I certainly won’t argue with ‘traditional marriage’ or with helping to save the lives of the unborn and other such important things.

What I’m doing is looking at all this through a different lens than the lens the church seems to be looking through today. As I read through my Bible and try to understand the New Covenant that we’re living in, I see a much less rules- and law-based system, and much more of a relational type of lifestyle that redeems culture. And actually, I don’t see it as being about redeeming culture. It’s about redeeming individuals.

Can you imagine a country, or a world, in which Christian leaders and preachers weren’t so much concerned with teaching their fellow Christians to take a stand for or against various issues, but instead were taking much, much more time and effort in teaching and developing lives in Christians in which they love the individual sinners in their lives, and embrace sinners, and eat with them, and form deep relationships with them, and simply demonstrate an abiding life with the very fruit that comes from us abiding in Christ?

If we loved people to Christ (the only One in Whom there is true power for godly living)… I mean really loved them in action, not in telling them Jesus loves them and then going on and taking a stand against all their sins… If we really loved them… and they actually came to know the God of grace (!), what kinds of laws and protests would we even need?

I know it’s a dream world. But I believe the only reason for that is because Christians continue to see Jesus as the One who takes a stand against sin, rather than the One who takes away sin.

Joel B.’s last blog post..Christian The Lion - into the wild

Christians want to avoid sin that offends God. We do not unilaterally harm God but we do wreck our love relationship with Him by sinning. Created in His loving image, we fail to live up to expectations. Without Jesus and His deal to make it all right, we would be planning our new residence in Hell. But we have taken Jesus as Savior and Lord and He keeps us in His Father’s loving will.

As Lord, Jesus bases and defines ALL sin as lack of love (Matthew 22:36-40). Such obvious sins as theft, murder and adultery are unloving because each has a victim, someone not receiving love.

Please tell me, who is the unloved victim in a homosexual relationship? Neither is a victim, neither is unloved. Where is the hurt? Who could bring suit against the “sinner”? What Gospel writer or Bible prophet claimed homosexuality is sinful? (Jesus didn’t.) These are not rhetorical questions; they are unanswered by those who refuse God’s grace and live by working the law.

It is noteworthy that Gay people employ themselves in loving professions like medicine, education and the ministry. Those who call themselves Christians work in the Biblical judicial system.

Certainly if God didn’t want men to have sex with other men, He would have said “Man shall not lie with man PERIOD (Leviticus 18:22, 21:13). God wanted Moses to eradicate rampant idolatry in the Jewish nation. That whole “ . . . as with a woman” thing condemns straight men pretending to make it with a woman, such as during idol worship. Paul explains it further when putting down the straight Romans (1:26-28 ) and Corinthians (1 Co 6:9-11) for “leaving their natural relations” (i.e…. as with a woman) and having idolatrous sex with men. Gay men are attracted to other men by definition and by God. They can only imagine what sex “ . . . as with a woman” would be like.

What is the most love one can show another sinner? Offer them an eternity with God through the redemptive cross of Jesus. Instead of judging them, shouldn’t Christians be telling those “sinful” homosexuals that Jesus died for their sins? The stumbling block is that Gays do not want to affiliate with unloving and judgmental Christians. Know Jesus, know love. No Jesus, no love.

Now there’s a concept!

Yes, pagans tend to behave just like their job descriptions say they should. But we should not withhold good if we have the power to do it, and that includes protecting people. The Gospel should come first, but there is nothing wrong with pro-life work, preserving traditional marriage, etc.

Neil’s last blog post..Judging is a two-way street

Unregenerate people do unregenerate things. And like I said yesterday, even if a sinner’s behavior is “good,” that doesn’t equal a New Creation (2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15) (or as Peter put it, “born again of incorruptible seed” (1 Peter 1:23)).

Did Jesus come into the world to save us in order to get us going around protesting the sins of those who haven’t become new creations yet?

Kevin, the Corinthian church had a few people in it who were using grace for licentious purposes. Of course there is plenty of room to address that. Not judgmentally, of course, but gently (Gal 6:1). The mature person who sees sin in someone else knows that it’s only grace that has helped him overcome his own sin. And of course a butterfly should always be encouraged to not keep acting like a caterpillar, but like a butterfly, because he is a new creature.

But all of this is not what’s being addressed in Romans 1. Paul is not talking about sin in the church. He is talking about the sin of the world.

Rom 1:18
“…the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…”

If we keep reading, and Paul goes on to talk in-depth about the sin and unrighteousness of the world. It’s stuff that’s been common to all of mankind since Adam.

Note that previous to all this, in vss. 16-17, Paul starts to make a point: the gospel reveals the righteousness of God (as opposed to the righteousness of man, which is not really righteousness). In order to make the case for God’s righteousness that we receive as a gift, he first makes the case of the unrighteousness of all of mankind (Rom 1:18-3:20).

After all of this, he finally gets back to what he was talking about in 1:16-17 - the righteousness of God that has been revealed in the gospel, that is given as a gift, “through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.” (He picks it back up in 3:21).

All his talk of sin in Romans 1 wasn’t a protest or complaint against all the sin that the people of the world commit (nor that of the church). He was making a case that everyone in the world is unrighteous, and he was building up to his case that anyone can be justified and made righteous freely by grace.

So if we go around using Romans 1 in our protests against all the sins that people commit, such as homosexuality, we completely miss the point! Of course people commit homosexuality. That’s one of the many sins of mankind.

Just like all of the sins you’ve ever commited are common to all of mankind. “For there is NO DIFFERENCE, for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

No Difference.

No Difference.

Please get Paul’s point. No matter what the sin, no matter what the sin, no matter what the sin, no matter what the sin… there is no difference. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23).

But suddenly, in the very next verse (24), “being justified FREELY by His GRACE through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!” (EXCLAMATION POINT mine).

That’s what Paul was getting to.

Paul was persecuted for lifting up the righteousness of God, not for speaking out against sin. When will the church ever get back to this?

Joel B.’s last blog post..Christian The Lion - into the wild

I believe is time for all proclaimers of God’s Word to preach the whole counsel of God, and if one does, they will not neglect the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why I believe that expository preaching, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter is the best method. It’s not the only method, but I am convinced it is much needed in this culture that we live in.

Debbie Kaufman’s last blog post..I Am A Servant by Larry Norman

But my question is when does it cross the line between telling the truth in love and being judgmental?

Kevin Bussey’s last blog post..Offend a homosexual … Go to prison for 5 years?

Maybe you’ll be able to do prison ministry.

Greg Allen’s last blog post..Tuesday, June 10, 2008

He also preached about the immorality of the Corinthian Church. Romans 1 he talked about it too.

Kevin Bussey’s last blog post..Offend a homosexual … Go to prison for 5 years?