There's a good bit of talk these days about "God's design for the family," "God's design for marriage," "God's design for manhood and womanhood," etc., usually in context of a charge that this design must be followed, or else...or else society as we know it will come to ruin (which may not be such a bad thing). Or, at the very least, we won't please God.
But if a thing is God's design, then it's...God's design. Immutable. Unchangeable.
However, it can be perverted. That's what sin does -- it perverts, corrupts, and pollutes God's design. But doesn't change it.
We might best think of things in terms of what perverts and corrupts them (something Catholics are better at, I think, than Protestants) before trying to determine what God's design for them is. In so doing we may also begin to see where we misuse the Bible by applying it as a rule-book (or using it to justify our own ideas) rather than as a guide to the truth about God, Christ, Creation, and ourselves, and a record of God's dealings with His people. We may then also see how we misuse and abuse God's design.
Perhaps we need not even concern ourselves with God's design, but rather with whether or not we are walking in godly trust and in the Holy Spirit, living out our salvation in Christ. I think then we will see God's design as He intended it to be -- "the way things ought to be."
Let us concern ourselves with the proper things, that we and those things we influence may be redeemed (rescued) from perversion and corruption.
