So there is a topic that seems to be on the tip of everyone's tongue lately, and especially here in Minnesota with the vote yes, vote no, for the marriage amendment. But for some reason, which I just can't figure out, I have had many people ask me what I think about gay marriage, my stance on homosexuality and what I think the Bible has to say relating to homosexuality and all the things related. So I thought I would say something so people would stop asking me.
I think there are a few different lenses to see this issue from, the lens of the christian, the lens of the homosexual christian and the lens of a normal homosexual person. Regardless of the lens I want to try to bring this into scripture and see if we can draw some answers from some text. So I guess I'll start here.
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside...
Paul is writing here to the Corinthian church, previous to these versus he is telling the church that they need to remove the people in our midst that are claiming to be believers, but are refusing to turn from their sin and submit their lives to Jesus. Then Paul says I can't be the judge to the people that aren't in the church. I believe that this is a very applicable verse to homosexuality because we see and hear so many horror stories about christians telling people that God hates gays, or that gays are going to hell. But I submit to you that, that is not your job. looking at the life of Jesus he never used the threat of hell to help anyone find the truth of him (Jesus). As an end result the christian people are pushing more and more people away from faith than to faith. We do these things and we continuously harden the hearts of all kinds of people that are watching the church. When I look at Jesus I believe that he was the greatest lover of all time and by casting judgement and condemning those outside the kingdom isn't showing the love that Jesus has shown for us. Plus I think it is doing the opposite of what Paul is writing in this passage. Love your brother, love your neighbor, love the sinner, love the homosexual.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.
This verse speaks to a lot of sin that we need to turn away from. As we look at homosexuality in the church, we need to see this verse as truth. I have been surrounded by the idea that as christians we have to be practicing our faith or be faithing. John 3:16 says that all who believe will have eternal life, but James 2 says even the demons believe, so are these authors contradicting each other? No. From Bruxy. If you are trapped in a burning building with Jesus and He says follow me I know a way out, if you are faithing you will take off and follow Jesus, and with only belief that Jesus can save you, you will find yourself standing in a burning building. Without faith you will die. We need to be faithing, we need to be practicing our faith, living in a way that when we see something as sin in our life (burning building) we need to walk out of that sin (following Jesus). We can't stand in Jesus and stand in sin. We've all heard a million different ways to say it, where there is light there is no darkness, we have to burn away the hook of sin, but the bottom line is that you cannot choose a lifestyle that is sinful and choose the cross. At what point are we taking God for granted? Sin is disgusting, and we can't be okay with looking at our life and making a conscious decision to choose sin. Some people can't see it as sin and I believe that God is continuously convicting us in different ways and calling out different sin our lives, specific to our walk. But in the same way that God reveals the sin to us, we are called as Christians to be faithing, to walk out of the things we see as sin in our lives. I'll close this section with this, Revelation 3 says that it is better for a person to be hot or cold, but the lukewarm will be spit out. Don't be stagnant, don't settle for lukewarm, and remember that we are called to submit our lives to do all things in the name of the lord, we live to serve the lord, not to serve ourselves or our wants and if we submit to Jesus our wants will look like God's wants.
Romans 2:1-4
You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. 3 Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? 4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?
I would be interested to hear thoughts, ideas, beliefs, how I was right or wrong, if you have a different scriptural take. If you don't want to comment and have one of the above, I encourage you to send me a facebook message.
-WIT
Jer
