.

And then marriage, lesson seven. And I talked about this great question that I didn't have in my book, what's the big deal? You probably heard this before, Dr. Chapman, kids are just thinking, why is God so concerned about what people do in the privacy of our own home? So I have an entire lesson talking about that.

Lesson nine, these myths that kids are hearing on, you know, the authorities, the experts on TikTok. And so we're dispelling some of these myths on the Bible and homosexuality. Lesson 10, talk about sex, gender, and the image of God. And then lesson 11 and 12, it gets to really practical things. How do we minister to someone struggling with sexual temptations? How do you respond to someone in unrepentant sexual sin? And then lesson 12 is following Jesus.

How do we follow Jesus in the midst of trials and temptations? You know, I think parents and grandparents who are listening to us today and hearing those topics and hearing that you deal with these things, they recognize the value of it. But they're also a little uncomfortable when they think about my teenager, you know, and talking with them about sexuality. So how do we get over that hurdle of, I don't know if this is what I should be doing?

What do you say to those parents who are hesitant? Yes. And that I think is part of kind of our own experience.

Yeah. You know, I don't know about you, Dr. Chapman, but I grew up, you know, in the 1970s. And this was a time that biblical sexuality was generally accepted. And unbiblical sexuality was, there was stigma around that, whether it's divorce, sex before marriage, adultery.

Today, it's a different world. Our children are being raised in a time where biblical sexuality is not only viewed as, well, that's old fashioned. It's even viewed by some to be harmful to hold to that view.

So when we were raised, I don't remember a time when my parents talk about sexuality, about sex. So there's a lot of uncomfortableness and fear. And I see that as a wall between parents and their teens and preteens and grandparents and their grandchildren.

But guess what? That wall is not there with their peers. That wall is not there in school.

They feel totally comfortable talking to their teacher or their school counselor. And school counselors today are, as we see, they are actually encouraging them to get sex changes, etc. Which, of course, you can't change your sex, but going through and really pushing them in the wrong direction. They're okay to get online and chat or text with these people and talk about sex. So what we need to do is to break down that wall.

Well, how do we do that? That's actually one of the main purposes of this video series that we don't want kids, just we don't want parents and teens or grandparents and their teens and preteen to just simply watch videos. There's actually a parent guide that goes along with this video series that will help these families to have these conversations at home. So it starts out where the parent or grandparent in like any one of the lessons, each lesson is the same format. They're going to read a few sentences or short paragraph.

They're going to ask a question that kind of primes the pump and gets a little bit of baseline of where everyone is at. Then you watch this video. Each lesson has three videos. So the first video is a teaching video about 10 minutes.

Watch that video. After that, they go through four to six questions of discussion. Then they watch the second video. That is about another 10 minutes of video teaching. Then they go through another four to six questions of discussion after they finish that second video. The last video is a wrap-up to kind of go over that question and answer and really solidify what is being taught. Then you end up with, after watching that third video, just with some closing questions.

That and all is about 45 to 60 minutes of watching the video and discussions. Let me tell you this great story that we heard. A pastor, he was a New Testament scholar, had a PhD in New Testament in like four different masters. He had a 16-year-old daughter that's a junior in high school and a 14-year-old freshman son about to start high school. Well, he had heard that this video series was coming out and so he got it right away end of June. He wrote to us and he said he wanted to go through this entire video series before school started. He did one lesson every single day for two weeks.

He emailed us and he told us a story. He said after lesson one, his 14-year-old son told him, he said, Dad, this is so weird. This is so awkward. I'm talking to my parents about sex. I get it. I would say the same.

If I was a parent or grandparent, I would say the same thing. I feel so weird. This is awkward. I'm nervous.

I'm scared. But this is what's so cool, Dr. Chapman. Lesson 12 at the end, the dad asked the son, he said, so do you still feel awkward or weird?

The son said, no, dad, not at all. You see, when we are able to have these conversations and this video series is to facilitate that, to kind of just break the ice, our hope is to tear down that wall that's separating parents and their teens from having these really redemptive, gospel-centered, Christ-exalting conversations that will really help our kids that are drowning in a tsunami of misinformation. I see this video project as a means for parents to do what they really in their heart know they ought to do, they need to do, but they don't know how.

And this is a tool, I think, that parents and grandparents are going to find really, really helpful. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our featured resource today is The Holy Sexuality Project by Dr. Christopher Yuan.

It's a 12-lesson, 36-video series for parents, grandparents, and their teens and preteens. Find a link at buildingrelationships.us or go to holysexuality.com. In Lesson 9, you tackle myths related to homosexuality in the Bible. Can you share some of those myths? You know, I needed to add some stuff to this video series that I didn't include in the book, and some of those was not only what's the big deal, but I wanted to include some of these myths that we're hearing more and more. Our kids are so bound and influenced by their peers, by social media, by TikTok, and we're getting all these myths about homosexuality and what the Bible says and doesn't say. I cover four of these myths, David and Jonathan, Jesus silence. I also cover where people say that it's just about pedophilia, that when it says a man shall not lie with a male, it's about just a boy.

But also this myth about the word homosexual wasn't in the Bible and it was somehow falsely introduced in 1946. So for example, I mean, over all of these, I wanted to help our kids to understand how to interpret the Bible, not just on these issues of homosexuality, but help them to see that that context is extremely important. And yet there's different types of context. There's literary context, historical context, and canonical context.

I think oftentimes we're familiar with the literary and the historical context, but I think a lot of our listeners right now, a lot of parents and teenagers aren't familiar that canonical context is key. For example, David and Jonathan, we have this myth that they were lovers. I don't know if your listeners have ever heard this crazy story, but they say, oh, they were just friends.

They were lovers. And yet when we look at the context, we'll realize that it shows a lot of instances, for example, that the Bible was very, very honest about David's sins. Whether, you know, obviously with Bathsheba, adultery and about, you know, all the other wives and concubines that he had and very frank about his private life, but never shared that, never talked about David and Jonathan lying together or knowing each other. Also, the historical context that helps us to see, you know, there's a passage that says that Jonathan took off his robe and gave it to David.

Now, as you can probably guess in our hypersexualized world, those people that are trying to twist scripture, try to make that sexual. Well, there's nothing sexual about Jonathan giving his robe to David. What was actually going on here in that context is Jonathan recognizing that even though he's next to the throne, he's heir to Saul, the king of Israel. Jonathan was recognizing that David is the anointed one and David is the rightful king of Israel. So by him taking off his robe, Jonathan's robe was not any just normal robe. It represented his royalty and his power that he was next to the throne.

And by Jonathan giving off his robe, it was representing that he was submitting himself under David, who is to be king. Furthermore, when it says that their love was more wonderful than that of women, that they express love for one another. When we equate love with sex or sex with love, we are really revealing how much the sexual revolution has impacted our understanding. Love does not equal sex, that there is so much more outside of our understanding of simply that love is only to be found in romance. Marriage does not have a monopoly on love. As a matter of fact, it was very common that people in power will express their love for one another. As a matter of fact, in 1 Kings chapter 5, the king of Hiram said it was talked about him that he always loved David. So people in power, they often would express their love for one another.

That doesn't mean it was sexual, doesn't mean that was romantic. So things like that I think were very important for me to include in the video series to help our kids to see that there are myths when it comes to homosexuality. And that if we just use proper interpretation using literary context, historical context, and canonical context, that will guide us in God's truth. We know that gender confusion is rampant today.

And I'm assuming you talk about that also in this series. Absolutely. As we are struggling to address this issue of homosexuality, I feel like homosexuality is just the Trojan horse that now brought into our culture, transgenderism. So the biggest issue I believe right now, one of the biggest issues that our youth are dealing with is this concept of gender. And now sex and gender, we used to use those synonymously. Unfortunately, the world has redefined things. Just as the world has redefined marriage, the world has redefined the concept of gender and has split apart that sex and gender now mean two different things. Now, of course, we don't agree with that, but we need to recognize that even when we're talking, we need to be careful about the words that we use because we might be using the word same terminology, but we're using a different dictionary.

They have redefined things. Where now gender is not the same thing as sex. Where sex is an objective binary classification of male and female. We are sexed beings. I actually prefer to say, instead of saying that we're sexual beings, we're sexed.

Why? Sexual has now been co-opted to just refer to like, oh, I need to have sex. Sexual gives the impression that is just referring to the act of sex. Sex can refer to the act of sex, sexual intercourse, but it could also refer to being male or female, different definitions. So we are sexed beings.

We are male and female. And that helps us understand that this is something that God created us, male and female. Genesis 1, verse 27, it says God created them male and female. This is part of God's creation that is inherent to who we are.

Just as we are created in God's image, we're created male and female. But gender now has become this new modern definition that's referring to how we feel. That it's now this subjective reality of our self-perception. And our self-perception should not be who you are. Adults, yes, it's a reality of the fall where people do struggle maybe with their self-perception, not aligned with their sex. And we have to be really, really clear that that's just a reality of the fall.

We should have compassion for them, we should minister to them, but encourage them. Do not make this who you are. The world is giving something quite different. The world is telling you, if you feel something, it's who you are. If you think something, that's your truth. But God is saying something quite different.

The heart is deceitful above all else who can know it. So I need to submit my thoughts, my feelings, my desires to Christ himself. And so very much, I definitely address this issue of gender confusion in this video series. To help parents and teens to have a Christ focus on who we are in Christ. Christopher, as we come to the end of our time together, let me ask you one other question. Talk to the parent whose son or daughter just came out, went home and told the parents, you know, how do you engage with that teenager or that young adult when a parent hears that information? Well, I've walked with countless parents.

I have this huge blessing of being able to minister with my mom and dad and now just with my mom. But our ministry is so unique in that we get many, many parents who come to us. They seek answers. And essentially what we do is not point them to us.

I don't have the answer. I really can't encourage them, but Jesus does. You know, if you're listening right now and maybe you're that parent, you have that daughter, that son who has now told you that they are identifying as transgender or they are identifying as gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever the whole gamut of spectrum, non-binary, pansexual, it is so difficult. And there's such a grieving and pain going on right now. But I want you to remember, because many times parents who get this news, they begin blaming themselves. You know, what did I do wrong?

If only I would have done this or if only I would have done that. And some of that is kind of built on how we have diagnosed this incorrectly, that we think that somehow it's rooted in things that happened in our childhood, whether it's an absentee father, dominant mother or trauma. Now, those things definitely influence us, but influence is not the cause. So we need to see that actually that really the ultimate root cause is sin nature. And if that's you as a parent, please hear me.

It's not your fault. Our kids' biggest issue isn't that they are in a same-sex relationship or they're identifying with the wrong sex, male or female. That's a secondary issue.

The biggest problem comes back to what I mentioned in lesson one of this video series. The biggest issue for our children is that they would know and follow Jesus. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. And so that gets to what is our goal to engage with them? Do we always accommodate in every situation? Well, that's grace at the expense of truth. We need to be full of grace, full of truth. We need to be like Jesus. We love our kids, but we love them to Christ.

And that sometimes might involve having those discussions with our kids. That is grounded in truth because love rejoices in truth. We sometimes have falsely dichotomized love with truth. We can't. There is no love apart from truth.

Now, we're not going to continually kind of hit them over the head or continually focus on that. But we need to be not just grace at the expense of truth. Of course, not truth at the expense of grace, but to be full of grace and full of truth. Because here's what's so important, even with my own testimony, that many of you might not have heard a testimony like mine before.

A man who used to identify as gay and now no longer do. And that really is an important aspect. But that's not how I best summarize my testimony. This is my testimony. I once was blind and now I see. I once was lost and now I'm found. I once did not believe and now I believe in the Son of God and his name is Jesus. That's my testimony.

Yeah. Well, that's a good place to bring our conversation to an end today. Christopher, your book and now this video project, I think God wants to use this in our culture today. And I want to thank you for investing time and energy in putting all of this together. And I hope our listeners will reach out and utilize this.

Because I think we all recognize as parents the need for help in this area with our children. And this is help that I think many will find really, really useful. So thanks again for being with us today and thanks for putting this material together. Thanks so much, Dr. Chapman, for having me on. What a great hour with Dr. Christopher Yu on. And if you want to find out more about the Holy Sexuality Project, the video series, go to holysexuality.com or you can find a link at our website buildingrelationships.us. And next week, what are the five traits of a healthy family? Dr. Chapman will help you grow closer, communicate better and change the world. Don't miss it. Before we go, a big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Bakking. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.