Just Don't Practice Who You Are

DISCLAIMER: SBTS has published a response to Vines’ book that seeks to undermine Vines’ argument and is titled God and the Gay Christian?

Orientation vs Choice

As we said last night, these words are normative for here we come out on the issue of homosexuality generally and same-sex relationships particularly.

Personally, I know where I am on the former and am seeking to bring my emotions and my intellect in line as to the second so I don’t have THE answer for anybody.

There are some very sincere, well-intentioned people on both sides of this argument and some right horses rears as well.

But my dad didn’t know any openly gay people, and he had always understood the Bible to be against homosexuality. If God was against it, Dad said, God wouldn’t make anyone gay. So even if some people struggled with same-sex attraction, he was confident they could develop heterosexual attractions over time.

Vines, Matthew. God and the Gay Christian (pp. 6-7). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I have heard many people say God doesn’t make mistakes when debating these issues and I never quite know what they mean.

Why is sin sin?

Because it damages us or someone else and we can usually see that damage quite easily.

Vines challenges us to ask whether monogamous same-sex relationships meet this criteria? That is what we’re here this weekend to answer.

“You’re elevating your experience over Scripture,” a frustrated member of my church told me over coffee. “I don’t accept that.” (Vines, Matthew. God and the Gay Christian (p. 13). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Proverbs 3:5 LEB

5 Trust Yahweh with all your heart; do not lean toward your own understanding.

Jeremiah 17:9 LEB

9 The heart is deceitful more than anything else, and it is disastrous. Who can understand it?

2 Timothy 3:16 LEB

16 All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness,

To what does the author of Timothy refer?

Does this include our understanding/interpretation of Scrpture?

The Fruit-Test

Matthew 7:15–20 LEB

15 “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits: they do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? 17 In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree is not able to produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree to produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 As a result, you will recognize them by their fruits.

Does what Jesus said require us to allow experience enter into it?

Acts 15:7–11 LEB

7 And after there was much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Men and brothers, you know that in the early days God chose among you through my mouth that the Gentiles should hear the message of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. 9 And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 10 So now why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way those also are.”

V 7 refers to Peter’s experience on the rooftop.

Did Peter’s experience/testimony carry any weight; should it have?

Believers around the world have believed/do believe slavery is biblical.

Ephesians 6:5–9 LEB

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ, 6 not while being watched, as people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, 7 serving with goodwill as to the Lord and not to people, 8 because you know that each one of you, whatever good he should do, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And masters, do the same things to them, giving up threats, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.

Colossians 3:22–25 LEB

22 Slaves, obey your human masters in everything, not while being watched, as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, accomplish it from the soul, as to the Lord, and not to people, 24 because you know that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. Serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the one who does wrong will receive back whatever wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Arguments from Scripture were/are used to justify discrimination, racism and colonialism post-slavery.

The Mark of Cain was black skin

The Curse of Ham

Since Noah and his family were all white (wrong), the black race must have evolved from the beasts.

“God made them negroes and we cannot by education make them white folks.” (Gov Allen Candler of GA justifying inequality in education)

Equally suspect is the “white man’s burden” racism of the more liberal.

Truthfully, the Bible says little about racism per se since racism was not an issue in the ancient world; politics, religion and geography were.

Using our intelligence and reason, we can bring the whole biblical witness to bear and quickly deduce that racism and the like don’t pass the fruit-test.

Vines asks that we step outside traditional interpretations of texts related to homosexuality and give them the fruit-test.

Affirming & Non-affirming

Definitions

Affirming Christians accept there is a place for same-sex relationships.

Non-affirming Christians do not and most call homosexuality in any expression sin.

For the N-A, same-sex relationships undermine God’s plan for human sexuality as seen in the Bible’s positive portrayal of heterosexuality.

I do believe heterosexuality was God’s original design just as I believe the absence of cancer was part of God’s original design, but if having cancer isn’t sin, why is being gay?

We also have to address the heterosexual ethics in the Bible including polygamy, rape, incest, prostitution, etc.

Gay unions are sinful because they deny gender complementarity. (N-A viewpoint)

Hierarchical

This says men and women have “equal” but different roles.

Men are made to lead; women are made to follow (based on a misreading of Eph 5)

A Pentecostal woman may lead a church as long as she is under submission to her husband and church elders.

Aside from child-bearing, most of these roles are culturally assigned, not biblically derived.

While advocates try to explain how they can still believe this while affirming gender equality, early, and not so early, church fathers were less shy.

And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son of God had to die. (Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women)

Same-sex relationships are a no-no then because you would have two leaders or two followers.

Procreative

Same-sex relationships are forbidden because the couple cannot produce children.

This goes back to the idea that you can have sex for the purpose of reproduction but you’d better not enjoy it.

But now we have the problem of birth control and sterility.

Anatomical

Insert Tab A into correct Slot B.

Since you can’t do this in a same sex relationship, same-sex relationships are wrong.

So here we are again: Orientation vs Choice (or Preference)

In the ancient world, same-sex relations were seen as preference/choice, not orientation.

It was a matter of heterosexual excess, especially men with boys (pederasty)

It was not universally accepted, but it was not considered a different orientation.

I can’t say I did in-depth research but the early church fathers I read seem to reflect this view.

What was ridiculed were men who would play the passive (inferior) role in sex assigned to women, thus, men with boys and masters with slaves.

Then as now, sex was as much about power as…well, sex.

The idea of homosexuality as a separate orientation did not gain traction until the mid-90s, can’t we reject it and return to a biblical world view?

So the earth is flat, the sun revolves around the earth and dinosaurs never lived because the earth is only 6000 years old.

Is celibacy the answer?

Matthew 19:7–12 LEB

7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a document—a certificate of divorce—and to divorce her?” 8 He said to them, “Moses, with reference to your hardness of heart, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not like this. 9 Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the basis of sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the case of a man with his wife, it would be better not to marry!” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this saying but those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born as such from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by people, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

Celibacy is a choice only those gifted to do so can embrace.

1 Corinthians 7:7 LEB

7 I wish all people could be like myself, but each one has his own gift from God, one in this way and another in that way.

Paul wished all believers could be celibate. But why?

1 Corinthians 7:32–34 LEB

32 But I want you to be free from care. The unmarried person cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. 33 But the one who is married cares for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34 and he is divided. And the unmarried woman or the virgin cares for the things of the Lord, in order that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Celibacy was so celebrated and marriage so undervalued, the writer of Timothy had to address it.

1 Timothy 4:1–5 LEB

1 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 by the hypocrisy of liars, who are seared in their own conscience, 3 who forbid marrying and insist on abstaining from foods that God created for sharing in with thankfulness by those who believe and who know the truth, 4 because everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thankfulness, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.