Also what do you do with “Beloved do not seek your own vengeance”?
It’s the people who know how to forgive (and how to let the blood of Jesus Christ do what it can) who bring the most peace, truth, and beauty into the world. And if you quote Romans 13 surely you don’t mean the answer to every traffic offense should also be beheading.
“Also what do you do with ‘Beloved do not seek your own vengeance’?”
Romans 12:19
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
How does God carry out His vengeance? He may do it however He chooses. At some future point it will be a worldwide outpouring of Divine wrath similar in nature to the fire that destroyed Sodom. But for now, He often uses human government:
Romans 13:4
For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
“And if you quote Romans 13 surely you don’t mean the answer to every traffic offense should also be beheading.”
That has got to be the mother of all straw men there. You are insinuating that because I support the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, gang rape, and other biblically named capital crimes that I favor death for parking offenses. However, vehicular homicide, perhaps.
Now I did not say the US should make homosexual sex a capital crime. What I said was that the Bible agrees with Manny’s position that these acts deserve death. The Bible goes further and says the “wages of sin is death”. Homosexual acts and fornication in general are sins that will lead people to hell. Salvation from sin presupposes a recognition that there is sin and a need for being saved from the wrath these sins warrant.
People are often indifferent to the Gospel of Jesus because they are unaware that they need repentance. The proclamation of God’s righteousness and His wrath upon sin is necessary to bring people to Christ. It is NOT the Gospel. But it is the prerequisite knowledge of sin that makes the Gospel understandable.
The modern feel-good Gospel message that leaves out sin and the need for repentance is the real danger, rather than calling sin what the Bible calls it, and declaring the judgment that God has already declared is deserved for it.
Acts 17:30
Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.