Well, after clarifying that by "sex acts" you were not expecting verses that described positions (which is what I thought when you specified "sex acts"), but would accept passages that merely accept that sex happens in certain relationships and that it is not sinful if those relationships are in accordance with God's plan of marriage (you cited, for example, 1 Corinthians 7:9), I cited 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 (including the idea that it is a rare gift from God to be able to choose a lifetime of celibacy and not "burn," in conjunction with 1 Corinthians 10:13, that God promises a way of escape from temptation (in this case the temptation to inappropriate sex).
There is no such thing as same-gender "marriage" in the apostolic witness. Jesus taught the immutable nature of the man/woman structure of marriage. End of story, end of clobber passages, end of pop culture altering the Bible for a new religiosity to replace apostolic truth.
You countered that marriage does not end temptation to inappropriate sex. But I never claimed that it would. Neither did Paul. What it does is offer an appropriate channel for our innate sex drives.
Adultery is also not offered within a marriage between consenting adults either. Other than that, what two people do in their private married life is their own business. Even though Paul kind of butted in.
If you choose to go outside that appropriate channel, you cannot claim that God has broken His promise to provide a way of escape.
Me? I am standing firm on the Apostolic witness, coupled with and to the rest of the Bible, that there is no such thing as appropriate gay sex.
If we rely on your narrow definition of marriage (a definition which is never stated in the Bible, and for which the implications are only based upon your broad interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, and your subsequent misapplication of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11 and your complete failure in reading Romans 1-3 and Jude), God is breaking His promise.
Jesus detailed what a marriage is and He claims God set it forth this way. It's not my narrow definition. It is Jesus that makes the assertion. The context of his preaching came about from questions on divorce. "Divorce," "Marriage," there is not one thing vague about the teaching that marriage is exclusively a man and a woman. Every reference to husbands and wives in the New Testament is a man and a woman.
In another thread I posted:
You gave alternate explanations for each of the points. Most of those alternates were, individually (a point I will return to), legitimate alternate explanations. That is why I do not claim, as some others do, that we can know that Jonathan and David's relationship was a marriage.
It is impossible, that is why it cannot be known. David took up Saul's offer to be "married into the family" with daughter number two. Was it yiu that tried to posit that Jonathan was marriage number one or two, or someone else? It's hard to keep up with all these threads. In any event, it was two different daughters Saul offered to David.
One of your explanations, however, is contra-indicated by the Bible itself. You claimed that the relationship between Jonathan and David was simply the same closeness that any group of soldiers feel for one another when they rely on one another for their very lives. (Not your exact words, and perhaps not exactly what you were saying, but one of the closest non-sensual relationships normally seen between men. If I can show that the Bible claims that Jonathan's and David's relationship was stronger and closer than this, then even if you meant something less, I will have shown that the Bible claims they were closer than you claim.)
My exact perspective. Men love men in many intense ways not open to the woman/man experience. To say that David and Jonathan had to be lovers is reading into the text what is not there.
Well, 1 Samuel 14 shows us that Jonathan had just that sort of relationship with his armor-bearer, his squire if you will. But the Bible never names the other man, nor are we ever told that Jonathan loved him or that his soul was knit to that of the squire.
It certainly gives credence that men can love men without any sexual intercurse attached to the love.
In all of the years in which Saul's armies were hunting for David and his men, we are not told of any of those men with whom David may have formed this kind of bond.
Two men "loved" David so intensely that these two men broke through enemy lines and got David a glass of water that he longed for. They risked their lives for David, and he was so moved y their love for him, that he poured the water out on the ground as a offering. The whole episode should make any man cry. Any man that knows what love is.
After the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, David's claim to the kingship made such battle-mate relationships difficult, but it would not have been impossible. Butthe Bible does not describe any of them.
"After" the death of Saul and Jonathan? David had been annointed before these guys fell in battle.
So the Bible shows us that Jonathan did have at least one war-buddy relationship before David. But that his relationship with David went much deeper than the earlier one. It also seems to tell us that David never found another like Jonathan, with whom he could bond as deeply.
I detailed how Jonathan submitted to the God-ordained authority in David, and that David was moved by that act. The Bible goes to great lengths to detail what and how Jonathan did that, and the attempts to homosexualize what Jonathan did is neither warranted nor is it appropriate. NOT to mention, BOTH men married women.
Besides the relationship between Jonathan and David did not form "in the trenches," so to speak.
No, it was worse. Jonathan's dad, was trying to murder the Lord's annointed. Jonathan submitted to the authority of God and God's annointed. Janathan is a hero on the lines of Uriah the Hittite.
It occurred after the battle was over -- a battle in which Jonathan took no part. As described, it reads more like "love at first sight," and less like a friendship cemented by mutual experience.
Many friends know they were going to be friends the moment they meet. It is a common occurrence. Two young men in an incredible moment in history.
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Now, as promised, to follow up on the word "individually," highlighted above. I do not believe in coincidence in the biblical record. If something is recorded in the Bible it is recorded for a reason. That the verses at the beginning of of 1 Samuel 18 reflect genesis 2:24 cannot be coincidence.
Actually Genesis 24 would contradict anyone thinking gay marriage is possible. A man cannot be another man's "wife."
That the allusion to Genesis is immediately followed by a covenant made cannot be a coincidence.
Gen 2:24:
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
That David considered Mephibosheth to be his son is not, strictly speaking, coincidence, but it would be politically foolish (not to mention potentially suicidal) if the only claim Mephibosheth had on David was that David and his father had once been war buddies before his (Mephibosheth's) grandfather sent whole armies to try and kill David.
That's ridiculous. Many men (especially soldiers) make pacts with each other that if they die that their friends will be responsible for their children.
No one else -- not even their wives -- is claimed to have been loved by either Jonathan or by David.
Reading into the text, what simply is not there. We have no idea if David loved all of his own children either. David was a complicated man without a shred of doubt about that, but what is an absolute, is that David married women, and that a man can love another man far more intensely than the love he has for a woman. In fact, if we were to examine that very phrase, we could easily see that "sex" has nothing to do with intense love at all.
