It seems to me that all the theological arguments in support of the proposition that homosexual sex isn’t sinful boil down, ultimately, to one assertion:
God couldn’t possibly want me to do something that hard and that painful.
That’s really the bottom line right there, I think. All of the irrelevant arguments* about genetics are simply efforts to reinforce the second half of that sentence, to convince people that not acting on homosexual desires really is that hard and that painful. And yes, I do think this is the bottom line both for those who have desires and for those who don’t but who support the pro-homosex position—such folks would, on my observation, affirm this for themselves, and so they’re being logically and morally consistent in affirming that this must be true for others as well. (In that respect, I must admit they have a certain moral superiority to many who uphold the scriptural prohibition of homosexual activity, who are simply holding others to a moral standard which they would never dream of applying to themselves. The divorce rate among self-identified evangelicals bears eloquent witness to that.) In our suffering-averse, death-avoiding culture, I suspect you would find overwhelming agreement with this proposition: “God couldn’t possibly want me to do something that hard and that painful.”
To which I can only say: You have no idea. Our difficulty squaring a loving God with one who allows us to suffer—indeed, who actively sends us trials and uses suffering and struggle (and, yes, failure) for our growth—is ours, not the Bible’s. Consider how God tried Abraham, Ezekiel, Hosea, Job; consider how he answered the disobedience of Jonah; consider how he rewarded the faithful witness of Paul. Consider the testimony of Hebrews 11, which offers this summation of the life of faith:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
And ultimately, consider Christ, and the suffering God willingly endured for us. We have a hard time when James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” but to him, it makes perfect sense: “for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” His priorities are not our priorities, and indeed, God’s priorities are not our priorities; we’re focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain—not necessarily in a crude, hedonistic sense, but even if the pleasures we value are intellectual and rarified, it doesn’t change the basic equation—while God is on about something else entirely in our lives.
For the sake of argument, grant everything the advocates of same-sex marriage and ordination of those who practice homosexual sex and the full societal normalization of homosexual practices claim and declare and argue about homosexual desire—grant it all, every last contention and conclusion, and set it against the biblical texts. Does it justify setting aside the historic interpretation of Scripture that homosexual practices are sinful? No, it doesn’t, because God doesn’t let us off that easily.
Indeed, as much as our culture tends to fixate on sex in various ways, and as powerful as our sexual desires and drives are, they aren’t our deepest or most fundamental desires, and they don’t fuel our strongest or most elemental temptations. When Paul references homosexual practice in Romans 1, it’s in the course of making a greater point about a deeper, more fundamental and more powerful temptation: the temptation to idolatry. Unfortunately, the 21st-century American church largely hasn’t followed him there, and thus hasn’t even confronted the lesson it truly needs to learn from that, which isn’t about sex at all: it is, rather, that yes, God could and does want me to do something that hard and that painful. He wants me to take everything, right down to the thing I most desperately do not want to give up—whatever that may be—and lay it at his feet in total self-surrender.
And here’s the kicker: he wants me to do it joyfully, and in fact he gives me every reason to do it joyfully; he wants me to lay it all down, as hard and as painful as it will be, because he has something far better to give me in return. In exchange for my life, he gives me his, which is a life that can face trials and sufferings and still sing hymns of praise from a jail cell at midnight. It’s a life that can see pain, and even struggles with temptation, not as something to be avoided or something of which we should only be expected to take so much, but rather as an opportunity to know the grace of Christ and share in his ministry.
*I say these arguments are irrelevant because they commit, ironically enough, the genetic fallacy. Desires are neither stronger nor more justifiable, nor for that matter more expressive of our sense of our own identity, for being genetic rather than the product of our experience and the choices we have made. Whatever conclusions one may draw about a neurological and neurochemical component to homosexual desires, and whatever answer one may offer to the chicken-and-egg question of whether that component is cause or effect of those desires (or, for that matter, stands in some other relation altogether to them), the whole matter is logically irrelevant to the question of what any given individual ought to do with those desires. Whatever their source, the desires exist, and they are what they are, and they must be considered on that basis. The rest is all so much smoke.
hello
to start with where is the "easy yoke and light burden" in your condemnation of homosexuality, out of your interpretation of scripture, homosexuals never having women(romans1) not since their earliest sexual memory, but instead are attracted to the same sex 24/7 their entire lives. homosexual believers who marry their lives and marriages are filled with the fruit of the spirit in the same way as those of believing heterosexuals.
antiquity is no litmus test for the future, believers having practiced indulgences for 800 years,burned witches for 1400 years(do not suffer a witch to live)kjv,supported ethnic slavery for 1700 years, (take slaves from the surrounding countries for life, as capital and pass them on to your children as inheritance), and antisemetism for 2000 years in spite of romans 10 and 11.
in truth there are so many things of the new covenant that show that homosexuality is not a sin, it has become a non issue.
the whole thing about homosexuality being a sin, is based on the idea that somehow believers by performing or obstaining from certain outward acts they can make themselves holy, a carry over from the old covenant, when in truth it is the spirit of christ living in believers that makes them holy.
then please explain how being homosexual is defiling. how it comes against the fruit of the spirit of galatians the essence of the spirit of christ and the 2nd commandment( love your neighbor….) the summation of all new covenant law(gal,romans)
surely if anything is a sin it has to come against these.
REEDIT
antiquity is no litmus test for the TRUTH, believers having practiced indulgences for 800 years,burned witches for 1400 years(do not suffer a witch to live)kjv,supported ethnic slavery for 1700 years, (take slaves from the surrounding countries for life, as capital and pass them on to your children as inheritance), and antisemetism for 2000 years in spite of romans 10 and 11.
Is Feetxxxl saying that ALL the OT laws abort sexuality is null and void? That would mean incest etc. is OK according to his/her reasoning!
im saying that for anything to be a sin under the new covenant it has come against the 2nd commandment and the fruit of the spirit.
"take slaves from the surounding countries for life as capital, to be passed on to your children as inheritance"lev, now comes against both of them and is not acceptable under the new even though it was acceptable under the old.
being homosexual does not come against either of them and therefore is not a sin under the new covenant.
Allen I see what your saying. If homosexuality is OK, then brothers and sisters can marry, Fathers and daughters can marry. After all who is that hurting. Like you said if the "2nd command" is a free ticket to do anything.
homosexuality stands and falls on its own merit, the same is true for any other issue.
to start with where is the "easy yoke and light burden" in your condemnation of homosexuality
Answered here.
homosexuals never having women(romans1) not since their earliest sexual memory, but instead are attracted to the same sex 24/7 their entire lives.
True of some, not true of others, and in any case, irrelevant to the argument, both for reasons I've already noted and because Paul is talking about idolatry and idolatrous peoples, not about individuals.
homosexual believers who marry their lives and marriages are filled with the fruit of the spirit in the same way as those of believing heterosexuals.
That's something you need to prove, not something you can take as given; you can't make your case by simply asserting it as fact. Very sloppy.
antiquity is no litmus test for the future
No one's saying it is; your comment is utterly irrelevant to the point. The fact that the church is made up of sinners and has not flawlessly represented God in this world is also irrelevant to the point. (Though I will note, as someone trained in history, your historical assertions are as incorrect as they are irrelevant.)
in truth there are so many things of the new covenant that show that homosexuality is not a sin, it has become a non issue.
This assertion would be far more convincing if you could back it up.
the whole thing about homosexuality being a sin, is based on the idea that somehow believers by performing or obstaining from certain outward acts they can make themselves holy
No, actually, it isn't; this is a statement utterly without exegetical support, based on what is clearly nothing more than a superficial acquaintance with the New Testament. The whole thing about homosexual sex being a sin is based on the idea that it is profoundly alien to human nature as originally created by God, and thus to human flourishing—and that, as Paul says in Romans 1, it's both a form and an evidence of idolatry.
im saying that for anything to be a sin under the new covenant it has come against the 2nd commandment and the fruit of the spirit. . . .
being homosexual does not come against either of them and therefore is not a sin under the new covenant.
As I've noted here, your first statement is false, because it leaves out the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” As such, your second statement fails by virtue of being based on a false premise. However, it also fails because it is not in fact an argument, merely an assertion of your desired conclusion. You're trying to state as fact what is actually something you have to prove—and have yet to prove. (And given that two of the fruits of the Spirit are faithfulness and self-control, you have a pretty significant problem with your evidence.)
The bottom line on this point is that while you might assert this to be true, the Scriptures clearly do not agree with you. This is evident even from one of the texts you cite, Galatians 5, which sets the fruit of the Spirit in opposition to a whole host of sinful behaviors, including homosexual sex. (Paul uses the word porneia there, which referred to any sexual behavior outside of marriage, and marriage definitionally did not [and does not, despite some current efforts] include same-sex relationships. Had he wanted to exclude homosexual sex from his catalogue, he would have had to use a different word or make it clear that he was using porneia in a more restricted fashion.)
What you're essentially saying here is that, despite the fact that all the biblical evidence runs against you, God must agree with you anyway; and all that is is an assertion of your own desires.
homosexuality stands and falls on its own merit, the same is true for any other issue.
Bosh. Every issue is interrelated; and if the arguments we use to support our position necessarily lead to unreasonable or indefensible positions at another point, that's a powerful indicator that those arguments are wrong. Indeed, not even you believe this assertion of yours, as your own words demonstrate.
Alan, ultimately, I'm not sure this individual really cares about that all that much. One might, however, note that all the support for government assistance programs comes from the Old Testament; the New Testament only supports the responsibility of the church to care for its members in need.
Mary: very true; it's a universal acid.
you aare making the assumption that to love god is to follow your interpretation of scripture…………that is an old covenant approach. under the new we dont have a relartionship to god thru regulation as in deut 28(torn curtain) but directly to the one who lives in each believer. are you attempting replace the torn curtain with your interpretation of the law. the law which is shadow of things to come and has been weakened by sin nature.
under the new one can only love god if he is godloving his neighbor also(love one another as i have loved you).
how did peter prove the same at cornelius's house? thru a 1john1 personnall witness of being up close and personnal in fellowship of the holy spirit in walking in the light.the same as john did to determine that jesus was the christ.
that is my personal witness because i regularly attend a 100%gay church.
what is yours if you have none"that which we have heard , which we have looked at, which we have seen with our eyes and our hands have touched" then you have an unsubstantiated belief, because you have not substantiated with witness of where the spirit rests.
your understanding is centered on you "ibelieve this""i dont believe that"
but those things that are done in fellowship of christ are centered on christ.
1, it's both a form and an evidence of idolatry.
is being heterosexual idolatry. how is it that homosexuals bond out of mutual love, affection, devotion. respect, and trust for a shared committed life together, the same as heterosexuals but one is idolatry and the other is not.
is the affection of homosexuals any less than that of heterosexuals,there affection, respect,love, sincerity of heart.
again you will say that out of theological theory it is less. but where is there love of homosexuals in that when you have no personal upfront witness in fellowship to back up your claims.
again anything without love is nothing and gains nothing1cor13
if you are to going to use scripture please annotate. i see nothing about homosexuality in gal5
scripture has never said homosexuality was a sin. you say otherwise which scripture do want to start on first?
as far as the proof about the fruit of the spirit, and the 2nd commandment the proof is yours.
mark9:40for whoever is not against us is for us.
until proven other wise homosexuality does not come against the fruit of the spirit.
and for the record: in three years of having asked this same question over and over no one i mean no one has been able to even answer the question.
would they have the same problem if i asked the same about murder, slander, adultry, thievery. in gal 5 paul says that the acts of the sin nature are OBVIOUS…..OBVIUOS…..OBVIOUS that by their very nature they show how they come against the fruit of the spirit.
the fact that there is nothing obvious puts the burden on you.
I have enjoyed this posting. It is very insightful and bring meaning and understanding of the theology of suffering. Sometimes if I don't completely understand a post I will view the comments of others, this time it did not work. I wonder if feetxxxl and I were reading the same blog or he just completly missed what you were saying.
I just have to things to say.
1. There is no 2nd commandment without the 1st. They are listed in order of importantance. If you can't master the 1st the 2nd is meaningless. And it is important to note that it ends with "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" Mathew 22:40
2. Fruit of the spirit. Your constant reference to god (little g) and jesus (little j) shows the lack of reverance you have for God and Jesus.
As far as finding homosexuality in the bible? I can"t find anything supporting it either.
Mary: thanks. You're right, feetxxl pretty much missed what I'm saying (and utterly missed my actual point).
feetxxl:
you aare making the assumption that to love god is to follow your interpretation of scripture
Nope. I'm pointing out that you're trying to leave that out of the equation altogether. Part of what I'm doing is covered here, and part of it's what the rest of the discussion is about.
under the new we dont have a relartionship to god thru regulation as in deut 28(torn curtain) but directly to the one who lives in each believer. are you attempting replace the torn curtain with your interpretation of the law. the law which is shadow of things to come and has been weakened by sin nature.
under the new one can only love god if he is godloving his neighbor also(love one another as i have loved you).
None of which changes the fact that God calls us to holy living, and he, not we, defines what that means.
under the new one can only love god if he is godloving his neighbor also(love one another as i have loved you).
No argument; but a) love of neighbor flows out of love of God, and b) love of God defines the terms of what loving one's neighbor looks like. Just because you think something's loving doesn't make it so.
how did peter prove the same at cornelius's house?
Irrelevant, and bad exegesis besides. a) Being Gentile wasn't a matter of behavior; the point was that Cornelius' behavior was godly, regardless of his social/community status. This actually works against your point. b) Peter didn't prove anything at Cornelius' house.
that is my personal witness because i regularly attend a 100%gay church.
I could just as easily call it your personal delusion, and declare that you only say this because you don't know what a truly Spirit-filled church looks like. Assertions are not evidence. (And unfortunately, if you're comparing your church to the churches around you, the odds are sadly pretty high that you don't know what a truly Spirit-filled church looks like.)
your understanding is centered on you "ibelieve this""i dont believe that"
No, actually you're the one trying to do that. I'm arguing from Scripture; you're the one trying to assert your personal experience as probative. (The crowning irony here: you ask me to defend my position from personal experience and judgment, which I have not done and have no intention of doing, then accuse me of having my beliefs centered on myself. Do you not see the contradiction here?)
is being heterosexual idolatry
It can be, as I've already implicitly acknowledged.
how is it that homosexuals bond out of mutual love, affection, devotion. respect, and trust for a shared committed life together, the same as heterosexuals but one is idolatry and the other is not.
One is chosen in the flat refusal to consider the possibility that God may have declared it against his will, and the other is not (necessarily; there are plenty of times when the other is, too).
is the affection of homosexuals any less than that of heterosexuals,there affection, respect,love, sincerity of heart.
Not to my knowledge. So what?
again you will say that out of theological theory it is less.
Nope, not saying it, haven't said it, don't believe it's relevant.
where is there love of homosexuals in that when you have no personal upfront witness in fellowship to back up your claims.
Since I never made any such claims, this is an irrelevant shot, based not on my arguments but only on your prejudice.
again anything without love is nothing and gains nothing1cor13
True. Again, you aren't the one who gets to define love–God is.
i see nothing about homosexuality in gal5
Already done–read the comment.
mark9:40for whoever is not against us is for us.
until proven other wise homosexuality does not come against the fruit of the spirit.
That's a complete misuse of 9:40. Your assertion is completely unsupported, undefended, and unjustified. I can see where you'd like to believe it, but when you're the one trying to change biblical interpretation, the burden of proof is on you.
and for the record: in three years of having asked this same question over and over no one i mean no one has been able to even answer the question.
would they have the same problem if i asked the same about murder, slander, adultry, thievery. in gal 5 paul says that the acts of the sin nature are OBVIOUS…..OBVIUOS…..OBVIOUS that by their very nature they show how they come against the fruit of the spirit.
the fact that there is nothing obvious puts the burden on you.
Of course there's something obvious, something which Paul recognized as obvious, something which all the biblical writers recognized as obvious. To wit, there is a perversion of the original created order of human relationships, as shown in Genesis 1-2, from a unity in diversity which is life-giving and life-creating (both physically and spiritually–even when there is a physical inability to have children, the latter remains) to a mere union of similarities which is unable to create the life God intended.
scripture has never said homosexuality was a sin. you say otherwise which scripture do want to start on first?
Genesis 1:26-27, 2:18-25 lay the foundation.
Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, which forbid homosexual sex not as unclean (a category of the ceremonial law) but as morally wrong.
Romans 1:18-32, already discussed.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, inclusion in a vice list (same as Galatians 5, but more explicit).
Jude 7, referencing Genesis 18-19, Sodom and Gomorrah judged because they "indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire."
Just for starters–there's only so much you can put in a comment box . . .
Now, don't bother trying to argue that none of these have anything to do with homosexuality. Yes, in the last few decades, a cottage industry has sprung up of scholars eager to come up with whatever rhetorical and logical contortions they can in order to try to explain these texts away. The fact remains, there is no biblical warrant for such a procedure; the idea that the Bible should accidentally have numerous commands and stories that all unintentionally forbid homosexual sex when they actually meant to say something else is, as a matter either of logic or of probability, completely indefensible. This is especially true given that there is nothing in Scripture to support the idea that homosexual sex is approved by God.
(And as for the argument from the silence of Christ: when Christ disagreed with the way the religious leaders of his day were interpreting the Scriptures, he challenged them. It's what got him killed. Had he objected to the universal agreement among Jews in his day that homosexual sex was a sin, he would have challenged it. His silence is a sign of agreement.)
And finally: this is quite enough discussion that is off-topic to the post–and quite frankly, quite enough comments that are non-responsive to what I'm actually saying. My patience with such going forward will be shortening.
there is no word "only" in genesis.
you are adding your own stroke. which flies against christ's words about the importance of each stroke.
since when did god rely on physicality to define what was of his spirit.
Luke 3:8
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
you say what is most important is procreation. no…… what is important is who can give loving nurturing homes for raising children which is evident by the gay couples who have opened their homes to abandoned, rejected children of heterosexual unions.
do you have credible evidence that those raised by homosexual care givers is less nurturing than that by heterosexuals.
where is your evidence that homosexuality is a sin. where is your evidence that being homosexual comes against the fruit of the holy spirit. surely the fruit of the holy spirit are different than that powers and principalities.
homosexuals have never been found lacking in any sector of society compared to heterosexuals. they are not a brother, friend,counselor,teacher, engineer,lawyer,soldier, pastor, father neighbor.
surely in your lifetime years, you can site proof that homosexuals were found lacking because they were given to being homosexual that speaks for the 12 million in this country and 320 million worldwide.
comparatively could you say the same of those who given to acts of the sin nature (gal) compared to those that were not.
where is this evidence of sin?
my understanding of those given to holding up acts of the sin nature as good and of god, their lives are markedly different from those that have not. it does interfere with being a friend or father or performing in the work place.
None of which changes the fact that God calls us to holy living, and he, not we, defines what that means.
god calls us to abide in his love. as far as being holy it is christ in us that makes us holy. we can do nothing to make ourselves holy.
"Irrelevant, and bad exegesis besides. a) Being Gentile wasn't a matter of behavior; the point was that Cornelius' behavior was godly, regardless of his social/community status. This actually works against your point. b) Peter didn't prove anything at Cornelius' house."
so you are saying that homosexuals can be godly but because they are homosexual, it negates their godliness. or are you saying(without any 1john1witness to substantiate)that homosexuals cant possibly be godly………have faith in and love christ be full of the fruit of the spirit. how did peter know cornelius wasnt just mimicing believers. what was it that made him acknowledge the spirit. first of all he was there as an actual witness and not hypothecizing from an arm chair.
do you suppose that if someone had just told him it was happening, he would have readily agreed it was true. surely the reputaion of cornelius of being a reputable person was common knowledge. then there were the 8 witnesses that he took with him because the revelation was so contrary to common thinking.
how is it you feel so compelled to declare what is the truth without your own 1john1 witness in fellowship of christ with gay believers. would it be that no matter what the displays of the spirit that you saw you would have to discount them for the sake of your theology, your interpretaion of scripture dictating to your heart what it was seeing.
And finally: this is quite enough discussion that is off-topic to the post–and quite frankly, quite enough comments that are non-responsive to what I'm actually saying. My patience with such going forward will be shortening.
what have you been saying other than to merely discount what i am my points as wrong, without any annotation of scripture to prove it.
too bad i was looking forward to the scriptures esp romans.
and that since your proof that homosexuality was a sin is from the scriptures then accordingly prior to the law there was an excuse.
romans 120For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
knowing his invisible qualities and divine presence enable one to know what is of him.
gen not all prohibitions of themselves were sins.
num15: 32 While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.
under the new covenant gathering wood or gathering wood on the sabbATH IS NOT A SIN. the reason it was a sin is because god in order to create a seperate people a set down unchallengable regulations that benefited the nature of his relationship withhis people.
in the new covenant, in regards to the law all that is a sin is that which comes against the 2nd commmandment, the summation of all new covenant law.
gal5: 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
being homosexual does not come against the 2nd commandment.
genesis………….for sure gang rape of strangers is a violation of the things that are of god.
surely you can differenciate between consentual sex and rape.
romans paul is laying down the basis of all sin to show how all need a savior.
they exchanged the truth about god's love for a lie(god is love)and worshipped and served the created( powers and principalities) and were given over to the things that served them….shameful lust.
therefore because they were given over to shameful lust, they abandoned what they had with their women, the natural, that which exuded and was of the fruit of the spirit, that gave them peace, for what was not and did not.
where there is lust there is no relationship the persons involved are there merely to satiate the lust.
homosexuals have no women not from their first sexual memory. (i know of no homosexuals that switched sexual memories from heterosexual to homosexual, but had sexual memories that they repressed until coming out of the closet, emotionally, mentally,etc instead they are attracted to the same sex 24/7, their entire lives. and those believers who marry their lives and marriages are filled with the fruit of the spirit in the same way as those of heterosexuals. homosexuals cannot abandon that which they have never had or never intended to have.
where is the "the easy yoke and light burden " in someone not having a normally sexually bonded life not because there is an indication of violation of spirit, violation of the spirit of christs love, but out of violation according to scriptural interpretation. no violation according to a 1john1 witness but a scriptural understanding handed down generationally that is without any witness.
1corr and 1tim paul a learned man created a compound word (arsenkaitoi) rather than repeat the same word seperated phrase from lev. compound words may or may not have the same meaning as the words that make them up. paul never taught thru the law not even with the man who had his father's wife. for paul to denote a physicality as a sin without any indication of violation of spirit would mean making a regulation. there are no regulations under the new covenant. believers do not have a relationship to god thru regulation as in deut 28. but instead directly to the one who lives in each believer. (torn curtain) what paul is refering is a behavior of defilement (that violates the spirit thru which all were created…christ) similar to the shameful lust of romans. in gal 5 paul says the acts of the sin nature are obvious. that by the very nature of those acts(spiritual essence) it is obvious that they come against the fruit of the spirit…………….love,joy,peace,kindness,patience,gentleness, self-control,goodness,and faithfulness. homosexuality doesnt come against the fruit of the spirit.
Referring to 1cor were they justified by being washed with the blood of Christ, or because they stopped acting out. if they are justified by anything other than Christ, then the crucifixion has no meaning.
about 1tim and 1cor.
queen victoria head of both england and the church of england(no seperation of church and state)(victorian era) attempted to make homosexuality a sin, influenced by a 400 year old law being on the books enacted by another head of the church/state, henry the eighth, that made homosexual sex a hanging offense. she did it by the fraudulent transposition of the word" homosexual" into scripture.
but the transposition does not support the translation of the wycliffe bible 1384
continued
1cor:9 Whether ye know not, that wicked men shall not wield the kingdom of God? Do not ye err; neither lechers, neither men that serve maumets [neither men serving to idols], neither adulterers, neither lechers against kind, neither they that do LECHERY with men,
1tim1:10
10 and lechers, to them that do LECHERY with men, lying-mongers and forsworn, and if any other thing is contrary to the wholesome teaching,
lecher………………someone who is obsessed with sexual gratification.
heterosexuals have been known for lechery also, but this in no way invalidates their orientation.
the kvj bible(1500's) supports the wycliffe interpretation.
continued
1cor:6:9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor ABUSERS(defilers) of themselves with mankind,
1tim1:10For whoremongers, for them that DEFILE themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
this reaffirms the understanding that 1tim and 1cor is about defiling lust, which reaffirms that romans 1 is about the shameful lust.
perversion of order is a violation of spirit. i dont think so. one has to do with your mind and the other has to do with actual violation of the spirit.
show me a scripture that under the new covenant that says violation of order is anything that resembles a sin.
what has order got to do with the 2nd commmandment.
like i said, under the new covenant i know of no scripture that says homosexuality is a sin. believers have come to that understanding by assigning meaning to verses in spite of their words,adding their own stroke, fraudulent transpositions, and adopting legalisms that contradict the very spirit of the new covenant. and to further maintain their position believers have refused any 1john1 fellowship with gay believers that would validate or negate their belief by what was witnessed thru a 1john1 witness. a witness that embraces the love of the 2nd commandment.
What a flaming idiot. It listens to nothing, it learns nothing, it appears to have no concept that anyone who disagrees with it has anything to teach it. This is a mind that's not just closed, it's rusted shut.
No, actually you're the one trying to do that. I'm arguing from Scripture; you're the one trying to assert your personal experience as probative. (The crowning irony here: you ask me to defend my position from personal experience and judgment, which I have not done and have no intention of doing, then accuse me of having my beliefs centered on myself. Do you not see the contradiction here?)
no i am testifying to my witness, the same thing that peter did at cornelius house. do suppose that there was some physicality that cornelius observed that moved peter to believe the spirit was in cornelius or was it an inner seeing from his heart thru the grace of the one who lived in him thatmade peter acknowledge the spirit was present in worship of cornelieus house.
your theology(your belief) says there is no presence of the holyspirit at my church in its worship.
im asking for your own witness of gay believers
what you believe and what you witness can be two different things. you can believe that miraculous healing is not possible until you witness it first hand, thru what you hear , what you look at, which you see with the eyes of your heart, and are touched inwardly.1john1
as i said before belief is centered around the concept and identity of "i " and remains that until it is transformed into faith in christ as in ephesians 2:8-9, then it becomes christ centered.
Feetxxxl is using some kind of theology that involves rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to make his point. It is odd the more he says the less sense he makes.
At this rate he will prove that the earth is flat.
Mary: LOL!
Vanderei: that's uncalled-for.
feetxxl: you don't read with any sort of care; you're unwilling to learn; you're still off-topic to the actual post; you still don't know what you're talking about; you still keep dragging in irrelevances and non sequiturs and thinking they apply; you continue to apply an interpretive grid which is badly flawed and thoroughly insufficient, despite the fact that you've had that pointed out to you; and your attempts at biblical exegesis, to put it kindly, suck. It would take a book to respond to all your false assertions, untenable interpretations, and logically deficient arguments, which would be redundant, since that book has already been written–and pointless, since you wouldn't pay attention anyway. You clearly have no interest in having a conversation, since you're not actually responding to what I'm actually arguing, which makes trying to respond to you wasted effort; you're continuing to try to assert things as fact for which you've provided no evidence, and to demand incoherent and mutually inconsistent standards for evidence in response–and you have no standing to demand anything anyway, since you're a guest in someone else's space.
All of which is to say, you have conducted yourself poorly and obnoxiously. If you can post a comment which corrects these flaws and actually advances a conversation, you are welcome to do so. Any further attempts to comment in the same vein as your comments to this point will be deleted.
To repeat, feetxxl, your constant assertion that "the 2nd commandment [is] the summation of all new covenant law" is flatly false; and to repeat, no further off-topic comments will be permitted.
feetxxl, "It's obvious that I'm right–why don't you just admit it?" does not constitute reasoned conversation.
I have to respond to this comment of yours, though:
self control if you are referring to being unable to control their same sex urge, why should they. having a life is sexually bonding with what you are attracted to between 2 consenting adults. and if it is filled wuth the fruit of the spirit, surely it is of god.
Do you not see the contradiction here? Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. If anyone is "unable," they are not filled with the fruit of the Spirit, and it is not of God.
Also, this perfectly illustrates my point about idolatry:
having a life is sexually bonding with what you are attracted to between 2 consenting adults
Biblically, not true at all.
Again, if you continue to post comments that are self-contradictory and willfully ignorant, they will continue to be deleted.
so let me see if i have got this right, and please correct me if im wrong. god created a holy order of gender and orientation as designated in inference in genesis that is christ so much so that regardless of what ever faith one has in christ, it is violated not if it is in your heart, like murder which would be a sin, but if you have it in your heart to love someone and want to be faithful to them you have not sinned until act out this love and devotion in sex, then your faith is no longer your faith, and your words of devotion to christ are not devotion to christ, because sin is sin. or is it that the love you have for someone of the same sex cannot possibly be love and the devotion cannot be devotion because it violates this holy order and romans says that all feelings of sexual bonding between those of the same sex are about shameful lust………again sin being sin.
and as believers in christ we are to be led by this holy inference because it is christ himself. so that when we say we are in christ we are saying we are also in holy inference.
we are so led by this holy inference that in living out the 2nd commanmdment that if we love another in any way that would support any violation of this holy inference it is not love and of itself it is a sin. again sin being sin.
Look, for starters, your whole idea of sin is unbiblical at the root. Part of that, as I've tried to tell you, is that you're defining it purely horizontally, in terms of actions directed toward people—which allows you, conveniently, to define it in such a way that you can argue that what you want to do isn't sin. "I perceive this as loving, therefore it's OK"—forgetting that what counts here isn't your judgment in the matter, but God's.
The deeper problem is that you're defining it in terms of actions—you're still thinking in terms of sins, and a sin, rather than in terms of sin. Sin is not merely about commandments, because it's deeper than that. If God forbids something, then doing it is wrong, period, but that doesn't necessarily mean that if you just avoid those things, you'll never sin.
Just look at Amos, or Micah, or Malachi, who lacerate Israel for their worship. Worship is a good thing—but though the people of Israel were doing all the right things, they were doing them for the wrong reasons and with the wrong motivations, and so God rejected their worship. Marriage is ordained by God from the beginning of humanity—but marrying that person may be a sin.
Sin is, fundamentally, a heart attitude: it is the attitude that sets our will against God's will. It's the attitude that says, "I know best, I'm going to do what I want to do." Everything else flows from that; and because every action we take has at least a little of that in it, those of us in the Reformed stream of Christianity talk about "total depravity," about the truth that we're all thoroughly sin-tainted. Whenever we choose our own will over God's will, that's sin, even if it isn't something one would ordinarily categorize as a moral action—choosing this college over that one, for instance.
As for the specific issue of homosexual desire, Genesis 1-2 doesn't present an inference. Rather, it presents the created order and purpose of God—which then quite promptly was knocked into a cocked hat by human defiance. And yes, part of that was God creating woman as "a helper fit for man," as complement and completion, providing unity in diversity that illustrates and echoes the Unity-in-Diversity Who is God.
That this is God's intended order and purpose, not merely incidental, is really quite clear in Genesis, if you really dig into it; but more than that, it's reaffirmed by the univocal witness of the whole Bible that God intended sex for only one context: between a man and a woman united in the covenant of marriage—and thus that anything outside of that, in any direction, is against his will. And yes, that does mean that some people are called to celibacy, as painful and difficult as that call may be. I have friends, gay and straight both, who are on that path and very much desire not to be . . . but they stick with it because they understand that it's God's will, and trust that he will make it all right in the end.
Yes, obviously, we're called to love one another deeply; and yes, sex apart from love is a sin. That does not mean that sex is necessary for the expression of love, nor that it necessarily is truly an expression of love, even if we believe it to be so—a fact which most of our society clearly understands when it comes to issues such as incest and pedophilia. The only thing of which sex is a necessary expression is sexual desire, which is not the same as love; and just because one desires a person sexually, even given that one also loves that person, does not mean that expressing that desire is necessarily appropriate—a fact that our society once generally understood with regard to the issue of adultery.
The fact is, all of our love is flawed, imperfect, impure. None of it's free from selfishness, the desire to dominate the other, the temptation to idolatry, or any of a host of other things. As such, we can't use a declaration of love to justify actions that can't be justified on other grounds—our love just isn't pure enough or true enough to support such an argument.
And the fact also is, Christ will never tell us or permit us to do that which is against the will of God the Father; he made it clear that he didn't come to earth to do his own will or to speak what he chose, but only according to the will of the Father. Further, his reference point for that was the Scriptures—which is to say, the Old Testament, which he agreed was 100% the word of God. That's why he said,
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an yodh, not a stroke, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
lets try this a gain. god created a holy order of gender and orientation as designated in inference in genesis that is christ so much so that regardless of what ever faith one has in christ, it is violated not if it is in your heart, like murder which would be a sin, but if you have it in your heart to love someone and want to be faithful to them you have not sinned until act out this love and devotion in sex, then your faith is no longer your faith, and your words of devotion to christ are not devotion to christ, because sin is sin.THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR SOMEONE IS LOVE BUT IT DOESNT MAKE AY DIFFERENCE BECAUSE IT VIOLATES GOD'S HOLY ORDER(YOUR WAYS ARE NOT MY WAYS) .
and as believers in christ we are to be led by this holy ORDER because it is christ himself. so that when we say we are in christ we are saying we are also in holy ORDER.
we are so led by this holy ORDER that in living out the 2nd commanmdment that if we love another in any way that would support any violation of this holy ORDER it is not love and of itself it is a sin. again sin being sin.
is this right?
No, it's further evidence that your thinking begins with a categorical misunderstanding of what sin is. You're still approaching the question in the wrong way and trying to squeeze it into your own framework. But yes, it is true that just because you affirm your love for someone does not automatically mean that any way you choose to express yourself toward them is necessarily appropriate.
so you are saying that there can be love but there can be an in appropriate way of expressing it if it it doesnt embrace the holy order.
is this right?
The phrase "holy order" is entirely your own creation, and profoundly misses the point. That said, yes, there are inappropriate ways of expressing love, as I'm sure you would agree.
Lets start at the beginning…
“lets try this a gain. god created a holy order of gender and orientation”
God created gender period, you know the story God created man and woman your addition of orientation is erroneous assumption and with no bases on your part.
“but if you have it in your heart to love someone and want to be faithful to them you have not sinned until act out this love and devotion in sex”
NO again you are wrong it is a sin when you first started to pursue someone of the same sex with the eventual act of sex not when the sex happens.
Mark 12:30-31
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
You state…”we are so led by this holy ORDER that in living out the 2nd commandment that if we love another in any way that would support any violation of this holy ORDER it is not love and of itself it is a sin. again sin being sin.”
The 2nd commandment is Love your neighbor as yourself. I love my husband, my mother and my children. The love you speak of expressing with your in your previous statement.
“but if you have it in your heart to love someone and want to be faithful to them you have not sinned until act out this love and devotion in sex”
Is that the same love you have for your mother or siblings? Because that is what you are saying. Love your neighbor as yourself. Is more of a brotherly love definitely not a sexual one.
At some point you can make a relevant statement based somewhere near reality instead of using half baked non scriptural statements. I would be glad to hear it.
"Of course there's something obvious, something which Paul recognized as obvious, something which all the biblical writers recognized as obvious. To wit, there is a perversion of the original created ORDER of human relationships, as shown in Genesis 1-2, from a unity in diversity which is life-giving and life-creating (both physically and spiritually–even when there is a physical inability to have children, the latter remains) to a mere union of similarities which is unable to create the life God intended.
i only used the term "holy order" because you used the word "order".
you would call it "holy…….."
No, actually I wouldn't call it holy, I would simply call it what God created and called good; anything that is not that is not good. "Holy" is a word one uses for God, and for what he calls his people to become, not for things. Your understanding of holiness is distorted at the root.
And as Mary says, your understanding of love is equally seriously distorted.
You know, it's not directly applicable, but you would do well to read my latest post—it might help you understand what I'm trying to tell you.
and again………………… god created a creation order of gender and orientation as designated in inference in genesis that is christ so much so that regardless of what ever faith one has in christ, it is violated by attempting same sex intimacy, not if it is in your heart, like murder which would be a sin, but if you have it in your heart to love someone and want to be faithful to them, you have not sinned unless you attempt to consumate the act of love and devotion thru a bonded relationship of sexual intimacy , then your faith is no longer your faith, and your words of devotion to christ are not devotion to christ, because sin is sin.THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR SOMEONE IS LOVE BUT IT DOESNT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE BECAUSE IT VIOLATES GOD'S CREATION ORDER(YOUR WAYS ARE NOT MY WAYS) .
and as believers in christ we are to be led by this ORDER because it is christ himself. so that when we say we are in christ we are saying we are also of this ORDER.
we are so led by this ORDER that in living out the 2nd commanmdment that if we love another in any way that does not support this ORDER it is not love and of itself it is a sin. again sin being sin.
Feet repeating yourself over and over again doesn't make any less wrong than the first time you stated it.
Give me something new. If you are right then there should be multiple ways to prove it.
Like we have shown you multiple times that you are wrong.
To be fair, at this point, feet is trying to summarize our position, and it's always harder to fairly and accurately state the position of those with whom one disagrees than to state one's own. That said, you're certainly right that repeating the same thing over and over doesn't add anything to the conversation. feet, the problem isn't something you can solve by changing a word here and there; the problem, as I've been trying to tell you, is that your whole approach is wrong. If you want to try to understand what we're trying to say, you're going to have to begin by throwing out those paragraphs entirely and starting over.
i find it amazing that you are unable to make simple corrections of my statement to show me how my statement is incorrect.
Unfortunately, given your track record on this post, I can't say I find it amazing at all that you are unable or unwilling to comprehend the corrections I made.