MyTake: The Bible condemns a lot, but here’s why we focus on homosexuality

CNN ^ | 5/22/12 | R Albert Mohler, Jr.

[SoFloFreeper]

Are conservative Christians hypocritical and selective when it comes to the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality? With all that the Bible condemns, why the focus on gay sex and same-sex marriage?

Given the heated nature of our current debates, it’s a question conservative Christians have learned to expect. “Look,” we are told, “the Bible condemns eating shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics and any number of other things. Why do you ignore those things and insist that the Bible must be obeyed when it comes to sex?”

[LS]

The Bible is written to three different audiences. Everything in the Bible, while profitable, is NOT directed at everyone (Jesus's admonition not to cast pearls before swine). 1) Most of the Old Testament is written to the Jews as a prophetic light to JC. As Paul makes clear, Christians are "new creatures," and repeatedly he notes that we are not "under the law." 2) The New Testament is written to believers, a guide book as to how to "walk by faith." Of course they are good "moral principles" for anyone, but anyone who isn't a believer simply cannot access the power of God or the Holy Spirit. 3) Sinners are addressed only in the admonitions to repent and come to Jesus. Paul repeatedly states that a sinner cannot understand the Word of God without being born again.

So, the sodomy laws were specifically written to the Jews---but here's the catch: they were repeated on several occasions to Christians in the New Testament. Therefore, they are different and set apart from "mixing" laws about cotton and wool, or meat and milk; or from shellfish, or even the jubilee laws of the Old Testament. That alone should tell people something: that the restrictions against homosexuality are so significant that they transcend BOTH Hebraic law and the "Law of Love" in the New Testament.

[jboot]

What a sick, stupid society we have become.

What a Godless society we have become. Our American civilization has its taproot in Judeo-Christian principles and morality. Denied those, it will without fail wither and die. It cannot exist without them.

In the name of freedom this present generation will kill freedom.

[Boogieman]

Well, that verse is speaking about God. It is not giving permission to us to hate.

[ilovesarah2012]

Summing up the above, he wrote, “by such reflections as these... I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.”

In 1880, in reply to a correspondent, Charles wrote, “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”

http://christiananswers.net/q-aig/darwin.html

[HarleyD]

You forgot the part that by doing so you will heap burning coals upon their heads. And, yes, that is heaping coals.

It's no different than what God does for men. How He loves them, blesses us, does good for those of us who hate Him. Yet, in due time their foot shall slip.

[jboot]

When you would destroy the wicked, O God, the bloodthirsty depart from me! Your foes who conspire a plot against you are exalted in vain. Do I not hate, LORD, those who hate you? Those who rise against you, do I not loathe? With fierce hatred I hate them, enemies I count as my own.

Psalm 139:19-22 NAB

[HiTech RedNeck]

What you have just stated is a philosophy shared across the entirety of small-o orthodox Christendom. Some may quibble on terminology or on philosophical details of causation, but this description of what plays out is dead on accurate, and scriptural. God would prefer the sinner accept salvation and repent than to end up damned forever.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Many of the psalms in this vein were written by men under serious and distressing attack by evildoers, and they desperately needed God to make it stop. This is not a blanket license for a Judeo-Christian version of jihad.

[ArrogantBustard]

Not when the sinner is deliberately opposed to God.

Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do good to those who mistreat you. Anyone who claims to be Christian should recognize those instructions.

Are you praying for the conversion of the abortionists, the queers, the socialists, the mohammedans?

[Biggirl]

I do have a question about number 1. Thank-you for your response. Did not the apostle Peter have a dream about a group of animals coming from a cloth with the command to “take, kill, eat?”

Did that mean to say that the Christian community not to take on the Jewish dietary laws as part of their observance?

[faucetman]

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

So well written, you must be clergy. If not, you should be.

[papertyger]

This is not a blanket license for a Judeo- Christian version of jihad.

Refusing to capitulate is NOT a jihad...

[SoFloFreeper]

I agree totally—the phrase cannot and must not lose its meaning. Of course, we also cannot and must not become haters of those for whom Christ died. Criminals and activists who try to force sin upon us must be resisted.

[PLD]

” With all that the Bible condemns, why the focus on gay sex and same-sex marriage?”

For one thing it is not gay sex it is queer sex..Everything is queer about it..For another why do you morons in the media keep pushing this down our throat..To sell your trash for news papers..Don't blame the Christan's blame the disgusting excuses for humans that have sex like an animal..and get a thrill when they can upset a person of God.. The devil is loving ever bit of this disgusting queer thing..He will have a great reunion when the end comes..

[Bruinator]

This is the OT vs NT strawman argument. Those that spout off ask, “why not just put to death those that are...Pick a sin,” obviously do not understand the Bible.

[GJones2]

> ...he [Darwin] wrote, “by such reflections as these... I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” In 1880, in reply to a correspondent, Charles wrote, “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”

Thanks. He was a disbeliever — no surprise there — but I don’t see that as being anywhere close to implying what was said earlier, “They’re simply mad at God for existing and seek His death. (Darwin stated as much).”

[DManA]

Yes, because this is where the battle is taking place.

There isn’t a mass movement to normalize gluttony, or greed.

[Biggirl]

Could that dream vision Peter had about the animals be a confirmation of what you have said in the second paragraph about Christian believers and the Jewish dietary laws?

[eclecticEel]

“the Bible condemns eating shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics and any number of other things.

I know Mohler knows better than this, so why is he spreading disinformation?

[Boogieman]

So, do you think a Psalm trumps Jesus?