For all of the talk of spectrum of gender, and growing lists of supposedly available gender descriptors, all of it, the entire discussion is centered on the two basic sexes given to us in creation: male and female. And, while the growing number of sexual and gender identifiers seeks to present as scientific, the fact remains that the contrary definition and usage by various folk point more to subjective experience and self-definition than to clear, scientific categories with which one may know himself with confidence. In fact, a couple generations of people are now less and less confident in just who or what they are.

After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female…

Westminster Confession of Faith 4.2

Perhaps you’ve heard that old, supposedly humorous, story about the two drunken sailors stumbling through a foggy night. A stranger approaches, who, unbeknownst to them, is their commanding officer. They ask: Hey, friend, do you know where we are?? Incensed by their casual approach and disrespect, he gasps: Do you two know WHO I AM?? Well, how surprising to the two drunken sailors that, while their libations were giving them trouble as to their location, someone else could drink enough to forget who he was!

As much as that story might elicit a chuckle, it describes the day in which we live: so much of the cultural lager has been drunk that people are completely forgetting who they are.

There are two ways to attain unto the knowledge of the self. One is to study, as a self, seeking to define, describe, and display exactly what or who one believes himself to be. The other is to approach the maker of self and humbly ask: Who do you say that I am? He has answered that. “Will we believe him?” becomes the question. As one approaches the Confession of Faith, the answer is simplified through the distilling of biblical texts to get at just that question in clear and concise statements. Rather than complicate the matter, the Confession helps us get right at understanding “Who Am I Anyway?!”

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