4.4.14

Albert Mohler

Mohler, like Michael Brown, is a conspiracy nut who believes all gays are a cabal secretly following the book; "After the Ball..." (I write about the book on Brown's post). Like before, I'll post what an anti-gay proponent of the Bible has to say and my response below. This one was cut short because listening to Mohler was downright painful and I had to keep picking my jaw up off the floor with what was coming out of his mouth.

*The posters of this video keep on taking it down and re-posting it to keep me off of it (the rascals). It's like a little game with them because I always leave a link back to here in their comment section of the video and apparently they don't want others to read what I have to say refuting him because this vid is usually gone one or two days later after I link. What I write isn't even that much. Maybe they think I'll go further with refuting him here and it will make Mohler look even more in error.
 


Mohler gives 10% of the Word and 90% of his opinion. What shows God's Glory between man and God is a man dying to self, the old sinful man that Paul says we are always struggling with inside us. The old nature becomes less, so God can be more. What shows God's Glory on Earth is loving our neighbor as ourselves, the sum of all the Laws and the Prophets, what will tell the world we are the people of God (John 13:35). This hackneyed theology of Mohler saying opposite sexes coming together is showing God's Glory with it being a "right order" is basic stoicism. Even unbelievers and the haters of God who do all forms of wickedness are in opposite-sex relationships, are they displaying the Glory of God? Two dogs mating doesn't show God's Glory, it just is.

Mohler is showing his ignorance of Bible translation with his use of the word "dominion" over animals from Genesis. The correct translation from the Hebrew word gives the definition of loving "stewardship." You find the word again in Psalms 72:8 with its meaning given in verses 12-14; "For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight." This isn't a control from the incorrect translation to the Greek we get the iron-fisted word "dominion" from. By the way, this is another example of a whole Bible belief being wrong because of a mistranslation and the error of it, carried over by the writings of the early church fathers who saw animals as soulless and without emotions, literally no better than automatons, that became Church doctrine allowing the mass exploitation and abuse of the animal kingdom up to the present day. 

Do we need completion with a mate? Maybe Mohler missed the part where everyone from John the Baptist to Christ to Paul were celibate with Paul encouraging it over marriage. What only completes us is being in Christ (Colossians 2:10). James 1:3,3 says; "...testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
This heretical "theology" of completeness with an opposite-sex mate, two halves becoming whole, is rooted in Greek paganism that also made the case for a 3rd gender.

Mohler says everything we know about life comes from marriage between one man and one woman, a non-negotiable covenant. What?! Did Abraham have a non-negotiable marriage covenant with Sarah over Hagar? Did Solomon have one with his seven hundred wives? What about King David and his numerous concubines who weren't wives?

I stopped listening at the 13-minute mark because this is ridiculous. He's starting off already riddled with errors. I later tried again at the 18 minute mark and couldn't.

2.4.14



"(Gay) men and women are not projects. If you don't really love them, shut the Hell up. If you have no genuine love, if you have no genuine affection, then I don't understand what you're doing. It's like you're working a project or something, like you want the big gay victory of; "A gay man converted!" If you really don't love someone or have genuine care for their soul, their mind and their being, be quit man! You're making a mess of stuff."

-Pastor Matt Chandler, who believes homosexuality is prohibited in the Bible, on Christians who quote the "clobber passages" to gays.




1.4.14

Michael Brown

Brown just came out with another book and in one chapter he brings up the gay urban legend about the book "After The Ball" as stated fact. For those who don't know, "After the Ball - How America will conquer its fear and hatred of Gays in the 90s" was a book released in 1989 by two gay authors that gave an outline with how gays will be accepted in mainstream America. The main thrust of the book was to make homosexuality seem like a no big deal to the public and that's what will make homosexuals accepted. With people knowing more and more gays, including friends and family and the 'scariness otherness' of homosexuality going away with gays being shown in the media with being normal and living normal lives, it was just common sense that's how gays will be accepted over time. It's a proven fact that if you know a gay person, you're less likely to not hate gays if you give them a face you know personally.

Anti-gay Christians like Brown see the acceptance of homosexuals in society as something else. They believe that all gays are following the book as a kind of manifesto. That gays are following some secret and diabolical plan outlined in "After The Ball." All gays know about it, we just don't talk about it in public. Most people would put this in the realm of conspiracy nuts, but it's amazing how many prominent Christian leaders like Brown and mega preacher Albert Mohler believe it's true.

I've never heard of the book until the name of it started to pop up in rabid anti-gay religious sites. No one I know has ever heard of the book, it went out of print years ago and I guarantee you 99% of gays have never heard of the book much less read it. 'After The Ball' is to gays what "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is to Jews.

This is an interview with Brown and Wayne Bessen. Wayne played a key role in exposing the "ex-gay" movement for what it was. My response is below.
 



Brown really is a bold faced liar. As for this 'gay activist' Brown said he was going to go out to lunch/dinner with because he thinks Brown is such a great guy, let's hear what the activist actually said: holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com/2009/07/charlotte-pride-and-hypocrisy-of.html#.Uw6aFY3Tl1t
Go to the comments section.

First, Christians should be leery of Brown because of his association with the heresy called the "Brownsville Revival" that he still defends today (news flash The Holy Spirit doesn't make you bark like a dog) and is considered a false teacher in most Christian circles for pushing the 'Prosperity Doctrine.'

Brown lied about the purpose of his group at Charlotte Pride with one witness saying; "I saw a lot of people trying to get away from the red-shirted people, and they just wouldn’t leave people alone. They were going after the children of gay and lesbian parents. They were after the little kids, telling them that their mommies and daddies were going to hell and were sinners.”

He bares false witness with saying comments like; "Gays want to sexualize children" And they; "Want to put Christians in jail" (easy Google look-up) he'll no doubt will say was taken out of context with a smug smile. The man has a ministry (they also went to the pride parade together that brown said was like; "Going to the gates of Hell") with Lou Engle, also considered a false Christian by most Christians for spreading the 'Manifest Sons of God' Heresy, who went to Uganda to help pass the "Anti-Gay" Law that would put gays in prison for the rest of their lives:

Second, and what concerns me as a Christian is his keeping old Jewish Laws with new Christianity mix and match apostate theology, even saying Christians should keep the Sabbath.

This is what he said on the Piers Morgan show:


"First, Jesus said that He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In other words, the Old Testament law, even in Jesus’ day, was still in force and Jesus accepted it. That is the same law that condemns homosexuality in the Book of Leviticus.
Next, Brown cited Matthew 15 in which Jesus states that all sexual acts committed outside of marriage defile a human being.

Finally, Brown cited Matthew 19 in which Jesus said that marriage, as God intended it, is the union of one man and one woman."


My response:
Any man who claims Jesus said we are to run back to the Old Testament is insulting the complete work of the cross and teaches a different Gospel than the one preached by Christ and Paul (Rom 7:6, Gal 2:21). The Bible is crystal clear that ALL the Law and the Prophets hang on the sole edict of "Loving your (gay) neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22-36, 40). Period. Paul even goes as far as saying those who insist on following aspects of the Old Covenant, a covenant that was hung on the cross to die with Christ and to die to us to be replaced by a NEW Covenant of Grace, are under a "curse" (Galatians 3:10).

Brown also seems to miss the rest of the Matthew verses where Jesus talks about born 'eunuchs' (verse 12) who straight marriage doesn't apply to and how the marriage vow is only for those who accept it for themselves (verse 11), it wasn't a command. Look at the Bible more closely and you'll see Jesus said little about marriage (He only commented on it because it was brought up to Him) and Paul had even less a regard for it (1 Cor 7:8,9).
Any person who doesn't understand these basics tenets about Christianity shouldn't call themselves "Christian."

31.3.14

Ravi Zacharias

On this blog I have lack of challenges with what I present on homosexuality and the Bible. If I present an argument, I expect for you to give me an answer to that argument point by point and not just telling me "You're wrong." I've been posting a lot on YouTube lately and I'd like to address some of the anti-gay points brought up by some of the most influential Christians out there. I'm not afraid to answer tough questions or give counter points even to these "Super Christians" because it's the Word of God that guides me, but I take my queue from God saying he will use the stupid and not the wise. The Bible says I am on equal footing with these Christians because no part of the Body of Christ is above the other (1 Cor. 12:22-25). So yes, they are not in a place that I don't have that same authority and that includes going right up and sitting at their lofty table. If you think I have a lot of gall to do this with the names in ministry you hold in such high esteem, too bad, bring it up to Paul who said I could. 

Ravi Zacharias is considered on of the greatest Christian apologist of our time. I give my answer
below the video I either posted in YouTube comments or for the first time here.



Sorry Ravi, but if you believe the majority who call Christ Savior are only concerned about homosexuality because they see "sexuality as sacred," you gloss over most Christians who are on multiple divorces, on the Christian app version of Tinder, or Christians who have no problem with extramarital sex. If Ravi also thinks "race as sacred" was always a held belief, maybe he missed the episode of American history when God-fearing men had slaves with citing Paul in his Epistle to Philemon as justification. Same with justifying Christian white supremacy like renown 1800's theologian R.L. Dabney did in his watershed book "A Defense of Virginia and the South" that set the tone for the Church on how to treat black men and women for decades that is abhorrent to the Gospel of Christ.
.

A few other points...

Ravi's premise is faulty from the start when he states homosexuality is an aberration, according to whom? The animal kingdom where homosexuality is commonplace? The historical record of mankind were homosexuality was well-attested to in a neutral light? Bigoted dispositions of Bible translators and church tradition? Those mentions of "homosexuality" in the Biblical texts find nothing that speaks in the negative on the homosexual condition or practice IF kept in their context. If the Bible speaks nothing on homosexuality in and of itself, neither should we. If Christ speaks nothing in the negative on the condition of homosexuality, neither should we.

Ravi said God complimented Adam with woman (the actual Scripture says "mate") and put only in her what can cope with a man? In reality you cannot find two more foreign beings who are always attempting to understand each other than man and woman. Take away the sexual desire each has for each other and I doubt one would prefer to be with the opposite sex instead of the same sex for company sitting across from each other at a restaurant table. If there is anything called "complimentary" with one human with another it's with the same sex with common understandings, common dispositions, common interests and a slew of other commonalities on many levels. There's a reason the secular world came up with; "Men Are from Mars And Women Are from Venus." A transexual can have all the inner and outer characteristics of a female with the exception of having a penis, so by your definition, they can also compliment a man.

He says gays can be gays in disposition, they just shouldn't act on it and he brings up some writer who he thinks we should all have heard of. This man is asking gays to put on a yoke he would ask of no one else who desires the companionship of another human being, giving gays a burden that God never asked for or required. Since he brings up his author friend, let me bring up one of my own in contrast. William Stringfellow was a brilliant lawyer and Harvard graduate who gave up his career to defend poor blacks in the courts by the call of God in the 60's and lived in the slums of Harlem with the people he defended. Stringfellow's writings on the Apostle Paul's statement of "Principalities and Powers" is considered the best on the subject in most theological circles. Stringfellow was a gay man who lived with his lover during this time. He was no less of a Christian in action and no less a man of God than Ravi's celibate friend, yet Ravi will only see one as acceptable to God.

What I do find interesting is that he believes you can be gay and a Christian, just not practicing. I don't think he realizes how that wouldn't fly with most of his brethren who believe just even having the desire keeps you from salvation. He seems to not know that many churches affirm practicing gays (United Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Methodists, etc), so he doesn't have to worry about gays being in churches he calls home... for the time being. 




Update: 11/23/20
I only now found out Ravi passed from cancer complications several months. I had no doubt Ravi touched many and he will always be regarded as a titan of the faith. That is why it grieved me with what he said on homosexuality that informed the opinions of countless. While he was talking about the "sacredness of sex," he was doing this

What he said in the above video will go through the fire when he stands before The Bema Seat of Christ and it will be burnt wood.

I have nothing more to say.

28.3.14

Jewish Exegesis Methodology and Leviticus

On the basis of the exegesis of Baraitha d'Rabbi Ishmael in the Sifra, on Leviticus, written in the mid-second century of the Common Era, Rabbi Ishmael says:

"The Torah is interpreted by means of thirteen rules.... When a generalization is followed by a specification, only what specifies applies (Miklal u'frat)."

In our texts of Leviticus the generalization is the text; "A man shall not lay with a man," ואת זכר לא תשכב and the specification is the text; "as you would lay with a woman" משכבי אשה.

Based upon Rabbi Ishmael's method of Jewish Torah exegesis, we can clearly see that the biblical passages in Leviticus 18: 22 and also in Leviticus 20: 13 can not refer to true homosexual activity at all, as at least one of the males is a heterosexual or perhaps a bisexual male. Otherwise the text need not supply the words, "as (you would) lay with a woman."

To translate that prohibition, therefore, as applying to any homosexual relationship is to exit the realm of divine ordination and enter instead the realm of subjective, mortal homophobia.

The ancient rabbis must have had some sense of this problem when they ruled two thousand years ago that any homosexual sexual activity short of anal intercourse is not included in the biblical prohibition (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 54a-56a; Sotah 26b; Niddah 13a; Maimonides, Perush L'Mishnayot on Sanhedrin 54a).

Why did they bother to offer that qualification if it was so clear to them that homosexuality was forbidden?

Also, lesbianism, according to Jewish law, was never prohibited; Maimonides, who personally abhorred such behavior, ruled that; it is neither a biblical nor a rabbinic prohibition. (Perush L'Mishnayot on Sanhedrin 54a.)

In fact, the rabbis in the Gemara (BT, Tractate Yevamot) specifically say that the passages in Leviticus refers to an androgynous being and not to male-male sex.

Since the rabbis' interpretations are the basis of halakhah, anyone claiming that Judaism is against homosexual orientation based upon that passage is simply incorrect.

From http://home.earthlink.net/~ecorebbe/id18.html

24.3.14

Joy Electric

Gay Christian Network

Many years ago I was a frequent poster over at the Gay Christian Network (now called something else) when they first started (my tag was "Common Swift" like the bird), one of the largest gay Christian resources and gathering places of gay Christians on the net then.

It was founded by a man named Justin Lee who came from a fundamentalist/Evangelical background like myself. I once almost made it to the GCN Los Angeles gathering (each city has its own) to actually meet these people (the husband and I did eventually meet one at a Mexican restaurant he might have regretted). GCN was set up to be a meeting place for gay Christians who didn't all believe in the same Bible beliefs but had that commonality with being gay and Christian. Supposedly.

If you know even a little of the history of the Body of Christ, you know they don't always get along, I mean, look at the conflict between the two powerhouses of Paul and Peter? Here's Paul telling Peter he's doing it wrong and Peter resenting this once Pharisee who hunted Christians telling him what to do when Jesus told HIM he was the rock the Lord's church was going to be built on (I'd like to think when Paul traveled to finally have a showdown with Peter in person, it wasn't to hit him over the head with a big rock). Then there was the war between the Orthodox and Gnostic Christians, Paul attacking Christians who were teaching heresies, not to mention all the in-fighting within the churches Paul was always writing letters telling them to stop. My point with all this is that even though we are all Christians, we are very much still human and there will always be conflict between us even on the day the Lord takes us into the sky.

Sometimes conflict is necessary because some Christian beliefs need to be banged out to see if they pass the Word of God test, it just has to be done and the victor of those conflicts is an example of why we don't have Cataphrygian Christianity today instead of the one we know and love now. Paul also didn't mince words with telling heretics off, like I said, no one likes conflict, but it needs to be done to keep the integrity of the Word of God from going off the rails.

My leaving GCN started with attacks on a friend named Rick Brentlinger who was also writing at GCN, a guy who towed the conservative Bible line of the Bible being the inspired Word of God, a belief that makes up my own belief system. Without going into the specifics, GCN was falling into nasty debates with what was a split between the more Orthodox Christians like myself and those who weren't (they had a "debate forum" on the site at one time. The weird part is that I was fronting the Orthodox side (Rick bowed out because he's a lover and not a fighter) and the other side had an ex-seminary student as their anti-me. You either took sides or you ran for cover. Because I was pointing out the truths of the Bible as literal truths, I came off as the bad "Bible-Thumper" (not a good taste in the mouth of many over there with the experiences they've had being gay and those in the Church) who's spoiling everyone else's form of goofy types of Christianity and practices the Bible said weren't correct or kosher (much of it had to do with the practices of Christian "mysticism" the Bible condemns in no uncertain terms). I had some great Titans on my side during that messy conflict and one Pentecostal lesbian was a real scrapper (keep fighting the good fight Heather!) who always had my back, but I knew this conflict was doing this fledgling body of gay believers no good and I dusted the dirt off my feet and left. Justin deleted my final goodbye post like a roommate throwing my stuff on the sidewalk and changing the locks.

I bring all this up now because I just watched a video of a debate between Justin Lee and James White with my responses in the comments section. As long as people like Justin try to justify homosexuality apart from the yes or no of it in the Bible, people like White will always get the upper hand if you hold the Bible as the very Word of God. Even though White fell on Justin like a cartoon anvil, this comment gives a perspective benefitting Justin:

"Justin Lee came into this meeting at a severe disadvantage. He was confronting James White, a more experienced speaker who seemed insistent on debate. Lee admitted he did not want to go into head to head cross discussion for fear of alienating many in his own organization who believed that Christians were called to live lives of celibacy. Another reason NOT mentioned in the video is that the audience was almost entirely unanimous in its belief that same gender relations were sinful. A head to head argument would very likely have only created animosity with such a partisan assembly if they were to hear Lee continually say their personal beliefs were mistaken. White tried to compare this with his visiting a Mosque in England with a mixed Christian and Muslim congregation in which he stated that Christ was the way. But while the situation he described was (somewhat) similar it was hardly the same as what Justin Lee was facing since there was scarcely anything "mixed" about the people he was addressing. These factors combined with a natural shyness he admitted to on a GCN podcast a few months following this event are why Justin Lee should be credited just for having shown up. What's more, it appeared that instead of trying to "win" the audience over, Lee was trying to get them to simply know him better, perhaps in the hope they would like him and (MAYBE) want to know why he feels and believes the way he does by going on line to GCN. In this, he just may be able to claim some measure of success."


Years later I see Justin in another debate (he pops up from time to time and I think he wrote a book you should all buy) and sure enough he's back with his "I don't want to argue" stance and of course, they wipe the floor with him yet again. 


Some things never change.








Inside a GCN conference.

21.3.14

Torah Up Inside

A recurring claim says Jesus would not have seen homosexuality as permissible during the time he lived because homosexuality was so prohibited by Judaism, homosexuality was almost never practiced or talked about. Two books bring to light homosexuality was prevalent in the Jewish tradition.

"Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition" By Steven Greenberg.

"Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" By Theodore W. Jennings Jr.

                                       

26.2.14

Tying knots

I'm posting again to address an issue I don't think I've dealt with at any length on this blog.
Scripture on marriage and how supposedly they only allow a relationship within that paradigm. I'm amazed people are now trying to pull this sham that there are Scriptures that are against homosexuality outside of the 'clobber passages,' like we somehow missed them the first time.


I've posted about the Biblical emphases on celibacy over marriage and of Christ even downplaying the family unit (Matthew 12:46-50) as a focus.* For Christians to choose an ever-evolving institution called 'marriage' (at one time constituting polygyny and later for the purpose of carrying over bloodlines and later than that for the sole purpose of securing social contracts for land and power) from the Old Testament admonition to "Be fruitful and multiply" (since been replaced with "Seek the Kingdom first") over living and breathing human beings can not be justified Biblically.

One Scripture is repeatedly brought up as an argument for the "God only acknowledges a relationship within straight marriage." It's in Matthew 19:4-6:

"Haven’t you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

The context this was put in was the issue of divorce between a man and a woman being brought up to Jesus (you have to wonder if Christ would have even bothered to talk about marriage if it wasn't brought up to Him first?). Christ is talking about a spiritual dynamic of two beings coming together with the first beings being Adam and Eve in the garden. To say this is to mean anything else is making a completely new prohibition from the silence of Christ. It's dangerous to do eisegesis with reading between the lines of Scripture because you can just about make the Bible say anything.

We next go to verse 8:

"Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.  I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Now THIS is groundbreaking. Jesus is stating the Laws of God were fudged for the sake of man and that some rules were only meant to be kept in a specified time frame. Jesus is putting something (easy divorce) in the context of what was only for a specific time (days of Moses) for a specific reason (man's hard heart) and saying it no longer applies.** 

As if Christ ANTICIPATED His bringing up the first couple of Adam and Eve would be used against same-sex unions, you go further down in the same chapter to verse 11 and Christ says:

"Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given."

Christ right here is saying the Garden of Eden pairing of man and woman is not a Universal rule applicable to everyone because Christ is leaving it up to the listener on if it applies to them or not.

Jesus then goes on to clarify to who this rule of marriage and divorce doesn't apply in the following verse 12, the 3 types of "eunuchs" (I've already covered the ground 'born' eunuchs fit the definition of a gay man HERE and the backing of that interpretation from one of the world's foremost anti-gay Bible scholars HERE).

Jesus ends the whole dialogue by saying:

"The one who can accept this should accept it."

In other words, Jesus is saying that if you follow the Biblical role of covenant marriage for yourself, you'll have to follow what I have to say on its divorce, and the rest who this doesn't apply to will take the rest of what I have to say.

Now, I'll play the Devil's advocate and this view of a relationship doesn't fit the definition of traditional "religious marriage."

There is no specified ceremony or guidelines of what can be considered marriage in the eyes of God. If two people come together to consecrate their relationship before God, even if it were just between the two of them alone, nothing, at least not Biblically, cannot call that a marriage. Some insist marriage will have to be done within a church body or clergy to be recognized by God, but individual churches within almost every denomination and both liberal and conservative synagogues have by majority vote allowed gay marriages within themselves and the Bible states that Heaven will acknowledge that decision with it being loosed on Earth (Matthew 18:18). The only other argument is if the marriage is against the law of the land because God will not accept a marriage if it's against the law, laws God said we are to obey because it's God who put those lawmakers in power to make those laws, but now that gay marriage is happening in state after state even as I type this, no other arguments exist.

Two points of debate have been brought up to me. One says; "Jesus was talking only about divorce and for you to imply Jesus would be breaking away from the old prohibitions of homosexuality are you reading into the text," but the only reason why we know how Jesus felt about Old Testament divorce was that it was brought up to Him first by the Pharisees to trap Him, it was not something he divulged freely in either a sermon or to His Disciples. We don't know how Christ saw homosexuality because it was never brought up to Him. It's not to say it wasn't brought up to Him because the Bible says not everything Christ said or did was written down (John 21:25), but we just don't have an account of it. We DO know how Jesus felt about the Sodom story and it has nothing to do with homosexuality. Jesus talking about Sodom would have given Him the perfect opportunity to condemn homosexuality if, in fact, the ancients believed the city was destroyed because of homosexuality. but He doesn't say a word about it or when He came across the same-sex practicing Centurion.


The second point, made by theologians, is this Scripture shows Jesus being more restrictive with and narrowing down the Old Testament Laws and Jesus would have felt just as strongly if not stronger about the Jewish prohibitions against homosexuality. If you look at this through the lens of Jesus keeping old laws, you'll come to that conclusion, but from Leviticus 19:18 to Jesus and then to Paul, we are to see everything through the narrow lens of "Loving your neighbor as yourself." If you approach the Matthew 19 passage this way, you will see that divorce is only permissible if the woman commits sexual immorality because it's her first breaking the command of "loving her neighbor (husband, mate, fellow human being) as herself." Now since a man loving another man does not constitute breaking "Loving your neighbor as yourself," We can't say Jesus would have fallen in line with the prohibitive view on homosexuality held by the Scribes and the Pharisees who only saw the world through the eyes of keeping old laws. Jesus didn't come down with a laundry list of subjects to check off. He was very narrow with what he said with the time he had. He expected us to make judgment calls in His absence using the Golden Rule which is the Royal Rule. The rest can fit in the category of Paul's "It may be allowable, but is it beneficial? These two things will give us our answers on subjects like if gays can get married or if I can watch horror movies.


The folks over at comereason.org bring up this point:

"Because marriage is a covenant to be entered freely by two individuals, is must be witnessed by at least two or three people. This idea is confirmed in Matthew 18:16, where Jesus quotes Leviticus, "Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 

Ruth 4:9-12 shows this applies specifically to marriage when Boaz seeks out witnesses to secure his right to marry Ruth, the Moabites. There, the witnesses even pronounce a marriage blessing on them."


But let's look at the Scriptures they bring up. Matthew 18:16 is talking about when a fellow believer in the church is accused of committing a sin he won't admit to. Jesus says; "Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact (of his sinning) may be confirmed." Marriage has absolutely nothing to do with this Scripture.

Ruth 4:9-12, in context, shows a financial transaction and not a marriage transaction. Boaz bought land and Ruth was thrown in with the deal.



Another issue that was brought up was when a Pastor (though he saw the Bible as condemning homosexuality, believed the church should be called out for its less than charitable treatment of homosexuals) was asked the question; "Can a Christian attend a gay wedding?" His answer was no. He saw it as a type of condoning the relationship and the Christian should, in a loving way, give their faith as a reason. I see it differently (Now I'm saying this from the perspective of an anti-gay Christian because only an anti-gay Christian would ask this question) and this is my answer:

Any decisions or choices we make as a believer should go through the test of "Loving your neighbor as yourself." Now the question is asked; "Would I want someone I love to attend my wedding even though they might not approve of the union?" The answer is yes if you really followed the edict of "Loving your neighbor as yourself" as a hard truth. Doing into another that you would want to have done to you in real action. Weddings are attended all the time by people who might not necessarily approve of the person the loved one is marrying, but that shouldn't change because it's a homosexual union and the fact you are playing a part in their joy and happiness because you love them is a Christ-like testimony they won't soon forget and will be the greater witness than anything you could say on homosexuality. Christians have no problem attending secular weddings that are all ceremony and not faith-based with the two getting married, why should it be different here?


One last note: This "Marriage between man and woman reflects the marriage of Christ with the Church, His bride" makes no theological argument to reject gay unions while we are on Earth, which again, is making a prohibition out of Biblical silence. 

Never is the Church called "the Bride of Christ. All words relating to marriage (divorce, bride) are either talking about the Jewish people in the Hebrew Bible (they committed adultery, so God filed divorce papers (Jeremiah 3:6) or the New City of Jerusalem (Ιερουσαλημ) coming down from the sky to become the Bride of Christ forever (Revelations 21:2). Who was the Bride of Christ to John the Baptist? He tells you himself in John 1:31; "...but for this reason I came Baptizing in water; that He should be revealed to Israel." There is no word "husband" (ἀνδρὶ - is "man," not husband) or "betrothed" (ἡρμοσάμην - is "join," not betrothed) in 2 Corinthians 11:2. In Ephesians the Church is never called "her," but instead a different word is used for the Church (ἐκκλησ - Assembly) and the word is not "female/wife" (γυναῖκας). Believers WILL be invited as a guest to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in their finest clothing (Revelations 19:7-9), but so will the birds in the sky be guests (Revelations 19:17). Will Jesus have two brides? Believers are called the "Body of Christ" in that He is the Head of the Church body (1 Corinthians 12:27, Colossians 1:24). They are an extension of Jesus because He rules over them like the head rules over its body parts (Ephesians 4:15,16). We are already joined to Christ on Earth by the Holy Spirit in salvation, not in some future marriage event or as a bride to a husband.





*Even though the term "Family Values" was a term from the late 20th Century, it only became a rallying cry against homosexuality in the '80s. It was a smokescreen to make it sound like Christians are on the defensive with the myth homosexuals somehow hate and want to destroy good, straight, marriages and good, Christian, families. 

**Adherents to the belief that we are to keep Old Testament prohibition "Moral" Laws and it's only the "Ceremonial" Laws we are no longer to keep flies in the face of what Jesus is saying here. The Bible makes no such distinction within itself with moral or ceremonial laws and it's not how the ancient Jews divided their laws (Remember that even though breaking the Sabbath is considered a 'ceremonial law' to Christians today, it was still a law that required the death penalty because of its importance, Numbers 15:32-36).


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