The Beauty of the Binary

In these days of confusion over the nature of gender and the relationship between men and women, Luke Griffo offers a refreshingly biblical take on the beauty of God’s design. Male and female were both made in God’s image, but He uniquely designed them to beautifully complement each other as they image God. This is not something from which to run away with embarrassment—recognition of the beauty of the binary will actually allow both men and women to flourish as God designed. But ultimately, the solution to gender confusion is found in the gospel, as God’s redeemed people identify with Christ and live as Christ. I’m thankful for this helpful, pastoral treatment of a challenging subject in today’s confused climate.

In an age of confusion, the church should be a beacon of clarity. The world’s attempt to subvert the gender binary is perhaps the most destructive example of the moral chaos of our day, and Christians must be equipped to clearly oppose it. The Beauty of the Binary provides Christians with a thorough biblical defense of the necessity of male and female distinctions. Readers will finish confident in their ability to give an answer for God’s good design for gender.

Without a doubt, the American evangelical church lacks a consistent understanding of masculinity and femininity, and The Beauty of the Binary: Male and Female He Created Them will be an excellent tool for believers who wish to think rightly about these realities. Written in an approachable and conversational tone, even while communicating weighty truths, this book is an excellent and faithful overview of the biblical stance on anthropology—man and woman as image-bearers, fallen sinners, and objects of God’s undeserved grace. The reader will thoroughly enjoy the jewels of wisdom that Griffo has procured from the Word of God and laid before the saints. The Beauty of the Binary will not merely call the lost into the light; this work will surely provoke awe from the people of God as they consider the wisdom of their Creator and Redeemer. I have also had the privilege of knowing Luke Griffo as he lives out his maleness in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have spent hours on sidewalks outside abortion clinics in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, as Luke exhorts parents with boldness and evident love to choose life for their pre-born babies. I have watched Luke care for his wife, Meg, as she battles various medical challenges, and more recently, I have watched Luke and Meg enter the role as parents of two adopted twin boys. Luke is a man who not only knows how to accurately communicate biblical truth about men and women—he lives it every day, to the glory of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I could not commend The Beauty of the Binary, and Luke Griffo himself, more highly.

In a straightforward and uncompromising treatment of one of the most pressing issues facing the church and society today, Luke helps bring clarity to all the confusion brought on by the transgender movement. He presents a thoroughly biblical picture of the binary, which, for far too many evangelicals, has become muddled as we have watched the usurpation, redefinition, and disgrace of the imago dei by a godless culture. In The Beauty of the Binary, Luke calls us to fully embrace God’s design, intention, and purpose for His image-bearers. This book will help you understand the sheer weightiness of this issue, equip you to deal rightly with it, and encourage you to engage with loving boldness.

In some ways, it is a shame and a disgrace to our generation that author Luke Griffo’s book, The Beauty of the Binary, is necessary. On the one hand, it justly indicts the culture of death and reveals how the mighty have fallen under our watch. On the other hand, this jewel of a book reveals redemptive history. In the darkest of times, which create furnaces of affliction, these are typically the eras when God’s greatest salvific works are made manifest in the earth. Utilizing the beauty, love, wisdom, and relationship of the triune God of the Bible, the Lord’s creation order, holy commandments, and great salvation, Mr. Griffo establishes the standard by which men and nations are to conduct their affairs in our poor, fallen world. In the case of the transgender movement, it exposes the deception, delusion, and distortion of the sexes while upholding God’s original intent for the male and female of the species. It is not what males and females can do according to their sinful brokenness, which rapes minds and mutilates bodies, but what they are supposed to do according to God’s immutable, inerrant, and inspired design. Whereas Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman? does highlight with humor and creativity the absurdity, dysfunction, and dysphoria oft he transgendered movement, he misses the ultimate mark. Luke Griffo does not. He hits the mark by building his case against the transgender movement based on the solid-rock foundation of God’s Word. I encourage every Christian to get this book to be equipped to give an answer for the hope that lies within us (1 Peter 3:15). The church must be prepared to dismantle Satan’s lies and minister the gospel of the kingdom to those who have been captured by him to desecrate and destroy the very image of God.