Pope backs same sex unions

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hedrick

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Ah yes, one single verse to prove..? You forgot these, also from Leviticus -- part of the Old Covenant...

If anyone curses his father or mother he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or mother; his blood guilt is on himself.
Of course, no teenager has ever cursed their father or mother; let's kill 'em all, right?


If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
Better sharpen the axe, as there are millions of people who have committed adultery! How about a mass public execution of all those who have had affairs? Wouldn't that be a fun spectacle?

If you're going to live under Old Testament law -- the Old Covenant that is no longer in effect -- you have to live under all of it; every single law!

Might as well throw out Matthew 7:1-3 -- Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? -- while you're at it.

Kill them sinners -- right?
I agree with this, but only in part. Certainly proposals to kill gays are reprehensible. I did read one of the postings as suggesting that. There does, indeed seem to be a double standard, with homosexuality treated in a way that other things aren't.

But in the end, talk about not judging is not entirely to the point. Most people understand that there are people struggling with sin. They will treat even gays sympathetically in that context. The real problem is that many of us don't think it's a sin at all. The real problem is not tolerating sinners, but tolerating disagreement on ethics.

The Church doesn't really have very clear principles on what disagreements to tolerate and what not to, so it's hard to convince anyone. Given the nearly irrational emotional reactions to homosexuality, it's not a surprise that this problem comes home to roost on this issue.
 
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All Glory To God

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This is actually an interesting question, which probably deserves it own thread.

It’s common for Christians to divide OT laws into moral, ceremonial and municipal law. I think that’s good theology, but it’s bad exegesis. It’s good theology, because obviously the NT doesn’t accept all OT laws as valid. (Food laws seem to be explicitly rejected, e.g.) But it’s bad exegesis, because there’s no sign of that division in the OT itself. Lev 20:22-23 seems to apply to the whole Holiness code. It sees that code as what distinguishes Israel from the nations. That would include the food laws. Violation of food laws would cause Israel to be vomited from the land just as much as violation of sexual rules.

In the NT, of course, the relationship between the OT and Christianity became a serious issue. No one that I know proposed the usual three-way division.

Acts 15 summarized rules, but that seems to be a variant of a Jewish tradition that based laws for non-Jews on the Noah story. (As often, that involved some creative interpretation by the rabbis.) The reason Jews used that approach is that the Law is part of the covenant, and that doesn’t apply to Gentiles. The things God told Noah to do, however apply to all of humanity. However not everyone agrees that this is where the list came from, and in any case the list seemed to focus mostly on issues that might separate Jewish Christians from Gentiles Christians. It's possible that it isn't a complete list of ethical principles.

I think there are some signs that Jesus saw the 10 commandments as the most important moral principles.

Paul seems not to see the Law as binding. He suggests it in some general sense as a guide, but apparently not all of it. He doesn’t say how to choose. His sin lists (1 Cor 6:9 and Gal 5:21) don’t seem to correlate with any particular Biblical list.

But nowhere do I see an attempt to divide up the Leviticus code, or OT Law as a whole, into pieces that apply and those that don’t. I would say that the whole thing doesn’t apply.

Personally, I base my ethics on Jesus’ teachings, plus lots of Christian experience of the consequences of various types of behavior, though I’d accept the 10 commandments as part of ethics. Not as the whole contents, though. Example of things that come from experience are the prohibition of slavery, and modern concepts of informed consent in sexual matters. (Even conservative Christians accept many applications of this principle, e.g. prohibiting sex with a minor.)

OK a fair response. You say in summary you follow the teachings of Jesus. Something to consider with that approach is in John 5 when the pharisees were discussing jesus' identity, he challenges them to search the scripture, as moses wrote of him. So does jesus want to be separated from the old testament?
 
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pescador

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Well, based on your respone I will say to you as I did the other guy. If my post offended you and your community it is obviously because we don't share the same community and I am not going to pretend we do.

I believe what the Bible says, not some community consensus. Christians live under the New Covenant. If you and your community want to live under the Old Covenant, remember this: Jesus died to set us free from the curse of the law.
 
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OK a fair response. You say in summary you follow the teachings of Jesus. Something to consider with that approach is in John 5 when the pharisees were discussing jesus' identity, he challenges them to search the scripture, as moses wrote of him. So does jesus want to be separated from the old testament?

Jesus died to free us from the curse of the (Old Testament) law. There is nothing to debate on this matter. One can't live under the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

P.S. Jesus is capitalized; Moses also.
 
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All Glory To God

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I believe what the Bible says, not some community consensus. Christians live under the New Covenant. If you and your community want to live under the Old Covenant, remember this: Jesus died to set us free from the curse of the law.

No you misunderstood me. When I said I offended you and your community, I meant you were defending the homosexual community. I was not talking about denominational, I was talking about sinfulness vs Biblical Christianity.

I knew it would be a waste of time talking to you and the other fool. One claims I was running from talking and you just make pathetic comments about spelling. This is the real reason I did not want to talk to the two of you, because your behaviour is pathetic. Is that it now?
 
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No you misunderstood me. When I said I offended you and your community, I meant you were defending the homosexual community. I was not talking about denominational, I was talking about sinfulness vs Biblical Christianity.

I knew it would be a waste of time talking to you and the other fool. One claims I was running from talking and you just make pathetic comments about spelling. This is the real reason I did not want to talk to the two of you, because your behaviour is pathetic. Is that it now?

Well excuuuuuuse me! That is some un-Christian attitude. If you don't want to "talk" to the two of us, I have a suggestion: LEAVE!
 
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hedrick

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OK a fair response. You say in summary you follow the teachings of Jesus. Something to consider with that approach is in John 5 when the pharisees were discussing jesus' identity, he challenges them to search the scripture, as moses wrote of him. So does jesus want to be separated from the old testament?
Of course Jesus can’t be separated from the OT. But that doesn’t mean that we can take OT laws without qualification.

Jesus isn't Paul. Neither wanted the food laws and similar things to apply. (This assumes that Mark 7:19 actually reflects Jesus’ intent, at least for non-Jewish Christians.)

But Paul tended to deal with it by saying that the OT was no longer fully binding. I don’t think Jesus ever quite said that. Instead he seemed to see the Law more in terms of some underlying principles, but not necessarily the letter. Hence the interpretations in Mat 5, and Mark 2:27 or Mat 12:3 ff.

John 5 is interesting, but I don’t see it as directly relevant to how Jesus dealt with OT law. I will note, however, that in using the OT to endorse his own role, he used exegesis that’s just as non-literal as Mark 2:27 or Mat 12:3. See for example Mark 12:10 or 35-37 (two reference suggested by the Anchor Bible commentary on John 5:39).

In ethics (with Mark 2:27 being a key passage), Jesus seemed to look at what would help people more than the kind of legal prohibitions that were present in the Holiness code.
 
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