Homosexuality and Suppression of the Truth

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Or maybe that everyone needs Him, and that there's nobody who is too sinful for Him to come in and abide with them. This little routine of us righteous vs. them sinners is the exact game the Pharisees played, and we know what He had to say about them doing it.

^^ QFMT ^^
Nail, head, BANG!

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

My take on it is that it's not the trying to stop sinning that is the hardest, it is the stopping that is hard. Pauls compassion and humanity shine through in Romans chapter 7 when he talks about his own problems of sinning, his battles between good and evil, and of course the salvation, deliverance from sin that came from and comes through Christ Jesus.

Clearly if one of the original Apostles of our Lord had difficulty with sinning, certainly I will have problems as well. And I do. There may be Christians who do not sin. But I have never met one. Despite our best efforts here on earth, the battle between good and evil will continue until it is settled by Christ once and for all.

Thanks for your insights, Sacerdote.
Moriah's grasp on this bes as follows: that many both wear themselves down in futility and teach others to do likewise by ascribing the "battle" of the Christian life to being the battle against sin in their flesh. And they believe beating themselves up mentally (which translates always externally to beating others up emotionally), gritting their teeth, screwing up their "willpower", trying to force themselves to swallow daily doses of bitter "medicine" in the form of self-berating, self-condemnatory concepts and thoughts (which again, they project out and spew onto others out of their own internal misery), etc. etc. will EVENTUALLY get them to the place where they will be 24/7 "obedient" without fail.

Trouble being -- it will never happen. Trying to follow the law leads to more sin and more futility. If trying to follow the law a.k.a. "be obedient to God" worked, no one would have needed a Saviour.

And the fact of the matter bes, they bes trying to fight the battle HE already won. HE already did all that. HE already "condemned (literally, passed sentence of doom upon) sin in the flesh." The notion that sanctification consists of a progressive human effort toward improving the flesh, cleaning it up, behavioral modification, etc. bes all entirely A LIE FROM HELL. TRUST Moriah it KNOWS, It knows the architecture of strongholds and how they bes built and of what materials.

Anyway. No, that bes NOT the "battle" ppls bes meant to fight. JC already fought that one and won, no need to reproduce stupidly and ineffectually and in futility what He did in perfection. The battle instead bes simply to WALK IN THE SPIRIT because when one does, they automatically will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, period. It bes a given.

And apparently, in modern Christendom, a well kept secret. Ppls likes their pride and clings to lies that they can fix themselves "with God's help". Bootstrap rugged individualism of the Western hemisphere but found nowhere in the Word which paints a very different picture of man's plight and how to get out of it.

 

[Phinehas2]

A person should not denigrate or marginalize others and then turn around and blame God for this.

This is an interesting question. Why not?

God has never marginalized gay people, nor has God condemned us.

How do you know?

Some people seem eager to do that, though, to speak for God and to imagine they know what God wants them to do to others.

God speaks for God, His testimony is in the Bible, some people cite and quote God's word. My opinion is that one should never accuse people who speak God's word of not speaking God's word, what they are really doing is simply refusing to recognise God's word and blaming the person who speaks it. However Jesus tells us in His word that people will do this so we should expect it.

 

[Ohioprof]

This is an interesting question. Why not?
How do you know?

God speaks for God, His testimony is in the Bible, some people cite and quote God's word. My opinion is that one should never accuse people who speak God's word of not speaking God's word, what they are really doing is simply refusing to recognise God's word and blaming the person who speaks it. However Jesus tells us in His word that people will do this so we should expect it.

I think you confuse people's beliefs about God with God's word. I see no evidence anywhere that God has ever denigrated gay people. I do hear some individuals in these threads denigrating gay people and then attributing their beliefs about gay people to God. That's wrong. It's wrong to denigrate others and then attribute our negative beliefs about other people to God. If we are truly humble before God, we will not presume to judge others, nor will we presume to speak for God.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Has nothing to do with the post. You can love and show mercy all you like. That doesn't release us from God's command to point out wrong to the evil doer or to use His Word to correct, rebuke, teach and train in righteousness.

Gee, and here all this time we thought that bes the Holy Spirit's job to convict of sin, righteousness and judgment.

Frankly, coming from folks who consistently show themselves to be more concerned with being tolerant than they are to being obedient to God's Word, such words generally mean nothing to me.

Frankly, listening to someone prattle endlessly and tiresomely about how supposedly "obedient to God" they bes when they cannot even manage the most basic level of eschewing pointless tit-for-tat snark, bores the everliving schnitzel outta Moriah. Point that thing somewhere else.

I'm called of God to righteously judge just as you think you just did.

except God has not appointed you the judge of other people. God has called you like everyone else to examine THEMSELVES. Not one another. Speaking of which ...
[bible]Romans 12:3[/bible]

you go ahead and do the tolerance thing. I'm gonna deliver God'sTruth.

Oh put a sock in it already and get some perspective here.
[bible]1 Corinthians 12:14-27[/bible]

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

This is an interesting question. Why not?
How do you know?

Um hello? Gospel 101 anyone? JC eating with sinners, associating with the outcast, diseased, disabled, demonized, everyone society marginalised and tried to spin as "losers" back then?? JC turned society's putrid little self-serving garbage pecking order right on its dungstinking little head, He did. Opened His arms to the sick and sinful and afflicted and hated and despised; pushed aside the lofty and the proud what sat around inventing toxic theologies to institutionalise the marginalization of the suffering; He marginalised THEM instead. He made the last to be FIRST and the first to be LAST. HE came to reveal LOVE, the TRUE face of Creator Father God, to all those whom the good, clean, pristine, white-robed, "obedient" and "perfect" RELIGIOUS people NEVER tired of telling off, day in, day out, what horrible nasty filthy sinners they bes and how one day God will get them, leering with glee, throw them all into a fiery furnace to burn forever and ever amen!! JC said WHAT means ye that ye beats My people and GRINDS the faces of the poor and needy?? Enough of that crap, I'm here and I've got a better plan.

WE know who HE bes. WE know He bes NOT a puppet tool of modern day Pharisees. WE the outcast, WE the "sinners", WE the sick, WE the depraved, WE the afflicted, WE know Him. As for this face of hate and rage and condemnation some insist on shoving at us, WE know that garbage NOT, for HE has taken all that filth AWAY. And for THAT sweet liberation from the WORST bondage in the universe, FAR worse than anything we gloriously suffer for HIS sake in our bodies HERE AND NOW to be a spectacle unto YOU for HIS inscrutable purposes, WE praise Him, and WE don't CARE what anyone else thinks.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Moriah_Conquering_Wind,

Um hello? Gospel 101 anyone? JC eating with sinners, associating with the outcast, diseased, disabled, demonized, everyone society marginalised and tried to spin as "losers" back then??

Well not quite, Jesus associated with the marginalised, He didn’t associate with the diseased, disabled and demonized, He healed them and cast out demons. But my question asked why, and you have referred to the gospel of Jesus Christ according to the Bible. Yet the person I asked would tell you that is just your interpretation of the Bible, or rather they would if they disagreed with what the Bible says if they didn’t like it.

JC turned society's putrid little self-serving garbage pecking order right on its dungstinking little head, He did.

Well yes I agree. But He also taught the right way to live. So answer to your response is yes according to His Biblical testimony He taught to love others, just as He taught that God’s purpose in creation was man and woman.

As to modern day Pharisees, the Pharisees not only marginalised people, they disagreed with Jesus Christ’s testimony and teaching. I suppose therefore that in context modern day Pharisees would be either those who don’t have something of Jesus Christ’s loving attitude towards people or deny Jesus Christ’s teaching by promoting same-sex unions.
.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

He didn't say that to her until all the Pharisees were gone.

FTW!!!!!

(pssst He also said, "neither do I condemn you...")

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Ohioprof,

I think you confuse people's beliefs about God with God's word.

No, that depends on whether one believes in the Biblcial testimony as God’s word or not. For someone who believes that is their belief about God. What you seem to be doing as far as I can see is suggesting God’s word depends on people’s beliefs about it. This is much the same as simply refusing to recognise God's word and blaming the person who speaks it. That seems to me to be the denial of God.

Also I am not sure anyone here denigrates gay people.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Jesus made sure that everyone that was there that day knew that they were a sinner, and that He was the answer. All of them may not have believed the last part, but there was no doubt in anyones mind that they were a sinner.

You have a severely warped perspective on JC going on here. Bes you raised by abusive types what constantly made sure you knew how "rotten" you bes but rarely offered any viable solutions other than the generic black box of stop being?

This one's perception of JC as gleaned from the Gospels bes far far different. It sees Him spending TONS of time making sure ppls knew HE bes the solution to EVERYTHING -- their pain, their loneliness, their sickness, their confusion, their corruption, their desperate need for love & forgiveness -- and very little time addressing sin, most of that spent precisely on those who tended to believe they had none. Since it does not fall into that category it does not perceive Him as one what spent all His time haranguing over what sinners everyone bes. How anyone could fail to see the stark difference between JC and most hellfire brimstone doomspoon falsely-so-called "preachers" (dunno what they bes preaching but it ain't GOOD news...) bes beyond this one's comprehends. It bes like comparing Gandhi with Hitler.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

As to modern day Pharisees, the Pharisees not only marginalised people, they disagreed with Jesus Christ’s testimony and teaching. I suppose therefore that in context modern day Pharisees would be either those who don’t have something of Jesus Christ’s loving attitude towards people or deny Jesus Christ’s teaching by promoting same-sex unions.
.

Have you ever considered a career as a pretzel maker?

 

[Ohioprof]

Have you ever considered a career as a pretzel maker?

You are right. It's bass ackwards to compare those who support accepting gay people with the Pharisees. I have no doubt that Jesus today would call on everyone to accept gay people and to stop pointing fingers at gay people. The people who point fingers at gay people resemble the Pharisees in some respects. They insist that their rigid interpretation of scripture is the only right one, and they insist that we gay people are sinners, and anyone who doesn't agree with them is sinning too for disagreeing with them.

 

[catlover]

If Jesus were walking the Earth today, you can bet he would be hanging out with homosexuals, people with AIDS, people suffering from depression, and other "undesirables" of the world.

And fundamentalists would be calling for his death.

Scary isn't it???...some people would not recognize Him, who claim to know Him. If they did, they would probably treat Him the same way certain people in The Bible treated Him...badly.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Moriah_Conquering _Wind,

Have you ever considered a career as a pretzel maker?

But do you agree with what I wrote? Let me give you examples.

• The Pharisees marginalised people.

Matthew 23;13"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

• The Pharisees disagreed with Jesus teaching (not all of them all the time)

Matt 22:31 “But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you,”
and
Matt 19 “"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'
And

“

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

But do you agree with what I wrote?

No, it does not agree at all with what you wrote, and even less so now that you have laid your logical fallacies on the countertop so everyone can see your intricate work in twisting things.

It does agree the Pharisees marginalised people and it does agree that the Pharisees bes at odds with JC's teachings, YES. But the bizarre way in which you twist that around to apply it to those who would constitute the marginalised to try to "prove" them to be the Pharisees instead bes absolute bull.

Two links here might be of interest to you.

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/cumhoc.html
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/hastygeneralisation.html

ETA: this one also might shed a little light.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/affirmingtheconsequent.html

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Moriah_Conquering_Wind

No, it does not agree at all with what you wrote, and even less so now that you have laid your logical fallacies on the countertop so everyone can see your intricate work in twisting things.

I have given you the Bible references and some text. Let me clarify. In Matthew 23 Jesus says to the Pharisees “You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” That is an example of how the Pharisees marginalised people. They told people they were unclean and could enter the temple etc.
The Matt 19 and 22 citations are examples of where Jesus asks the Pharisees whether they have read what God said. Note He didn’t ask them have you got the correct interpretation.
Indeed I suggest that some of the arguments here do exactly the same as the Pharisees, the Pharisees were deciding what reasons were legitimate for divorce, they obviously didn’t think the ‘a’ man and ‘wife’ rather than wives in the phrase ‘a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife’ actually mean’t precisely what is says. In the same way the pro-same-sex union arguments make even greater assumptions.

As to your links, yes I agree as I think I have just demonstrated.

 

[David Brider]

So how many homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered, gay ffirming people in here don't accept the Bible as God's Word?

Well, I don't believe the Bible is God's Word, because it never says it is.

However, I do believe the Bible is true and reliable and trustworthy.

And I believe that God's Word is something we would all do well to listen to, if Samuel's experience was anything to go by.

Has God given you over to the sinful desires of your heart to sexual impurity because you have suppressed His Truth?

The desire of my heart is to be holy and pure and to know God and love Him more and more each day with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

David.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear David Brider,

Well, I don't believe the Bible is God's Word, because it never says it is.

This seems to be the general opinion of those who support the idea of same-sex unions. In fact the Bible does say it is God’s word because it records God saying it and crucially on this very topic. Jesus Christ (Matt 19) refers the Pharisees to the scriptures as what God said (Gen 2) This was about God’s creative purposes in man and woman. But the Pharisees did ate least recognise that it was God’s word even if they had made false assumptions about it.

And I believe that God's Word is something we would all do well to listen to,

if Samuel's experience was anything to go by.

But you have just said you don’t believe the Bible is God’’s word and now you quote the Bible as God’s word. !!

 

[David Brider]

Dear David Brider,
This seems to be the general opinion of those who support the idea of same-sex unions.

I think it's far wider than that - and I suspect you'll find some who support same-sex unions and believe the Bible to be God's Word.

In fact the Bible does say it is God’s word because it records God saying it...

Um, no it doesn't.

...and crucially on this very topic. Jesus Christ (Matt 19) refers the Pharisees to the scriptures as what God said (Gen 2)

Sure, but he doesn't refer to it as "the Word of God".

As I've said before - "the Word of God" (or "the Word of the Lord") is a very specific scriptural phrase. On every occasion it's used, it appears to be referring to God speaking directly people. On no occasions is it used to refer to something written down. You could argue that by containing records of God speaking to people, the Bible contains records of "the Word of God", but that's not the same thing as it actually being "the Word of God".

But you have just said you don’t believe the Bible is God’’s word and now you quote the Bible as God’s word. !!

No, I quoted the Bible. I didn't quote it as God's Word, rather I referred to a passage which refers to Samuel hearing God's Word (or "the Word of the Lord" as it's phrased in that particular passage).

David.

 

[Chaplain David]

Have you ever considered a career as a pretzel maker?

The large, soft doughy kind with salt on the outside. (mouth waters).