Aftermath: Andy Stanley Unhitched (Stanley's 3-part series opened the door wide to homosexuality)

...Aftermath: Part 3 was the sermon that got the most attention -- the one where Stanley suggested that you need to "unhitch" your faith from the Old Testament as he insisted the New Testament writers did. To make his point, Stanley taught from Acts 15 and the story of the Jerusalem council.

...If Stanley said the conclusion of the Jerusalem council pertained to Mosaic dietary laws, how did he explain the command to abstain from sexual immorality? Not well.

Stanley said, "If I were to hand everybody a 3x5 card, and I were to say, 'Tell me what you think this [sexual immorality] means or what this means to you, how many different answers would I get? About as many answers as there are cards, right?"

I hope not. There's only one answer to that question. Sexual immorality is any kind of sex or eroticism outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and his wife...

"To send a bunch of Gentiles this, to abstain from sexual immorality, what does this even mean?" Stanley said, "This was a general call to avoid immoral behavior but not immoral behavior as defined by the Old Testament." By what standard is sexuality defined for the church? Stanley went on to explain that it is, "defined by the Apostle Paul who had been teaching in Antioch for two or more years."

"Do you know what the Apostle Paul consistently tied sexual behavior to?" Stanley asked. "Not the Old Covenant. Not the Ten Commandments. The one commandment that Jesus gave us: that you are to treat others as God through Christ has treated you." That's certainly not wrong, but neither was it given any clarity...

But our brains are to be used in accordance with His will for us. That means over time being transformed so we do more of His will for us and less of our own will which rebels against His.

That is Jesus’ example for us, which we are to follow, as we are to follow Him, and also the example of His first disciples, who followed Him. Like His disciples, we can’t perfectly follow God’s Will for us as Jesus did, but we can allow ourselves to be changed by Him so we do more and more of it. That’s His will for us. To become more Christ-like while we’re here.

If Jesus’ apostles hadn’t followed God’s will for them (and He made allowance for the fact that they weren’t going to be able to do so perfectly but would strive to), then none of us would even know who Jesus is. It was God’s plan to spread the Gospel through the testimony of those who have met Jesus, then and now. “Resting in our faith” and “resting in what Jesus did for us” doesn’t mean not using our faith and doing nothing. If we’ve met Jesus and gotten to know Him, then we’ve been changed by Him and are being changed.

Our submitting ourselves to God’s will also makes us ready for Heaven. We’re like criminals who’ve been in prison but we can be safely released to freedom because we’ve seen the light and become law-abiding. Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven if people were allowed in who wanted to follow their sinful hearts rather than knowing everyone needs to follow God’s laws.

I’d like to address your question, but I’m not going to unless and until you address the ones I’ve asked you.

I will say, though, is that it sounds like you think being a “professional Christian” isn’t genuine Christianity, perhaps because you think someone’s only doing it to get something. If that’s the case, how does that really differ from what you’ve said your beliefs are, which is to accept Christ thinking a person will be benefited greatly but not have to do anything?

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