BUCKHANNON, WV — When a pastor makes a public doctrinal claim from the pulpit, especially about identity, embodiment, or God’s design: Christians have a responsibility to test that claim against the Scriptures themselves. Not modern interpretations, no denominational filters, no manmade traditions, not political pressures, not cultural trends, but the text as it appears in the Bible and in the oldest manuscripts: the way it was handed down, preserved, and understood for the first 2,000 years of the Church. Recent reports describe a United Methodist Church pastor announcing during a sermon that they were transitioning genders, saying, “I’m not becoming a woman; I’m giving up pretending to be a man.” Regardless of how one personally feels about that statement, the question in Christian theology is singular: Does the Bible allow the idea that a person’s inner identity can contradict the sex God created them with? To answer that, we rely on the earliest Hebrew manuscripts, the earliest Greek manuscripts, the earliest Christian writings, the linguistic structure of the text itself, and Jesus’ own interpretation of Genesis. The goal is not to attack the pastor or any individual as Scripture teaches we “wrestle not against flesh and blood.” Our aim is simply to show what God has already revealed in His word about identity, anthropology, and the created male/female design. This is where I will point out that the word is the word is the word and there are warnings all over the Bible (Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32: Proverbs 30:5–6; Jeremiah 23:16, 26; Ezekiel 13:6; Matthew 15:3, 9; Mark 7:7–8; Revelation 22:18–19) about adding to scripture and the consequences that will transpire if we are to do that. So, without further ado, let’s examine scripture to see what it really says.
The oldest physical manuscripts of Genesis ever discovered, centuries older than Jesus’ earthly ministry, preserve Genesis 1-2 with absolute clarity, and these are found in the DEAD SEA SCROLLS dating from the 3rd to 1st century BC. The Hebrew words for human creation are “זָכָר zakar (male)” and “נְקֵבָה neqevah (female),” and these words appear identically in 1QGen, 4QGen-Exod, and 4QGenf, all predating Christianity by hundreds of years. Both words refer to biological, embodied, sexed reality, not psychological, metaphorical, or inner-identity categories. There is zero manuscript variation that ever suggests additional categories beyond male and female, nor is there any manuscript variation that ever suggests that God ever makes us anything other than the gender assigned at birth.
Hundreds of years before the ministry of Jesus, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, producing the SEPTUAGINT (LXX). In this translation, Genesis 1:27 reads “ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ — arsen kai thēly (male and female).” This exact phrase appears in CODEX VATICANUS, CODEX SINAITICUS, and CODEX ALEXANDRINUS, and most importantly, Jesus Himself quotes this exact Greek phrase in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6. This proves two things: Jesus affirms binary male/female creation, and Jesus interprets Genesis literally, not symbolically. He anchors human identity in God’s original embodied design, not in internal feelings or psychological states.
When asked about marriage and divorce, Jesus immediately goes to, “Have you not read that from the beginning He created them male (ἄρσεν) and female (θῆλυ)?” The phrase “ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς” (ap’ archēs) means “from the beginning,” referring to original design, and “ἔκτισεν” (ektisen) is an aorist verb referring to a completed creative act. “Γένεσιν” (genēsin) refers to origin, creation, and foundational identity. Jesus directly teaches that identity is rooted in creation, not self-perception; human sex is fixed by God’s original act; and the binary is essential to God’s design of humanity. For someone to claim Christianity supports gender identity theory, they would have to claim either that Jesus did not understand Genesis or that Jesus intentionally withheld “true” modern understanding, neither of which is possible. No, when we look at history, a clear picture is painted of where the idea of gender-fluidity and LGBTQ ideas originated. In Ancient Mesopotamia the goddess Inanna/Ishtar had priests and temple attendants called gala (Sumerian) or kalû (Akkadian) who were biologically male but took on the role of female; some myths describe the goddess changing a man into a woman; ritual gender-crossing was part of the goddess’s cult. Ancient Egypt had myths of deities that shift forms or combine male/female traits (e.g., Atum, Hapi, Hathor); Canaanites and Phoenicians Worshiped of Asherah and Astarte included gender-bending rituals. In the Roman world they commonly had male on male sexual relationships; The “kinaidos” class (male with feminine mannerisms) existed socially and ritually; Emperor Elagabalus (3rd century AD) asked to be called “Lady” and sought surgical removal of male organs; The Galli, priests of Cybele, were biological males who castrated themselves and lived as women: these were the closest ancient world example of ‘I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body.’
Manuscripts such as P46 (175–225 AD), which contain Romans and 1 Corinthians, preserve Paul’s arguments about the body. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul uses “σῶμα — sōma” in a way that shows the body is not irrelevant to identity, the body is part of God’s creation, the body is not a container for a separate inner self, and the body is not something we can redefine at will. Greek grammar shows no possibility of interpreting the body as a temporary shell for a different internal identity. Paul’s argument is that your body is created by God, belongs to God, and must not be rejected or redefined.
Romans 1, preserved in CODEX SINAITICUS and CODEX VATICANUS, uses the phrase “παρα φύσιν — para physin,” meaning “against the design” or “against the natural order.” “Physis” refers to divine created design, not personal preference. The text teaches that humans exchanged God’s created design in a behavioral, ideological, and theological sense; it is not referring to an inner identity at odds with biology but to a rejection of God’s created order by redefining what humans are. Paul’s argument only makes sense if the body defines sex and identity cannot contradict biological creation.
No ancient Hebrew or Greek manuscript uses any word or grammatical structure implying inner gender, psychological gender, fluid gender identity, self-constructed identity, or any discrepancy between body and self. Instead, both Testaments consistently root identity in God’s physical creation, embodied design, and the created categories of male and female.
There is no ancient linguistic pathway to interpret identity as psychological or internal. “Inner gender identity” is a 21st-century social construct, not a Biblical or ancient one.
Before any councils, denominations, or later church politics, the earliest Christian writers confirmed the same understanding. IRENAEUS (180 AD) taught that human identity is rooted in the physical creation of male and female. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (195 AD) rejected attempts to alter or contradict the created sex of the body. TERTULLIAN (200 AD) argued that the resurrection of the body proves identity is embodied. The DIDACHE (c. 100 AD) rooted Christian ethics in bodily created order. These men learned from the apostles’ disciples; their writings confirm the manuscripts and affirm binary creation.
This is why a pastor announcing a gender transition from the pulpit cannot be theologically described as Christian, not because of dislike, not because of politics, not because of personal preference, but because the Bible and even the oldest Hebrew manuscripts teach embodied, binary creation; the SEPTUAGINT teaches embodied, binary creation; Jesus teaches embodied, binary creation; Paul teaches embodied, binary creation; the earliest New Testament manuscripts preserve this teaching; the earliest Church Fathers affirm it without variation; the grammar itself does not allow inner identity to be a factor; the body is part of God’s creation, not optional; and pastors are judged more strictly (James 3:1). A pastor may feel distress, may struggle, may experience emotions and confusion, but a pastor may not teach something from the pulpit that contradicts God’s revealed Word. The moment a pastor’s identity claim contradicts their created identity, the doctrine being taught is no longer Christian—not because we say so, but because the manuscripts say so.
This is not about trans people, political ideology, or modern culture, or the freedom to do what you want in the United States and other free countries/nations, those choices fall on us as individuals, solely, and the bearing of those decisions are solely on each individual. It is about what the Bible says, oldest manuscripts say, what Jesus said, what the earliest Christians believed, what Scripture teaches, and what the grammar demands, and ultimately what God said. As Christians we believe that The word is with God and the word is God (John 1:1); if Jesus then, being God incarnate, the son and part of the Godhead gave is these words and these words are him, then we cannot change them because God is above all life and creation. Scripture does not bend to internal feelings, psychology, categories, or modern identity theories. The earliest Bible we possess teaches male and female created, embodied, intentional, unchangeable. The Christian faith is built on that revelation, not on internal self-perception, and this is why the doctrine preached in that sermon, regardless of who said it, cannot be called Christian: and that’s not coming from us, not from denominations, not from culture, but from the Scriptures and manuscripts themselves. And I will stress again that if the word is with God and the word IS God, then what scripture said stands with continued and everlasting authority.
Pinned Statement
At the Appalachian Post, all Faith & Life analysis follows a strict Sola Scriptura method grounded in the earliest manuscript evidence, the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages, and the historical context in which each passage was written. We allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, avoid denominational bias, and base every conclusion solely on what the biblical text itself says as preserved in sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint Greek, and early New Testament manuscripts. Our aim is to present God’s Word faithfully, using original-language grammar, historical background, and manuscript accuracy, without personal opinion or modern cultural interpretation, so readers encounter Scripture as it was given, preserved, and understood by the earliest believers..
Primary First-Hand Sources
DEAD SEA SCROLLS
1QGen
4QGen-Exod
4QGenf
SEPTUAGINT (LXX)
CODEX SINAITICUS
CODEX VATICANUS
CODEX ALEXANDRINUS
P46
IRENAEUS — Against Heresies
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA — Paedagogus
TERTULLIAN — On the Resurrection of the Flesh
DIDACHE
Secondary Attribution-Based Sources
General reporting on the pastor’s public statement as circulated through national news outlets; contextual descriptions based on publicly available quotations.
Appalachian Post 
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