- January 8th, 2020, 11:08 am
#593444
stokesjokes wrote: ↑January 8th, 2020, 1:46 amExcept that God defined marriage as one man and one woman and he created sex for within the marriage relationship. Therefore it is impossible to have a same sex relationship that is holy since same sex marriage is pretend in God's eyes. We don't need to look any further than Genesis when talking about homosexuality, although the rest of the Bible condemned it alsoLUDad wrote: ↑January 7th, 2020, 3:33 pmThe disclaimer here is that this isn’t necessarily what I believe, but the typical argument is this:stokesjokes wrote: ↑January 7th, 2020, 12:16 pm After trying to honestly engage in the textual arguments made by people like Jen Hatmaker and Matthew Vines (I mean honestly as in following the argument instead of trying to pick it apart), I can see how someone can take a high view of scripture and believe it doesn’t condemn same-sex marriage relationships. I’m not entirely convinced, but I’m not in a position where I have to be certain (since I’m not gay).How do you interpret Romans 1:18-32 & more specifically, vv.26-28? Before I became a believer I considered myself a "Christian". Why wouldn't I be? I certainly wasn't a Hindu or Muslim. And I certainly saw nothing wrong with premarital sex! Then I came under the gospel and became convicted. If someone is a "member" of a bible believing Church and is having gay sex and they think they are a Christian and are not under conviction, the Church has a duty and obligation to confront them in their sin. Our Church always welcomes anyone to services regardless of who they are and whatever sin them may be entangled in. We want them to sit under the teaching of God. However, to join is an entirely different story.
I share this regarding the UMC because I think there’s enough gray to say that this is a non-essential issue and I’m comfortable with people who land on different sides of it, so I’m not sure why that can’t be the position of the UMC.
In fact, one of my favorite quotes is “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity,” which is in the UMC Book of Discipline, so it’s strange that this would be something they split over.
Paul is providing examples of behavior borne out of excessive passions. He’s speaking of heterosexuals becoming so lustful that they give themselves over to sex with men. Sexual orientation wasn’t a defined concept until 200 years ago, so the concept of a monogamous same sex relationship wouldn’t even have occurred to Paul to speak against it. Homosexual sex was closely tied to pagan worship practices, prostitution, and orgies, so those things are also contextually at play here.
As far as other passages where Paul seemingly condemns homosexual acts (1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10), the term used is a word that Paul made up, so we can’t really be sure what it means. Does it mean gay sex? I think probably, yeah. But that’s not enough to make it a hill for me to die on. Now, if we’re talking about clear and plain readings of scripture, it would have been nice of Paul to use any of the common words from back then for gay sex, but he didn’t and we have to ask both: why he didn’t and what he really means by his made up word.
Now, that’s gray enough for me to be ok with the uncertainty. If I’m honest, I lean side B, but I’ll defend side A because I’m open to being wrong on a debatable matter. And, really, I don’t think any of us has it completely right anyway.
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