{"id":347,"date":"2015-07-15T07:27:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T07:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/?p=347"},"modified":"2022-02-07T03:12:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T03:12:09","slug":"a-biblical-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/a-biblical-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"A Biblical Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Bible is consistently clear about homosexual behavior<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One, homosexuality is not new.<\/em><\/strong> It has been around since the earliest days of humanity. It was documented in the time of Abraham (4000+ years ago), it was obviously prevalent during New Testament times (around 2000 years ago), and it is certainly a behavior claimed today by a small percent of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two, God never approves of homosexual behavior, and seems to vehemently oppose it in both testaments.<\/em><\/strong> In the Old Testament, God labels the action of men having sexual relations with men as \u201cdetestable\u201d (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13). This behavior also depicts the extreme depth of evil that confirmed His decision to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land and vegetation in the area now known as the Dead Sea (Genesis 18-19). In the New Testament, God calls homosexuality a \u201cperversion\u201d, and offers it as evidence of the type of extreme behavior promoted by depraved minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two specific examples given of \u201cshameful lusts\u201d that the Lord allows when people insist on \u201csuppressing the truth by their wickedness\u201d and \u201cnot thinking it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God\u201d include women exchanging natural relations for men for unnatural ones with women, and men abandoning natural relations with women and becoming inflamed with lust for one another (Romans 1:18-32).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three, homosexuality is not included among the two holy options God offers regarding sexuality \u2013 marriage between a man and a woman, or celibate singleness.<\/em><\/strong> Jesus and the Apostle Paul both affirm marriage as good and godly, but they also both seem to indicate that singleness is possibly better (Matthew 19:4-12 and I Corinthians 7). There is not a single favorable expression of positive accommodation or blessing by God relative to homosexual behavior among the thousands of years and verses referenced in either testament of scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four, the rainbow is God\u2019s sign of a covenant He made not to destroy all life on earth by flood again. <\/strong><\/em>Yet, because of the increase of wickedness – including all heterosexual and homosexual sins, scoffers following their own evil desires, and depravity of every kind – God will destroy the earth by fire and exclude many from His eternal presence (II Peter 3). Profaning God\u2019s symbol to represent sexual freedom from His natural design and divine constraints seems galling and vexatious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five, the definition of love in the Bible seems exactly opposite the actions of many homosexual activists and supporters.<\/em><\/strong> In I Corinthians 13, we read that \u201cLove does not envy\u201d (the covenant of holy matrimony has been the subject of much envy by the LGBT community), \u201clove is not proud\u201d (versus \u201cgay pride\u201d), \u201clove does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth\u201d (if homosexuality truly is a sin then everyone rejoicing in it is not evidencing biblical love), and \u201clove is not rude, it is not self-seeking\u2026it always protects\u201d (demanding compliance or services in support of homosexual behaviors and\/or punishing non-supporting people and organizations seems quite unloving).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony is that those who claim to have suffered persecution and intolerance, or who claim to support such persons, often present themselves as tolerant of diverse views. They decry intolerance, and, yet, practice raging intolerance themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if others, including Christians, have behaved unlovingly, protesting persecution and intolerance and then engaging in similar behaviors is partly why Jesus (Matthew 7) and Paul (Romans 2) warned against hypocrisy – don\u2019t condemn others for doing the same type of things you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Genesis to Revelation, loving God and others is regularly depicted as confronting and not condoning sinful behavior. Whereas \u201credefine\u201d is a recurring theme across the LGBT movement, \u201crepent\u201d is a recurring primary theme throughout scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six, Jesus defines His true followers as those who repent of sin AND obey His commands. <\/em><\/strong>Many claim to be Christian, and yet also lie, fornicate, commit adultery, engage in deviant sexual behaviors, are arrogant, proud, deceitful, unfaithful, etc. All of these and more are sins, and Jesus died for all sins once and for all. We cheapen His sacrifice when we try to legitimize, redefine, or excuse sins He already atoned for. Furthermore, He rewards true repentance and obedience, not excuses, hypocrisy, and pretense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bible is consistently clear about homosexual behavior. One, homosexuality is not new. It has been around since the earliest days of humanity. It was documented in the time of Abraham (4000+ years ago), it was obviously prevalent during New Testament times (around 2000 years ago), and it is certainly a behavior claimed today by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[9,12,8,11,14,16],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maybles","category-non-fiction","tag-bible","tag-christianity","tag-jesus","tag-maybles","tag-society","tag-worldview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klynnlewis.com\/maybles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}