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What If Homosexuality Is Not a Threat but An What if homosexuality is not a threat but an opportunity? Could God use one of the most controversial moral issues in our nation to awaken His church rather than damage it? This requires a seismic shift in thinking, which some of us might not be eager to make. I find it much simpler to issue a commendation or condemnation while keeping a distance. But we need Spirit-empowered love to move toward those struggling with SSA without despising or excusing their sin, because their sin is our sin— our hearts are no different! Love and tolerance overlap but are not identical concepts. The Bible describes a God who loves the entire world but does not tolerate sin. The person beset with homosexual temptation should evoke our concern, sympathy, help, and understanding, not our scorn or enmity. Even more, such a person should kindle a feeling of solidarity in the hearts of all Christians, since we all struggle to properly manage our erotic passions. For homosexuals a denunciation of homosexuality may feel like an indictment of homosexuals. Regrettably, some of this pain may be unavoidable in the hope of doing away with the greater pain of living outside of God's redemptive plan For though I grieved you in the letter, I do not continue to have regrets— though I used to have regrets, for I see that letter (though only for a short time) grieved you. Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved but because you were grieved into repenting. For you were grieved in a godly manner (lit., in accordance with God ), in order that you would in no way be caused loss or damage by us. For a godly grief (lit., a grief in accordance with God) produces a repentance which leads to a salvation free of all regret; but the grief of the world produces death. (2 Cor 7: 8-10) Four Basic Reason for Speaking Out The first consideration must always be what God wants. God calls us to live holy lives subject to the divine will and not according to our own desires. Second, to disciple. Paul writes to those at Corinth with the express purpose of clarifying and educating their ignorance concerning various subjects. Pastors must likewise labor to inform the flock concerning Scriptural teaching regardless of culture norms. Hebrews 13:17 teaches that there is an accounting for pastors and for parishioners. Third, regarding the horizontal dimension of human existence, it matters how humans act in relation to one another. Here the definitive injunction is to "love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19: 18; cited in Mark 12: 31, 33 par.; Matt 5: 43; 19: 19; Rom 13: 9; Gal 5: 14; Jas 2: 8). Jesus interpreted love to mean doing to other people whatever you would want them to do to you (the Golden Rule, Luke 6: 31 par.). Such love demands an aggressive search for the lost. In contemporary society the command to love is often misconstrued as tolerance and acceptance. The concept is richer than that. True love "does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth" (1 Corinthians 13: 6). Love and reproof are not mutually exclusive concepts. If one fails to reprove another who is engaged in self-destructive or community destructive behavior, or any conduct deemed unacceptable by God, one can hardly claim to have acted in love either to the perpetrator or to others affected by the perpetrators actions. Without a moral compass love is mere mush. Without taking into account God's will for holy living, love turns into affirmation of self-degrading and other-degrading conduct. This means that true love of one's neighbor does not embrace every form of consensual behavior. The third justification for speaking out is the urgency of the time we live in. The window of opportunity for speaking out against homosexual behavior is closing. Nothing less than intellectual integrity, free speech, and a potentially irreversible change in the morality of mainline denominations are at stake in this vital area of sexual ethics. REALITY #1 HOMOSEXUALS ARE LIKE US: WE ARE ALL MARRED IMAGE- BEARERS If we are true followers of Jesus, we cannot move toward someone struggling with SSA in mercy and compassion— as Jesus would— while still viewing them as “abnormal” or unclean. Is not this struggler made in the image of God, a breathing billboard of God’s creative brilliance? 1 We value her because she is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”2 And her intelligence and affections point beyond her to the Author of thought and the Composer of love. Her Creator defines normal. Calling her “abnormal” dehumanizes and distances her. “Abnormal” also deifies the deluded one who coronates himself as “normal.” WHat Honest Human being, otHer tHan Jesus, can look in tHe mirror and see tHe standard of normality? True Christianity creates a casteless society, because we see people through the lens of God’s particular creation: “you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”3 Therefore, what God has knitted together, let no man tear apart! REALITY #2 HOMOSEXUALS HAVE TURNED ASIDE: ALL SIN IS TWISTED The Apostle Paul did describe homosexual acts as “contrary to nature.”4 However, he was emphasizing that homosexuality is a physical illustration of our spiritual condition. THe bodily inversion reflects our spiritual inversion. God does not give a Homoerotic person over to His sin because He is a Homosexual, but 1 Genesis 1:27 2 Psalm 139:14 3 Psalm 139:13 4 Romans 1:26 because He is an idolater. “Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” 5 Paul’s point is not to rate homosexuality as a “10” on the sin scale, nor to warn the SSA struggler that he is approaching the last train stop on the track to hell, but to highlight the incompatibility and insanity of idolatry. Paul widens the scope of his indictment to include “all manner of unrighteousness” (covetousness, envy, deceit, gossip, etc.) and then ropes in the hypocrite, “You condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”6 His argument culminates in chapter 3, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”7 Once again, we are “together.” Yes, we are all made in God’s image, but tHrough birtH and cHoice we Have all turned aside. THe image of God is distorted and perverted. Like spiritual zombies, we are “dead in the trespasses and sins . following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air . carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.”8 We are victims swept along by abductors, marketers, and demonic forces. This is why homosexuality or bitterness or anxiety does not feel like a choice. We have been drafted by strong forces and engulfed by painful experiences. We suffer. But we are also villains. We are “carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.” In other words, we are doing what we want to do. We seek to mitigate our suffering, but end up exacerbating it. My sin always seems reasonable to me, and your sin inexcusable. Left to myself, I can find a way to justify anything I really want, and the choices I make can hurt the people I most love. I sin. This is who we are. Our stories vary in detail as tHe fall leaves vary in color, but we are made of tHe same stuff. 8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. REALITY #3 HOMOSEXUALS CAN FIND A NEW IDENTITY Our sin goes deeper tHan our sins: our sin seeks to define, permanently, wHo we are. We “went after worthlessness and became worthless.”9 In addition, we often give ourselves labels that threaten to define us. We, the image-bearers of the King of the universe, mislabel ourselves “alcoholic,” “loser,” “workaholic,” or 5 Romans 1:24-25 6 Romans 1:28-2:1 7 Romans 3:10-12 8 Ephesians 2:1-3 9 Jeremiah 2:5 “homosexual.” But God refuses to leave us to worthless labels. “For our sake He made Him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.10 Jesus absorbed our sin on the cross and rose again so that we could “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”11 THe gospel of Jesus is not an invitation to do better or try Harder; it is a deatH certificate tHat unfolds into a new birtH certificate, providing us witH a renewed identity! The image of God that was marred in the Fall is revived in Jesus. We have been killed in Jesus’ death, buried in Jesus’ tomb, and raised in Jesus’ resurrection. When we turn from our sin to trust in Jesus, our old self no longer defines who we are and what we do.
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