Note: Just because I'm known to hold one position, and I criticize certain details in one of the arguments for another position, that does not mean that I am claiming that my critique is the argument for my position. It does not even necessarily mean that I am claiming that the critique is an argument against the position held by the person whose argument I'm critiquing. Too many people here jump in with the opinion, "Well that's not a good argument for your position," and all I can do is shake my head in astonishment that they thought it was supposed to be. Especially when, in order to do so they have to make some absurd assumptions about what I "really" said.
You sure seem to present a very consistent liberal theology position in thread after thread after thread.
When sex was to be had, Eve was it though. No "suitable helper was found." It was never ever supposed to be with a man.
No, that is what those who try to combine Genesis 2:24 and Leviticus 18:22 and come up with "David and Jonathan were merely casual acquaintances" imply.
Thank you for coming around.
David and Jonathan were eternal friends. To insert that they were Sodomites or immoral together is sickening theology. It is most definately grounds for excommunication in my eyes. Many, many, many, "men" have these kinds of eternal love/freindships/relationships. You see this commonly in sports shows where old men were once "on the same team" and have never left each others side or thoughts for years and years. While of course, "the love of women" is rather conditional. And soldiers love for each other is legendary.
But now you've gone off the deep end. You claim that sex was not invented until after the Fall, but Adam and Eve were commanded to be fruitful and multiply before the Fall, just as the fishes and the birds were commanded before them.
That position has been left to the dust bin of shoddy exegesis. There were people before Adam and Eve were created in Eden. Seperating the people of God from other peoples is a common theme and held true to the Church, The Ekklesia, The Called Out Ones.
Gay theology has a placed reserved for it in the same dust bin.
And I don't see how this argument would support either the no same-sex marriage position or its opposite.
"My horse is purring."
There is no such thing as same sex marriage. That is what they do on the outside of the people of God.
So if you are using it to make your point you fail, because the premise fails: the Bible puts the sequence differently, and if you are using it to apply Reductio Ad Absurdum to the opposite position you fail because it does not lead to that position.
BUT nothing leads to same gender marriage from anything Bible based. You can demand the thing ad infinitum, ad nauseum, but it is not in existence.
No, the "help" function is totally different from any sex function. That is why Genesis 2:24 is not about "marriage can only be a man and a woman." (Nor, incidentally, is it about two men can marry, but then, no one claims it is.) It is those who claim that it is about sex who 1) confuse "help" with sex and 2) imply that the only point in marriage is the sex.
Sex and marriage are inseperable to Isrealite truth and Christian truth. And marriage is imutably a man and a woman. What the pagans did/do outside of either is for them and not believers.
In fact, while sex is usually a part of marriage, it is not the be-all and end-all of marriage. Marriage is a total relationship, and sex is only one small part of a relationship.
You can try all you want to to "Sex and the City" this issue, but sexual holiness is within the bounds and bonds of a marriage. Gay theology contends against Biblical truth and can only push against it but never topple.
Although sex is necessary to produce children, and we can therefore deduce that since children are a blessing to a marriage, then sex is blessed in the context of marriage, the only time the Bible actually mentions sex it is describing sin. Blessed sex within marriage is only hinted at, and only in a few passages: Adam, Cain, and Elkanah "knew their wives" and their wives concieved and bore them sons; Husbands and wives should not "defraud" one another; it is better to marry than to burn; and the marriage bed should not be defiled.
Sex outside of marriage does defile a person. Male or female. That is why Mary was so utterly scared to be found with child and not married.
In any regard, to insert gay theology into Christian reality is no different than saying that Molech worship practice has a place in the Church.
All direct mention of sex is mention of sin, and the five verses that speak of same-sex sexual acts are describing acts that are still sin even when they involve cross-sex activity: pagan ritual sex, rape, prostitution, wanton promiscuity.
The concept of the first born was one of blessing.
Will I now have pleasure in my old age? Said Sarah.
But none of this has anything to do with a person's relationship with his "help." Genesis 2:24 does not apply.
I never contended that Genesis 2:24 is about sex (it is not). Marriage is only one possible relationship a person can have with someone who is his "help." After all, David did not marry God.
If that is the only basis you have for forcing the Church to embrace homosexuality you are not going to be successful in any places but the typical leftie ones.
That is not my example. It is your strawman. Genesis 2 is not about sex.
Br fruitful and multiply is 100% about sex. And that was in Chapter one.
But when we get to a "suitable helper" 100% about sex as well.
But for Adam
no suitable helper was found.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.
22 Then the LORD God
made a woman from the rib he had taken out
of the man, and he brought
her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, '
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
And with that, gay marriage is sent to the dust bin of history and theology.
You are leaving out the fact that Jonathan's soul was "knit" with David's which is an equivalent emotional commitment to a husband and wife becoming one flesh.
Only if you mangle holiness with paganism. To sodomize David and Jonathan is not based in ethical theology.
And the facts that come from other passages that marriages and other "help" relationships involved a tangible commitment in the form of a covenant (contract) and an exchange of gifts, both of which also occur in 1 Samuel 18:1-4.
Both men married women. Ooops! There goes another liberal straw man.
And their relationship certainly was a "help" relationship. Jonathan helped David escape Saul's wrath, and David promised to raise Jonthan's family as his own, which he did with Mephibosheth.
Please refer to how God saw the help relationship between a man and a woman when it came to sex above in Genesis.
In conclusion, Genesis 2 has nothing to do with sex; Leviticus 18:22 has nothing to do with marriage or any other "help" relationship,
In conclusion of reading the Bible, there is no such thing as same gender marriage anywhere in any of thr 66-booklets in it.
And I don't know and I don't care, whether Jonathan and David were lovers.
It is a lie to say that David and Jonathan were gay lovers. Based on the consistent message of sexual holines that the Bible ends with.
If it were any of our business, either way, the Bible would have told us. It does describe a close, committed relationship. That is enough.
And nothing more than that. When they decided to get married, they married women.