We had a reader write us and ask this question….
While your readers are married heterosexuals, many of us are confronted with conflicting feelings on the biblical view of homosexuality because of gay friends and relatives who we love dearly. The trend of women gravitating toward gay men for platonic friendship has only heightened the matter, even for Christian women. In church, it’s a bigger topic than ever because of gay marriage legislation. But the pastor doesn’t preach a sermon on it…he just talks about why we should vote against it to protect the church from state interference. Personally, I find myself in need of something I can fall back on when I’m tempted to say, “Jeez, they’re not hurting anybody and they’re in love, and this how they are, this is how they’ve always been, didn’t God make them this way”…Like any Christian, I get tempted to think that God must have meant it some other way.
This is a very good comment, and I want to expound on it in today’s blog entry. Let me break this apart to address the different thoughts and questions within this whole comment.
All during college, I went through such a dilemma. I had several friends who were openly homosexual. I loved them as friends. They were all male. I didn’t feel as comfortable with the females I knew were homosexual, but my male friends, they liked me for who I was, there were no “expectations” from them, and I knew I was “safe” with them. (College boys, ya know?) They were very careful about who they trusted…I wasn’t a Christian yet, but there was one thing that was VERY strong in my mind…love them. I loved them for who they were. I had never read Jesus’ command to us in the Bible, telling us the greatest commandment was to love God and then to love others as ourselves. I just knew I was to love them. And in that love, they trusted me. I knew what they were doing was wrong, but how should I have really treated them? Did I do the right thing by “supporting” their lifestyle?
In my opinion, yes.
There are so many verses in the Bible that tell us the “thou shalt not”s. Leviticus 18:22 tells us “’Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 20: 13 tells us the punishment for the earlier Leviticus verse “ ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” Wow. Death. Okay, so you get the picture that in the Old Testament, homosexuality was a HUGE sin. Do you think the people got the picture…well, no. Sodom and Gommorah are examples of people who just didn’t care about God’s laws…and God destroyed those cities…. What else does the Bible say? Romans 1:18-32 tells us all about people forsaking God and making gods in their own images or the images of animals. What did God do? He gave them what they wanted. Rom 1:24-25 “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” And verse 26-27 “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” Y’all are going to get me on this one… v.32 “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” I didn’t approve of what they were doing…but I will get to that later.
Then there is 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”
Jude 1:7 “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.”
I could go on and on. Here’s my point and the most important commands in the Bible. “Love one another.” Jesus cannot say this enough in the Bible. Everything he says and does…”Love one another.” Listen to Jesus’ words…
John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Romans 12:9-10 “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
Romans 13:8 “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.”
Should I go on? I went to Biblegateway.com and I searched for “love one another” and this is what I found. Sixteen entries for “love one another”. How about “love your neighbor”? Eleven results that say “love your neighbor as yourself.” Eleven. Just the word love? In the NIV translation, Biblegateway found 697 results. I think love is a very important thing to God.
Okay, back to my original thoughts and questions. Who are they hurting? Well, in the first place, they are hurting God. God loves them so very much. He hates to see his children choose not to follow him. He knows that if they would only trust and obey him, they would know more joy than the temporary pleasure they get now in their sin. With that thought, they are also hurting themselves. Literally if you go by the Old Testament verses in Leviticus, as well as in the New Testament when we are told the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) They are hurting the other people they are dragging into sin with them as well. They aren’t going to change by being preached at, friends. I mean, wouldn’t you get angry if someone followed you around throwing your sin in your face and telling you that you are going to die and go to hell, burning in eternal damnation? Yes, I know it is the truth that they will suffer eternal separation from God, but just like in my non-Christian days, I come back to this…love them. Show them the joy that you have in Christ and in obeying Christ. Love the sinner while you hate the sin. Jesus didn’t come to the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. He saved us by doing the most loving act possible. Put yourself on the cross for these people. Show them how much you love them.
Homosexuality is a choice my dear ones. A sin that is chosen, not genetically infused in you when you were born. God doesn’t make any junk, and he’s doesn’t wire us to sin…we choose to sin. God tells us that we were meant to be together as man and wife. There is no other choice, unless you choose to sin. In the meantime, of course, love your family members who choose homosexuality. Love your friends who make that choice. But at the same time, pray for them diligently, that God would show them the truth in their choices before the consequence is irreversible.
Christian Nymphos 