Posted on 06/12/2015 9:41:35 AM PDT by Graybeard58
NASHVILLE (BP) -- It's common for proponents of gay marriage to claim that Scripture condemns only promiscuous, predatory and pedophilic homosexual behavior, as if the biblical authors had no knowledge of consensual, adult, monogamous homosexuality. In some cases, LGBT advocates state explicitly that the ancient world was ignorant of modern forms of homosexuality.
But that claim is false. And believers should be prepared to engage its advocates in the ongoing cultural debate over same-sex marriage.
The suggestion that Scripture doesn't condemn modern homosexuality is one component of the controversy surrounding Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., and its alleged approval of same-sex unions. Weatherly Heights pastor David Freeman asserted in a 2013 sermon that "the Bible does not address" "adult, loving, monogamous, same-sex relationships." Believers have wrongly asserted blanket condemnations of homosexual behavior, Freeman said, based on Scripture passages dealing only with promiscuity, predatory behavior and abuse.
(Weatherly Heights was disfellowshipped from the Madison Baptist Association March 16 by a vote of the body's executive board. The Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions withdrew fellowship from Weatherly Heights May 15, acting on behalf of the Alabama Baptist State Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee is expected to take action on behalf of the SBC June 15 relative to the church's cooperation with the convention.)
Pastor Danny Cortez made a similar argument in September when the SBC Executive Committee withdrew fellowship from New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, Calif., for its approval of same-sex marriage. Pro-gay author Matthew Vines asserted the ancient world's ignorance of adult, monogamous homosexuality in his 2014 book "God and the Gay Christian."
Before Freeman, Cortez and Vines, the argument that Old and New Testament authors had in mind only dominating and violent forms of homosexuality dates back at last 33 years to Robin Scroggs' book "The New Testament and Homosexuality."
Is this claim true? In a word, no. A forthcoming book from B&H Academic titled "Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality" identifies numerous references in antiquity to adult, consensual and, in some cases, monogamous homosexuality, including gay marriage. Among the references cited by authors Donald Fortson and Rollin Grams:
-- The tomb of Egypt's Pharaoh Niuserre from approximately 2600 B.C. pictures two of the monarch's male officials holding hands, embracing and touching noses -- a typical Egyptian way to depict kissing. A rendering of Pharaoh Ikhnaton some 1200 years later pictures the monarch as having a feminine shape and sitting nude with his son-in-law as the two stroke each other's chins.
While the proper interpretation of these images is debated, they may confirm Leviticus 18:3's statement that Egyptians practiced the behaviors condemned in that chapter, including homosexual acts.
-- In the first century A.D., the Jewish "Apocalypse of Abraham" described men expressing sexual passion for one another.
-- Plutarch, a Greek author contemporaneous with the New Testament writers, spoke of both "unwilling" and "willing" sexual unions between men.
-- A second- or third-century Jewish writing titled "Sifra" applied Leviticus 18:3's condemnation of homosexual acts to "a man married to a man and a woman [to] a woman."
-- Juvenal, a first- and second-century Roman satirist, wrote of homosexual marriage, though it is not clear whether he knew of the practice or merely believed society was heading toward it.
-- Sextus Empiricus wrote around A.D. 200 that a story of "burning love" between two male friends in Greek mythology contributed to acceptance of homosexual relationships in some cities.
-- The second-century Greek writer Ptolemy referenced women who regarded other women as their wives.
Of course, ancient writings also contain references to homosexual acts that are abusive, violent and involve minors. And some of the references above were penned after the New Testament was complete. Nonetheless, they refute the claim of LGBT advocates that adult, monogamous, loving homosexual relationships were unknown in the ancient world. Even the oft cited homosexual scholar John Boswell warned against exaggerating the difference between ancient and modern forms of homosexuality in his book "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality."
Ancient references to adult, consensual homosexuality -- including gay marriage -- should bolster believers' confidence that Moses, Paul and other biblical authors would not recoil in surprise if they learned about contemporary gay marriage. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. Scripture's condemnation of homosexual acts prohibits every form of same-sex sexual expression
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And Paul can't be dismissed as an ignorant fisherman or something of the sort from flyover country. He was arguably the most learned Rabbi in Jerusalem before his conversion on the road to Damascus.
The profligate liberal “church” has no problem going along with homosexuality because their own sexual sins are just as bad.
Paul was familiar with Corinth, a place where everything was done that we can imagine.
Yep, a key reason why the Romans ate the Greek’s lunch . . . then suffered the same fate once they went down the same path.
There is nothing new under the sun. Oh, we have cool gadgets, toys, and machinery. But there is truly nothing new.
I wonder if any of the apostles would even respond to these sleaze bags as in so doing it gives an impression of them having some credibility, and they have none.
The disparagements of traditional marriage are the small end of the wedge for prying religious freedom from our Constitution. If applied, the Bill of Rights would furnish the key for resolving the marriage issue by sustaining its religious essence.
For tens of millions of Jewish, Christian and Muslim believers classical scholarship concludes homosexual relationships separate them from God. The Old Testament, holy to “People of the Book”, speaks of the character, identity, and purpose of God in a manner, which continuously addresses homosexuality. God is identified as masculine and all humans as feminine in relation to Him. After creating all things, He created the single institution of heterosexual marriage to point to the love relationship He desires with humanity. For them any subsequent reasoning from scriptures must derive from that basic understanding.
Focusing on first principles regarding marriage renders irrelevant contrary moral exhibitionist arguments of fairness and tolerance, and the pecuniary arguments regarding taxes and social welfare. For the United States, all could be managed by the elegant expressions, and endless tomes legislators luxuriate in creating on issues from plastic bags to healthcare. People could then be free to do whatever in relation to business practice, and personal belief, but there seems to be little chance of that happening.
Allowing a popular civil trend to erase foundational Constitutional principle injects a crippling abscess into spiritual faith. Immediately these people reside outside boundaries guaranteeing freedom of religion to become guilty of cultural prejudice, and next confront logics defining their beliefs as criminal.
Same sex marriage tears the spinal cord out of the desert religions. What remains is a gooey substitute for spiritual faith which can be layered onto any secular philosophy. People will either buy into this new normal or be unable to benefit from this redefinition of the First Amendment.
What we know is that man enters the world corrupt..loving self and sin ..
Having"laws" making sin an illegal act ...do not stop the sin.. the sin continues because man loves his sin..
The answer to sin is not "laws" but grace ..only the gospel can change the hearts of men..
Matthew 24:21-22
For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. 22”Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Paul said satan beguiled eve..
I think he was taught when he was old enough that fruit and trees in the garden weren’t really fruit and trees as we know them..
Adam and eve’s punishment should be a hint of what may have happened without getting too specific.
A righteous judge will have a punishment that fits the crime.
Not sure people think about their punishment having to do with ‘sex’,especially Adam and the ‘cursed ground’.
But then Genesis 38:9 and Onan gives a hint if Adam’s seed fell on the ground in deviant sex.
The first male and female may have had some deviant sex with the serpent?
Follow it with that understanding and it is clear ‘gay believer’ is just another lie from the father of all lies .
Not quite.
The Roman Republic, and later the Empire, was fairly keen on freedom of religion, with the caveat that the sitting Emperor had to be introduced into the pantheon as a “divus” (distinct from “deus”, god), roughly the equivalent of a living saint.
Emperor Constantine allowed the Christians to be exempt from this requirement (as the Jews already were). He personally did not convert to Christianity.
Emperor Theodosius removed freedom of religion by decreeing that Christianity was to be the official religion of the Empire.
Rome fell two generations later in much the same way modern Greece is collapsing.
But of course. The gays are at bottom, pagans who reject the biblical God and also the values that go with it. Without the First Commandment, the others fall of their own weight. The only thing that keeps a man from stealing or whatever is fear of the Law. But the law can be “handled”
There is nothing new under the sun.
So these people are saying that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God didn't know about them, either?
Why should we worship such a God, if He didn't know what he was about? Oh, wait. That's kind of the point, isn't it>
Nero, whom was the emperor who martyred Paul, was homosexual and “married” at least two homosexuals (contemporaenously), one who was a “husband” and one who was a “wife.” He had the “wife” castrated to better play the part. So Paul was well aware of so-called “gay marriage.” Even the Romans thought it was demented, like Nero himself.
“who” not “whom”
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