Posted on 08/10/2012 6:48:52 AM PDT by Graybeard58
WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP) -- Today it is popular among those promoting same-sex marriage to say that Jesus never addressed the issue, that He was silent on the subject.
Those who affirm the historical and traditional understanding of marriage between a man and woman often are admonished to go and read the Bible more carefully. If we do so, we are told, we will see that Jesus never addressed the issue. So, the question that I want to raise is, "Is this assertion correct?" Is it indeed the fact that Jesus never addresses the issue of same-sex marriage?
When one goes to the Gospels to see exactly what Jesus did say, one will discover that He addressed very clearly both the issues of sex and marriage. He addresses both their use and misuse. And, as He speaks to both subjects, He makes it plain that issues of the heart are of critical importance.
First, what did Jesus say about sex? Jesus believed that sex is a good gift from a great God. He also believed that sex was a good gift to be enjoyed within a monogamous, heterosexual covenant of marriage. On this He is crystal clear. In Mark 7 Jesus addresses the fact that all sin is ultimately an issue of the heart. Jesus was never after behavioral modification. Jesus was always after heart transformation. Change the heart and you truly change the person.
Thus, when He lists a catalog of sins in Mark 7:21-22, He makes it clear that all of these sins are ultimately matters of the heart. It is the idols of the heart that Jesus is out to eradicate. Among those sins of the heart that often give way to sinful actions He would include both sexual immorality and adultery (Mark 7:21). The phrase "sexual immorality," in a biblical context, would speak of any sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage between a man and woman. Therefore, Jesus viewed pre-marital sex, adultery and homosexual behavior as sinful. And, He knew that the cure for each is a transformation of the heart made possible by the good news of the Gospel. The Gospel changes us so that now we are enabled to do not what we want, but what God wants. Here we find real freedom and joy.
Second, what about the issue of marriage? Is it truly the case that Jesus never spoke to the issue in terms of gender? The answer is a simple no. He gives His perspective on this when He addresses the issue in Matthew 19:4-6. There, speaking to the institution of marriage, Jesus is clear when He says, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." That Jesus was committed to heterosexual marriage could not be more evident. A man is to leave his parents and be joined to a woman who becomes his wife. This is heterosexual marriage. That He also was committed to the permanence and fidelity of marriage is clear as well.
So, how might we sum up the issue? First, Jesus came to deliver all people from all sin. Such sin, He was convinced, originated in and was ultimately a matter of the heart. Second, Jesus made it clear that sex is a good gift from a great God, and this good gift is to be enjoyed within heterosexual covenantal marriage. It is simply undeniable that Jesus assumed heterosexual marriage as God's design and plan. Third, Jesus sees all sexual activity outside this covenant as sinful. Fourth, it is a very dangerous and illegitimate interpretive strategy to bracket the words of Jesus and read into them the meaning you would like to find. We must not isolate Jesus from His affirmation of the Old Testament as the Word of God nor divorce Him from His first century Jewish context. Fifth, and this is really good news, Jesus loves both the heterosexual sinner and the homosexual sinner and promises free forgiveness and complete deliverance to each and everyone who comes to Him.
John 7 tells the story of a woman caught in adultery. The religious legalists want to stone her, but Jesus intervenes and prevents her murder. He then looks upon the woman and, with grace and tenderness, tells her that He does not condemn her. Then He says to her, "go and sin no more." In Matthew 11:28 Jesus speaks to every one of us weighed down under the terrible weight and burden of sin. Listen to these tender words of the Savior, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." This is the hope that is found in Jesus. This is the hope found in the Gospel. Whether one is guilty of heterosexual or homosexual sin, one will find grace, forgiveness and freedom at the foot of the cross where the ground is always level.
When I came to fully trust Jesus as my Lord and Savior at the age of 20, I determined that I wanted to think like Jesus and live like Jesus for the rest of my life. When it comes to sex I want to think like Jesus. When it comes to marriage I want to think like Jesus. That means I will affirm covenantal heterosexual marriage. It also means loving each and every person regardless of their lifestyle choices. It means, as His representative, proclaiming His Gospel and extending the transforming grace of the Gospel to others that takes us where we are, but wonderfully and amazingly, does not leave us there. That is a hope and a promise that followers of Jesus gladly extend to everyone, because we have been recipients of that same amazing grace.
Daniel Akin is president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
Both the Old Testament and the New address homosexuality and lesbianism in no uncertain terms. The Bible is the inspired word of God, and Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He cannot and would not disagree with His own Word. The fact that He did not specifically speak to homosexuality in His incarnated time on earth is irrelevant.
I have posted this before but it bears remembering. God made our bodies purposely and it’s functions. He did not make man to reproduce with another man. It is between God and man what he does with his body but the Holy Word says the following and I’m sticking with that.
Leviticus 18:22
New International Version (NIV)
22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable
Genesis 19:4-5
New International Version (NIV)
4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom —both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
Romans 1:27
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version (NIV)
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Jude 1:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Cross references:
Jesus VERY clearly addressed marriage… in Matthew 19. Especially verses 4-6: “And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them MALE and FEMALE, (5) and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (6) So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
He also implies one man, one woman… distancing Him from the polygamy of the patriarchs and kings (Abraham, David, Solomon, etc.)
Read the entire chapter… marriage other than male and female is not even on Jesus’ “radar”. Though I’m sure He knew one day Old Devil would use it to divide… even His followers. I look to the woman caught in adultery (John 8), also a capital offense in Jesus’ day… had that been a homosexual I feel sure my Savior would say: “Neither do I condemn you… go now and SIN NO MORE!”
Now ... are you aware of any specific prohibition on female homosexual acts? I'd be much obliged if you could point me to such, as I have been unable to find it.
Redgulum: If folks want to toss Paul as "not Christian", about all I can do at that point is pray for their conversion. I have read all of Leviticus more than once ... but maybe I missed something. Lev 18:22 seems to me specific to male/male sodomy.
CA Conservative: Thanks. I had forgotten the sentence about women doing sex with each other.
I think a lot of people here need to read the article. He makes it very clear that Jesus DID address it.
Just like “non-fat butter”, there’s no such thing as “same sex marriage”.
Jesus didn’t directly address texting while driving...therefore texting while driving is ok
ROTFLMAO....that is so funny. That drinking and driving thingee puts us in a quandry too.
Even if Jesus HAD nothing to say about homosexuality, Paul did. And Paul was an inspired apostle from God.
Jesus is the word of God in the flesh and the law come to life. In Jude 7 it states “strange flesh”, it stands to reason since marriage is between one man and one woman, strange flesh stands for male or female.
Jude 6-11
6] And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
[7] Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
[8] Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
[9] Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
[10] But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
[11] Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
Why address something that did not exist?
He posits that Yah'shua(Jesus) He serves some unknown god. Daniel seems confused.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
is not one(echad) with YHvH.
Obvoiusly YOU never read Romans 1, Have You!
Rom 1:18-32 is clear and does address your concern.
Now ... can you show me where female homosexual acts are prohibited? Something equivalent to Lev. 18:22?
Seriously. Show me. I'm not defending female homosexual perversion. I'm looking for ammunition against it.
You, OTOH, are demonstrating a very bad habit common among protestant apologists on this forum. You are substituting snarky remarks for intelligent and informative discourse.
The following website is most probably more info that you wanted but you will find it interesting and informative.
There is a passage about the last days where women will turn their lusts toward other women but I have to look for it and get back with you.
http://www.studylight.org/dic/bed/view.cgi?number=T348
Right. Rom 1:26 characterizes female homosexuality as unnatural. I find it interesting and odd that the OT seems not to address the matter at all.
Romans 1-(KJV)
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
There is no female equivalent to Lev. 18:22 or Lev 20:13.
The argument is a ruse. The ENTIRE Bible is the Word of God. You cannot separate parts of it from the whole and use it to argue in favor or against anything. The Bible is clear on what is sin and what is righteous and it is not silent on this issue.
If you're thinking about Rom. 1:26, I don't believe that's a "last days" thing. Instead, it's a description of how folks who know neither The Law nor The Gospel behaved up until the time of Paul's writing ... and it holds true today. The whole passage is Rom 1:18-32, and the first few verses give the context.
IMOPIOS
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