- Mar 17, 2015
- 17,202
- 9,205
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
We are to take the whole counsel of God into consideration. There's a reason the early church saw the sin of Sodom as sexual immorality. It's because the canonical book of Jude made it clear:
Jude 1: NASB
3Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. 4For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
Yes, sexual immorality is unacceptable in the church, but it's not just that -- it's also unacceptable for the life to come.
We know this also from 1 Cor 6: 9 also.
If you correctly then also read Ezekiel 16, and not omit it, then you have the entire whole of all the reason(s) Sodom was destroyed (instead of only 1 of the 4).
It's valuable to remember in scripture it is very often that one key thing is said in a location, but not other key things. Often we get a key thing correctly emphasized, to aid us, without distraction. It's often : 1 lesson at a time. Good to keep in mind of course.
So, of course, that Jude helps us connect that 1 part and the rest of the reasons are of equal (or probably even more; see just below) importance. Any doubt ought to be removed by such passages as these:
16 There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19 a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Proverbs 6 ESV
Here we see 2 (but some add also "shed innocent blood", making 3) of the explicit major sins of Sodom, and God tells us these are among the reasons He destroyed it -- His Word.
While "haughtiness" is an aggravated, worse version of pride/arrogance (with both arrogance and the profound extra sin of being disdainful of others also, combined), we learn in chapter 16 that even just arrogance alone (though less than haughtiness) is already an "abomination", even by itself, even though it's not up to the level of the 7 sins that make this list that God especially hates --
Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 16 ESV
Upvote
0