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It's ironic to me, however, that his words have been used to keep women in unsafe and abusive marriages, while the whole purpose of the command was to protect them.

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AMEN!

The thing with divorce is that it was even in the bible sometimes justified. Homosexuality, on the other hand, never was justified in any case.

I'm curious what your take is on Sodom and Gomorrah? Why did God destroy all those people?

I'm also curious on why exactly God would wipe out an entire world (except for Noah and his family) if only grace and mercy are what God operates in. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The things that angered God then most certainly anger God today.

Just curious,
trosie

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And it's ok to disagree - I still like you ! But I'm still going to go after those ideas!!!

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Glad to hear that!

Semeia:

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Why didn't you include obesity and divorce and remarriage in your list? The Bible takes a clear stand on them, why don't you? Is it because there is no clear victim in those cases? The only "sin" in your list which also has no clear victim is homosexuality.

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Ah, this is where I would disagree. I know first hand that there are victims in divorce. My parents divorced when I was twelve and it MAJOR LEAGUE effected my life as well as my siblings! The divorce also tore my dad's heart into pieces so I know he also felt victimized by the divorce.

Obesity may not hurt others but there has been proven evidence that obesity is bad for ones health. Heart disease is one of the many diseases brought on from being obese.

Here's the thing: I could have included those issues too (I didn't mean to not intentionally not include them) The thing I believe about all of these sins is that the person's heart is what's at stake. I guess it gets down to whether a person acts in any of these areas knowingly and defiantly.

I realize that things such as homosexuality and obesity are VERY hard areas for people to feel any type of victory in moving away from. It's not whether the person is successful at moving away as much as it's whether they are striving toward living a godly life. Being remorseful when we fall into sin is what is at stake in being forgiven it's not whether we have victory in every battle. Trying to justify the behavior doesn't seem to show much remorse.

The problem I'm seeing here is that I call homosexuality sin and you seem to want to say it is not sin.

I ask you what is sin? My personal definition off the top of my head would be any act or thought that we knowingly commit, without remorse, which goes against what God would want.

In my mind the only way out of saying that living in a homosexual lifestyle is not sin is to say that God wants this type of lifestyle.

Hope:

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it is good to be thinking them through.

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I agree with you, Hope. I love to be challenged in what I believe and think.

Peace y'all,
trosie










Edited by - trosie on 03/22/2002 6:53:39 PM

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And even if it is, it doesn't address the issue of what one should DO with that propensity, what is the most goddly and life-giving form of life one should assume, etc...

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I want to make a statement here that goes along with what I just quoted above from Doc. The fact that I believe homosexuality is a sin does NOT mean I think we need to condemn the people who are gay. I think the most loving thing to do with EVERYONE is to love them right where they are at. I know that God passionately loves each person right where they are at.

(Side note: Doc, that was another GREAT sermon you preached today! Everyone I talked with afterward that's been through TNT or knows about TNT said "That sermon sounded a lot like TNT!")

Okay now back to this post, I have a couple brothers that I love dearly that are living in sexually sinful lifestyles. No, they are not gay but one is living out of wedlock with a woman, and the other is sexually promiscuous with the women he dates. The think I don't do (and this would totally turn them off to Christianity) is tell them that they are sinning. IF the topic ever came up I would say that the bible says that sex outside of marriage is sinful but I wouldn't directly point the finger at them. It is my job to love them right where they are at even though in my heart I know that they are sinning.

Will promiscuous heterosexual or homosexually active people go to heaven if they died tonight? Only God can judge the heart. The fact that we may love them and are commanded to not condemn them DOES NOT mean that they are NOT sinning. I thank God more often than you can imagine that I don't have to judge who gets into heaven!!!

Doc has mentioned a few times the topic of fair housing for gays. I don't think we can discriminate on any people group regardless of what lifestyle they choose. I know MANY, MANY heterosexual couples who are living out of wedlock together and they are not discriminated against.

We need to treat EVERY person with dignity and compassion. We need to walk a mile in our brother/sisters shoes before we could ever begin to judge their motivations and actions. I mentioned Doc's GREAT sermon above because it touched a little bit on how people live out the scripts that they were given by their upbringing and society. Life is often too tough on people for us to make it tougher. If we want to make any type of impact it would be doing what Greg mentioned in his sermon about getting people to realize the script they're living isn't necessarily the truth. "The map is not the territory!"

There, that feels much better.

In Christ love,
trosie

PS. I really enjoy dialoguing with everyone here because, although we may not agree, we are being respectful and loving toward one another. You guys are GREAT!

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1) How do Christians ever know sin is sin if its never preached? (And here I'm not just talking about sexual sin, but any sort of sin). It doesn't seem to me that its always intuitively obvious to us. The Bible does spell out for us the sorts of thoughts and behaviors that God deems sin. What do we do with these?

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1) How do Christians ever know sin is sin if its never preached? (And here I'm not just talking about sexual sin, but any sort of sin). It doesn't seem to me that its always intuitively obvious to us. The Bible does spell out for us the sorts of thoughts and behaviors that God deems sin. What do we do with these?

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But we should be warned by all of the silly things which have been preached on as sin in the past. There are witches which need burning, masterbation, even using an umbrella which was once thought of as a sin because it thwarted God's will. If God wants it to rain than we should let ourselves get wet.

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Let's break this apart. Witches being burned was due a phobia that the people of that time had. The bible NOWHERE talks about burning witches.

I've heard some awesome sermons on the topic of masturbation at Church of the Open Door and the preacher never said anything about masturbation being sin in and of itself.

The umbrella sin (which I have never heard of) is NOT mentioned ANYWHERE in the bible. Sounds like a silly thing to preach on


Empiress:

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I see those texts as needing to be understood in their cultural context...the belief that homosexuality was a consciously chosen behavior in rebellion, degrading to the human person and "natural" way God had created people. In that sense, it's simply a misreading of homosexuality. This is why I made the point about divorce...we have to understand the culture to understand what is really being preached against.

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Miss E, what do you make about Doc's comments "Wouldn't you agree that there's something sinful about Males tendencies toward violence (88% of violent crimes are done by males). What of pediophilia (no I'm not AT ALL equating homosexuality with pediophilia )? What of the genetic propesity toward non-monomgomous sexuality (hetero or homoexuality)? What I'm getting at is that I don't think the assumption that "what is is right" is warranted."?

The difference, as I see it, between divorce and homosexuality is that divorce is SOMETIMES okayed BUT homosexuality is talked (both in the Old and New Testament) as being SIN. Please show me where in the bible homosexuality is EVER okayed.

You talk about the culture at the time but homosexuality is talked about in various time periods throughout the bible and is ALWAYS (unless you can prove me wrong) talked about as NOT being okay.


I appreciate the dialogue even though at the present I feel outnumbered here
trosie

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Gen 2:18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper (a "face-to-face") suitable for him."

Gen 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.


Gen 3:16 (So the Lord God said) To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."


Gen 3:20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

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Let's break this apart. Witches being burned was due a phobia that the people of that time had. The bible NOWHERE talks about burning witches.

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Gen 38:9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled [it] on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

because Onan "spilled" his seed (sperm) on the ground...he wasted his sperm, something that happens in masturbation.

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i re-read this and though to myself "will they think this is stupid?" and then i realized, why should i care? like anyone else, i'm trying to find answers. there is nothing narrow minded about that.

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PoW said:
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You are merely preaching mutual-self-atuallization as if it were an equal of the command to "take up your cross and follow me." Happiness on earth is its own reward.
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I never said anything like this....but I don't feel I should justify myself against such an accusation.

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"Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease." Jeremiah 29:6

Doesn't this seem to suggest that God's plan through marriage is definitely procreation through a heterosexual relationship?

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That definitely seems to be one important and beautiful aspect of marriage...but if it's the only or most important aspect, I'm not sure what we can say to infertile couples or those who are married and choose not to have children in order to dedicate themselves to service and ministry, etc. What would you say beachgirl?

beachgirl said:

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"For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." Epheisans 5:23

Doesn't this suggest that a heterosexual marriage is a reflection of Christ's relationship with us?

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Yes...a marriage is a reflection of Christ's relationship to us. I'm not sure how or why that automatically excludes other relationships from reflecting Christ's love though. Isn't Christ's love reflected in friendships and in parenting-child relationships and in celibate people's lives too?

PoW: Thanks.

Peace,
~E


Edited by - empiress on 03/25/2002 4:54:02 PM

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beachgirl: "Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease." Jeremiah 29:6

Doesn't this seem to suggest that God's plan through marriage is definitely procreation through a heterosexual relationship?

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"You shall not permit a witch to live." Exodus 22:18

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This is only ONE verse in the entire bible. I don't think it is healthy to take one verse and use it to make a point. With the issue of homosexuality I don't see this being the case. There are SEVERAL verses.

Empiress:

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This is, like so much of the Bible, is a perfect example that demonstrates the way people pick and choose what they will enforce, follow, believe, adhere to, or take seriously in the Bible.

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This may be true but I see the same thing being done on behalf of justifying homosexuality.

Empiress:

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Gen 38:9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled [it] on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

because Onan "spilled" his seed (sperm) on the ground...he wasted his sperm, something that happens in masturbation.

The fact that Christians are finally letting go of this teaching is a sign of health.

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Here again is ONE bible verse that has been used to make a point. I DON'T think it's healthy to take ONE bible verse and build a case against an action. On the other hand, homosexuality is talked against repeatidly throughout the bible NOT just ONCE.

Empiress:

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Exactly...the point is that merely because something is thought to be a sin in a particular time or culture does not make it a sin.

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I am repeating myself again but the issue of homosexuality is NOT just talked about in ONE particular time or culture.

Empiress:

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I am saying that homosexuality is fundamentally different, it is in a different category because it is not chosen, is biological in origin, and is amoral.

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I say we can put alcoholism or schizophrenia into this category too. It has been proven that the alcoholic or a person who suffers with schizophrenia are biologically predispositioned with neurons that react in the brain in a way that creates this disorder. Even though people can use this predisposition they were born with (thorn in the flesh) as an excuse it doesn't mean that they are at liberty to use it for their behavior...

Empiress:

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Well, we can definitely say this: the Bible never deals with the concept of monogomous homosexual love.

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You're right. It NEVER justifies homosexuality either. However, it does address perverted sexuality. Having sex any other way than the way in which God designed the human body to naturally have sex is preversion. For example, anal sex is preversion.

Beachgirl:

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i'm trying not to sound way naieve or anything, but can we get back to why God created sex in the first place?

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This is definitely NOT a naieve question. I totally agree with asking this question.

Miss E, just because a FEW people are not able to have children in a heterosexual relationship does not mean that the sexual relationship between the man and woman must somehow be disqualified. God created a woman and man to be able to conceive children through the sperm and the egg uniting. This can never happen NATURALLY in a homosexual relationship.

Peace y'all,
trosie

Evdokimov, "The Sacrament of Love" (pp.115-117)

The Image of God

There is but one suffering: to be alone. A one personed God would not be love. God is Trinity, one and at the same time three. The human being, as a closed monad, would not be His image. The biblical account calls woman a "helper meet for man," more precisely, a "face to face." Scripture does not state that it is not good "to work alone" but "to be alone," and thus the woman will "be with him." "One toward the other" forms their co-being; and thus it is from the beginning, in principia, that the human being has been a nuptial being. "And [He] named them Man when they were created" (Gen 3:2). "When speaking of two, god speaks of one," John Chrysostom observes.

It is to their reciprocity, to their dyad of an ecclesial nature, that God addresses Himself when he uses both the singular and the plural forms of "you." without ever separating them. But an element alien to man, the demonic, implants a distance into their relationships and then, throughout history, the one will not stop saying to the other: "Where are you--Akekkah? in which condition are you" This ontological perversion is recorded in the words God addresses for the first time to each one separately" "To the woman he said..." and, "To Adam he said..." (Gen 3:16-17) This event proves that the differentiation between masculine and feminine is above all spiritual.

Indeed, the creation of Adam has been from the first the creation of the totality of ma; in Hebrew, the word Adam-man is a collective term. The book of Genesis ways literally, "Let us make man [ha adam, in the singular] and let them [in the plural] have dominion. And God created man [in the singular] and He created them man-male and man-female [the plural refers to the singular, man]." "Man transcends the male-female distinction, because the latter is initially not the separation of two individuals that are henceforth isolated from one another. On the contrary, we can state that these two aspects of man are at this point inseparable in the mind of God, and that a human being, taken in isolation and viewed by himself, is not fully human. In being removed from its complement there is, so to speak, only half a man.

. . .The birth of Eve projects into existence what was moving already inside the being. Adam has always been Adam-Eve. . .

The archetypical order of creation is integrated into the order of grace at the wedding of Cana. The base of ancient wedding cups represents Christ holding two crowns above the spouses, the divine principle of the reintegration of the initial order. St. john Chrysostom states this precisely: "The qualities of love are such that the beloved and the lover no longer form two beings, but one . . . They are not only brought together, but 'are one'" which means man-woman, one 'adam' in the biblical sense, for love transmits the very nature of things'." in a commentary on Genesis, St. Cyril of Alexandria adds, "god created co-being."

The patristic concept is fundamental to the East and inspires all its canonical text. marriage is defined as "the unity of two persons in one body and one being, a single substance," or "the union in one body and one soul, but in two persons." The definition is important; the nuptial "I" does not abolish the persons but s in the image of the Trinity. The union of the three Persons in one nature form a single subject: God, one and at the same time triune. Likewise, the nuptial union of two persons forms a dyad-monade, at the same time tow and one, united in a third person, God. "God made the woman together with the man, not only that thus the mystery of God's sole government might be exhibited, but also that this mutual affection might be greater." It is therefore nuptial man who is in the image of the triune God, and the dogma of the Trinity is his divine archetype, the icon of the nuptial community.

In the priestly prayer of Christ we hear, "I have glorified them. . .that they may be one in us as we are one." The Service of Crowning of marriage announces that the spouses are "crowned with glory." . . .