Sexuality training for youth leaders

Biblical Sexuality Training For Youth Leaders:

John 4:23-24

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

2 Timothy 4: 1-5

4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

The Process Theology Argument:

1. Christians’ prejudice against homosexuals leads them to misread biblical texts about homosexuality;

2. Scriptures that supposedly condemn homosexual behavior have actually been mistranslated;

3. Scriptures that supposedly condemn homosexual behavior have been taken out of context and do not apply to our present society.

1) The Bible is wholly reliable, trustworthy and true in all that it affirms. It clearly teaches the honor, dignity and value of the two sexes as created in God’s image – intentionally male and female – each bringing unique and complementary qualities to sexuality and relationships.

2) Sexuality is a glorious gift from God – It is an amazing expression of love. It is a representation of the love that God has for humanity.

3) Process theology violates God’s intentional design for gender and sexuality by saying that women don’t need men and men don’t need women.

4) Process theology places human feelings and desires above biblical truth, leading people to believe lies.

5) Scripture begins and ends with the picture of marriage as an institution ordained by God – designed for the union of a man and a woman in a life-long, faithful, covenantal relationship. This view is affirmed by Moses, Jesus and Paul, and has been upheld through thousands of years of Christian history and tradition. Process Theologians usually do not even attempt to address God’s created intent for human sexuality, but instead twist Scripture and argue against those texts which condemn same-sex behavior.

6) It unrealistic to believe that Bible translators mistranslated five references to sexual ethics in two different testaments of Scripture. Even more unlikely is the possibility that they only mistranslated Scriptures regarding homosexual behavior.

7) Scriptures that testify against homosexual behavior—including Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10—are so clear and specific that they defy reinterpretation. It is intellectually dishonest to say that conservative individuals and leaders “interpret” such clear verses as “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman” out of prejudice against homosexuals.

8) Homosexuality in Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy is mentioned in the wider context of sexual, immoral, and prohibited behaviors, all of which elaborate on the commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” prohibiting sex outside of a male-female marriage.6 This casts doubt on the argument that Scriptures condemning homosexuality have been taken out of context.

9) References condemning homosexual behavior were addressed to highly different Ancient Near East cultures (from Hebrew to Greco-Roman) – nullifying the argument that scriptural passages against homosexuality are culturally bound and inapplicable to today’s society.

10) The argument that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality in the gospels is misleading and illogical for at least five reasons:

· 2 Timothy 3:16-17

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Gospels are not more authoritative than those books of the Bible that condemn homosexual behavior. All authors of Scripture were inspired by God’s Holy Spirit.

· The gospels are not comprehensive. Some of the Bible’s most important teachings—the explanation of spiritual gifts, the Priesthood of Christ, the doctrine of man’s old and new nature—appear in other books of the Bible.

· The gospels do not claim to be a complete account of Jesus’ life or teachings. Sections of Jesus’ life are not discussed in the gospels and we cannot be certain that Jesus never spoke about homosexual behavior.

o Talk about Baptism… 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.

o Scripture teaches that Jesus kept all the Law and affirmed all that the Law and the Prophets taught.8Undoubtedly, this would have included the affirmation of committed, monogamous male-female marriage and an unwavering condemnation of homosexual behavior. Given that all first century orthodox Jews would have held to this standard, the question of affirming homosexuality would not have been open to discussion in Jesus’ day.

o Jesus clearly referred to heterosexuality as a standard. He specifically described God’s created intent for human sexuality: “

· Matthew 19: 4-6 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”