No, I didn’t say that the body is evil, just as you said about technology, but we, being born into sin, tend that way (read Gen. 3:1-15).
Because you’re gay, no, because you’re a sinner, yes. I believe that the Bible says things about the way we live and so I tend to listen to it and when it is obvious about what it says then we should be obeying fully. So, my love for your soul being no less diminished I would say that, yes, homosexuality is against biblical teaching. It is a worship of yourself, your own image. (see Rom. 1) My sin is no less before a holy God but the crux of the matter is, am I denying sin and so disagreeing with what the Bible says about it?
I’m not saying this to bash you over the head, please hear me, my heart is to love God and love others, in that order. If God says that something is wrong, is it loving of me to deny that and suppress it because I want someone say, to like me more, or not to cause a stir? If I was in adultery I would say that you would have proper ground to come and confront me with the Word of God and say things that are hard but if they were true then that would give you reason to say it. If I went and celebrated my adultery, flaunted it in my wife’s face, then started a church that celebrated my adultery and judged people that didn’t celebrate my adultery with me then you would think I was a loony. Why? Because adultery is wrong, the bible is clear about it. Now, if I repented, turned from my sin, heeded counsel, struggled with putting the sin away, i.e., did not practice it but like any other human struggled with longing for it, but loved God more than my sin, then I would be considered a Psalm 1 man.
Again, please let me properly align myself under the same banner with you. We are both sinners that are susceptible to all of the same sins, when I write something like this I want to make it painstakingly clear that I’m under the same judgment as a human being.
Now, why do I think it is wrong? I would argue from design as well as from our own sinfulness. Please pay attention as I have written some things after some of the bold sections in parentheses.
Sinfulness:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (you and me in the same boat), who by their (those who deny their sin) unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man (this is where I believe that you are worshiping yourself in a homosexual relationship.) and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up (when the Bible says something once pay close attention, twice is like we’re insane, or just don’t believe the Bible, not to listen. If we do not believe it that is our problem, not God’s, and as it says, maybe the very reason we do what we do) to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another (this sounds consensual to me, does it not to you – so the argument that this is speaking to men who were trying to rape or otherwise have sex with other men that is unwanted doesn’t fit the context, it is a straw man), men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error (can it be any clearer what he is saying?).
(Romans 1:18-27 ESV)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
(1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV) (This addresses some of my sins as well and just like I argued above if I continued to practice them and even celebrate them I have no part of Christ.)
Design:
He [Jesus] answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female (see below, following God’s design, affirming it), and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (this is a spiritual, as well as a sexual union that is again affirmed by the Son of God as the only legitimate union in the sexual arena before God.) So they are no longer two but one flesh (doesn’t happen outside of man/woman, marriage relationship). What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6) (Man/Woman, how it has always been, Jesus affirmed this loud and clear.)
But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife (see context, God makes it as it should be and then affirms it as useful), and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2:20b-25)
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (how does this happen in a homosexual union?) and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(Genesis 1:26-28 ESV)
My goal is to get you to see the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus, I cannot hate you as much as I could hate my son. I pray that you will go to the scripture and see the beauty of it and lay down all of your sin, as I would, and love the gospel more than my own sin.
Take care,
Tim
No comments:
Post a Comment