Cultural Questions

Whenever someone asks a difficult question regarding morality, homosexuality, abortion, etc. It is important to start the conversation with things all reasonable people universally agree.

Start with Common Ground

I believe that all people regardless of ethnicity, beliefs, socio-economic status and sexual orientation have value.

In Bible beliefs we call this idea created in the image of God. We believe that all men and woman are created in the image of God so therefore they have value. Therefore they are loved.

Genesis 1:27 CSB

27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

Why do I want to start any controversial conversation in this way?

What are some popular myths about how Bible -believing Christians feel toward those in the LGBTQ community?

so...

Since we are made in the image of God, we do not believe we get to choose our own image or make our own rules anymore than a horse chooses to be a horse, cat, a cat. etc. It is his design.

If we are made in the image of God than why would we want to deviate from the way he has created us to be?

After all what greater way could we have been created than in the image of God?

God created male and female.

Genesis 1:28 CSB

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

We Believe all humans are simultaneously sinful and loved.

Because we are sinful, we often do not value the beauty that God has created in us.

Because we are sinful, God gave us boundaries to guide us away from our sin and protect us. We find those boundaries in scripture.

Any loving parent gives his or child boundaries. Often children do not appreciate the boundaries until they recognize the danger later and then understand the heart of the parent.

In this way people often accuse God, but since he created us in his image and loves us. He knows how best his creation operates.

Boundaries are not restrictive they are freedom.

Proverbs 29:18 CSB

18 Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.

Think about taking a kid to the store to pick out a toy. If before you go you do not set a price boundary the child will run to the greatest most expensive item on their list and when you tell them no. This will probably repeated over and over again. They will be disappointed and focus on each item they cannot have.

Now if before the you go to the store your child knows he has twenty dollars to spend. He can go up and down the toy aisle and look for the item within the boundary and be excited and happy. The boundary gave him the freedom to choose.

God gave us boundaries an in those boundaries there is joy and freedom.

Will a child feel more free or less free in the following scenario

You have a backyard surrounded by roads on all sides. Each day you let your child out to play. Every time the child gets near the road you call him back. The child being a child will naturally gravitate toward one side or the other always having to be corrected every few minutes.

Now the next day you build a fence. Now you simply open the back door and say go enjoy yourself. Which brings more freedom for the child to enjoy. The yard with no fence or the yard with a fence.

In the same way God does this with us. He loves us, yet knows that we will gravitate toward things that are harmful.

God created us in His image(extremely generous), therefore we have value.

Anything of value is worth protecting, God love us.

God created boundaries to give us freedom

We simultaneously loved and sinful

God through his love provide away to forgive us of our sin.