Does the Bible really say that homosexuality is sinful?

March 28, 2016

On the subject of different Christian responses to gay marriage, there was a debate about a year ago on the UK christian radio station Premier Christian Radio, a debate in the Unbelievable programme between Prof Robert Gagnon advocating the traditional biblical view and Jayne Ozanne, the director of Accepting Evangelicals who came out as gay earlier this year.

https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Does-Scripture-forbid-same-sex-relationships-Robert-Gagnon-vs-Jayne-Ozanne

It's a subject they tackle from time to time, trying to give an even hand to both sides of the topic. The debate part finishes about an hour in, the rest of the programme is feedback from past shows.

March 28, 2016

As I said earlier, we had not finished that inquiry. i am not prepared to leap to the conclusion in advance of a thorough consideration of the evidence.

I'm afraid this can't be turned into an 'orthodoxy test' on me: I'm heterodox in many, many ways. It's not about me, it's about the arguments and the evidence.

March 28, 2016

53 minutes ago, Kevin(wrx) said:

Interesting, so it might be taken as inappropriate by others for you to parade your sexuality in a public domain?

Very easy to say when your sexuality happens to be the 'default' that people will assume if they don't know.

You are in effect suggesting that those disadvantaged by societal prejudice should be quieter and accept their lot.

Those same kind of arguments were made about race during the civil rights struggles.

We each have the right to define our own identity as we choose, and the dominant culture does not get to dictate.

March 28, 2016

58 minutes ago, LustyStr8GrowingInGrace said:

Very easy to say when your sexuality happens to be the 'default' that people will assume if they don't know.

You are in effect suggesting that those disadvantaged by societal prejudice should be quieter and accept their lot.

Those same kind of arguments were made about race during the civil rights struggles.

We each have the right to define our own identity as we choose, and the dominant culture does not get to dictate.

great Name!

LustyStr8GrowinginGrace!

With that name they might let you inside the Church.

.. maybe men here in open connecting male fellowship Christ Centered groups will be honest with that identity and share the deeper issues that pervade so many churches

and all very common and understood

#envy envy

#many don't like me being this honest

March 28, 2016

Quote

LustyStr8GrowinginGrace!

okey dokey... David has just become "Luster Gig" in my mind now... or backwards, it would be something like "Giggles" lol

March 28, 2016

Here's Jack Sequeira's comments on homosexuality:

I want you to notice is, what does God do when people turn their backs to Him? Does He push them in the fire? I’ll tell you what He does, because in this passage—he says in [Romans one] verses 24, 26, and in verse 28, three times—he tells us what God does when men turn their backs to Him. And you will notice he uses the same expression. Verse 24:

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness.

Men turn their backs to God and want to enjoy sin. God says, “Okay, go ahead and see what happens.” He gives them up. Verse 26:

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affection.

And, if you look at the context of verse 26, it’s concerning homosexuality. He says, “You want to practise it, go ahead, I will not stop you. And see what happens.” And we know what happens, AIDS comes along. Verse 28:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge...

Please notice where the problem is, “They did not like to retain God in their knowledge”. What did God do to them?

He gave them up unto their reprobate minds.

In other words, God is love. He will never force salvation upon you. If you turn your backs to God, He’ll say, “Go ahead and see what happens.” And when man realizes that without God he can’t live, then something says to him, “I better turn to God.”

March 28, 2016

Is AIDS God's plague sent to punish homosexuals, lesbians, and other promiscuous people?

I would think not, because little babies and others who bear no responsibility for their disease are also suffering. But consider this: If a person chooses to leap off a ten-story building, he will die when his body crashes to the ground below. It is inevitable. Gravity was not designed by God to punish human folly. He established physical laws that can only be violated at great peril. So it is with His moral laws. They are as real and predictable as the principles that govern the physical universe. Thus, it should have been obvious with the onset of the sexual revolution back in 1968 that today's epidemics would come. That time is here, and what we do with our moral crisis will determine how much we and our children will suffer in the future. [James Dobson]

March 28, 2016

15 hours ago, GayatfootofCross said:

A lot of people here misunderstand the intent of my name and what i really believe about homosexuality.

I have stated it many times since plainly since last summer in many threads.

The ones who have taken the time to get to know me are clued in.

The others foolishly think they know me.

And won't hear of me otherwise.

The message of the last day remnant church is that all may wear the robe of Jesus' righteousness or they can wear the filthy garments of their past that they choose to wear to prove a point. I choose to wear the garments that Jesus is willing to provide and our Father sees when He casts my sins into the depths of the sea and continuously cleanses me through the blood His Son shed that I may be clean. When I choose to broadcast what I once was instead of what Jesus recreates in me, the time is as often as not, broadcasting the power of the evil one instead of the beauty of the Prince of Peace.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: Revelation 3

Jesus gave me His instruction as a member of the last day body of Christ.

²⁰Peter turned and saw the ^[e]disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His chest at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray You?” ²¹So when Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, and what about this ^[f]man [what is in his future]?” ²²Jesus said to him, “If I want him to stay alive until I come [again], what is that to you? You follow Me!” ²³So this word went out among the brothers that this disciple (John) was not going to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not going to die, but only, “If I want him to stay alive until I come [again], what is that to you?”.....John 21

Give your whole attention, all your energies, to these things, so that your progress is plain for all to see. Keep a critical eye both upon your own life and on the teaching you give, and if you continue to follow the line I have indicated you will not only save your own soul but the souls of many of your hearers as well.....1 Timothy 14

I just finished watching a program on 3ABN called Free Indeed, where a man serving 45 years in prison, was spending a large amount of his life for a crime against another, making sure that the one he was angry with suffered needed justice. He admitted he wasn't content in letting God choose the time He would choose to dispense it.

God is Love!~Jesus saves!

March 28, 2016

11 hours ago, LustyStr8GrowingInGrace said:

Very easy to say when your sexuality happens to be the 'default' that people will assume if they don't know.

You are in effect suggesting that those disadvantaged by societal prejudice should be quieter and accept their lot.

Those same kind of arguments were made about race during the civil rights struggles.

We each have the right to define our own identity as we choose, and the dominant culture does not get to dictate.

Something occurred to me last night about the change of direction in this thread.

You humanized the whole thing from ideas and questions and debate to putting a face on it.

To God it's all about the faces!

:grouphug:

March 28, 2016

10 hours ago, Robert said:

Is AIDS God's plague sent to punish homosexuals, lesbians, and other promiscuous people?

I would think not, because little babies and others who bear no responsibility for their disease are also suffering.

And yet no one, I think, would say that little babies did not suffer during God's judgments upon Sodom or the antedeluvian world. So just because babies or others that we can identify as innocent suffered too, that would not automatically mean that God didn't send the judgment. We know not one single thing that Daniel ever did wrong (though certainly he was a sinner too), and yet he ended up in captivity too. So sometimes the innocent do suffer too in this world of sin, even when God is more involved than in just letting natural consequences take place.

March 28, 2016

27 minutes ago, Pickle said:

And yet no one, I think, would say that little babies did not suffer during God's judgments upon Sodom or the antedeluvian world. So just because babies or others that we can identify as innocent suffered too, that would not automatically mean that God didn't send the judgment. We know not one single thing that Daniel ever did wrong (though certainly he was a sinner too), and yet he ended up in captivity too. So sometimes the innocent do suffer too in this world of sin, even when God is more involved than in just letting natural consequences take place.

Pickle

Hi I love your name!

Thank you for saying that!

It took me back to my home church.

"

".. AIDS God's plague sent to punish homosexuals, lesbians, and other promiscuous people.." taken out of context quote by Robert

March 29, 2016

Have you read the 12 pages?

For Leviticus, many Christians ignore whole swathes of the rules in that book: why are these passages different? No-one has given a clear answer that does not assume what it sets out to prove.

For Romans, if the notion that those texts are something Paul is challenging rather than laying down as doctrine is correct, the meaning is different.

For the texts in Corinthians and the other texts, the words do not mean the same thing as what we mean by 'homosexual', which may limit their applicability.

Far from *my* approach being the one failing to respect Scripture, an approach that takes the shallowest surface interpretation that fits existing prejudices and insists upon it is the approach that is disrespectful. Trusting Scripture means taking it seriously and studying it deeply with all the tools at our disposal.

March 29, 2016

My comment about heterodoxy was meant to disarm the 'ad hominem' attacks of the form 'this guy is...'

What this guy is is irrelevant: what matters is what the Word says. And that requires study, not assumption.

March 29, 2016

5 hours ago, LustyStr8GrowingInGrace said:

What this guy is is irrelevant: what matters is what the Word says. And that requires study, not assumption.

Certainly, and yet:

2 Timothy 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Can we agree at this point that homosexual actions are strongly condemned by God in Scripture? And that God designed marriage to be a lifelong union of a man and a woman?

March 29, 2016

Quote

Can we agree at this point that homosexual actions are strongly condemned by God in Scripture? And that God designed marriage to be a lifelong union of a man and a woman?

that would end the thread, then, wouldn't it?

March 29, 2016

An agreement that the Bible condems homosexual activity does not mean that we agree on what specific verses say.

E.G. I personally know people who believe that the Bible does condem homosexual activity, but do not believe that every verse that is used by people to demonstrate this is a verse that actually condems such activity.

March 29, 2016

And that is my oft repeated point that has gotten quite an airing in this thread about insisting that the sin of Sodom was or had to include homosexual behavior. Or that the vague reference in Jude was confirming that even. To name just a few... It is so deeply entrenched in eisegetical thinking that the much clearer pronouncement of Ezekiel is discounted, eisegetically interpreted or virtually ignored because it clearly does not include any reference to homosexual behavior. Ezekiel was a prophet who was in the immediate context of the statement delivering an apparent verbatim message from God, and not conveying his own thoughts in his own words based on divine inspiration.

What that sort of adamant clinging to weak and faulty evidence does is undermine credibility of our Christian witness.

March 29, 2016

That is what David (Bravus) wanted to discuss--individual verses and their actual meaning.

That discussion might have been profitable. But, to much emotion was involved. People just were not hearing what he was saying.

As most know, Southern is a very conservative SDA college. It is not considered to be liberal. But, some years ago I read some material written by one of their religion staff. He was the one who alerted me to the fact that some individual verses commonly used on this subject were actually not as conclusive as the people using them thought. Yet, he held to the position that the Bible did say that homosexual practice was a sin.

March 29, 2016

Thank you, Gregory, for the input. Bible translation seems like it can become complicated because of nuances of understanding. When a modern translation comes out with wording that might be different it is likely not because the translators are part of a conspiracy or wicked. It is because a word or a term can be ambiguous.

I appreciate the thorough study.

March 29, 2016

Biblical translations fall into two (2) main groups:

1) Formal: These strive for fidelity to the ancient MSS. They are best for Bible study to include preaching. If the original text can be translated in several ways, which is often, they simply do the best that they can in their choice of words. Keep in mind that English words generally do not have the exact same meaning as the Biblical words. So, all English translations do add or lose something in the translation process. As they are good for formal study, they often require some depth of study in order to obtain the correct meaning. THE KING JAMES is an example of formal translation.

2) Dynamic: These are designed for easy reading and are good for devotional study. The paraphrased translations are thought by many to simply be a sub-set of the dynamic translations. As the translators have not been as strict as the formal group, they are not as good for formal study and preaching. There are gradations in this group. Some are written for people for whom English is a 2nd language. Here the working and sentence structure are simpler. Some are written for children. THE GOOD NEWS and THE LIVING BIBLE are examples of dynamic translations. (NOTE: I follow the idea that paraphrased translations are a sub-set of dynamic translations.)

NOTE: There are additional alleged translations that go far beyond the dynamic type. I have not mentioned these as I have a hard time calling them a translation. They may be of benefit to some people. There are a lot of beneficial books that are not translations of the Bible.

The bottom line is: Bible study can entail effort which includes understanding an ancient culture, the literature and its grammer.

One of my hobby horses is that this cannot be obtained from a concordance. To study the meanings of Biblical words, one must go to a lexicon.

March 29, 2016

4 hours ago, Tom Wetmore said:

And that is my oft repeated point that has gotten quite an airing in this thread about insisting that the sin of Sodom was or had to include homosexual behavior. Or that the vague reference in Jude was confirming that even. To name just a few... It is so deeply entrenched in eisegetical thinking that the much clearer pronouncement of Ezekiel is discounted, eisegetically interpreted or virtually ignored because it clearly does not include any reference to homosexual behavior. Ezekiel was a prophet who was in the immediate context of the statement delivering an apparent verbatim message from God, and not conveying his own thoughts in his own words based on divine inspiration.

What that sort of adamant clinging to weak and faulty evidence does is undermine credibility of our Christian witness.

Could you explain that a bit?

In what way does Ezekiel trump Genesis and Jude, when it is an historical fact that societies characterized by what Ezekiel lists often have problems with what Genesis and Jude condemn?

What percentage of what the OT prophets wrote are you suggesting is verbally inspired?

Jude spoke about fornication *and* going after flesh of a different kind. How is that weak and faulty evidence?

Isaiah 3:9 The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.

Do you honestly think Isaiah was saying that the Sodomites were having Plenty-of-Food- and Idleness-Pride Days and Parades? That they were publicly condemning as bigots and intolerant those who said that the citizenry should be working more, shouldn't have as much food, and should be more humble? No, it seems much more plausible that Isaiah is talking about coming out of the closet and publicly flaunting the type of moral perversions that Genesis depicts.

And Lot seems clear enough himself in Gen. 19:6-8. He was seemingly willing to have the Sodomites rape his two daughters, but raping the two men went too far in his mind.

So I just don't understand where you are coming from.

March 29, 2016

It's very safe to remain with the book of Romans chapter 1 on the issue of homosexuality. That chapter is absolutely clear unless one twists its meaning....

March 30, 2016

HOMOSEXUALITY IN HISTORY AND SCRIPTURE BY Ronald M. Springett

Paperback
Publisher: Biblical Research Inst; First Edition edition (March 1988)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0925675075
ISBN-13: 978-0925675071
Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 6 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,667,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1605 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Gay & Lesbian Studies
- #1959 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > History
- #7569 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Gay & LesbianA
It is available on AMAZON.
It was published in 1988 by The Biblical Research Institute of the General Conference. I think that it is still available from them today, You can check with them.

NOTE: The GC has published a massive book on the subject within the past two years, if my memory is correct. In my opinion, it does not totally live up to what one would expect from a book of its size. While Springett's book is dated, I consider it to have some valuable information that is still of value today and recommend it for all. The recent GC book I only recommend for people who want a more involved and detailed study. My disappointment in it is that it leaves untouched some aspects that I believe should have been addressed.

I have not said much about Springett's book due to the fact that I last read it some time ago and my memory may not be 100%.

Error Correction: Andrews University published the book that I have in error called a General Conference book.

March 30, 2016

In the post above, click on the link: 1 customer review

That link will take you to an extensive review of Springett's book. To get a sense, you should read the entire review. It is both positive and very negative.

On the positive side, here is a short part of the review:

Quote

London-born Ronald Springett has a PhD in New Testament backgrounds and has taught at Southern College of Seventh-day Adventists for nearly 20 years. In Homosexuality in History and the Scriptures, Springett builds a strong case (inadvertently, no doubt) for debunking the notion of biblical certainty on the issues. He also represents opposing viewpoints fairly, even convincingly. Many gay Christians will no doubt find some reassurance in this. They will also find the book's defensive stance refreshing for a change: its stated purpose is to "look at some of the claims put forward in pro-homophile literature of the last decade or so."1

Springett's 173-page book is divided into seven chapters. The first purports to tell what homosexuality is, the last summarizes the author's conclusions. The substantive middle portion of the book is a detailed, scholarly discussion of references to homosexual acts in ancient history and in biblical texts.

Springett often acknowledges the difficulty of determining the meanings of texts, and is candid about sometimes only "leaning" toward his preferred view because it is consistent with his basic point of view, and because it "cannot be entirely ruled out." His coverage of the Sodom story is one example of this ambiguity. Although Springett holds that homosexuality was part of the Sodom sin problem, he admits that "there is no explicit mention of homosexuality here...."

Other parts of the review are very negative.

All in all, I consider Springett's book to be of value and worthy of consideration.

March 30, 2016

Here is the recent General Conference book:

Roy Gane, NIcholas Miller, Peter Swanson, Editors. HOMOSEXUALITY, MARRIAGE, ANDTHE CHURCH: BIBLICAL, COUNSELING, AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ISSUES. Andrews University Press, 2012, 578 pages.

Error correction: I have referenced it as a General conference book. That was an error. It is actually an Andrews University book.

It is divided into the following sections:

1) Biblical issues: Five chapters.

2) Religious Liberty Issues: Five chapters.

3) Counseling Issues: Five chapters.

4) Testimonies: Six chapters.

An Appendix, Index and notes about the 17 people who contributed to writing it.

This book addresses three issues:

1) Is the historic stance of the SDA Church on homosexual behavior Biblical?

2) How should the SDA Church relate to the gay-rights-community and minister to individual homosexuals?

3) How should the SDA Church relate to public policy and the issues that are currently raised on this subject?

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