judging

I understand the tension between wrongful judging and instruction, correction, discipline, etc... yet I do not understand the Christian who says because we shouldn't judge at all (a wrong interpretation) I will not take a stand on a question of sin.

"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid." - Proverbs 12:1

representative death

Relative to the atonement, The New Bible Dictionary on the representative nature of Christ's death:

It is agreed by most students that Christ’s death was vicarious. If in one sense he died ‘for sin’, in another he died ‘for us’. But ‘vicarious’ is a term which may mean much or little. It is better to be more precise. Most scholars today accept the view that the death of Christ is representative. That is to say, it is not that Christ died and somehow the benefits of that death become available to men (did not even Anselm ask to whom more fittingly than to us could they be assigned?). It is rather that he died specifically for us. He was our representative as he hung on the cross. This is expressed succinctly in 2 Cor. 5:14, ‘one died for all; therefore all have died’. The death of the Representative counts as the death of those he represents. When Christ is spoken of as our ‘advocate with the Father’ (1 Jn. 2:1) there is the plain thought of representation, and as the passage immediately goes on to deal with his death for sin it is relevant to our purpose. The Epistle to the Hebrews has as one of its major themes that of Christ as our great High Priest. The thought is repeated over and over. Now whatever else may be said about a High Priest, he represents men. The thought of representation may thus be said to be very strong in this Epistle.

his righteousness, our sin

“Now I should like to know whether your soul, tired of its own righteousness, is learning to be revived by and to trust in the righteousness of Christ. . . . My dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given to me what is yours. You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.”

Martin Luther, writing to George Spenlein, quoted in Theodore G. Tappert, editor, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (Philadelphia, 1955), page 110. Language updated.

HT:RO

more injustice

Kevin DeYoung continues his fine analysis on social justice. His right conclusion:

Amos 5 reaffirms what we’ve seen in the previous Old Testament passages. God hates injustice. But injustice must be defined on the Bible’s terms, not ours. Injustice implies a corrupted judicial system, an arbitrary legal code, and outright cruelty to the poor.

Too many liberals and socialists have fallen into the typical trap of taking God's truth, distorting it, and then adding to it according to their own desires while still calling it from God. Wrong.

Here's the rest of DeYoung's post.

The fifth chapter of Amos contains some of the most striking and most famous justice language in the Bible. The Lord rebukes his people for turning “justice into wormwood” (7), for hating the one who speaks the truth (10), for trampling on the poor (11; cf. 4:1), for turning aside the needy in the gate (12). Because of their sin, the Lord despises Israel’s feasts and assemblies (21) and threatens to visit the land with darkness and not light (18-20). The only hope for God’s people is that they “seek good, and not evil,” that they establish justice in the gate (14-15). Or, to quote the concluding exhortation made famous by Martin Luther King Jr., Israel must “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Clearly, God cares about justice and the poor. Conversely, his wrath burns against those who commit injustice and trample the poor. So what are the specific sins condemned by Amos?

1. Kicking the poor when they are down instead of giving them a hand up. It seems the wealthy were selling the poor into slavery even when the poor owed as little as a pair of sandals (2:6-7). This is cruelty instead of mercy.

2. Doing “justice” for the highest bidder. In ancient Israel the leading men of the town would gather at the city gate to decide the cases that came to them. Instead of making fair judgment based on the truth, the men of Amos’ day accepted bribes and paid no attention to the righteous plea of the poor (5:10, 12).

3. Arbitrary, excessive taxation on the poor to benefit the rich (5:11).

4. A smug assurance on the part of the rich who live in the lap of luxury on the backs of the poor. The wealthy in Amos’ day, like some in ours, were proud of their wealth. They reveled in it (4:1; 6:4-7). They felt secure in it (6:1). To make matters worse, their getting richer had been made possible by the poor getting poorer. They had cheated, perverted justice, and, according to one commentator, made their money by “outrageous seizure” and illegal “land grabbing” (cf. Isa. 5:8).

christ's death sacrificial

The New Bible Dictionary speaks of Christ's death as being sacrificial in regard to the atonement:

Another thought that is widespread is that the death of Christ is a death for sin. It is not simply that certain wicked men rose up against him. It is not that his enemies conspired against him and that he was not able to resist them. He ‘was put to death for our trespasses’ (Rom. 4:25). He came specifically to die for our sins. His blood was shed ‘for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mt. 26:28). He ‘made purification for sins’ (Heb. 1:3). He ‘bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1 Pet. 2:24). He is ‘the propitiation for our sins’ (1 Jn. 2:2; so, rightly, av). The cross of Christ will never be understood unless it is seen that thereon the Saviour was dealing with the sins of all mankind.

In doing this he fulfilled all that the old sacrifices had foreshadowed, and the NT writers love to think of his death as a sacrifice. Jesus himself referred to his blood as ‘blood of the covenant’ (Mk. 14:24), which points us to the sacrificial rites for its understanding. Indeed, much of the language used in the institution of the Holy Communion is sacrificial, pointing to the sacrifice to be accomplished on the cross. Paul tells us that Christ ‘loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’ (Eph. 5:2). On occasion he can refer, not to sacrifice in general, but to a specific sacrifice, as in 1 Cor. 5:7, ‘For Christ our paschal lamb (better, passover) has been sacrificed.’ Peter speaks of ‘the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot’ (1 Pet. 1:19), which indicates that in one aspect Christ’s death was a sacrifice. And in John’s Gospel we read the words of John the Baptist, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn. 1:29). Sacrifice was practically the universal religious rite of the 1st century. Wherever men were and whatever their background, they would discern a sacrificial allusion. The NT writers made use of this, and employed sacrificial terminology to bring out what Christ had done for men. All that to which the sacrifices pointed, and more, he had fully accomplished by his death.

why fight sin

I thought this post at Desiring God to be excellent. While timeless and applicable to approaching all areas of right living, it appears at an excellent time given the postmodern innovator's public confusion and fallenness regarding the sin of homosexuality. As I listen and read them I hear their fundamental failing to know the God of the Bible and to understand the authority of His written Word. John Piper hits the nail on the head in regard to the need to renew our minds.



The blog posts the edited transcript.

How would you encourage a Christian to resist sin while knowing that God will ultimately work it for their good?

That's really a good question.

Very practically, the devil and our own sin can incline us to use the sovereignty of God to justify complicity in sin. And it's at this point that we need to have a strong commitment to the authority of the Bible and the authority of God telling us how to live with the truth that he has revealed to us.

So many of us learn a fact, like "God is sovereign" or "God loves me" or "God hates sin," and we start spinning implications out of our brain, some of which aren't biblical!

They look rational. They look like they should be believed. "Well, if God is sovereign, then he is responsible for evil. Therefore we can't be responsible. Therefore let us sin that grace may abound," blah blah blah, and it's all unbiblical!

If we're going to latch on to big truths like the sovereignty of God, we've got to latch on to them the way God ordains for us to latch on to them. We've got to latch on to them biblically. That is, we have to see them in connection with all the other biblical truths.

Among those biblical truths is Paul contemplating the thought in Romans 3 and 6, "Shall we sin that grace may abound?" He just said in Romans 5:21 that where sin abounded, grace much more abounded. And here goes somebody with their logic: "Cool! I'll just make grace abound everywhere! I'll just click on as much pornography as I can, and commit as much fornication as I can, and steal as much as I can, and be as greedy as I can. Praise God's grace!"

And Paul answers that in chapter 3 that those people deserve to be accursed. And he says in chapter 6, "Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid! For how can you who died still live in it?"

Now there's a truth as important as the truth of God's sovereignty.

Christian, you're dead. You've got to come to terms with what that means. You can't just say, "Well God is sovereign, therefore all my sins are his doing. Therefore I can sin." No! Be biblical. Think God's thoughts. This is complex. Don't depend on your own brain. Depend on God's brain. And God says, "Dead people don't sin" (Romans 6:3).

So you need to figure out what it means to be dead. And put to death what is earthly in you. "If we live according to the flesh, we will die. If we, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body, we will live." That's a truth as big as the truth of God's sovereignty. You can't throw that out and just go do your own logical thing.

So my answer is, Be biblical. We're working here with infinite realities that our brains are not capable of managing on our own. You can't learn one truth from God and then manage it with your brain. You have to constantly submit every thought that you have about God to other thoughts about God so that God manages your brain. Otherwise you will take a truth and distort it in some sinful way.

This is really big. Bottom line: be thoroughly biblical. Test everything by the Bible.

the christian way

From C.S. Lewis's essay Is Christianity Hard or Easy as quoted by Tim Keller in The Reason For God (pp 171-172).

The ordinary idea which we all have is that…we have a natural self with various desires and interests…and we know something called “morality” or “decent behavior” has a claim on the self…We are all hoping that when all the demands of morality and society have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on.

The Christian way is different - both harder and easier. Christ says, “Give me ALL. I don’t want just this much of your time and this much of your money and this much of your work - so that your natural self can have the rest. I want you. Not your things. I have come not to torture your natural self…I will give you a new self instead. Hand over the whole natural self - ALL the desires, not just the ones you think wicked but the ones you think innocent - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead.”

The almost impossibly hard thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves” - our personal happiness centered on money or pleasure or ambition - and hoping, despite this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you cannot do. If I am a grass field, all the cutting will keep the grass less but won’t produce wheat. If I want wheat…I must be plowed up and re-sown.

god's love in the atonement

The New Bible Dictionary describes God's love for mankind revealed through the atonement ...

All are agreed that the atonement proceeds from the love of God. It is not something wrung from a stern and unwilling Father, perfectly just, but perfectly inflexible, by a loving Son. The atonement shows us the love of the Father just as it does the love of the Son. Paul gives us the classic exposition of this when he says, ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8). In the best-known text in the Bible we find that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son … ‘ (Jn. 3:16). In the Synoptic Gospels it is emphasized that the Son of man ‘must’ suffer (Mk. 8:31, etc.). That is to say, the death of Christ was no accident: it was rooted in a compelling divine necessity. This we see also in our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane that the will of the Father be done (Mt. 26:42). Similarly, in Hebrews we read that it was ‘by the grace of God’ that Christ tasted death for us all (Heb. 2:9). The thought is found throughout the NT, and we must bear it well in mind when we reflect on the manner of the atonement.

our house v. his house

We can live freely!

“Jesus Christ the Son of God descended into our house of bondage to bring us into the house of God the Father.” - T.F. Torrance.


HT:OFI

gavin harrison

Some pretty fair drumming ... Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree ...

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atonement in the old testament

Continuing on the atonement, from The New Bible Dictionary (contrary to popular opinions that sacrifices were just pre-enlighted people trying to understand an angry God) ...

God and man, then, are hopelessly estranged by man’s sin, and there is no way back from man’s side. But God provides the way. In the OT atonement is usually said to be obtained by the sacrifices, but it must never be forgotten that God says of atoning blood, ‘I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls’ (Lv. 17:11). Atonement is secured, not by any value inherent in the sacrificial victim, but because sacrifice is the divinely appointed way of securing atonement. The sacrifices point us to certain truths concerning atonement. Thus the victim must always be unblemished, which indicates the necessity for perfection. The victims cost something, for atonement is not cheap, and sin is never to be taken lightly. The death of the victim was the important thing. This is brought out partly in the allusions to *blood, partly in the general character of the rite itself and partly in other references to atonement. There are several allusions to atonement, either effected or contemplated by means other than the cultus, and where these bear on the problem they point to death as the way. Thus in Ex. 32:30–32 Moses seeks to make an atonement for the sin of the people, and he does so by asking God to blot him out of the book which he has written. Phinehas made an atonement by slaying certain transgressors (Nu. 25:6–8, 13). Other passages might be cited. It is clear that in the OT it was recognized that death was the penalty for sin (Ezk. 18:20), but that God graciously permitted the death of a sacrificial victim to substitute for the death of the sinner. So clear is the connection that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews can sum it up by saying ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins’ (Heb. 9:22).

duren and wax on knapp

Well written post by Marty Duren on the Jennifer Knapp announcement. His summary;

I am not condemning Knapp or any person who is trying to seek Jesus and, simultaneously, working through issues of their own sexuality, especially in the time in which we live when many lines are less defined than in the past. What I do condemn is the idea that each of us can invent, create or imagine our own theology, call it Christian and expect other Christians to accept it uncritically. Some lines are blurred, but there still are lines and we do ourselves nor our culture any good by trying to move them or obliterate them altogether.

Right on! I'd only add one more comment, Knapp says to her criticizers, "you do not know me and you do not have the right to speak to me in the manner you have publicly." So she can say Christianity and homosexuality is consistent and those opposed cannot ... this is the new tolerance.

And since I've recently focused on bad advice given to those dealing with homosexuals, here's a great post by Trevin Wax offering advice to us as we interact on the issue.

1. We need to shift emphasis from the truth that “everyone is a sinner” to the necessity of repentance. ... Ultimately, the debate is not about homosexuality versus other sins. It’s about whether or not repentance is integral to the Christian life.

2. We must not allow ourselves to be defined by our sexual attractions. ... Our goal is not authenticity. It is to be true to the self that is redeemed, transformed by the gospel and the power of the Spirit, under the authority of God’s Word. That is why we must make distinctions between sexual urges and sexual behavior. One might not choose one’s temptation, but we do choose our behavior. ... it’s the traditionalist who has the high view of humanity, understanding that we are more than our sexual urges and we have an inherent worth and value that leads us to do more than simply act on whatever instincts we feel.

3. We must expose the arrogance and judgmentalism of those who would so flippantly dismiss the witness of Christians for two thousand years. ... Knapp has flippantly dismissed the consensus of two thousand years of Christian scholarship and witness, not to mention the vast majority of Christians outside the West who continue to see homosexual behavior as sinful. ... I’d like to see someone gently point out the implicit judgmentalism of the “homosexual behavior is legitimate” view.

4. We need soft hearts toward Christians struggling with same-sex attraction. ... Jennifer Knapp’s point of view appears to be liberating and compassionate. It’s actually condemning and dismissive. How so? Consider the people in our churches who are struggling with same-sex attraction and temptation. Consider these believers who are walking alongside other Christians, choosing daily to remain celibate, to crucify these desires as a part of their painful sanctification. Knapp dismisses the legitimacy of struggling with such attractions by saying that one should just give up the fight, for homosexual behavior is not even a sin. This kind of hard-heartedness toward fellow pilgrims is not coming from the traditionalist pastor, but from Knapp, who considers herself to be liberated from that struggle.

Technorati Tags: homosexuality

gay jesus

The Cathedral of Hope, a UCC church, is hosting a play casting Jesus and his disciples as being homosexual ... and still we have professed Christians acting confused on where to stand regarding this issue of sin. There's no confusion. Homosexuality is sin. Now let's act like Christians and offer love and redemption that comes through Christ. Stop allowing our false sensitivities to portray some lack of clarity. And let's also not get tangled up in the "if you love me you wouldn't judge me", "why would God make me this way if it was a sin", and "you're condemning if you say homosexuality is sin" smokescreens.

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unhelpful advise offered to homosexuals 2

To continue thinking through unhelpful advice offered homosexuals, here's my next installment ...

First a short one ... in response to Jennifer Knapp's coming out, "fantastic news" ... what is fantastic about someone announcing that they do not find open sin as inconsistent with life in Christ? Of all the things we could debate her, the one I am simply left without words for is the professed Christian applauding another announcing there sin with no interest or acknowledgement of the need for repentance. I get the desire to not condemn but what is being celebrated here. This is a sad, somber announcement and yet those calling themselves believers celebrate it. Unfortunate.

After that one comes Christine who recalls when she "irrevocably came to terms with being gay and thought God condemned it outright." Christine explains that she wasn't angry with God for making her gay, she was mad at Him for telling her she "couldn’t have the one love in my life that had made me feel at peace with myself." First, she is reinforcing the common notion which many liberal christians are afraid to refute and that is God didn't make her a sinner and neither did God tempt her with sin. She was born a human and since the fall, we are slaves to sin and tempted by Satan, his minions, and our own flesh. Second, she repeats another common error which is also rarely confronted and that is the idea that her peace is higher than God's will and worse, that it could ever really be achieved outside of His will.

He failure to understand the nature of God's unconditional love and His conditional covenants for relationship are further demonstrated as she continues:

I was angry that after God had told me so many times that He loved me unconditionally, wanted the best for, and that after Jesus we were to live in Spirit and not by the law, He would throw out this wonderful love, and make me walk alone and heartbroken, just because of an arbitrary rule.

As with the commenters before and after her. Their real issue is with the nature of man, the fall, God, and redemption. This is not an issue with homosexuality, it's a fundamental failing to understand God and His grace.

She then relates what is ultimately my real issue with so many Christians on this topic. She tells us how she met with her pastor on the topic and he helped her see Scriptures were unclear and that it was more important to be at peace with herself than to experience the pain caused by trying to conform with her former understanding of God's attitude toward homosexuality.

This pastor helped her to stop wrestling with conviction from the Holy Spirit as she grappled with temptation and helped her be at peace and practice sexual immorality as well as opening the door to questioning all else in Scripture on the same basis, her personal comfort.

My friends, we are surrounded by false teachers seeking only to be friends with the world and spread the lies that ultimately lead to destruction. This pastor had the opportunity to help her realize true love and begin a journey with her of resisting temptation and possibly finding healthy sexual desires but instead the easy path was chosen and darkness has been embraced.

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stupid advise offered to homosexuals 1

Here's the first of the stupid responses to the Knapp post I am thinking through. This one is by Allyc.

I can’t help but wonder just how many other prominent Christians need to come out before evangelicals realise that sexuality is not such a black and white issue?

What is Allyc saying? First, who is saying that sexuality is black and white? What does that even mean? And what would the number of any type of people confessing to have given in to a particular sin have to do with the complexity of sexuality? And what does the complexity of a thing have to do with whether or not there is a right versus wrong?

One of the issues I run into a lot when interacting with people regarding sin is they don't first settle in their mind what God's attitude is toward a given issue. They look at the complexity, and believe me, it can be complex, and then try to formulate truth. I recommend first settling what we know about a given topic and then try to sort out the fuzzy edges.

Bottom line, Allyc is one that harbors disdain toward evangelicals, doesn't understand the clarity of Scripture on this topic, and is moved by the opinion of others over and above what Scripture teaches.

Allyc later writes:

Who the hell had the right to tell us we’re so unloved, rejected by God? We’re not created for all this shame, it’s not ours to hold. I say this as someone who is still very much in the midst of the struggle to relearn the Truth… but this much I do know. We are His. Beloved. Redeemed. Forgiven. We are His.

He is responding to a practicing homosexuality who said, "I’m tired of going to family functions where those closest to me think I have been deceived by satan." Allyc takes issue with the Apostle Paul, etc... He demonstrates his own lack of understanding of basic Christianity and confuses not only the issue of homosexuality but also salvation. Allyc thinks all are forgiven and redeemed. Apparently he has not read the Bible.

He proves these assumptions more true as he interacts later in an attempt to define sin. He thinks that sin is "a thought, action, or behaviour that hurts another person." And then wonders why being gay is a sin. He's right, if one discounts God's Word, then that's a good question. But I cannot do that so all he does here is show us that he is simply one dressed up as a Christian with little to no knowledge of truth and happy to encourage others in their sin.

To further reinforce, he later talks about how much he has learned from Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis and that the fall wasn't so much about disobedience as it was about a shift in the balance of a good creation to one that wasn't. Oh oh ... no time for Rob Bell here ...

Technorati Tags: homosexuality

a suffering man responds

This post will look at the first comment to the Jennifer Knapp blog post I referred to earlier. Personally, this was a tough one in the sense that unlike many of the other commenters, this person didn't strike me as attempting to promote homosexuality or undermine Scripture, the Church, or the power of the Gospel. It seemed more like a heart-felt reflection of a person who has and is struggling a lot.

I say that to emphasize that this is not an assault on this person or his motives, it's me thinking out loud as I work through his statements.

Here is the opening phrase:

Growing up as a pastor’s son

The relevance is unclear to me. It's a loaded statement that without more discussion could mean many different things - or nothing. But to a large number of people, this reinforces their "see what happens when you grow-up in religion" prejudice. They will be fast to jump to that conclusion without really knowing what kind of father or pastor this man was. Separately, we have no reason to expect that because one has a great father that we are free from the bonds and pains of sin. In fact, we are all born into that condition regardless of our father. So without belaboring this point, this phrase without more information is meaningless but some will use it to support their bias.

The next phrase:

... knowing I was gay robbed me of my self worth and belief that I could be unconditionally loved by God and family.

Another loaded phrase.

• Being gay didn't rob him, being a sinner, not receiving forgiveness and healing from God, and not understanding true identity in Christ robbed him
• There's confusion between unconditional love and relationship. We are loved and we love unconditionally but our relationships are conditional. This is not contradictory and the liberal mind fails to understand this.

In addition, the phrase starts with a very common error. If he is truly in Christ, then he needs to stop defining himself by his temptations. Sinners and many who call themselves christian miss what it means to be in Christ. Many believers try to help those wrestling with temptation or who have sadly succumbed but fail to identify that the real issue is the persons failure to properly identify who they are by the power of God. At best they become worldly counselors who can offer only advise rather than power and at worse, they reinforce the person is what Satan is preaching.

Also note, that thus far, this is not limited to the particular issue of homosexuality. Those dealing with all areas of sin have made these claims - yet for some reason professed believers think this holds greater validity for homosexuals.

The commenter continues:

I didn’t think His grace was big enough to cover me and my sin.

The good news, he sees homosexuality as sin. I wish someone would have responded to him that God's grace is big enough if he is repentant. Sadly subsequent commenters only reinforce that homosexuality isn't a sin in need of grace or at least in need of repentance. Separately, I'm not sure why this commenter refers to his "sin" because I do not detect that he practiced homosexuality and he doesn't even indicate he had on-going, lustful thought patterns. He talks more of what I would call same sex attraction which I would call temptation not sin.

Interestingly, this man speaks of the rejection of others yet he tells us that they didn't really know for sure about his temptations. The point here is that his guilt and separation from others was self-induced. The pain he felt wasn't from the lack of love but from the sting of sin (if he actually did) and failure to understand the redeeming power of the Gospel. Again, true for any sin issue.

Interestingly he talks of getting involved in controlling religious organizations. I'm not sure if they really were or not but certainly that would be consistent of one who does not understand freedom in Christ. It is typical for fallen man to turn to works for the approval of God and of others. Again, not a homosexual issue and not the direct fault of these others.

In regard to this religious organization, he mentions that "the leaders knew it [homosexuality] was in my background, but thought I had “overcome” it." Well, in a sense if he wasn't living it he was overcoming. On another level however, he clearly wasn't free from temptation. On one hand, we never are this side of glory ... on the other hand our new nature becomes more manifest and our response to temptation becomes more right, quicker, and more natural. So here I am picking up on a false expectation that temptation never comes and more important, there is a growing disdain for the Church. And again, nothing here is unique to homosexuality.

This disdain becomes even more evident when he continues, "The leader even asked me once, “How do you get through to those people?”, figuring gay people who needed to hear the Gospel were somehow different from anyone else." Well come on, the Gospel wasn't in question. The question was how do I rightly show up and present it. Is anyone naive enough to really think we show up the same to all? The issue here is this person is building resentment - a typical symptom of a guilty heart. He needs healing. He does not need a bunch of believers to pile on and talk about the wrongs of the church.

The disdain continues. Later in his life he goes to a group for help. Again, he uses loaded words.

When someone had heard second hand that I had been seen at a gay establishment, I was sent to a retreat 3,000 miles away to “make me straight”.

He says "someone heard second hand" indicating his focus is placing blame on others. That plus "seen at a gay establishment" indicates he isn't coming clean with his being tempted versus his flirting with a sinful lifestyle versus his giving in to that lifestyle. And he caps it with "was sent" and mentions how far away - again, building the blame and insinuating guilt of others rather than talking his role in this. He was an adult at this point so I'm unclear what "was sent" could even mean and regarding the distance, he seems to be implying people wanted to be rid of him and were ashamed of him but we don't know that was the case. It could be simply that's where a good place was located. The point is meaningless in and of itself.

Then he caps it with a statement that depending on ones preconceived ideas is either great or not. I take it as the former.

The group I went to was not for gay people but for people struggling with their relationship with Christ. They knew I was gay, but did not even focus on that. They focused on the cross of Christ, the simplicity of the Gospel, and unconditional love. It was the first time in my life I felt I actually saw the Gospel LIVED by people in spiritual leadership.

He needed the Gospel not only a focus on a particular sin. But sadly what he understood as a Gospel lived was not. He confused approval of sin and blame of others who hold to Scripture as the Gospel. And belies his disdain with sarcasm.

They told me those who sent me to the retreat (at their expense) were the ones who were dysfunctional! God DOES have a sense of humor.

Without other information, it could be that it was the folks that paid for him to go to this "camp" that were the ones that loved him. From one perspective, it is those that encouraged his sin that were deceived by the wicked one whose only interest is to destroy this man and keep him in bondage. He bought it. My point here is again, this could be about any sin and if homosexuality is sin, then this person and his sympathizers are getting this backwards.

The commenter then reveals that he doesn't see continued life of both denial of sin and participation in it as inconsistent with life in Christ. He writes, "there are plenty [of gay Christians] out there, including my own brother. My gay brother accepted his homosexuality years ago and has been living with his partner for 10 years and is an ordained UCC pastor." This evidences that the embracing of sin by the Church has not had the affect of promoting righteousness as we are called to do but instead is taken as evidence that holiness is not the call of the people of God. Worse, that salvation does not bring about changed life, only life at peace with sin. This is backwards. It is only the fallen who are at peace with sin. Christian's tolerating sin are not showing true love, they are promoting a different Gospel. They are denying the freedom that comes by the power of God.

The commenter adds:

I was even involved in a ministry to gays for a year in Australia who tried to teach people they could be free from homosexuality & even become heterosexual. Of course, this is not possible, nor was there anyone in the group who had claimed to have reached that point.

Again, missing the power of the Gospel.

If we sinned sexually, we were just encouraged to once again renounce our homosexuality, keep clear of the person we had been with, regardless of our feelings for them and be celibate.

And confusing falling with being. That is, he missed that even if he sinned, if he repented, he would be forgiven and can continue to grow in Christlikeness.

He writes more:

It made me wonder, as man’s greatest desire is to love & be loved, if God just wanted us to be alone, even if we met another person of the same sex we were attracted to and could have developed a monogamous relationship with. I wonder, now that I am in my 50’s, had I embraced as a young age that being gay was normal for me, how my life would have been different. I will never know. I still feel I am very much emotionally scarred and disabled.

He misunderstands man's real greatest desire, that is to be in right relationship with God. And he compounds that now by allowing his desire to question what God said, not unlike Adam and Eve in the garden. He is hurting because he is missing the true freedom found only in Christ. Sadly, he is blaming his family, friends and church and now questioning if embracing the sinful desire of his heart would have been better.

Unfortunately his follow commenters do not shout a resounding "no" and point him toward Christ. They sadly encourage him to pursue sin. And it is in that that they sin themselves.

Technorati Tags: homosexuality

love and obey

Jesus told us it is the one that keeps His commandments that loves Him (John 14.15, 21; 15.10). The postmodern innovator is anxious to speak of God's love and loving God but not of God's commands. They do this because the rightly reject the legalism that is often found in religion but sadly also because they do not know true love and the true God who can have obedience and love go hand-in-hand without contradiction.

Kevin DeYoung, basing his thoughts on Ecc 12.13, reminds us of how we are to live our lives:

So the end of the matter is this: Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you’ll be walking in the will of God.

And R.C. Sproul posts a piece on Defining God's Will.

“It is the will of God.” How easily these words fall from the lips or flow from the pen. How difficult it is to penetrate exactly what they mean. Few concepts in theology generate more confusion than the will of God.

One problem we face is rooted in the multifaceted way in which the term will functions in biblical expressions. The Bible uses the expression “the will of God” in various ways. We encounter two different Greek words in the New Testament (boule and thelema), both of which are capable of several nuances. They encompass such ideas as the counsel of God, the plan of God, the decrees of God, the disposition or attitude of God, as well as other nuances.

Augustine once remarked, “In some sense, God wills everything that happens.” The immediate question raised by this comment is, In what sense? How does God “will” the presence of evil and suffering? Is He the immediate cause of evil? Does He do evil? God forbid. Yet evil is a part of His creation. If He is sovereign over the whole of His creation, we must face the conundrum: How is evil related to the divine will?

Questions like this one make distinctions necessary—sometimes fine distinctions, even technical distinctions—with respect to the will of God.

Coram Deo: What is your response to the questions raised in this reading: How does God “will” the presence of evil and suffering? Is He the immediate cause of evil? Does He do evil?

Psalm 40:8: “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.”
Psalm 143:10: “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.”
Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Note that loving God and living His life is integral with obedience. I integrate this with Mt 22.40. Postmoderns love to quote Mt 22.36-38. The problem is the put a period there. Jesus is clearly saying that without love, the following of the rest of commands are empty, results in bondage, and is impossible. But, He is in nowise saying that we stop at love. In fact, he is reinforcing the link between love and obedience. He is clearly saying, out of love flows these behaviors/commands. If you are not doing them, you have not love. And even better, in Mt 22.29 he reminds us that it is in Scripture and the POWER of God that we find life and freedom to both love and obey. The postmodern innovator cannot speak of sin and absolutes because their version of love is not based on either Scripture or power, it is a false warm fuzzy human sensation that is defined by their own set of rules. In rejection of today's pharisees, they have become today's pharisees.

i am second

Some powerful testimonies can be found here at I Am Second.

HT:MW

want love?

“When we go to the cross, we see our God dying for us. If you let any other god down, it will beat you up. If you live for people’s approval or your career or possessions or control or anything else and you don’t make it or you mess up, then you’ll be left feeling afraid, downcast, or bitter. But when you let Christ down, he still loves you. He doesn’t beat you up; he died for you.

Let his love win your love, and let that love replace all other affections. The secret of change is to renew your love for Christ as you see him crucified in your place.”

- Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010), 128.
HT:JH

more reaction to knapp

I recently interacted with a blog post regarding Jennifer Knapp's coming out. As I should have expected, it did not go well. I write the following to clarify my thinking and will likely write more after this to deal with the comments to that original post.

In his Knapp post, the author wrote of Elton John’s ex-partner's suicide saying, "Was there a church community that respected him as he was without condemnation or the pressure to change?"

First, the majority of my issue has nothing to do with homosexuality. This is more about the role of the believer, the community of faith, and how we interact with those dealing with temptation and sin. As I think about my first point of contention, we could just as easily be speaking of someone wrestling with pornography, stealing, lying, etc... I will deal separately with the issue of homosexuality but here I'd like to focus on the misdirection (intentional or not) often employed by those seeking to defend homosexuals. I find their approach to be less loving and less life-giving than the alternatives they confront.

The quote mixes respect and condemnation with pressure to change. Since we are God's image bearers, we honor God when we honor others because this reflects His image. And vice-versa, because others are made in His image, we honor God when we honor them. Disrespect and condemnation should never flow from us ... but what is pressure to change? It depends on what pressure means. Clearly I cannot and should not pretend to be the Holy Spirit to someone else. At the same time we are called to instruct, exhort, and confront. We are to be instruments of change toward good works in the lives of others.

And what does respected him as he was mean? Does it really mean respect or is that code for approve? Often it is the latter.

To be part of someone's life to resist temptation is absolutely what we do. To be part of someone's life for the confession of sin and repentance is absolutely what we do. To be part of the subsequent healing and forgiveness process is absolutely what we do. To claim to not is to deny a significant aspect of what we the Church are. And to imply that doing so violates respect and brings condemnation is to twist the very heart of Scripture.

So as I read this I see reaction to the ugly side of historic church life. But rather than returning to the life-giving practices of what God intended for the Church, many are suggesting something far less and in doing so, they are becoming false-teachers.

Technorati Tags: community, homosexuality

the bible on homosexuality

Thanks Melinda for posting this video on The Bible on Homosexuality. I recently interacted with a blog post on Jennifer Knapp's coming out and planned to deconstruct the post and subsequent comments. This video should make a good primer.

Technorati Tags: homosexuality

building v. receiving the kingdom

Too many are trying to build the Kingdom. We see conservatives making this mistake though their church structures and we see liberals making that mistake through their government.

Here is Michael Horton on Building a Kingdom vs. Receiving a Kingdom ...