Good grief, they just don’t get it.  The Bible is God’s story of his redemptive plan for his fallen creation.  Of course there aren’t any illustrations of perfect marriage (or perfect people for that matter) in the Bible, but that doesn’t change God’s instructions for what’s ideal – what’s right.  These are Jesus own words in Matthew 19:4-9.

And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?”

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Jesus points them to the ideal as established by God from the beginning. 

And, I love (only because it made me laugh) the connection Miller makes between what “progressive” scholars believe and fact.

Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who “were inflamed with lust for one another” (which he calls “a perversion”) is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery. In his book “The Arrogance of Nations,” the scholar Neil Elliott argues that Paul is referring in this famous passage to the depravity of the Roman emperors, the craven habits of Nero and Caligula, a reference his audience would have grasped instantly. “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all,” Elliott says…

Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument).

So let me get this straight.  It doesn’t matter what theologians of the past 2000 years have to say.  The only thing that matters is what “progressive” (which we all know is really just code word for liberal) scholars have to say about it and then all the sudden objections to gay marriage are no longer rooted scripture.

What really gets me is that people are going to eat this crap up when it’s just not true.  I know, the Holy Spirit is bigger than Lisa Miller, but ahhhhhhhh we can’t just rewrite the Bible to suit our political agenda, our perverted cravings, or our ideas about what will make us happy.  Life isn’t about being happy.  It’s about reuniting with our loving Father through Jesus Christ, and then being reunited with our fellow human beings, also through Christ.

Believe me, it would be much easier if I could just go along with culture and just say “whatever”.  But there’s just something in me that says, “You know.  The law is there for a reason.  It’s there to convict us of our sin.  It’s there to show us we need a Savior.  If it weren’t for right & wrong, then we wouldn’t need Christ.”

There is some truth in Miller’s piece – the part written by God.  She just happens to take it completely out of context and draw incomplete conclusions from it.  For instance,

In the Christian story, the message of acceptance for all is codified. Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well— no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ’s all-encompassing love.

It’s true that Christ’s love is all-encompassing, but consider the story of the woman caught in adultery.  When Jesus rose from writing on the ground he said that he didn’t condemn her, but then told her to go and leave her life of sin.  The Christ connection between love & condemnation for sin is that Jesus loves us regardless of our sin, because he paid for it on the cross.  That doesn’t mean we should willingly embrace sin and say it’s okay.  It’s paid for, so we can be free to live life without worrying about our salvation, to live abundant life in relationship with Jesus and our fellow man.  Abundant life does not include blatant willing sin or the justification of it.  It just doesn’t! 

Many schools around the country use Newsweek for current event discussions in the classroom, so our teenage friends are being fed this ignorant view point.  Many teachers will not have the background, Biblical perspective or even the common sense to point out the fallacies, so it’s up to us to be wise enough to teach them that Jesus loves (and we should love) regardless sin, but that sin matters.  Jesus gave up his life to pay for our sin, so we shouldn’t take it lightly, pretend it’s not there, or worse yet promote it as acceptable.  If we do that, then we wouldn’t need Jesus at all.

GetReligion.org has a whole analysis on the Miller piece that’s worth reading, too.  Update: And, Green Leaf does an analysis of John Corvino’s writings about the Morality of Homosexuality. 

Oh, and just one more thing.  Let’s not stoop to the level of comparing cultural acceptance of those who choose to live out a sinful lifestyle with cultural acceptance of racial differences.  The two issues are completely different. 

Not since 1860, when the country’s pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwell—and the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecher—this time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections. 

Miller’s attempt to connect this debate with the debate over slavery is simply an empty emotional argument.  Choice & race are not the same.  And, please don’t tell me the issue here is not about choice, because how we live our our lives with Christ or apart from Him is always about choice.

Update:

I just read a blog post that really got me thinking about this from another angle.  As a Christian who believes everything points to Jesus Christ in some way, marriage more than almost anything else is a tangible example of the relationship between Christ & His bride, the church.  In addition, it is an example of the trinity – plural & singular at the same time.  Granted both examples are imperfect, but they are given to us by God’s grace to give us a glimpse of what He is really like and how closely knit we are to be with Christ.  While there are a lot of practical reasons to argue for the protection of marriage between one man & one woman – most notably procreation – the argument of marriage as visible examples of God’s relationships is a powerful spiritual argument.

Relevant Links:

• Christianity Today is Looking for a Serious Conversation
• Albert Mohler – Turning the Bible on its Head — Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage
• Stop the ACLU - The Bible According To Newsweek
• Jesus Lives! – Newsweek: The Bible and Gay Marriage

I’ve heard statistics say 75% of men struggle with pornography, so more than likely either you have or you are right now and your guys probably are, too.  Why not talk about it, bring it to light, and get well?  Download it.  Share it.  Discuss it.  Deal with it. 

And, ladies…this one is just for the fellas. 

Here’s a snippet.

God tells us that his people tend to satisfy their thirst not by drinking from his streams of living water, but instead drinking from man-made toilets (Jer. 2:13). This metaphor is particularly adept in a world where men such as Tom Leykis, Dr. Drew, Howard Stern, and a legion of men’s magazines and porno providers become wealthy by selling glasses of toilet water to thirsty men across our nation, many of whom claim to be sons of God. Meanwhile, the church alone has access to the living water from God’s perfect Word, but largely fails to teach men masculinity in any area, particularly regarding their sexuality.

The causes for this sin of omission are many. First, there is a propensity in many churches to take sexuality out of the hands of theologians and place it in the hands of secular counselors, whose philosophy is dominated by unbiblical evolutionary concepts of humanity and gender. This error prevents the church from speaking about men and women because they’re only permitted to see androgynous humanity. Second, the effeminate nature of pastors and churches causes many masculine men to feel unwelcome in what they perceive as an organization solely for women, children, and weaker men. Third, there is a timidity among weak pastors to wade into controversial issues in general, and sexual ones in particular. Lastly, the sad truth is that many pastors are also enslaved to their own sexual sins and/or are languishing in unfulfilling and infrequent sex with their wives, and therefore are unable to speak of sexual matters out of a sense of disqualification.

To speak of the matters of pornography and masturbation, I must speak frankly, as frankly as the Scriptures do on important issues. In 2 Timothy 3:16 God says through Paul that, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” These Scriptures that God breathed for our profit include the very frank discussions of sexuality throughout the Song of Songs and Ezekiel.

In Ezekiel 16:25–27 God says, “At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.”

Also, in Ezekiel 23:18–21, God says, “When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.” God basically called his people tramps for lifting up their shirts like it was Mardi Gras and chasing men with huge penises and semen emissions like fire hoses.

While God spoke frankly to Israel, he is certainly not crass like some meat-headed high school boys killing time in a locker room. God is honest and forthright about the truth and his people must not be so prudish as to try and speak in ways that are holier than their God. In our age of lewdness and perversion we, like our Father, must avoid crassness, while wisely and boldly speaking frankly about the joy and beauty of sexual intimacy when it is confined by the loving directions of the God who created both us and our desires. And, we must refuse to speak in sanitized clinical euphemisms like calling adulteries “affairs,” fornication “dating,” and perverts “partners” because God uses frank words for deplorable sin so we will feel its sickness without anesthesia.

Get it here.

I guess the lesson for me today is: No matter how strong or convicted a Christian you are, you aren’t safe from the Devil – especially when the strength of God is hiding out somewhere. God says he’ll never give us more than we can handle? I guess I’d have to see it to believe it.

Up until that time, I had some notion of justification by faith alone, but it was not an existential grasp that grabbed ahold of ME, and made ME the recipient of grace and unassailable hope in Jesus. During Dr. George’s lecture on Luther and Justification, I had what I can only describe as a mystical experience. It was as if God were on one side of the universe and I was on the other. He was in heaven, and I was in hell. Then Christ himself, through his incarnation, overwhelmed and obliterated that chasm. God took me, from where and I what I was, and brought me into himself. There are, truly, no words for the experience. I realized that I and the universe were still as we always were, but at the same moment, God had come completely to me and there was no separation, no divide, no chasm.

He’s also got a couple quick podcasts he posts very frequently. 

Speaking of podcasts.  We got ourselves a little behind, but are recording on Thursday.  If’ you’ve got anything you’d like us to discuss, let us know in the form below.

So many times I wish there was an easy way to catalog all the stories I’d like to remember for quick reference when I’m preparing to speak to teach a Bible study.  If you know of one, let us know about it. 

I found this explanation of one of the results of sin to be something I’d like to share with my high school friends.

In short, the Fall resulted in a descent from individuality to individualism.  Individuality is a good thing.  God created us as individuals, giving each of us a distinct contribution to make to the world and making each of us uniquely valuable.  This is what it means to have a purpose simply in being.  But the Fall changed all that.  It brought in individualism, an insidious world view in which the individual places himself at the center of the universe and considers the welfare of all others to be secondary to his own.  Individuality is an expression of the image of God; individualism is a reflection of the image of Satan.  When Adam and Eve chose to follow Satan rather than God, they radically disrupted mankind’s purpose in being, taking us from individuality to individualism, from life to death.

By no means; but God created man good, and after his own image, in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him.

Seems my Eddie’s leader, when he was a kid, used to get together with friends and swim with the Manatee, near his West Coast Florida home.

One day, he went running off a dock to try to jump on top of one and plunged right into the thing.  It was a dead manatee that was just floating along with the current.  Apparently, there isn’t much difference in the speed of a fully living manatee and one that’s been dead for weeks.

In any case, he was surrounded by death.  What an excellent picture of sin.

I talked about how gross that must have been.  Then, last night, I got a chance to talk about how gross Jesus must have looked after he was beaten and hung on the cross.  How he had become gross for us, to take the grossness of our sin upon himself.

I’ve seen it done at camp before when the speaker gives the kids the numbers of kids who have done particular things, based upon the percentages.  So, rather than saying 20% of you have done such and such, you’d actually work the numbers before the talk and say 15 of you have…

I like it because it really brings home the message that we are living in a messed up world and the consequences of our sin are all around us and have a huge effect on our lives.

Here’s the list (ms word) I developed from searching the internet.  I’m sure it’s not completely accurate and doesn’t apply evenly to every part of the country, so I’ll make sure to tell the kids that “based upon the statistics,” these things apply to them.

We started by reading Romans 1 out loud.  Then, we just talked about what stuck out to us.  I love Bible Studies like that.  That’s how my Campaigners group was when I was a high school kid.  Here are some of the topics we had a chance to discuss in case you’re looking for some material for your own study.

1. Prophesy about Jesus in the Old Testament – v. 2 (Jer. 23)
2. Apostleship – v. 5
3. What Gentiles are. – v. 16
4. How orderly and wise God is to send Christ at the time and to the people he did. – v. 16
5. The controversial topic ”What about people who’ve never heard?” - v. 20
6. The necessity to understand the fullness of sin. – v. 18 – 32
7. Everyone’s guilty of sin.  Paul lists a lot of stuff that shows everyone is guilty.  Even disobeying parents.  – v. 30
8. Homosexual behavior is wrong. – v. 27 (Discussed it’s not our job to condemn either, but we should now shy away from the truth.) We talked about v. 32 here, too – that our society has pretty much approved of homosexuality and a lot of other things Paul lists.  Bottom line – we are all sinners!

Next week, we move on to Romans 2 and talk about what we deserve because of our sin – God’s Righteous Judgement.

Please add any thoughts you have about Romans 1 that others might be able to use as they plan studies for their kids.