BASH

We began by reminding everyone what happened in the Garden of Eden and how sin came into the world. We know that God told Adam that if he ate of the Tree he would surely die. The interesting thing is, after Adam ate of the tree God did not kill him. He spared him. The very first act of Grace was displayed immediately after the first sin. We then remembered that all through Israels history and even today, though God has warned us that sin leads to death, when we go and commit these acts of Treason towards God he still spares us. The ironic thing is that when God actually does give us what we deserve we get upset about it. The reality of the matter is that if we were to weigh out the times God has given us what we deserve verses the times He showed grace and mercy, we would see that the grace and mercy outweigh it by tons.

We proceeded to read through Romans 1:18 through 32. A pretty key passage on the topic of Homosexuality.

I then presented 7 points or objections that Homosexuals or advocates of Homosexuality would make and how I (Pastor Frank) would respond to them. (I have to begin by saying that many of my thoughts and answers to these objections were from Matt Chandler, so I have to give props where they belong. You can find out more about his ministry here.)

1. If you are not hurting anyone else then what is wrong with it?

The statement usually goes like this: If two people are in love and are in a loving monogamous relationship and it isn’t hurting anyone else then what is wrong with it?

Read Matt 22:36-40 where Jesus is explaining what the greatest commandment is. He says You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, and strength. And Love your neighbor as yourself. So naturally we must ask ourselves, how do you love God with all your heart, soul, and strength? In John, Jesus says “if you love me you will obey me.”

Obviously, the easiest way to combat this is to say that Jesus never talked about Homosexuality, which is true and is addressed in question 3 but there is an interesting point here. A person can go one and be great the their neighbors. They never kill anyone, cheat, steal or covet. But If you don’t obey Christ you have broken a law as if you have broken all of them.

2. Who are you to judge me of sin, you are a sinner too

This is a terrible argument. If a person claims to be a Christian then we are supposed to judge them for the sake of accountability, being careful of false prophets, and to just see if they are even a Christian (Matt 7:15-27, 1 Cor 5:12-13, 1 John 4:1)

The issue here is not who has a right to judge or even what they are judging. The issue is who has a repentant heart. Yes, I sin, but I feel terrible about it and I am constantly trying to make war against it so I will stop. Are you?

3. Show me in the Bible where Jesus says something about Homosexuality?

Jesus never directly talks about homosexuality. But that is irrelevant. Jesus never talked about Idolatry (the major root of many sins). He also never talked about incest. So if we were to take this argument to its logical conclusion we would say that since Jesus never said anything about brother and sister getting married, than it is ok. Obviously, that is an absurd argument. Jesus was a man in a time period teaching to Jews in the 1st century who knew the Levitical law. He had 3 years to talk and spent those 3 years to talk about matter that were necessary for the people to understand and hear.

However, Jesus was not completely silent on the matter. In Matthew 15:18-20 Jesus talked about Sexual Immorality being evil. The Greek word for Sexual Immorality here is Pornea which is like a verbal junk drawer for sexual sins which include Homosexuality. 

4. Since there is homosexuality in nature then it should be natural in life.

The problem with this idea is that if you use this kind of logic then why don’t we apply it to other things we see in nature. For example, some insects, after the male impregnates the female, the female then eats the male. Why are we not supporting wives killing their husbands after they get pregnate?

Hippos, after giving birth to a male hippo will try to kill their new born son out of fear that the son will grow to be powerful and take over the heard. However, we don’t try to kill our sons? 

This is one of the few times where natural selection lines up with the Bible. You can only point to same sex relations in other species as a fringe anomaly. There is no species that are all homosexual because the species will die out.

Natural selection says that the strong survive and continue to make every effort to do so by growing the species because the strongest genetics survive and prosper. So if homosexuality is genetic then it is abnormal because it defies the law of natural selection. So I guess you could say Darwin was a homophobe.

5. Homosexuality in the Bible is not the same version as the one we see today.

Some Christians that support the homosexual community will say that the homosexual behavior seen in the 1st century middle east was abusive and sometimes sex slavery. People were forced in to homosexual relations. So Paul was simply addressing that this aspect of homosexuality was wrong. They would say Paul was unaware of the homosexuality of today.

From a scholarly perspective, this is wrong. There is art, pottery, and images drawn on walls that display homosexuality as consensual and desired. Romans 1 describe that men were consumed with one another. This was not force because there was reciprocity involved.

6. Paul is not against homosexuality, he is against homosexuality for heterosexuals.

The problem with this argument is that if a heterosexual person commits a homosexual act then by definition that is homosexuality. For example, A serial killer is considered a murderer because they killed someone. If I killed 1 person I am still considered a murderer because by definition killing 1 person defines you as a murderer.

7. Well if a person has a desire or an urge than it is natural and therefore it is ok.

Just because you urge for something does not make it ok.

Ann Curry and Rick Warren had a interview and Ann Curry asked, if it was proven with out a shadow of a doubt that homosexuality was genetic, would Warren still hold to his stance.  Warren said he would. Curry freaked out.
Warren said, Genetically, I want to have sex with every beautiful woman I see but it is not best for me. (You can watch the interview here)

You are born with an orientation to rebel against God but it doesn’t mean it is right.

A few statistics that were shared with the group:

One study reports that the average homosexual has between 20 and 106 partners per year. The average heterosexual has 8 partners in a lifetime. (Corey, L. and Holmes, K. “Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men.” New England J. Med., 1980, pp. 435-38.)

Homosexuals account 60% of all syphilis cases in the United States. They make up only 1-2% of the population. (“Changes in Sexual Behavior and Incidence of Gonorrhea.” Lancet, April 25, 1987.)

The median age of death of homosexuals is 42 (only 9% live past age 65). This drops to 39 if the cause of death is AIDS. The median age of death of a married heterosexual man is 75. (Fields, Dr. E. “Is Homosexual Activity Normal?” Marietta, GA.)

Those statistics were shared because as Christians we need to remember that we are not sharing the gospel to homosexuals, we are sharing the gospel to people. Real breathing people who are living a lifestyle that is very harmful. Homosexuality is not wrong solely because the Bible says it is, it is bad because the lifestyle in general is harmful. We should be concerned for them on a spiritual level and a practical health level.

So what do we do now?

If you are a Christian and you are able to have dialog with homosexuals pastor Matt Chandler had this bit of advice to give.

Preach Christ not Orientation.

If you preach Christ and the general issue of being seprated from God because of sin and how Christ came to redeem us all then orientation will eventually come up. Maybe not the first cup of coffee or maybe not even the second. But if you continually share the gospel in love and truth orientation will be brought up and you will probably have a better platform to share the truth in love. Transformed hearts leave to transformed lives not the other way around. There needs to be a change in orientation of the heart before there can be a change of sexual orientations.

If you are a Christian and are homosexual and were to ask, “how do I get out of this lifestyle?” a good answer would be to take a tip from the puritans.

Vivification - This means filling your life with what stirs up your affections for Christ. Find out what is it the makes you find your joy in Christ, what gets you excited about serving Him and pursue that with all you got!

Mortification - this means to put to death everything and anything that causes you to sin. Like John Piper said, “Make war against sin”. If that means to burn some bridges with people that pull you back into that lifestyle, then you have to do what you have to do. Killing sin is important for all believers, not just homosexuals

Regardless of the sin, community is super important. If you are not in a community of believers that encourages you in your walk with Christ and keeps you accountable for your sin, you need to find one. Christ died for a community. The church is a body of believers and we were meant to do this together.

In all things, seek Christ and seek truth. If you are truly seeking truth, you will find Christ.