Why can't we be friends? What does the Bible say about opposite gender friendships? - Podcast Ep 127

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00:00

Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. So this episode's gonna be a little different than most of our other episodes in that this is gonna be an issue where we're gonna be very conversational.

00:11

To give you a little background, many of you are probably aware that recently a prominent evangelical pastor was temporarily told to step down from the role due to a, was described as inappropriate relationship with a woman who is not his wife.

00:32

And a little more background on the issue, came out and said there was nothing sexual, nothing romantic going on.

00:39

Essentially they were texting each other through a messaging service associated with a popular app.

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His wife was aware of it, her husband was aware of it, but the description was both from him and from the elders of the church that the frequency and the familiarity shown in these messages was troublesome and revealed potentially something, an issue that needed to be dealt with.

01:08

So we have no complaints about the steps that the church took, that this pastor took, and ultimately why we would like to know more about what's going on, really it's none of our business.

01:21

So we don't even want to mention anyone by name or really talk about whether the church made the right decision or what was going on.

01:28

But a lot of people as a result of this are kind of like, well, okay, if there was nothing sexual romantic going on, why was this a problem?

01:37

And there were some other things that were said potentially is using some coarse language or coarse joking, there's a problem where the church even had a policy against what was going on.

01:47

But for a lot of people in our culture are like, okay, what was the problem? So we've noticed just from conversations we've had amongst the staff, male and female relationships in the body of Christ can be difficult, it can be challenging.

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And that there's some of the principles we're gonna be talking about. You don't wanna give the appearance of evil.

02:09

You don't want to open yourself up for false accusations. You would do not want to expose yourself to temptation.

02:16

So there are good reasons why people have strong boundaries in these areas, but there's also,

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I remember both with my parents and other parents of especially teenagers who strongly encouraged their children to have good friendships with people of the opposite sex, good friendships with people of the same sex.

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And then suddenly it seems in Christian culture, a lot of Christian culture, the moment you get married, well, from now on, you can only have a close relationship with someone of the opposite sex with your spouse and with your immediate family.

02:53

And that just seems strange when you really think about it, because essentially you're saying, once you're married, you can no longer have meaningful relationships with 50 % of the people in the world.

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And really think about that. Or even Gwen and I were talking yesterday about how does a pastor truly shepherd a flock that is often 50 % female when he cannot have close relationships with any of the women in his church?

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Can he really pastor a flock when there's so many boundaries, so many barriers put up between him and the women in his church that, how do you even do something like that?

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So those are what I'm gonna be talking about today, more not the issue itself, what happened in this church with the pastor and his female friend, but what are the implications of this?

03:46

♪ Gwen, I'm the

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Associate Editor and Administrator of CompellingTruth .org and Jeff, the Administrator of BibleRef will be joining me.

04:01

And we're not saying that we have all the answers. We're not saying that here's what everyone should do, because we don't think this is an issue.

04:09

We can go that direction. So I hope you hear us struggling along with you, trying to figure this out.

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And for those who have very strong convictions and set up very strong barriers, we're not trying to talk you out of that.

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And for those who believe they can have wonderful and transparent and vulnerable, and even to an extent intimate relationships with the opposite sex in the body of Christ, we're not trying to convince you in a direction either.

04:38

But I just wanna help people to realize this is not as black and white or cut and dry as some people make it out to be.

04:43

So Gwen, maybe start us off. What are some of the, as we've been talking through this over the last few weeks, what are some of the things the

04:51

Lord has brought to mind or what are some of the things you've been really thinking about? Well, I think one thing for me is

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I've been, yeah, thinking through it and listening to other podcasts and reading articles is I've seen people mention just the problem really of living in such a hyper -sexualized culture.

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And of course that's gonna seep into the church. So I think a lot of the struggle and problem is that we've been kind of programmed to view one another as primarily sexual objects or potential sex partners.

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So like, if I'm looking at people, you feel like sometimes that's what that boundary is.

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I can't be alone because it might lead to an affair. It's like, what kind of view of men and women is that?

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That's lacking so much of the rest of humanity. And I think that's really our culture at large has reduced the idea of humanity to sexuality rather than created in God's image.

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And like having so much more to us than just that aspect. And so I think it can be really hard for the church too of we want to live in this

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Eden ideal of God created man and woman in His image to partner together in His work.

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And then we read in the New Testament, treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We're all one family.

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So there's this familial ideal, there's this original creation that we're partners, but then there's also the reality of the fall.

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I mean, Genesis 3 happened and we see sex scandals happen all the time. So it's kind of how do we wrestle through this ideal that God has created and has set up and calls us to and equips us for while also recognizing we are fallen and sinful and not immune to the pressures on ourselves and the pressures of our world.

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So I guess for me, I mean, we're gonna talk about some like practicalities and what does this look like?

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But I think for me, there's just this more fundamental understanding of what humanity is and what it means to be the family and body of Christ that I think when we get that foundation more solid than sort of the practicalities of, so what does that mean when

07:11

I come to church on Sunday morning or can I have a private meeting with my pastor, just becomes so much easier.

07:17

I think it's really important that we distinguish between some of those things. And what you're talking about really is realism on both sides of the issue.

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We don't wanna be unrealistic. On one side, we don't wanna act like every single person in the world is equally nonjudgmental and every single person is equally immune to temptation.

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We also don't wanna assume that every single person in the world is a potential predator or vixen or whatever terms people want to use.

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There's realism that we have to be in there, but we don't wanna deny the possibility of any of those things being in there.

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So we, as pastors, for example, have to be able to balance the idea that they need to have some level of spiritual connection with the people that they're trying to witness to and interact with and work with.

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What I see as the biggest problem in a lot of these discussions is that we do tend to drive them to the extremes, where it's almost like what we're talking about is either that there's supposed to be absolutely no distinctions and no controls and no boundaries taken, otherwise it is somehow oppressive and unfair or sexist.

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And then the opposite of that being that there has to be this extremely codified, paranoid sort of an attitude towards it.

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So for me, I think one of the things that we have to do is we sort of have to establish that we have to talk about friendships or relationships sort of in a different category as specific behaviors, not because they're totally separate, but just,

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I think we can distinguish the idea of a man and a woman who are not married having friendship in that sense, having connection, having community, having spiritual interaction with the question of, okay, what does that actually mean in terms of setting things like physical, emotional boundaries?

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Because they're not the same thing. I can understand why we wanna draw distinctions in that sense.

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We really do wanna be careful with those because the world is gonna judge and it's gonna judge unfairly, but you don't wanna give people an overly easy way to assume that something is wrong with what you're saying or with what you're doing, but you also don't want to let it interfere with healthy relationships, just because you're worried somebody somewhere is gonna think the wrong thing.

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So for me, a lot of this comes back to the accusations part of it.

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I would never want, and it's not even a concern for like my reputation personally, but as the president and CEO of GotQuestions Ministries, I would not want anything to happen or to be accused of anything that would cause a bad testimony to shine on GotQuestions.

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So I try to be very realistic with boundaries, but for me, like the biggest wake -up call happened, it was probably about 15 years ago.

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I'll tell the story briefly. My sister, I have one biological sister, she was in town and I can't remember where Melissa, my wife was.

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So my sister and I went out to dinner at a local restaurant and we're just sitting there talking, obviously having a good time.

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Anyone who could see us would say, wow, these two people clearly know each other and like each other and they do each other's company.

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Well, across the room at the restaurant, I saw a family from our church who had never met my sister before.

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And the husband, father of that family was glaring at me. And if looks could kill, this was an example of that.

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So ultimately, I pardoned myself for my sister, went over and talked to him. I was like, I just wanna let you know that's my sister.

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And he was like, oh, okay. I just thought it looked really strange. So all this for me.

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So apparently in his mind, seeing me having dinner and having a good time with a woman who was not my wife, he was probably assuming

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I was having an affair. And that was a wake -up call for me in that, one, like, okay, why would that be his first reaction?

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And two, I need to be careful because I would never want anyone to assume that was happening when it was obviously, definitely not.

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But at the same time, you get the other extreme where, for example, we'll talk about this, the

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Billy Graham rule. And just put briefly, the Billy Graham rule was, I don't know if it was invented by Billy Graham or he learned it from someone else, is that he will never allow himself to be alone with a member of the opposite sex other than his wife or an immediate family member.

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And I have, again, like I said earlier, I would never try to convince someone, if that is your conviction,

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I'm not here to try to tell you that's a wrong conviction, but that makes life very difficult and it limits who you're able to have meaningful relationships or meaningful ministry with if you can absolutely never be alone with someone.

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So there's the two extremes kind of at work. My wife, Melissa, had a coworker once who was of this conviction and occasionally they would both arrive in an elevator at the same time and he would absolutely refuse, he would not ride up two stories in an elevator with my wife if it was just the two of them in the elevator.

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And again, I don't have any problem with that conviction, but Melissa was like, this is just weird.

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We can ride in an elevator together without being tempted and without giving the appearance of anything going on.

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I mean, so yeah, there's the contrast between the two issues.

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I get it and I understand the importance. For example, 1

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Thessalonians 5 .22 says, do not give the appearance of evil. So no, we absolutely should never do something that gives an appearance that something's happening that's not happening.

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But how far do you take that? How strong a barrier is, how far out do you have to push the barriers when you can't live your life by other people's misperceptions or other people's judgmentalism?

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So it's a struggle. It's something that we've all dealt with to varying degrees and that I'm very mindful of as the president of the organization.

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I would never wanna give anyone any opportunity to accuse and all it takes is an accusation.

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And then it becomes a he said, she said type of thing. And how many ministries have been seriously harmed or how many people's ministry ability to minister have been destroyed by even a false accusation, even when it's proven false.

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A lot of people still think, was it really false? Was there something going on there? And I would never want that to happen.

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Well, I think, so back to what Jeff said earlier, I really liked the distinction you made between like friendship or even like intimacy versus behaviors.

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Because I think, yeah, like I just think that's really helpful to think through because I can have meaningful solid connections with the men in my church.

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But you know what, for me that does often happen in the context of like Sunday morning when everybody is there or at community group when we're all sharing and it's completely normal.

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It's free flowing, like they know me, they treat me like a human being. I do the same for them.

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And so I think what can become problematic with behaviors as Shay, like you're talking about with those boundaries.

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I mean, boundaries are good and appropriate but certain of them communicate, like I'm a man

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I can't talk to a woman or I can't possibly connect with her. So I think it's when those boundaries become the thing.

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And so they actually impede relationship happening as opposed to real and deep and meaningful relationship can happen.

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And yes, maybe there should be some boundaries around it. So I think it's just sort of that being careful what we're communicating.

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Are we communicating that relationship and depth and connection is good? Or are we communicating you're the opposite gender and therefore you're scary and I need to close the door because we should be suspicious of one another.

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And a lot of people misinterpret because it's not part of the wider culture that thought process is not necessarily part of the wider culture.

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So for example, Shay, you were talking to Billy Graham rule. That's the easy way people refer to it. More recently

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I've heard people call it the Mike Pence rule because he had a similar conversation. It was never really a rule.

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It was just a principle. It was actually one of four that Graham came up with. The others were things about money and honesty and transparency and things like that.

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But he was trying to prevent himself or his fellow evangelists from doing things that would give people reasons to criticize their ministry.

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And even with Graham, it was never... First of all, it was never meant to imply that there was something literally immoral about the interaction of a man with a woman who's not his wife.

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And that's where one of the misconceptions come up is that people think that, for example, if I was to say, no,

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I'm not gonna share a hotel room with Gwen if we're on a business trip. Well, that's because I just cannot...

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I have to forcibly separate myself from women because one or both of us can't control ourselves or whatever else.

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That's not what it's meant to communicate. It is meant to communicate the idea that we do want to create boundaries for the sake of what other people can see and can understand.

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Again, there's nuance, there's overlap. It's not that those temptations do not exist. I don't think it would be a good idea for an unmarried opposite sex couple to engage in that level of familiarity because sooner or later for somebody somewhere that is going to start to create some trouble and some concerns in that.

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But I think a lot of people just misunderstand what the intention is and they just sort of blow it up to say, if you set those boundaries, then that's creating unfair separation.

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So I think it is right. We don't wanna create that. We don't wanna create coldness or fear or paranoia, but I do think some of those things are a good idea.

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And everybody at some level agrees with that, even secular persons.

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And I don't say that lightly, but if I was to say that a 65 year old CEO was going to go on a business trip and he and his 19 year old female intern were gonna share a single bed in a hotel room because it was cheaper, absolutely nobody would think that was okay.

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Everybody would cringe. They would say, oh, that just isn't right. And we can talk all day long about saying, well, what's the matter?

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Don't you trust him? Don't you trust her? Why are you assuming? Why are you that? But there does come a point when people look at that and say, yeah,

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I can see why that really raises a lot of questions. So it's okay for us to be careful about the questions that we raise.

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We just wanna be careful about not doing it in a way that makes it feel like we are supporting those stereotypes.

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Well, I think that kind of speaks to that, I guess the idea of like the broader principle, yeah, versus how it's worked out.

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I mean, because, and maybe that's even just an understanding of boundaries. I mean, it is important and appropriate to have boundaries and to stick with them, but sometimes even those flex,

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I mean, and we know this like with our kids, it's like, okay, bedtime is like this, but well, hey, not today because like we got home late from the football game or whatever.

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And so I think the same too of like when people have a general principle of like, I don't want to be regularly spending extended time alone with somebody of the opposite sex to whom

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I'm not married versus uh -oh, like we're both gonna be at the office and there's gonna be half an hour where nobody else is here.

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I guess one of us needs to leave. Like that's sort of, so I guess it's that idea of understanding why you have your boundary and what its function is.

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So not letting the boundary rule you, but letting it help you and be a tool. And I think that's also a difficult thing for this conversation is, there's kind of like broader conservative

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Christian culture. And so the things we read about on blogs or here on podcasts or when somebody says this is the rule for everybody everywhere versus what it actually feels like in my local church or the dynamics of my local church that need a different set of boundaries and rules, maybe stricter, maybe not.

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Like, yeah, so I think context really matters, which all goes back to the heart of how are we viewing each other and how are we intentionally trying to love each other well with the love of God and use, understanding like you were saying,

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Jeff, about the realism, understanding the world that we live in and intentionally trying to love well in truth.

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And knowing what those boundaries are and what they're for is really important. So for example, I set those sorts of boundaries. I participate in those where I'm very careful about what sort of social media messaging and texting and emailing and stuff

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I might do or what sort of rooms I'm in or not with members of the opposite sex. And I don't do that because I think, oh man, if I get left in a room alone with a woman, then that's just the end of it.

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No, I don't. However, I do recognize that not only am I protecting my wife and my ministry from somebody taking something the wrong way, but I also recognize that if you set proper behavioral boundaries, it actually frees you to have deeper, more meaningful friendships.

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If I know that I just have a standing rule that I'm not going to be alone in some kind of environment with a woman who's not my wife, then for me, if I'm interacting with a woman at church,

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I feel more comfortable with being able to have meaningful contact and conversations.

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Why? Because the boundaries that I set sort of provide a buffer against some of those temptations that might come up.

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To have something that starts as a friendship, turns into an infatuation and then becomes a problem, which is something that we have heard happen in circumstances where innocent friendships turn into something more severe.

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So it's all about understanding those details. I like that we're, I hope the people listening get that we're emphasizing that this is not a one size fits all approach.

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There's going to be different ways that other people are going to approach this because it's not going to be exactly the same for every single person in every circumstance.

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And there are going to be exceptions to those rules. If a 14 year old girl is stranded on the side of the road and I need to get her out of a thunderstorm and drive her a mile down the road,

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I'm probably not going to say, sorry, you're just going to have to stay out in the rain because I don't want people to wonder what's going on.

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And we have to understand that there's complexity to it. Yeah. And again, when

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I say this, I'm not saying that those who hold to the Billy Graham rule or similar principles are

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Pharisaical, but a lot of what the Pharisees did would take a command that's in the

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Bible. We'll use example, do not commit adultery. So, okay, that's what we're not supposed to do.

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Well, I can't just go as close to that as I possibly can without actually doing it.

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No, I need to set the boundaries further and further away. And eventually by Jesus' time, I got so far away from the actual sin that you don't even really know what's going on.

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Like, okay, why are we not doing this? Oh, because we did that, that could lead to that, to that, to that, to that, to that, and then 10 steps down the road, you're to the actual command that God gave.

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So that's what we can sometimes do with some of these boundaries is that, yes, we're not to commit this one particular act and we shouldn't even get close to it, but some people will push those boundaries so far away that it's just like, this doesn't even make any sense.

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And maybe the clearest example that I could think of in Israel and most

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Jewish communities, they will not eat meat and milk in the same meal.

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Okay, well, that command is not in the Bible at all. There's a command that says, do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

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That's what the Bible commands against. And we don't have to go into why that command is there, but over the centuries, it grew and expanded.

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So, well, we can't even don't run this risk, so let's just not have those two things, the same meal at all.

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Like, well, that's not the command. That's not the command at all. The command had a very specific purpose or specific reason.

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It had nothing to do with eating the two foods at the same meal, but that's how something like this can develop over time where that doesn't even make sense when you look at what the original command was.

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So we need to be careful and set reasonable boundaries, but not set a boundary so far out that it prevents us from actually having opportunities to minister to people, to have meaningful relationships.

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And go ahead, Jeff. I would say, I think one of the things that if I understand right was part of the reason for that is that sometimes there was a concern that the argumentation, as I've read in some of the

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Jewish literature, is they're saying the reason you can't do that is because if somebody sees you doing it, they could misinterpret it to mean the opposite of what the law says.

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I think I've read something similar. It was about the blood of fish and blood of land animals or something like that.

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And it was saying, you can't confuse those because if somebody's watching, they may get the wrong impression.

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And that's where I feel there's a lot of danger in all of it is we have to try to strike a balance between saying,

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I don't wanna give people the wrong impression, but I have to be realistic about the world that we live in and know that if I give somebody a good reason to wonder, then

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I'm giving them a good reason to wonder. Yeah, I think there's that balance of like, we don't wanna become a stumbling block to somebody else, but we also can't be ruled by another person's convictions.

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So yeah, there is that balance, I guess. And so Jeff, back to what you were saying about boundaries,

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I love that idea of it can actually set you free. And just those like clear definitions.

25:47

I think when people understand, like you were saying, when they understand why it's there or when you yourself know, yeah, then it can set you free.

25:54

I remember thinking, so yeah, so I'm single and don't plan to get married, but I know in like in my 20s, there was always that kind of like awkward when you're interacting with guys, like, oh, like, is he interested in me or is he just being nice or whatever?

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And so it was always a relief when I would interact with married men because it's like, this is great. I know he's not interested in me,

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I'm not interested in him, I can just be a person and like not worry about this other stuff. And so I think that's sort of what you're saying.

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Like when you know, like this isn't gonna become, like I have boundaries set so that this isn't gonna become weird,

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I'm gonna like communicate upfront and appropriately, then you're free to enjoy the relationship that is.

26:38

And I think communication is important because it's good for us to tell people why we're taking the steps that we are.

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When I worked as an engineer, I distinctly remember an incident where I had a young woman who was a coworker who came to me because she needed a key to get into a specific area.

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And the technical way that the procedure was supposed to work is I wasn't supposed to give that key to somebody else. If they wanted to get in this area,

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I would go there with the key to let them in. But this meant going through several locked doors to get to this particular area.

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And I just said, I can't go back there with you. But I was also clear in explaining is

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I'm just not comfortable with the idea of going through several sets of locked doors with you because I don't want people coming to the wrong impression.

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And there were other things going on in the environment that made that more of a concern with the way people were thinking.

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I said, that doesn't mean I'm concerned or anything, but it just does mean let's go get a third person so that the three of us can go back there and do this.

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I know that's gonna take an extra minute, but how we communicate this, I think matters. If we just say it in a way that doesn't give people the right impression, that's not good.

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And I think we also need to think as what do we overall communicate with the rules and the approaches that we have?

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One of the reasons that some of this stuff has even come up in the first place is Shay, you were talking about the idea of accusation.

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And it's unfortunate that we're living in an environment right now where to some extent, an accusation that gets spread is as good as a conviction.

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And that's not fair and that's not right. We don't wanna be in the sense that we automatically are skeptical of everything that somebody says, but if we communicate the idea that if we can even accuse you of something, we can destroy your life, we can destroy your ministry, we can destroy your family, that communicates to men in particular that they need to be very paranoid about those things.

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But at the same time, if we communicate somehow that women are not to be trusted or that men cannot rely on a woman to be honest about a circumstance, then they're gonna question why we have those rules and those boundaries.

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So the communication thing, I think is good. We wanna tell people why we're doing what we're doing and the reasons we're doing it so that they can't be unfairly critical.

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And at that point, if we're clear about why we're doing it and we're transparent about all the things that are going on and somebody chooses to judge us anyway, there's nothing we can do about that.

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That's going to happen. And we're gonna need to count on our reputation to get us through that. I think it's 1

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Peter 2 .15 talks about, you want to live a lifestyle so that people who slander you are just ashamed for even making the accusation in the first place.

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And I think some of these things can be healthy ways to make that happen. And I would say too, so we're talking about this mostly from sort of like the male setting, the boundary perspective, which

29:33

I mean, in my experience has been how we normally talk about it. But I'm thinking like there have been women well, women and men, like sexual abuse is a thing.

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People have been traumatized in the past. So I think that it can be a safety for both genders.

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I mean, there are women who would feel uncomfortable being alone with a man, maybe because something in the past.

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So I think from the other side, it's helpful when men respect that too and realize like, oh, you know, like maybe she would be uncomfortable in this situation.

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I actually had a family friend ask me that we were, so he was teaching me something.

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And so like, I came to his house and then we were going somewhere and his wife was there when I got there. And I kind of assumed she was coming and I was like, oh no, she's not.

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And he said, you know, because of the culture that we live in, it's like, well, I guess this is kind of a thing.

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So like, is it okay if we drive alone together? And I'm like, yeah, that's fine with me.

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And his wife is like, yeah, you're like a father figure to her. I mean, he's known me since I was seven. So, but I do appreciate that he asked and, you know, acknowledged it for both of us.

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Like some people might not be okay with this. So let's just make sure it's okay. We've talked a lot about the boundary side of it.

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I think that's very healthy because I don't want this episode to at all communicate let's throw off all boundaries because no, that's not what we're saying at all.

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But I also want to talk a little bit about some of the positive aspects of male -female relationships.

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For example, men and women are different. Despite what our culture wants to tell us these days, men and women are different.

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And even with all the generalizations in place, I've found the female friends that I have have different insights into me and my character and what they observe in me than my male friends do.

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That often I've learned more from somewhat like a female friend, including some of my coworkers that got questions say, so Shay, when you said this, it came across to me like this.

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I mean, and none of the male employees thought that at all. It's like, that's very helpful for me to know.

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It's things like that where obviously I have Melissa, my wife of 25 years, but in a sense,

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I mean, we've spent a lot of time together over 25 years. We've gotten very used to each other and we're used to how each other come across.

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And so we don't notice those things as much as a female friend who's far less intimately connected to me as my wife is.

32:15

Well, female friends will notice some things that Melissa won't notice or male friends won't notice.

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And to me, I have found some of those insights very, very helpful and learning more about some learning areas where I need to work on and improve learning how to communicate better to people who don't know me all that well and recognizing even how

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I come across. So it's things like that that I don't think, I think setting up so many boundaries that we cannot have meaningful relationships with the opposite sex lessens us in the sense it reduces the input we can have, the quality and the type of input we can have from people, just from a discipleship, from a

32:56

Christian fellowship, from a let's love one another. And part of that includes speaking the truth and love and to only limit yourself to content from one side of the populace.

33:09

It's seemed both unwise and to an extent unbiblical because if male and female, if we're one in Christ, I don't see how there can be no barriers between Jeff and I, but between Gwen and I, there's gotta be all these barriers and all these hoops we have to jump through before we can even have a conversation.

33:29

So it's things like that that's really forced me to kind of think through this. And yes, I understand accountability and barriers and not giving the impression and the appearance of evil and those types of things, but not to the extent that I can't have a meaningful relationship with members of the opposite sex.

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And to highlight that, I think just to reemphasize some of that is that there is a lot of value in those things.

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So for the unmarried persons, it can be valuable to have meaningful relationship in the terms of friendship and spiritual with members of the opposite sex because men and women do not think the same way.

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We don't perceive things the same way. And there's a lot of healthy growth that can happen if there's able to be some communication between the two of here's what this perspective says and here's what that perspective says.

34:19

Same thing if you are married, if a woman I'm not married to doesn't like something that I've said or done, she has a little bit more freedom to feel like she can just tell me what she wants because there's none of that sense of,

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I have to go home with this person and get along with them later. It's not about dishonesty. It's just, it's knowing that there's that other perspective where somebody can actually speak into that.

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So I think you're right. You stand to miss out on a lot of insight and a lot of understanding.

34:50

But there again to remind, I don't think in most cases that's what most Christians are suggesting.

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That's another thing I wanna make sure people don't get the wrong impression. The vast majority of pastors and church members and businessmen and whoever else are not advocating that there needs to be some sort of hard gender separation where the two just never interact with each other.

35:12

That's sort of a cartoon. That's not how people are really doing it and how they're really saying it. And I think most people recognize it.

35:18

Yeah, there is value in that. And we wanna just be careful about how we handle that. Treat it well, don't be careless with it. Well, I think,

35:25

I mean, that goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning of that Genesis one ideal. You know, like it was not good for a man to be alone.

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And I think, I mean, you know, in Adam's situation obviously that did speak specifically about marriage and for him to be able to fill the earth, he needed a woman.

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But I think it speaks to that broader, we were made for community with one another.

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And like you guys have said, community with people who are not like us. I mean, that's one of the things I love most about my community group is the male perspective in there.

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It's like, there are guys in the group and they share and I don't get that otherwise. I mean, I love my ladies

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Bible study too, but like, but those are just different connections and different things that you get.

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And actually there's a woman in my Bible study who's a widow and she said the same thing of like, you know, yeah, with my husband gone, like I'm pretty much with women all the time.

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So it is nice that our church does groups that are cross -generational and cross -gender and, you know, trying to be this diverse community that lives in unity with each other, recognizing that each of us, yeah, has something unique and a little bit different to bring.

36:36

So we're running out of time here. So let's each conclude with just like, conclude with some closing thoughts in that, what are we each taking away from the different conversations we've had together and with others about this issue?

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And what is something like the incident that started the conversation about having an inappropriate texting relationship with frequency and familiarity?

37:05

What should be the takeaway for something like that? So Jeff, why don't you start us off? What for you is the biggest takeaway from something like this happening?

37:15

I think maybe the most important one, because my experience is very often talking to people who struggle with faith or are not believers, is to use it as an example of saying, this is how a lot of Christians take this.

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There was nothing sexual. There was nothing truly inappropriate, especially in a secular sense, nothing illegal, nothing immoral.

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And yet the church was willing to set a boundary, say something about it, do something about it and be transparent about it.

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So for as much as we hear about Christian leaders who fail and sweep things under the rug and try to cover up spiritual abuse, there really are true examples of churches that don't do that and take that.

37:51

So that's a good thing. I think it also just reinforces my experience that it is good to have boundaries, not because of fear and not because of angst, but for the same reason

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I have boundaries in the way we handle cooking and firing, weapons and vehicles and chemicals and everything else like that.

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You just set healthy boundaries so that bad things don't happen and so that we don't give other people the wrong impression.

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So I think a really good thing to come out of it is an example that yes, believers take this seriously enough that we're willing to be transparent and accountable, but I also think it helps us remember that it is good to set healthy boundaries as long as everybody knows why we're doing it and what we're doing it for.

38:35

Gwen, how about you? I think for me, just sort of the conversations and the topic in general is that this is really hard, but I think it's also really worth wrestling through.

38:47

I mean, the church is a called out community that is reflecting Christ. And so it's worth us struggling through it of how do we really do that?

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What does it really mean to be the family of God? What do those interactions look like? So I think,

39:03

I guess just that encouragement of not being shaped by the world and not being shaped by a reaction, like an overreaction to things, but really examining ourselves and allowing

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God to examine our hearts and asking Him to give us wisdom and to give us

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His love and eyes for other people. So I guess it's kind of that encouragement that the church is a family and that it's a family worth fighting for.

39:28

So let's keep working on this and learn how to be that community together. Yeah, great points, both of you.

39:37

Like for me, some of it still goes back to one of my initial reactions to what happened in that I asked if the exact same conversations were happening between this pastor and this woman's husband, would there have been any concerns?

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And if so, or if not, why? To me, like, if you're going to have a meaningful relationship,

40:03

I think familiarity and frequency are part of it. I mean, how can you have a true friendship with someone if you are not familiar with them, if you are not frequently communicating with them?

40:15

So again, without saying we need more information, it's not what I'm saying, but I still struggle with that because I believe that the

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Bible teaches us that we are to have meaningful relationships in the body of Christ and not just with half of the body of Christ, but with the entire body of Christ.

40:32

So that requires some vulnerability, some interaction with the opposite sex.

40:38

It requires appropriate boundaries, but not hard and fast. I'm sorry,

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I can't talk to you because you're the opposite sex. And I know that's a caricature, but some of you can take that so far.

40:51

Well, I can't even be seen talking to someone. So for me, it's a conviction. I don't want to do anything that could give someone the wrong impression, especially if it could cause harm to the testimony of God Questions Ministries.

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But at the same time, I can't allow other people's perceptions to control how I live. I can't constantly be worrying about how does this look to someone else?

41:15

So appropriate boundaries, but not boundaries that choke out the opportunity to have relationships that I can be encouraged by and that I can actually encourage in different ways.

41:29

So that's my biggest takeaway. And again, we don't really have the answer in the sense of here's a universal rule we can apply in all situations.

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But I think it's helpful just to think through these things and remember it's not as black and white as some people make it out to be, but we can struggle through issues like this together and come to convictions that work for all parties involved.

41:52

So again, I hope our conversation has been encouraging, edifying to you. Obviously, if you have any questions about this, you can submit it at the website or you can struggle through these issues with us.

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So Gwen, Jeff, thanks for joining me today. This has been the Got Questions podcast on opposite gender relationships.