God's Word on Gender

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Thanks for listening and choosing the Truth Network Podcast. What about women preachers? What about women elders and deacons? What are the roles of men and women in God's church? These are big questions, nothing controversial.

Alexander Strzok, how about that to set you up for this segment, my friend? Well, I think there is a lot of controversy. Really, the issue is this. Everybody's got their opinion. Who's right?

Who's wrong? We start with the authority of the Scriptures and the Genesis creation or that's where we start. And that's why we can differ and why we feel that there is a word from God on this really fundamental subject of marriage and male and female. The Bible tells us, and by the way, God is very interested in this subject. I don't know if you know it quite a bit in the Scriptures about this, even in the New Testament. But anyway, we have an authority from God that we receive our instruction from. So that's where we start.

And that's the important thing. In religion, the big question always is authority. Who has any right to say who God is? Well, I haven't seen God, but God has revealed himself in a book.

He calls it his holy word. And that's how I know who a man is and who a woman is. And I know about marriage and children. Fundamental issues of human life. And by the way, never in human history have these basic things of man and woman ever been so questioned as we're living in today.

It's really chaotic. The word we used to describe it at the beginning. I'm Stu Evers and this is Truth Talk. The show was Truth Talk Live in its Genesis.

I wasn't even the host, but when I started hosting with my brother-in-law, John Fawnville, he found you. He found this book, Men and Women, equal but different or yet different. And I read it and it just made so much sense. And you know, I'm a basketball player. I spent a lot more time in the gym than I did in the classroom. So for me to understand that book, I had to read it a few times.

Alexander Strzok, I'm going to be forthright about that. But it was so helpful. What led you to write that book?

Oh, I'm glad you asked. We found a number of our young people coming back from Christian colleges as feminists, and they were very angry at us saying that we lied to them. And so I aim this book specifically at college and high school students. Here's why I did this.

This is why I did this. I've read all the big, thick books. In fact, in 1973, I heard Dr. Paul Jewett from Fuller come to our seminary and lecture on men and women. And I knew right away, this is going to be a hot subject because he said Paul was wrong.

Paul was inconsistent with what he said in other portions of Scripture. And so since 1973, I have read all the major works on this. I knew no college student would read biblical manhood and womanhood. So what, 400 pages? And they might not even understand it. So the subtitle to this book is the verses on gender in a very simple way. In other words, just a direct, clear presentation of all the verses. And most people don't even realize all the New Testament says about this.

They're not even informed. And a lot of it hails back, which helped for me, to pre-Paul, pre-Law and Prophets, even pre-Noaic. I mean, it goes back to the Genesis. It goes back to how God said things from the beginning because everyone tries to contextualize within the culture. Well, that was a cultural thing.

That was a first century thing. But Alexander Strzok, as you point out in your book, men and women are equal. There is no, you know, men saying you're inferior and there's no women saying the same to men. This feminism, it's got some danger to it in terms of going against the word of God, yet even Christians buy into it. Well, you're bringing up a whole other issue that's just as serious and that is the secularization of evangelical Christians.

The pressure from society is so titanic that few people can stand against it. And what I see here is that we're being secularized in our young people, particularly because of movies and television and internet and colleges, and they're not reading the Bible. Thus, their minds are being filled with secular philosophy.

I have a question, and here's what it is. Who wants a Bible that says one thing but means something different? But that's what all our brothers and sisters who are egalitarian or feminists, this is what they're telling us. That the Bible says this, but it doesn't mean that. In our book like that, the Bible means what it says, and it's very clear. One of the clearest passages is the passage on marriage. By the way, as we said earlier, God is very concerned about his creation order. Male, female, he made them in distinct ways, brought them together. Marriage is oneness. It is God's creation. It's his good and wise creation. But in Ephesians 5, one of the key passages on marriage and men and women, it says this, for the husband is the head of the wife.

Now listen to the analogy. Even as, now notice that, nothing cultural, even as Christ is the head of the church. Is Christ the head of the church? Yes, he is. Yes.

Thank you. It's right there in the book. Right in the book, right.

Just let it say what it says. Even as Christ is the head of the church. Then it goes on to say, now as the church submits to Christ, so also women should submit and everything to their husbands.

So there's no cultural argument out of this. The analogy is Christ and his church. And again, we see the importance in God's economy of the male and female. And then you go to 1 Corinthians 11, the analogy is the Godhead, even Christ. His head is the father and the head of the man is Christ. And the only one who's not a head is the woman.

The male is the head of the woman. So it isn't that difficult if we just believe and we just take the straightforward, common sense meaning of the passage. But back to the title of your book, you never, you never back down on the fact that men and women are equal. But you say that they're different. Yes, they have different roles, different design, how God assigns them their place in the church and that whatnot is going to be different, but that doesn't mean they're not equal. No, I mean, right in the Genesis account, they're both created in the divine image of God. In personhood, they're absolutely equal. In salvation, we're absolutely equal. But he made us all so different.

And that's beautiful. Why are we denying the differences when it's so beautiful? Can you imagine if the whole world was just men? Oh, it would be awful. I wouldn't want to be in a world like that. It wouldn't be if it weren't for women to give birth to anybody. I mean, that's another thing that's downplayed. But even First Timothy elevates the woman because of that childbearing things, right? And we have no idea, by the way, don't ever look at your wife, when she is about to go into labor and say, I feel your pain, just not a good thing to do. You must have done that.

I learned a hard way. Maybe you'd save some people in agony. No, this is a subject dear to the heart of God. And he wants his children, despite whatever our society says that he wants his children to honor his creation order, to enjoy it and see the beauty of the differences. Let's don't deny the differences.

Let's embrace them and enjoy them. But again, we've got to come back to an authority. Who says what? We're saying that God, the Creator, has told us what he wants from us.

Okay, now, this voice you're hearing is Alexander Strzok. He's written a bunch of books. He's going to tell us about those books.

He's going to tell us how to get those books. I'd strongly encourage you, just as a baseline book that should be in every bookshelf of every pastor. We've got a pastor in here with us that's kind of helping us, keeping us accountable here and encouraging us and keeping us on the rails here. Pastor J, thank you for being here with us. Alexander Strzok, the one I'm talking about is my favorite book of yours, Men and Women Equal Yet Different, which I had you on my show. It's been a couple decades about that book, and now we're having you back. Now, we've got to take a break.

When we come back, I want to do this in complete reverse. I'm going to ask the question, who is Alexander Strzok? How did you come to the Lord?

What do you do? People might want to know a little bit about you biographically, whatnot, how you serve the Lord now. And then I'm going to ask you the least controversial question ever on the show, and that is, what about women preachers?

Should we open that can of worms or not? Well, when we come back right here on Truth Talk, we'll take a little picture with this guy too, put it on our Instagram and our Facebook and our Twitter and whatnot, and we'll talk about the important roles that God has designed in his book, the Bible. And what about a major denomination that has just ordained a transgender person to be a pastor of their church?

Is it even really a church when they violate God's law and God's word like that? What about that? More with Alexander Strzok on Truth Talk with Stu Epperson. Coming up, who is Alexander Strzok? What about women preachers?

What about his book, Men and Women Equal Yet Different? Well, I'm sitting down with a man right here right now. We're in person.

He hails from Littleton, Colorado, just outside of Denver. Let me ask you that first question, Alexander Strzok. Who are you? Tell us a little bit about your testimony and what all you're up to. And you just jumped on some people's radar just for the first time they're hearing you on Truth Talk.

Well, I was raised in New Jersey, the great state of New Jersey. I was raised in a non-Christian home. And when I was 11 years of age, I was invited to a Bible camp. I didn't know it was a Bible camp. I went simply to go fishing, and I went to this camp, and it's the very first time I heard the gospel.

And I had no problem with it. I realized, yeah, you're a sinner. You need to be saved.

Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. So I received the Lord as my Lord and Savior there at 11 years of age. And that's why I'm still today interested in camp work.

We have a wonderful camp in Colorado. We had over a thousand young people this summer, and we just see such fruit from Bible camp work. So anyway, I was in a very liberal church, and it wasn't until I was about 16 that my parents would actually let me leave that church, even though they didn't go to it. And I went to an actual Bible-believing evangelical church. And for the first time, I heard real sermons from the Bible.

I just loved it. And the people loved the Bible. They always carried their Bible. It was such a contrast to the church I went. I don't think anyone even owned a Bible.

If you carried a Bible, they'd probably think you're a fanatic or something. I went to college at Colorado Christian University in Colorado. And then I went to Denver Seminary three years, received a Master of Divinity. And I've been actually 51 years in the Littleton Bible Chapel.

I'm retired from the main preaching, but I'm still very, very busy in the church. So back in the early 70s, I became very interested in this topic of the church being led by a plurality of elders. And so I wrote the book, Biblical Eldership, which is known all over the world. I think what made the book so successful is that it was simply a Bible exposition. I literally took the reader through all the verses of Scripture. In fact, all my books are Bible expositions. That's my love and my expertise. So right now, I go around and speak like at this conference that I'm at right now here in North Carolina. And I write, and I help out our church any way I can help, support the elders, do visits.

Whatever they need, I do. That's tremendous. You've really stepped into what we didn't, may not have known in the 60s or 70s even, would be such a crisis.

Talk about rocking the rolls. You know, this idea of men and women, a major denomination has just ordained their first transgender minister. What do you say to that? Did you ever have any idea we'd be in this big debate, and what's led to it, and how do we fix it?

What has led to this is a very aggressive, hostile secularism that will not tolerate any difference. And again, as I said in our earlier interview, all religious questions come back to one thing, authority. What authority do I have to say anything about a man and a woman or marriage or God or salvation? What authority do I have?

I don't know anything. If we believe the Bible is, as it says, its own self-claim is all Scripture, this is 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture is breathed out by God. Well, where does your breath come from?

It comes from inside of you, your lungs. Well, the Scripture is breathed out from the mind and heart of God. And then it goes on to say this, all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, correction, developing the man and woman of God.

So, of course the Bible is profitable because it's breathed out by God, and God doesn't breathe out error. So, my authority for saying anything about God and creation and man and woman comes from this God-breathed book. Outside of that, I guess we're all in the same boat, do whatever you want, and that's what we have, a society today that professes some form of Christianity, it's sort of a pagan form of Christianity, that rejects the authority of the Bible. So, I guess they can do whatever they want until, of course, they meet the Lord, then he'll correct them. So, in a highly secularized society, we have a secularized religion that just basically parrots what is in society. They're saying nothing different than with society, where Jesus told us we would be persecuted if we followed him and followed his teaching.

So, that's what I expect, and I think we're going to face a persecution from our very radical secularized, should I call it, religion? Well, you deal with this in your book, Men and Women, Equal Yet Different, which has been very helpful to me and a lot of pastors that I know. Can you give us the quick, condensed version of what the Bible says about women preachers? Well, the Bible is very clear. In 1 Timothy, chapter 2, we are told that, let the women learn quietly with all submission, I do not permit, this is the apostle, the apostle that Jesus appointed to reveal the great doctrine of the body of Christ in the church. That was his special mission, Ephesians chapter 3. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she's to remain silent. And then he goes back to the creation order, Adam and Eve. And then in chapter 3 of 1 Timothy, he goes into elders and then deacons, and the context shows clearly, a husband of one wife, that he assumes male leadership in the church. Now, society is very angry at this.

They will not have it. But what they're rejecting is the straightforward, clear, historical, orthodox teaching of men and women roles. And this is not something we made up recently. For 5,000 years, Judeo-Christian view is always taught there is a role differences between men and women. It's only since the late 60s, early 70s that this came into the Bible-believing, evangelical world. It's basically taken over many of our seminaries. It's certainly flying through and influencing our churches today. But again, I'm telling you, that's just secularized. We're secularizing our churches and we're just copying what the world says because we're frightened. But Jesus said, we're not of the world.

We're in the world, but we're not of the world. And so, it's really a choice between the teaching of Christ and the teaching of the world. And I want to make one more point. Jesus utterly failed women, was a total coward, when he appointed 12 male apostles. So people say this, well, the reason he appointed 12 male apostles, he had to agree with the culture. Well, on the Sabbath, he didn't agree with the culture, they wouldn't kill him because he stood up to their views. So, if we say that Jesus gave into the culture at the key moment when he could have helped women be totally equal with men in all their roles, he failed them. We're insulting Jesus. So, he chose 12 male apostles. He himself is male, following the Old Testament types. And so, you're bringing real question on the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord. And then his chosen apostles, these are not men who elected themselves, he chose them to speak as his emissaries. So, we're rejecting Jesus, we're rejecting the whole of the Christian faith, and we've bought into hook, line, and sinker, secular dogma.

Okay, so to go deeper in here, what do you say to women preachers out there or men pastors that have multiple women pastors on their staff that are already kind of in the throes of this? They're going to get up and preach on Sunday, they turn on this radio show and they say, wait a second, they say, I'm not supposed to be doing this. How do you unscramble that egg for them? You don't unscramble eggs and you don't fix a broken airplane.

When it crashes, it's broken. No, there's nothing you can do once they've accepted that. It's very, very rare to hear of someone who's accepted a full egalitarian view of the ministry and men and women's roles to unscramble that egg. What we have to do is teach our young people that God loves male and female, a special part of his creation, and we should embrace his creation order and enjoy it thoroughly and have the blessing and the goodness of God upon our relationships as husband and wife. The other quick argument is those that say, well, the men have completely limped out, for lack of a better word.

They've relegated their role. It's a missionary situation where there are no men. There's just a faithful woman preaching the word to a bunch of tribal people. There's no man that would go to this unreached group. Are there exceptions? Is there any kind of room for how do you handle those kind of situations which you know I'm going to get all kinds of emails about this interview. People throwing this at me, so I thought preemptively I might ask you.

I hope they'll send you the email. Well, your scenario of a woman alone with men with the gospel, she should give them the gospel and teach them the word of God. I mean, this is not a perfect world, and the church is not perfect. We're rather imperfect.

You do what needs to be done. They need to hear the gospel. They need to know the word of God.

And if she's a woman of God, she will help develop men that they can take this, but this may take years in a very primitive society. And I have actual examples of this. But anyway, I don't think people that already have embraced the full egalitarian view will in any way change.

It's too embarrassing. Their pride is hurt. Okay, so just the linear here, just to clarify terms, you have feminism, which is kind of on the left. Then you have the egalitarianism, and then you have the biblical rule, I guess, which is complementarianism. Is that right? So egalitarianism is the same thing as a feminist doctrine.

So they use both these terms basically synonymously. Yes, the complementarian view. And there is a tremendous website that maybe we can introduce right now called Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, where they are doing such excellent work. They answer every book that comes out. They've got lots and lots of material, which is our book is on there.

I highly recommend that. Really, what we have to do is teach our churches and teach our young people. God has his plan for maleness and femaleness and marriage. And even in our own confusion, the Word of God will straighten us out. There's a lot of confusion about maleness and femaleness today. And I read an article, I could hardly believe it, that 23% of the high schoolers in California were confused over gender. God doesn't want you confused over gender. Now, that's if that's true. I mean, I don't have any way to know. It's just what I read.

Well, we're confusing young people today. If we believe the Bible is breathed out by God, he will unconfuse us, untangle the knots that adults are tying up today. Ever the controversial one, but he's holding to the Word of God.

He is Alexander Strzok. Tell us your books and how to get your books real quick, sir. One second. I'm not the controversial one. I'm holding to the historic, orthodox interpretation of the Bible and the church that there are men and women, equal yet different. That is the standard teaching throughout all of church history. It's only really since the 60s and 70s and in the evangelical world, really it starts to hit in the late 80s, early 90s, that it starts really penetrating the church. And so I'm not the rebel.

I'm not the one outside. I'm inside the box of God's teaching. And again, as I say to you, what is happening is we are capitulating to secular thinking and the church will be more and more secularized. And you won't be able to see a difference between society and God's people. Now, among those who profess the evangelical faith and the Bible, this is very sad, very sad. Well, it goes back to the Word of God.

We need a reformation of people taking up God's book and living it out and trusting it, every bit of it, not just the parts that we like, right? What did Mark Twain say? He says, it's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that give me a hard time. It's the parts of the Bible I do understand that I have the most difficulty with.

Alexander Strzok, thank you for being on. What is your website or what's the best way to get all of your books? This book, Men and Women, Equal Yet Different, is critical for every pastor to have and everyone listening to understand this.

Is there a central place or they just Google you? You can just go to amazon.com and all our books are there. Or you can go to biblicaleldership.com, biblicaleldership.com and see our books.

Yes. Thank you for being on with us. Before you wrote your book, Men and Women, Equal Yet Different, there weren't so many genders to deal with. You might have to write a sequel to address all these initials that most of us don't even know what they mean.

But it's just so sad if we could just get back to you. But it shows man's attempt to just run from God and create God. You know, if God created us in His image, then what do we do? We return the favor, right? We create God in our image.