I would encourage you to read a great blog by a friend of mine at http://austinmommy.blogspot.com/ below was my response.
I Love this Blog.
I agree with you that for to long Christians have absolutely distorted the Christian view on homosexuality. I am so proud that all of you (My wife included) would spend time in a gay bar. The mere fact that you were there and that they knew you were Christians is fulfilling of Matthew 5. (You are a city on a hill, a light to the world, salt of the world.) I can only imagine how God will use the seed that was planted by 4 Godly women who chose to love instead of dis-engage because of differences. Truth be told, I would have been right there with you, enjoying the night with a bunch of gay guys. That doesn't freak me out not 1 bit.
I will add some thoughts that will be controversial but that is Ok and I am willing to share my views.
As Christ followers, our call is to love our neighbor as yourself and Love God with all of our heart soul and mind. In the case of homosexuality, it is no different, we do not get a free pass to be eternally condemning, hateful, or disgusted just because someone is a homosexual. DO NOT EVER FORGET that our call is to LOVE, SERVE, and BE CHRIST to a lost and dying world. However, I do not think that we get a free pass to excuse any sexual sin when the bible speaks CLEAR on it. (Romans 1, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:10; there's more) Personally I have sexually sinned, and my sexual sin is gross, disgusting, and absolutely no different than anyone else's. Homosexuality, fornication, adultery, debauchery, you name it, it is all sexual sin in which we cannot pick and choose what is sin and what is not sin in the eyes of God.
I also agree that people are born homosexual but does that give us the right to act out of nature? Nowhere else do we ever make that argument. For example, genetically speaking I was born with Alcoholism in my DNA but that does not give me the right to sin and abuse alcohol (1 Cor 5:18). I know people who were born Bi-polar, that doesn't excuse them the sin of hatred, lack of self control or anxiety (according to Matthew and Philippians) If someone has mental challenges that they were born with and commits murder, we never excuse that as just something they were born with. Instead I believe that the bible teaches that these are all temptations that God has allowed and that the Holy Spirit can overcome as God breaks us and we learn to live by the spirit. Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit makes all things new, we are born again as a new creation, the old is gone the new has come. Does this mean that when someone becomes a Christian that they will no longer be tempted to sin sexually? Definitely not, we all would agree with that. However, Philippians and Galatians talk about "empowering grace" which the holy spirit gives us to overcome our temptations and we now have a greater desire to please God rather than please ourselves, and God empowers us to do that.
I guess this is why I get so afraid when I hear of Christians wanting to accept sin as if it is not. When we do this we, "In the name of Jesus" call his word un-clear or worst a lie. Psalm 19:7 says that the Law of the Lord is Perfect reviving the soul. We would all agree that our soul is revived by what is written in God's Word, and nothing else. We need to stand on the Word of God as our Rock of salvation. When we begin to question scripture, we then are forced to question our salvation. I say this because the bible is the only place where we find the story of God's redemptive plan for his people. The bible is the only place that we find Jesus being the only way to the Father. The bible is the only way that we know we are saved by faith and faith alone by the grace of our Lord Jesus. So when we begin to question scripture, we then begin to question our own salvation.
If you read this and dont know me, you may begin to form opinions. Please be careful on what opinions you form. I have not formed any against you. I am still loving and compassionate towards all people especially homosexuals. I am by no means a super conservative As a matter of fact, I am known to challenge most of the religious views and systems. As far as homosexuals are concerned, I have had many encounters with them and is part of why my opinion has been formed. Just 2 weeks ago I met a guy who was gay (Practicing; according to his own testimony he had some of the craziest most defiled stories) and the moment he asked Jesus into his heart he said his desires changed. His ultimate desire was now to please God rather than himself. He now is happily married with children.
Anyway, thought I would share. I love this blog because it is very thought provoking and more Christians need to self evaluate their hearts towards others. We need to be able to both Love and Confront. To often we find ourselves only Loving (Humanitarianism) or only Confronting (Fundamental Religion) but Jesus was one who both Loved and Confronted (Christlikeness).
Lets be like Jesus.
I Love this Blog.
I agree with you that for to long Christians have absolutely distorted the Christian view on homosexuality. I am so proud that all of you (My wife included) would spend time in a gay bar. The mere fact that you were there and that they knew you were Christians is fulfilling of Matthew 5. (You are a city on a hill, a light to the world, salt of the world.) I can only imagine how God will use the seed that was planted by 4 Godly women who chose to love instead of dis-engage because of differences. Truth be told, I would have been right there with you, enjoying the night with a bunch of gay guys. That doesn't freak me out not 1 bit.
I will add some thoughts that will be controversial but that is Ok and I am willing to share my views.
As Christ followers, our call is to love our neighbor as yourself and Love God with all of our heart soul and mind. In the case of homosexuality, it is no different, we do not get a free pass to be eternally condemning, hateful, or disgusted just because someone is a homosexual. DO NOT EVER FORGET that our call is to LOVE, SERVE, and BE CHRIST to a lost and dying world. However, I do not think that we get a free pass to excuse any sexual sin when the bible speaks CLEAR on it. (Romans 1, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:10; there's more) Personally I have sexually sinned, and my sexual sin is gross, disgusting, and absolutely no different than anyone else's. Homosexuality, fornication, adultery, debauchery, you name it, it is all sexual sin in which we cannot pick and choose what is sin and what is not sin in the eyes of God.
I also agree that people are born homosexual but does that give us the right to act out of nature? Nowhere else do we ever make that argument. For example, genetically speaking I was born with Alcoholism in my DNA but that does not give me the right to sin and abuse alcohol (1 Cor 5:18). I know people who were born Bi-polar, that doesn't excuse them the sin of hatred, lack of self control or anxiety (according to Matthew and Philippians) If someone has mental challenges that they were born with and commits murder, we never excuse that as just something they were born with. Instead I believe that the bible teaches that these are all temptations that God has allowed and that the Holy Spirit can overcome as God breaks us and we learn to live by the spirit. Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit makes all things new, we are born again as a new creation, the old is gone the new has come. Does this mean that when someone becomes a Christian that they will no longer be tempted to sin sexually? Definitely not, we all would agree with that. However, Philippians and Galatians talk about "empowering grace" which the holy spirit gives us to overcome our temptations and we now have a greater desire to please God rather than please ourselves, and God empowers us to do that.
I guess this is why I get so afraid when I hear of Christians wanting to accept sin as if it is not. When we do this we, "In the name of Jesus" call his word un-clear or worst a lie. Psalm 19:7 says that the Law of the Lord is Perfect reviving the soul. We would all agree that our soul is revived by what is written in God's Word, and nothing else. We need to stand on the Word of God as our Rock of salvation. When we begin to question scripture, we then are forced to question our salvation. I say this because the bible is the only place where we find the story of God's redemptive plan for his people. The bible is the only place that we find Jesus being the only way to the Father. The bible is the only way that we know we are saved by faith and faith alone by the grace of our Lord Jesus. So when we begin to question scripture, we then begin to question our own salvation.
If you read this and dont know me, you may begin to form opinions. Please be careful on what opinions you form. I have not formed any against you. I am still loving and compassionate towards all people especially homosexuals. I am by no means a super conservative As a matter of fact, I am known to challenge most of the religious views and systems. As far as homosexuals are concerned, I have had many encounters with them and is part of why my opinion has been formed. Just 2 weeks ago I met a guy who was gay (Practicing; according to his own testimony he had some of the craziest most defiled stories) and the moment he asked Jesus into his heart he said his desires changed. His ultimate desire was now to please God rather than himself. He now is happily married with children.
Anyway, thought I would share. I love this blog because it is very thought provoking and more Christians need to self evaluate their hearts towards others. We need to be able to both Love and Confront. To often we find ourselves only Loving (Humanitarianism) or only Confronting (Fundamental Religion) but Jesus was one who both Loved and Confronted (Christlikeness).
Lets be like Jesus.
7 comments:
Hi Matt! I just want to preface my comment by saying that I'm not being argumentative, so much as wrestling with these issues for myself ;)
The Church allows divorced people to remarry all the time, even when the grounds for their divorce was not biblical (we grew apart, we don't love each other anymore, etc.) Even though the Bible clearly states that this is adultery.
It seems we pick and choose what immorality to condone and which to condemn...
And as un-pious as it may be, I do think God's word while written in red, can read more like grey on certain issues. As I grow personally, I am less interested in the letter of the law, and more concerned with the spirit of it.
I just wanted to thank you, Matt, for continuing this discussion. Just so you know, I posted a link through a new blog post to a good read. Stick with it, if you read it (and I recommend that you do) - it's super interesting!
Also, Jan, thanks for your openness. I think you're right in that we need to focus a whole lot less on the law and so much more about the spirit with which we live...LOVE! The link I posted would probably be a great read for you, too!
:) You're both AWESOME!!
I forgot I wanted to quickly touch on this argument of yours...
"If someone has mental challenges that they were born with and commits murder, we never excuse that as just something they were born with."
We do actually excuse them, or at least treat them differently because of the way they were born. This is why lawyers use the Insanity Plea. This gives the defendant psychiatric treatment, rather than putting them in main stream jail with others who simply chose rationally to commit murder.
this is a tough conversation and i'm very glad it's taking place. thanks all of you for being honest. that's exactly how we move forward.
i had a friend "come out" to me at ENC, and since then, i have started down a road to attempt to understand how to live and respond to homosexuality. the answer i've come to is to treat a homosexual the same way i treat my best friends and my family. we are called to love with no pretense and that is all i've got to offer.
i hope this doesn't seem like a cop-out. what do you think matt?
I just wrote another blog to comment on this stuff.
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As a gay Christian, I must say it's refreshing to see someone who actually will "Love thy neighbor" as opposed to 98% of Evangelicals who condemn those who are different. I know there's a whole issue regarding new vs old testament, but if we wanted to, we could use the Bible to support slavery, murder of your disobedient children, etc, etc.
Matt, I may not agree w/ 100% of what you had to say here in this post, however, I feel you are approaching this subject in a way which might prevent someone in your congregation from having the self-hatred / near-suicidal thoughts that my church "taught" me when I was younger.
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