Tom Shepard

commented on Nov 11, 2015

Does the Bible define homosexuality as sin? Yes. Does the Bible define marriage as being between two men or two women? No. Does the Bible say all sinned and fallen short of God?s glory? Yes. Does the Bible says we should we love one another? Yes. Should we as pastors teach and preach the Word of God? Yes. ?All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.? 2 Ti 3:17

Dr Dave Richardson

commented on Nov 11, 2015

I used to be in the publishing business. Some of my authors were gay and we became friends. One day one of these young men asked me "Can you remember the day when you woke up one morning and thought to yourself 'Do I like women or men'?" When I said "no" he replied "Neither have I. I have just always known. So here's the part that bothers me. If this is how I am hard-wired - if this is how my God and Creator made me - why would He then turn around and deny me salvation through belief in His Son and His death on the cross? That seems to me to be cruel and far from loving. I know that God is love and therefore I believe He will accept my profession of faith and welcome me to heaven just the way He made me." I know what the Bible says - but what if it's NOT a choice? What if it's genetics?

Wade Pond

commented on Nov 11, 2015

Can't see the bias in this posting at all. Can we at least include why there should be no women pastors, divorcees should be named as adulterers and why men should not be shaving their beards, wearing garments made of two different fabrics or eating shrimp and bacon to the discussion? 2 Tim 3:17 applies here as well. Context matters in ALL of scripture.

Michael Dissmore

commented on Nov 11, 2015

As a pastor who also has a gay son I can't change what the Bible says. By the way, Jesus defines marriage as between a man and a woman by quoting Old Testament law in Matthew 19:5. Don't tell me that Jesus was silent on the gay debate. Same sex attraction is only a temptation unless it's acted upon. Sex, unless it's between a man and a woman in the context of marriage, is sin. I do believe some people are born with same sex attraction just as I was born with opposite sex attraction. If I act on that attraction in any way including lust besides in a man-woman marriage, I'm sinning whether I'm gay or straight. Let's not create a special class of sinners just because we deem them to be out of what we consider to be the norm. All have sinned. God loves us all anyway. Let's love and accept all people. It doesn't mean we approve of everything they do.

Angela R. Washington

commented on Aug 4, 2019

Great response, Pastor!

Mark Reavis

commented on Nov 11, 2015

This is THE biggest issue today- no doubt about it.... While it's true, some churches perhaps single out certain sins to rail about while ignoring others.... The REAL problem here is Pastors tiptoeing around the Scriptures. Never let emotion or personal feelings trump the Word of God. My fear is that by NOT calling a sin, a sin, there is no conviction of sin and therefore NO Salvation. One must admit they are sinners before we can be saved from it. jmo

Michael Dissmore

commented on Nov 11, 2015

I also believe we must give firm but biblically-based answers to this question. This is the one issue that most millennials disagree with the church on - at least those churches that are preaching all the Bible and not cherry picking. Millennials also respect forthrightness and honesty. If we give a wishy-washy, politically correct answer, we'll also lose them. Speak the truth in love. If you substitute the word homosexuals for Samaritans in Jesus teaching, you'll get a good idea of how we should handle this. I have a great relationship with my gay son. We agree on a lot of things, but clearly also disagree on some. He respects me still - perhaps even more so. I haven't compromised my tenets of faith at all, but I have learned to love more and become more sympathetic to sins that I don't struggle with or understand. Let's not point the accusing finger at the speck in others eyes. We have plenty of logs to deal with in our own.

Zachary Bartels

commented on Nov 11, 2015

Kirk Cameron and Franklin Graham are pastors?? Where are their churches?

Walter Mock

commented on Aug 4, 2019

Zachary the church is not a building the church is the people.

Brandon Vernoy

commented on Nov 11, 2015

Genetics is still not grounds for dismissing God's commands lived out through Christ Jesus. It is in the genetic DNA of all mankind to sin; whether it be homosexuality, fornication, or simply saying no to God. For this reason Jesus Christ laid down His life and gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we can be washed clean of the sin that so easily entangles us. Coming to God as we are means accepting His free gift of grace and acknowledging that in our weakness He is made strong. For this reason Paul tells us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. God's promise is to cover our sins with His grace, not to accept our sins. Choosing to practice sin because of genetic argument is a lack of faith in the power of our Creator who can make all things new. The struggle is real, I get that, but He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can endure. Trust Him and not the reasoning of man.

Lee Pereira

commented on Nov 11, 2015

if we say that it is genetic - your DNA is God given so i disagree with it being genetic. i agree with it being a sin like any other sin it just the way we view sin as one being bigger than the other.

Michael Dissmore

commented on Nov 11, 2015

When God created mankind, He declared it very good. Sin has polluted His creation. I don't know if you call it genetic or DNA, but I do know that it is now in the nature of man to sin. God said in Genesis 8:21 that every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. David wrote in Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Our sinful nature is a part of us from conception. That's why we must walk according to the Spirit and not according to our sinful flesh.

Paul Aycock

commented on Nov 11, 2015

Even if it is genetic that doesn't mean it is a part of Gods plan. A friend of mine that passed away had Spina bifida. Certainly that is not in Gods plan.

David Jennys

commented on Nov 11, 2015

I was always taught in dealing with Scripture to 'major on the majors and minor on the minors.' In other words, to focus our energy on the things that God has deemed most important by the amount of space the Bible has devoted to it. With this guideline, it baffles me as to why the church is devoting so much wasteful energy on a topic about which the Bible has so little to say. We have built the issue of homosexuality into something much much bigger than it should be. As God's people, guided by God's Word, let's focus our energy on the things that God has deemed most important

Dennis Cocks

commented on Nov 12, 2015

David, do you really believe that this a "minor" issue? Marriage between a man and woman is the first institution God established. It came before government ad the church. God's picture of our relationship with Christ is marriage. Premarital sex, adultery, fornication, homosexual acts are ALL serious sins with God because it destroys the picture of His church. And now with so-called "homosexual marriage" it even destroys it further. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sin of homosexuality. I would be careful calling what God calls an abomination a minor issue.

Mark Reavis

commented on Nov 12, 2015

1 Well said Dennis. This is a pivotal issue in or day. The Major issue is calling it something other than a sin. That's HUGE!

Ben Mcclary

commented on Nov 12, 2015

Amen!

Mary A. Laclair

commented on Nov 12, 2015

The church is being forced into the middle of this issue because same-sex people are spending time trying to force their way into a church - all in an effort I believe, to try to erase the God-Given guilt that comes with it. Church approval of divorce has not erased the pain of divorce and neither will any church approval erase pain which comes from defying God in matters. If these people kept to the secular world, the church would not have to spend time addressing it and is in direct proportion to the time actiivists spend sending pseudo emotional darts in the direction of the church. Call it cause and effect if you will.

Michael Cheeley

commented on Nov 12, 2015

Divorced people who remarry are living in sin according to Jesus in Mark 10:11-12. Why have most churches including conservative branches accepted divorced pastors who have remarried? We don't hear sermons on how the remarried are living in sin. Why? Jesus made Himself very clear on that point. Why didn't He preach about homosexuality? It was a segment of His society. Jesus does make a statement related to gays worth thinking about. In Matt. 19:12 Jesus says some were BORN eunuchs. "He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."

Delwyn Campbell

commented on Aug 4, 2019

1. We aren't discussing divorce today, just like we aren't discussing kidnapping and enslavement. Since you brought it up, however, and since you are cherry-picking verses, Does Mark 10:11-12 contradict Matt 5:32 and Matt 19:9? After all, the latter two verses include the phrase "except for sexual immorality, while Mark does not. Matthew's version of this excludes those who are the victims of sexual immorality from this prohibition regarding divorce, while Mark does not mention it. Add to this that Jesus does not say that Deut 24:1-4 were NOT God's command, but that this command was written because of the hardness of their hearts: Deuteronomy 24:1–4 (ESV) Laws Concerning Divorce 24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, 2 and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance. So, I guess the question behind the question that is asked in Mark 10 is this: "Did God COMMAND divorce or did He ALLOW it in this passage that both He and the Pharisees are referencing in their question and His response?"

Stephen Kingsley

commented on Aug 5, 2019

If your premise is true ("Divorced people who remarry are living in sin ...") then the holy law of God, given by Moses, sanctioned sin in Duet. 21:1-4. Jesus was not making a sin argument in his discourse on divorce and remarriage, he was making a holiness argument. He was not contradicting Moses, he was trumping him with love; the same thing he did often. Any plain exegesis of Duet. must acknowledge a bill of divorcement made it possible for a divorced woman to go and, without shame or legal hindrance, and re-marry as if she had never been married before. This is another example of God's merciful judgment at work in a culture that would have otherwise left such women, in most cases, without remedy. If your premise is true, God not only allowed this sin of divorce and remarriage under the Law, but authorized it. Do you really believe that? I would suggest you do more reading to help you with what Jesus was saying about divorce and remarriage. You might read Jay Adams, for one. Jesus was not a clear as you seem to think and there are many issues to consider in each case. And, if your premise is true, what was lawful as explicitly stated under Covenant Law is somehow now unlawful under grace. If that is the case under grace, grace is not grace at all, it is another law, an even more impossible one to keep than the was the Law of Moses. He surely gave us something much greater. This sexual moralizing gets even messier, biblically. Under Covenant Law, a man could have several wives and concubines (legal girlfriends). That does not make it right, or good, but that is simply the way it was. Similarly, though temple prostitution was unlawful under Covenant Law, commercial prostitution was not; though it was subjected to several prohibitions, e.g., a woman was not to become a prostitute while yet in her father's house and priests were not to receive tithes from prostitution. Again, that did not make it right, but that's just the way it was. In the culture of the biblical world, women were like property. That is a fact. Though Jesus did not come to put the world under greater and stricter law, he did come to put under the Lordship of his kind of love. Love is a relational quantity, not a legal one. Love is patient, kind, forgiving, long-suffering, and merciful. Given a chance, this love solves problems that no amount of legalizing, enforcing, judging, condemning, moralizing, shunning and punishing ever will. As for human sexuality, Jesus put a target on how it was in the beginning, in Eden. He did not do that so we would then start pointing the finger at everything and everyone else that fell short of that as being cursed and damned. But that seems to be what some people just love to do. It would be better to turn our focus from what exactly is or is not sinful under grace (except on those rare occasions where a judgment is absolutely necessary) toward its great aim and purpose, which is power from God to live a holy life. I confess, though I have this power in abundant supply by this grace, and though I am a better man today than I was a year ago, I have not yet arrived. As I recall from Philippians 3, Paul said the same. And if what Jesus said, matters, I best not go around trying to removed splinters from the eyes of others until I'm doubly sure I've removed the plank from my own. As for homosexuality, Jesus, the embodiment of grace, on several occasions healed entire multitudes, every single person. We know that sometimes the multitudes surrounding him often included several thousand people. Of these thousands of persons, how many were murderers? How many adulterers? How many homosexuals? Or do you think these multitudes were only composed of holy folks? I'm sure you don't think so. And, never once in all his ministry do the Gospel writers tell us he had any precondition for anyone who hoped to be healed. He never required a change of lifestyle, or a prayer of repentance, or any kind of commitment of any kind. People simply showed up, wanted to be healed, and they were. That is what grace looks like. IF, to Jesus, love was that gracious, kind, and merciful, it seems to me that if we are doing ministry in his name, or as his representatives, we should do it as he did it. I'm not saying we should all be healers (although I'd love if we were so gifted), but we should all love in the same way and in the same measure. Based on my 40 plus years among Evangelical churches and pastors, we are failing, big time. Regarding homosexuality, which is THE issue of our day, I wish we would to two things. 1.) Do a much better job of welcoming and loving lgbtq folks, as Jesus did. (How did it ever happen that we never fuss much about greed, sloth, heterosexual lust, gluttony, and other such sins, but make much ado about homosexuality?) And, 2.) I wish we would get back to what Wesley called "sanctifying grace." That's where we find the cure to all our sins, if we want to be cured. But, many folks are good church members who continue to overeat, or smoke, or gamble, or waste time, or watch R rated movies (or worse). And what do we do for them? We grant them our welcome, love, patience, prayers, and support, pastoral or otherwise. Why shouldn't we do the same for homosexuals who are comfortable being as they are? God is yet at work in the church and Jesus is still Lord; and we are not yet lords among his people and never will be. As for gay marriage and ordination, we must hold the traditional line. Not because homosexuals are unworthy of marriage or ministry (no one is), but because to celebrate something within humans that grace is given to transform, is to change grace itself. It is not ours to change. We did not purchase it, or give it. And, it is yet the world's only true hope. God help us live and minister it for all it is.

Wade Williams

commented on Aug 6, 2019

Thank you, Stephen. Well said.

Mary A. Laclair

commented on Nov 12, 2015

When gay/lesbian groups fought against legal prejudice, they said that they only wanted acceptance as human beings, aside and apart from their sexual preferences. How many people remember when their presentation word was ?preference? when freedom of choice was the buzz word of the day? They changed it to ?orientation? because Preference admits ?choice?. They want us to think they have no choice. But we ALL have choices every day. Anger is in the fabric of most humans, children especially ? it is our job to overrule and calm that anger, or it could lead to death. Same is true with most sin. The key is self discipline and the effort to overcome that which leads to premature death, which most sin does, that's why God calls it 'sin'.

Wade Williams

commented on Aug 4, 2019

Did you mean to say most sin or all sin, Mary? All sin that we embrace separates us from God, not just some. If we turn to God when confronted with the temptation to sin then He will help us to overcome that temptation. If we look at any sin on a scale and say "this one isn't that bad" then we have already sinned. We cannot look at sin as man does, as scaleable. We must look at sin as Jesus did! With love for the sinner but with an overwhelming disgust at sin. We don't rebuke the man (woman), we rebuke the sin and the tempter, Satan! There is no trivializing that we can do of sin. God, our Creator looks at all sin in the same manner. It is the one thing that can separate us from Him. We must be watchful every moment of our life for temptation so that we can be like Peter. When Peter faced the possibility of drowning he put his hand out and screamed, "Lord, save me!". We must do the same when confronted by sin. Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Only through asking forgiveness and REPENTANCE, and then accepting Jesus Christ as your LORD and Saviour will we be accepted into God's Kingdom. I truly pray that you meant all and not some. May God bless all of us who have this burden of sharing His Word to His people.

Rev, Felix E. Walters

commented on Nov 12, 2015

God?s Wrath on Unrighteousness 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man?and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality,[c] wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving,[d] unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

Michael Merrill

commented on Aug 3, 2019

This is the last part of Romans 1, but it is vital to understand Paul did not write with verse identifiers or chapter breaks. The person who handles rightly the Word of God must see the actual point of Paul's graphic description of pagan worship (not social relationships.) He escalates the offensiveness of "those sinners out there" to the Roman Christians who in the first century were already sharply divided between "us saved in here" vs "them sinners out there." And he pulls NO PUNCH at all when he launches into what we call "chapter 2." In the section quoted already, he includes "haters of parents" and the capstone "those lacking in mercy." Then BAM! chapter 2:1 "And YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE, you who pass judgment on others, because you do the same things!" Paul seems far less focused on condemning the sins of the world and far more concerned with confronting tje Church, which is called by God to display His grace and mercy, but they had quickly become condemning and judgmental. And still the church believes it's primary job is to complete what Jesus himself did not do. John 3:16 - know it by heart? Quote it! John 3:17 - know it? Quote it by heart or look it up...

Fred Kitimbo

commented on Nov 13, 2015

"Let's keep it civil and add value to the conversation" - There is simply no value you and I can add to God's word. If God's word says it's sinful to do a,b,c... then any discussion of whether what the Bible says it true or not is simply a misguided discussion, a step to compromise with sin and most pleasing to Satan. Are you questioning the veracity of the Bible on the issue or God's word?

Timothy Maloi

commented on Nov 15, 2015

Homosexuality and al other sins will remain to be sin even if we legalize them or redefine them. GOD's standards are no abut to be changed by popular opinion or government legislation. Our role I not even to discuss whether certain sins are greater than others or not but to pint everyone to JESUS CHRIST, the homosexual, murderer, thief, liar, self righteous and all sinners to JESUS CHRIST. An encounter with CHRIST will reveal who they really are and how much in and of a savior they are. Let us all avoid all this sideshows of the devil of discussing the types of sins because all sin is the same and has separated man from GOD.

Michael Merrill

commented on Aug 3, 2019

I sometimes change the basis of the discussion. Don't deal with what the Bible says about this issue. Change the sphere of discussion to how evolution deals with same gender sexual behavior, and how two sperm each with 23 chromosomes or two eggs each with 23 chromosomes under no circumstances and in no species can generate a new living being with 46 chromosomes in that species. Never. Evolution itself argues against same sex sexual behavior. If one believes God created OR evolution randomly generated life forms, either belief system identifies same sex unions as broken with regards to the design and purpose of the union of two individuals. That said, judgment and condemnation are not prorogatives of the human church against anyone. Grave and mercy are. Let the condemnation belong to God the Father at the end of time.

Michael Merrill

commented on Aug 3, 2019

Grace and mercy...