...Isn't God All About Love?...
Yes, but so much more. I have read various articles lately, including a letter to our local newspaper, addressing resistance to the homosexual lifestyle as being anti-Biblical because God is love. The writer in the paper made a sarcastic statement that she hopes that her Bible is the same as everyone else's. My thought in reading the article is that people really ought to know what the Bible says about homosexuality and other forms of sexual perversion before they attribute moral statements/positions to the Bible or to Christ. The truth is that most people don't actually read their Bibles. Why would I make such a claim? Perhaps I should say that most people that I hear using the Bible as a defense for homosexuality clearly haven't read their Bibles. In the most recent letter that I read, the writer said that the Bible is about loving all living things equally. There's really nothing in the Bible that says that, especially in the context of the homosexual lifestyle. Another question you may be asking yourself is: Why call homosexual activities sexual perversion??? Beyond the common sense explanation of, Look at the anatomy, the New Testament refers to homosexual activities as 'shameful', 'unnatural', and 'perversion':
Romans 1:26-27
...God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion...
God is only about love? Not true and not Biblical. In fact, at the beginning of Romans, Paul speaks of the wrath of God? What...wrath? But the God of the Bible is all about loving everyone, everything, and everything everyone does!??! Again, not true. If He was, we would not be warned to be careful of how we invest our lives (Galatians 6:8-9)
Romans 1:18
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For 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. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Further, Jesus himself dealt with sinners and the movement of sin differently. When confronted with a sinner who was being chastised by a crowd of hypocrites, Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy, showing compassion on the sinner... but encouraged the sinner to sin no more (John 8:1-11). When dealing with a movement of sinful behaviour, Jesus expressed outrage and physically opposed what was happening (Matthew 21:12-17). I believe that we must deal with individuals involved in sexual perversion differently than we treat the mighty machine of homosexual propaganda. Should we offer compassion and Christ's forgiveness to those who are willing to repent? Of course! Should we stand up for God's righteous standard when faced with a movement that is mocking God's creation and His plan for mankind? Yes.
Today's quote-unquote Christians can say what they want about abortion, adultery, pre-marital sex, pedophilia, bestiality, and homosexuality. God's position on these and other issues has been and will be constant since well before the creation of the earth and certainly after we have all passed on. One need only to actually read the Bible to learn of this God who has extremely high standards for the way we live our lives, and yet has loved us so much that he created a way for us to attain that high standard through the sacrifice of His Son.
3 comments:
This is a huge debate in the San Francisco area right now, considering the high percentage of homosexual activity here. There is also a huge debate on the division in Christians concerning this issue, (1st side: stands up for truth and tells homosexuals they are sinning and thus going to hell) (2nd side: approaches homosexuals with love, serving them in kindness. They do not believe they are compromising their Biblical morals in doing this, because they do not condone sinning, they just believe in approaching sinners in such a way where their response is to build a relationship and thus hear the truth without feeling condemned or judged by the way the message is delivered) ABC Nightline is currently working on a story about the division within Christianity (they called our church to question some people, who responded by saying they wanted nothing to do with a story that focused on the division within Christianity) Last weekend there was a huge rally in the city called BattleCry that stood up against the imorality happening in San Fran. They were loud, rude and very offensive to homosexuals. Meanwhile there were Christians there opposing the actions of BattleCry with tape over their mouth with the words "I'm sorry" written on it, and when people asked them why they were sorry they handed out tracks saying "I'm sorry for every time I've let you down, I'm sorry for not being an example of Christ, I'm sorry..."
I know I'm kind of rambling, but in conclusion I'm left sad because of this division in Christianity concerning homosexuality, but I just have to ask myself, "how are we supposed to win these people to Christ?" and the only way I can think to do it is through love.
After thinking about what I wrote and reading your post again I want to clarify that I do not associate love as tollerence or tollerence as love. While I do not tollerate the actions, I can still love the person with kindness and patience.
We need to be unwaivering that homosexuality is a sin, while at the same time admitting that we are sinners. It is not our job to win-over the homosexual community, the holy-spirit will do that and convict them just as we have been convicted. Our job is to hold on to Biblical principles and let the holy spirit do His job.
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