Does the Bible Give Preferential Treatment to Men?

Does the Bible give preferential treatment to men? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch Adriel right now live on our YouTube channel and message us that way. And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Dan in Wichita, Kansas. Dan, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I've been reading in Romans 12. And I've read about the spiritual gifts that Paul writes about. He says something about the gifts that are given to us in accordance to the faith and also the grace given to us. My question is, how are the gifts related to the faith given to us? And what does that mean anyway to have faith given to us by God? Thanks.

Hey, Dan, thanks for that question. Well, throughout the New Testament, faith is often referred to as a gift that God gives to us. You think of Ephesians chapter two, for by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And I think that that's supported in other places in the New Testament, even even here in Romans chapter 12, where the context is, in particular, spiritual gifts. And of course, you know, the list that's given in Romans chapter 12 isn't an exhaustive list of all the spiritual gifts. You have other lists, in places like 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14, where Paul has an extended discussion of spiritual gifts. But in the context here in Romans chapter 12, and then also I think in 1 Corinthians, you know, one of the challenges that Christians face when having discussions about spiritual gifts and thinking through this in particular is that sense of pride that individuals can have.

I have this gift. I'm better than another person because God has called me to do this, that, and the other. And oftentimes, when Paul is bringing up spiritual gifts, he's trying to combat that pride that can rise up inside of us. Again, he does that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 by emphasizing that it is the spirit who distributes to each one individually as he wills. And so God is the gift giver. This isn't, you know, this is just your own special skill that you get to have to make you great. No, these gifts are given by God, the Holy Spirit, to all of us if we're united to Jesus Christ.

So that's really good news. And they're given for the good of others. It's not about you. It's not about your greatness. And I think, again, that's what Paul's getting at in Romans chapter 12. He says in verse three, For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. So right there, that sort of sets the context.

Don't think of yourself as greater than you should. I mean, you're the recipient of a gift here. But to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. And so it's not the greatness of your faith. It's this gift that the Lord has given for as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. And note again that these gifts are all about outpouring to others, serving others, whether it's through teaching or through generosity. And we can't boast about these gifts as if it was something great about me or in me, because it's the spirit who gives to each one individually as he wills. So what Paul's goal here is to help the Romans, to help Christians view this with a degree of humility to say, wow, God, I'm the recipient of these gifts. And they're not primarily about making me great.

They're about building up your body, the people around me. And so, Dan, appreciate your question, brother, and thank you for giving us a call. This is Core Christianity. And if you have a question for Pastor Adriel, we would love to hear from you. Our phone lines will be open for the next 20 minutes or so. So now's the time to call. Here's the number again.

It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. Give us a call right now. You can also email us your question. Here's our email address.

It's questionsatcorechristianity.com. Got this email from one of our listeners named Sandra. She says, Does God favor men over women? It seems to me that God created Eve as an afterthought in the creation process, and that he created a woman to give to Adam like she was just some kind of object to help alleviate Adam's boredom.

Sandra, you know, well, one, I'm sorry that you feel that way. And I can see how this is maybe confusing. You think about the fact that Adam was created first, and then Eve, was Eve created just as an object for Adam? Sadly, there are people who treat women like objects today, and that's totally against the teaching of the Bible. And I think that this is very clear, actually, when we look at Genesis and the creation account, in particular the creation of woman. The first thing to note in Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse 26, let's know what God said. So God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. So the first thing I want you to know, Sandra, is that both man and woman are created in the image of God. So there's equality there in terms of substance, you know, who we are as human beings. God made us, man and woman, in his image. Now some people get a little bit, you know, confused because later in Genesis 2 verse 18 it says, Then the Lord God said, and this is when the Lord created Eve, It is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper fit for him. Now the question is, does this, you know, prove or show that Eve or woman is subservient in some sense? She's the helper, that kind of a thing. Well, an important thing to note is that throughout the Bible, and in particular even in the book of Genesis, that word helper is often used to describe what God does for his people. It's the Hebrew word ezer. God is the one who is the mighty helper of his people. So far from suggesting inferiority, right, this word is actually a word that God applies to himself for his people. And then the idea of being made a helper fit for him, that word is the Hebrew word neged. It can mean in front of or opposite of, but there too you have this idea of equality. Now that doesn't mean that man and woman aren't different in really important ways.

They are. And, you know, that's okay. And we can embrace that reality while still recognizing that man and woman are equal, both made in the image of God and both called to serve the Lord. And it's only through that relationship together that they were able in the early chapters of Genesis to fulfill what God commanded, go and be fruitful and multiply. And so both man and woman have an integral role in carrying out that mission, if you will, and advancing God's kingdom there in the early chapters of Genesis through their relationship with each other. And so, no, I mean, the Bible has a very high view of women, and especially when you contrast it with the oftentimes views that you had in the ancient Near East.

Scripture is really clear on this, and of course, Jesus, I think, even confirmed it in the New Testament. So thank you for that question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. School is starting up for most kids very soon, and in some areas of the country, it's actually already started. And to coincide with that, we have a free resource we'd like to offer parents and grandparents today. It's called Six Ways to Help Your Kids as They Go Back to School. It's a resource that helps parents think through how to give your kids courage as they face peer pressure, how to remind them of their standing before God when they're tempted to measure their worth by their performance, and a number of other things. And so right now, more than ever, we need to help our kids understand what they believe and why they believe it. And as your children are or your grandchildren are preparing to go back to school, get a hold of this resource, Six Ways to Help Your Kids as They Go Back to School.

It's a free download. Just go to corechristianity.com forward slash offers and look for that, Six Ways to Help Your Kids as They Go Back to School. We think it'll be a resource. It'll be really helpful to all families. You can also call us for that resource or any one of our resources. Here's our phone number again. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 833-843-2673. Let's go to Chad, who's calling in from Curlew, Iowa. Chad, what's your question for Pastor Adrian? Yes, when the Lord asks us to pick up our cross and to follow him, what exactly is he meaning by that?

Hey, Chad, thank you for that very, very important question. I just opened up to the Gospel of Matthew, and of course this is in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, a command that Jesus gives to his disciples, Matthew chapter 16 verse 24. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange or in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each according to what he has done. Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. This call to discipleship is something that we see throughout the Gospels, and actually even prior to the Gospels, I think it's similar to the call that God gave to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.

Basically, pack up everything and follow me. It's the call that God has placed on his people from the very beginning of creation. The cross was what in the ancient world? It was this instrument of death. The very fact that Jesus was saying, if you want to follow me, take up your cross, it would have been shocking, it would have been jarring. It would have been like saying, if you want to follow me, pick up your electric chair or take up your noose, that kind of a thing.

It was this instrument of death. In one sense, it was a call to die to self, to die to the lusts of the flesh, and that is what the Christian life looks like in terms of sanctification in particular, day by day growing in grace, and the Spirit of God putting to death the sinful deeds of the body, as the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 8. I think at the heart of this call is that vision of saying, Lord, my life is yours.

My life is yours. Sometimes that means choosing God's way over our own way. Too many people I think today, Chad, think that following Jesus is sort of this, I'm going to add a little bit of Jesus to my life so that he can make my life better, so that he can give me everything that I want, so that he can help me in affirming myself and my desires. Insofar as he does that, that's great, and that's why I have religion.

It helps me to be better and to get more out of life, that kind of a thing. But Jesus says, no, that's not what it's about. I'm actually the Lord.

Follow me. Take up your cross and follow me. Now, of course, the cross that we take up isn't the cross that saves us. The cross that saves us is the cross of Jesus Christ himself. It was the fact that he took up the cross, died on it, shed his blood so that we might have the forgiveness of sins. Through his work, through his paving the path, so that we might be forgiven and justified, that we're able to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him. Chad, God bless you. As you seek to do that in your own life, may the Lord fill you with his Spirit and bless you. Hey, Chad, thank you so much for your call.

Great question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. One of the things we want to let you know is that you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day, and we do screen our voicemails each day and listen to them and then choose many of them to use on the air. Here's one we received from one of our listeners named Jose. I am so blessed by you guys' ministry.

I'm thankful for it. And my question is, I've been listening to heavy music, like hard rock, Christian metal bands. I believe there's a freedom of worship. Psalm 150 says, worship the Lord with everything that has breath, praise the Lord. And other people say, you know, it's the devil music because of the screaming and all this heavy music.

But I just wanted to know your opinion about it. And thank you. Thank you for it.

Hey, Jose, thank you so much for giving us a call. And the question is, right, like Psalm 150 says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. All of creation is called to praise God with our lips. You're asking about a particular genre of music. Is it okay to praise God with heavy metal music? And I don't know what band you're speaking of personally. You know, that's not the kind of music that I listen to all day long. But is it okay if somebody, a believer, has a heavy metal band that they appreciate that is maybe speaking the truth through heavy metal? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that there's freedom there. Is that the best sort of medium for communicating the truth?

I'm not entirely sure. You know, one of the issues that I have is I often don't understand what's being said with that kind of a music. And I think one of the things with, especially with church music, what we sing in church is it needs to be clear.

It needs to be understandable. I think about what the apostle Paul said in Ephesians chapter 5. He says, verse 18, don't get drunk with wine.

That's debauchery. But be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. In other words, in the context of worship in church, we're not just singing to God. It's not just my personal private time with Jesus while I'm surrounded by a bunch of other people. And oftentimes I think in churches that's sort of how we operate.

We sort of, you know, let's dim the lights, let's light the candles. It's dark and we're having this kind of private personal experience even while we're all together in church. But Paul says in Ephesians, look, when we're singing, we're not just singing to the Lord, we're singing for the benefit of one another. And so I think that singing should be clear, should be understandable, should communicate the truths of the gospel, the truth of God's word. And that doesn't mean that, you know, in your own time as you're driving in the car that you can't and shouldn't, you know, listen to other kinds of music and especially if they're edifying, if they're uplifting, if they're encouraging for you and if the message is good, I would say go for it. And so, yeah, I appreciate your question and may the Lord bless you as you rock out. You know, Adriel, you're probably a little too young to remember this, but one of the earlier Christian rock bands was called Striper. They're from Southern California and they their costumes, they dressed up like like honeybees.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, Bill. Honeybees. I don't know. You've got to pull it up now.

Look, Google it. You'll see what I'm talking about. Oh, man. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sánchez. And we'd love to hear from you. If you have a question, you can always email us your question at questions at corechristianity.com. Here's one from Christine. She says, in Mark 4, 11 through 12, Jesus says he is speaking in parables so that those outside may not understand, otherwise they would turn and be forgiven.

Why does he say this? Isn't God's will that none should perish? Yeah, that's a great question. As our Lord talked about, you know, the parables and this sort of outsider-insider thing, Jesus says to you, to his disciples, has been given, you know, to know the mysteries of the kingdom. Now, of course, even the disciples oftentimes had a hard time understanding it. They'd go to Jesus and Jesus would have to explain it over and over again. And they oftentimes missed it. But in particular, you know, the outsiders here are the religious leaders. The spiritual authorities there in Israel at that time, who frankly were abusive authorities, they were not godly. You think about when John the Baptist first came to them, calling them to repentance, and he says, you know, the ax is laid to the root of the tree.

You guys are about to be felled. God knows how it is that you've been living. And essentially, I think that's continuing here. You know, they rejected the truth of God's word, Christine, and as a result, God basically confirmed them in that rejection. And this is something that you do see at times, especially for spiritually abusive leadership, for wolves who have disguised themselves in the church and are praying on the sheep, which again, I think was what a lot of the spiritual authority in Israel at that time was doing. You think of Ezekiel 34, the false shepherds who were feeding themselves and not caring for the sheep. Well, that was the many of the scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus's day.

And so there is a judgment that's brought upon them. In their blindness, they sort of continued in sin. Isaiah prophesied about them. And as a result, they were left to perdition. And it's not that God wasn't merciful to many of them, because he was.

You think of Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to Jesus in John chapter 3, who probably became a believer, became a Christian. And it's not that Jesus wasn't patient with them many times, right, calling them to repentance and faith, but there was a hardness of heart that caused them to reject the truth of the gospel. And so God gave them over to that. And a part of that, I think, is evidenced by Jesus's conversation there with regard to the parables and saying, look, they're not going to understand.

They're on the outside. And part of that was their own sin and their sinful condition being confirmed by God, a very scary thing. But that's, I think, the best answer to your question. And may the Lord bless you. Thanks for reaching out to us. This is Core Christianity. Just a reminder, we have that great resource for parents and grandparents called Six Ways to Help Your Kids as They Go Back to School. It's absolutely free. It'll help parents think through how to give their kids courage as they face peer pressure and how to remind them of their standing before God.

So check it out. Go to corechristianity.com forward slash offers and look for six ways to help your kids as they go back to school. Here's our phone number again. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can call us at 833-THE-CORE.

Let's go to Michael from Fowler, California. I like to know when Jesus died on the cross, did he go to hell or was there a paradise, then a hell, and then the angels have their own like hell? And then the people that didn't believe in Jesus before Jesus died, like the Pharisees and all those people, did they get a second chance?

Yeah, great question. And oftentimes this question comes up in the context of the Apostles' Creed, for example. There's that phrase in the Apostles' Creed as he descended into hell, and that's been interpreted a number of ways. Sometimes people just refer to that as death, as speaking of what Jesus experienced on the cross, his suffering on the cross.

There were theologians in the history of the church like John Calvin, who had that view in particular. Others understand it as not Jesus going to hell in the sense of being tormented for three days prior to his resurrection. I think that's a view, that idea that Jesus was suffering in hell after his death on the cross, we just need to get rid of that. And sometimes that's why the language of the Creed maybe can sound a little bit confusing, he descended into hell. But think of it as going to the place of the dead, proclaiming victory, if you will, over the dead, over the grave. We know, I mean, what did Jesus tell the thief on the cross?

Today you're going to be with me where? In paradise. And so that paradise there, sometimes people refer to it as Abraham's bosom, as the place of victory, of power.

But it's not that Jesus was suffering, no, really. After his death, he was proclaiming victory over the grave. He conquered it, he trampled down death by death, and then he rose again from the grave and ascended into heaven, leading a host of captives, if you will. Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter four.

And so it really is a wonderful thing, a triumphal thing, a positive thing. And then with regard to a second chance for those who had died, I don't know. There's some people who say, well, maybe what he was doing was he was preaching the gospel again to those who had died, giving them another chance of salvation.

I don't believe that that's the case. He was proclaiming his victory over the grave, over the sheol, the place of the dead, and his salvation, the once for all salvation that he ushered in through his death on the cross. That many, prior to the accomplished work of Jesus Christ, were looking forward to through the prophecies, through the shadowy types that we had in the Old Testament. You think of the sacrificial system, you think of the temple. They were laying hold of Jesus by faith even then.

Paul in Romans chapter four makes it absolutely clear, even Abraham himself was justified by faith, faith in the promise of God, in the promise of that seed that would come, the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. And so it wasn't preaching a second chance of salvation for some, it was the redemption, the once for all redemption that Jesus had won in his death and resurrection. You're listing the core of Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez.

Here's an email we received from one of our listeners. He says, was Jesus actually Michael the archangel, and was he made after Satan? I have a friend who's suggesting this, but I can't find it anywhere in the Bible.

Yes. Well, your friend is wrong. One, Jesus was not made. Jesus is in the category of creator, not creature. The angels are creatures created by God. And Paul in Colossians chapter one says that Jesus made all the angels. By him all things were made, whether in heaven or on earth, you know, thrones, dominions, authorities. Paul makes it absolutely clear that Jesus made the angels. And if you turn to a place like Hebrews chapter one, the author to the Hebrews makes it absolutely clear that Jesus is superior to the angels. From the earliest days of Christianity, there have been some who have tried to lump Jesus together with creation. He's a creature. He's like the angels, or he's this elevated man, that kind of a thing. Well, no, the Bible says he is the uncreated Lord, the second person of the Holy Trinity, worthy of our worship, worthy of our praise. And that's what the scripture teaches.