The Christian Witness and Endorsing Fornication Between Any Two People

[GwynApNudd]

Biblically, can you show support for this definition.

Yes, and I have.

Can you show Biblical support for your definition?

 

[Zaac]

What about between a husband, two wives (one of whom was married in a fraudulent, bait-and switch contract), two concubines and Christ?

At no point in God's Word does He change what He says in Genesis 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

There were plenty of Biblical figures who sinned and did contrary to this. But them doing contrary to what God's Word says does not make their example right. If we governed our lives based upon the example of their lives instead of the truth exampled by the FULL COUNSEL of God's Word, then we should all have harems filled with concubines.

The Bible considers both of Jacob's marriages legal.

Where do you get the impression that GOD changed what He says in Genesis 2:24 just because Jacob took a second wife?

Which wife progenied the line of Jesus Christ? The first one or the one with whom Jacob committed adultery?

Jewish law considers the contract/covenant alone to be the defining feature of a marriage, and as I posted earlier, that is what the Bible agrees with

Again, you can look at the line of Jesus Christ and see that God never changed His original intent as to what marriage is and who He considers to be in covenant with Him.

 

[Zaac]

So, gay people who live in a jurisdiction which sanctions civil unions or marriage between two people of the same sex, and who have gotten a civil union or a marriage, or a marriage performed by a Christian minister who is acting as an agent of the state and who has issued them a piece of paper as said agent of the state stating that the have all the rights and benefits of a married couple, are STILL fornicating?

Didn't I say in this thread and others that God's LAw is PRIMARY and that it supersedes man's law? If man enacts a law that runs contrary to God's law, as a Christian, as much as it suits our fleshly needs( and there are a lot that do) we are called to walk the narrow path that aligns itself with God. If He says that marriage is a husband and wife joined in covenant with Him, then a jurisdiction enacting a law that says anything else should not change our walk.

Sounds like what you're saying is that Biblical law trumps civil law; and there is no real authority for civil law except for Biblical law (and that Biblical law and civil law should be the same).

Of course that's what I'm saying. God is sovereign. If man was lawful and a lover of Jesus Christ, all of his laws would be in accordance with God's law. But men are self-serving and we tend to enact laws that meet OUR purposes and not God's.

When we stand before God's throne to give an account, we will give an account according to His LAW, not man's law.

Doesn't that violate the traditional Baptist belief of separation of church and state?

How so? We never started anything about separation of church and state. That was more of a JFK thing. Contrary to popular opinion, the founders of this country did include more Biblical doctrine in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence than any other document or reference.

Or have Baptists (and conservative) Christians done away with that, and favor the creation of a Christian state run (or dominated by) conservative and/or fundamentalist Christians, since conservative and/or fundamentalist Christians can now dictate to the state who is truly "married" and who is not?

Naah. Who is running the state is more of a power issue than anything else. I don't let politics dictate truth. That's done by God's Word. I will support the person who aligns with God's truth. But if someone gets int office who does that which is against God's Word, it's irrelevant as regardless of who is in office, I am to live in obedience to God's Word FIRST.

 

[UberLutheran]

Again, you can look at the line of Jesus Christ and see that God never changed His original intent as to who He considers to be in covenant with Him.

e.g., Baptists, because they accept the full counsel of God's Word -- except the parts about pork, shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics, wearing perfume or jewelry, owning dogs and cats, etc. because those rules no longer apply.

Gee. This is just like being in the church in which I grew up, 40 years ago. :-/

 

[Zaac]

Even if the people involved are not Christians, and even if the people involved don't believe in God?

That's curious.

That's not what was said. If the two people are not Christians, the covenant with God is still nonexistant and they are still living a life mired in sin because they do not have Jesus.

You can't join in covenant with Christ if you're not in Christ. Yet another reason why God advises us to not yoke ourselves to nonbelievers.

If they don't believe in God the sin of fornication means very little in the scheme of things because they are rejecting Jesus Christ and on the way to hell.

Wasn't it Bailey Smith, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, who said in 1980 that God doesn't hear the prayers of a Jew?

God hears the prayers of whomever He chooses. Does He communicate back with those who do not accept Jesus Christ? Nope. If there is no covering of sin, you cannot through Jesus Christ get to the Father. And non-Messianic Jews, just like every other nonbeliever fall into this category.

 

[dayhiker]

Does God's Word tell His people to respect unrepentant sinful behavior?



Honest as in admitting that his acts, according to God, are wrong, but that he chooses to commit them anyhow?



1 John 2:4
The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

The law is from Christ. And in accordance with His Word, how does it not make the Christian who says this look like a hypocrite? How do you say you love God while advocating unrepentant disobedience to Him?

hi Zaac,
Just a little further on we have
1 Jn.2:9 The one who says he is in the light but still hates his fellow Christian is still in the darkness. 2:10 The one who loves his fellow Christian resides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

That is the love that I understand a Christian is to have. Love doens't hurt our brother or sister. Its only love that the Bible says will fulfill the law. People like the Pharisees think they are fulfilling the law but are really hurting people. Jesus wasn't very happy with those people.

As far as hypocrites are concern, those will cause a lot of problems. They say one things and do another. Now a guy Christain isn't being a hypocrite. He or she understands that they love God and that they love their brothers and sisters. They aren't hypocrites.

Now all of us fall short and sin. We need to realize that there is a differance between the hypocrite and the Christian that falls and sins. His person asks forgiveness and doesn't hide their sin. The hypocrite lives behind a mask hiding the real sin in his heart.

dayhiker

 

[Zaac]

e.g., Baptists, because they accept the full counsel of God's Word -- except the parts about pork, shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics, wearing perfume or jewelry, owning dogs and cats, etc. because those rules no longer apply.

Gee. This is just like being in the church in which I grew up, 40 years ago. :-/

I was not pointing to a specific group or denomination with that cause all of them have their shortcomings. SOme more than others.

But rather, I was pointing to the geneaology of Jesus Christ to show that the first wife(as long as she was alive) is the one who was considered in covenant with God and the husband, and is the one through whom the geneaology of Jesus comes.

 

[UberLutheran]

Didn't I say in this thread and others that God's LAw is PRIMARY and that it supersedes man's law? If man enacts a law that runs contrary to God's law, as a Christian, as much as it suits our fleshly needs( and there are a lot that do) we are called to walk the narrow path that aligns itself with God. If He says that marriage is a husband and wife joined in covenant with Him, then a jurisdiction enacting a law that says anything else should not change our walk.



Of course that's what I'm saying. God is sovereign. If man was lawful and a lover of Jesus Christ, all of his laws would be in accordance with God's law. But men are self-serving and we tend to enact laws that meet OUR purposes and not God's.

When we stand before God's throne to give an account, we will give an account according to His LAW, not man's law.



How so? We never started anything about separation of church and state. That was more of a JFK thing. Contrary to popular opinion, the founders of this country did include more Biblical doctrine in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence than any other document or reference.

I sure do love the way conservatives re-write history to suit their needs! Sorry, bub -- but the Founding Fathers were pretty adamant in their belief in a separation of church and state, and it started WAY before the creation of the Democratic Party or JFK.

http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the gospels; he was uncomfortable with any reference to miracles, so with two copies of the New Testament, he cut and pasted them together, excising all references to miracles, from turning water to wine, to the resurrection.

There has certainly never been a shortage of boldness in the history of biblical scholarship during the past two centuries, but for sheer audacity Thomas Jefferson's two redactions of the Gospels stand out even in that company. It is still a bit overwhelming to contemplate the sangfroid exhibited by the third president of the United States as, razor in hand, he sat editing the Gospels during February 1804, on (as he himself says) "2. or 3. nights only at Washington, after getting thro' the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day." He was apparently quite sure that he could tell what was genuine and what was not in the transmitted text of the New Testament...(Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Bible; Jefferson and his Contemporaries, an afterward by Jaroslav Pelikan, Boston: Beacon Press, 1989, p. 149. Click to go to a copy of The Jefferson Bible). ​

In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson wrote:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury to my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. (Dumas Malon, Jefferson The President: First Term 1801-1805. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191) ​

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence. But he was a Deist:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. (Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. New York: Everbody's Vacation Publishing Co., 1945, p. 362) ​

Regarding the New Testament, he wrote that:

I hold [it] to be fabulous and have shown [it] to be false...(Roberts, p. 375) ​

About the afterlife, he wrote:

I do not believe because a man and a woman make a child that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal existance hereafter. It is in His power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in my power to decide which He will do. (Roberts, p. 375) ​

John Adams, the second U.S. President rejected the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and became a Unitarian. It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, which states in Article XI that:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arrising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. (Charles I. Bevans, ed. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949. Vol. 11: Philippines-United Arab Republic. Washington D.C.: Department of State Publications, 1974, p. 1072). ​

This treaty with the Islamic state of Tripoli had been written and concluded by Joel Barlow during Washington's Administration. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on June 7, 1797; President Adams signed it on June 10, 1797 and it was first published in the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress, first session in 1797. Quite clearly, then, at this very early stage of the American Republic, the U.S. government did not consider the United States a Christian nation.

Then I would presume that you agree with the Dominionists who believe that man's laws (and representative democracy) should be eliminated and replaced with a system built on strict adherence to a literal interpretation of The Law?

 

[Zaac]

Yes, and I have.

Can you show Biblical support for your definition?

You've done nothing more than show that you don't walk the narrow path, and are on a path of your own.

 

[dayhiker]

God hears the prayers of whomever He chooses. Does He communicate back with those who do not accept Jesus Christ? Nope. If there is no covering of sin, you cannot through Jesus Christ get to the Father. And non-Messianic Jews, just like every other nonbeliever fall into this category.

Gee, that goes against so many testimonies of Christians that I've heard.

The most amazing testimonies that i've heard are those where the believer tells of how God has tacken them back thru their life after they became a Christian show showed them how He was with them helping them answering the prayers they prayed, working to bring them to Christ. Yet I keep hearing other say like you do that God isn't with them and doesn't listen to them etc.
I'm sorry, that just doens't fit for me.

dayhiker

 

[UberLutheran]

That's not what was said. If the two people are not Christians, the covenant with God is still nonexistant and they are still living a life mired in sin because they do not have Jesus.

You can't join in covenant with Christ if you're not in Christ. Yet another reason why God advises us to not yoke ourselves to nonbelievers.

I'm not talking about Christians marrying non-Christians, Zaac.

I'm talking about whether or not a marriage between two non-Christians, or two atheists is Biblically valid.

If God is sovereign, and God's laws triumph man's laws -- is the marriage of two non-Christians or two atheists Biblically valid?

YES or NO.

 

[GwynApNudd]

Where do you get the impression that GOD changed what He says in Genesis 2:24 just because Jacob took a second wife?

Which wife progenied the line of Jesus Christ? The first one or the one with whom Jacob committed adultery?

If you are using that as a proof that Jacob was married to Leah, both legally and according to God, despite the fraud involved in the oral terms of the marriage covenant, that only proves my point. It was the written and signed contract, the sealed covenant that defined the marriage in Jewish law.

 

[Zaac]

hi Zaac,
Just a little further on we have
1 Jn.2:9 The one who says he is in the light but still hates his fellow Christian is still in the darkness. 2:10 The one who loves his fellow Christian resides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

That is the love that I understand a Christian is to have. Love doens't hurt our brother or sister.

You're talking about people's emotions. Do not base truth on emotion but on what God's Word says. It is the flesh that says that if telling people what God's Word says "hurts" them, then it is not Christlike.

The Bible says in Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.


Expect it to hurt just as a sword cutting you would hurt. For God is a just God. It is HIS WORD. And if people's feelings are hurt by what He says, the issue is with THEM, not with God's Word.

Its only love that the Bible says will fulfill the law. People like the Pharisees think they are fulfilling the law but are really hurting people. Jesus wasn't very happy with those people.

And EVERY WORD of GOD'S WORD is about the love that is Jesus Christ.

Expect God's Word to offend and hurt those who do not want to obey it. That's the nature of the two-edged sword that is the Word.

As far as hypocrites are concern, those will cause a lot of problems. They say one things and do another. Now a guy Christain isn't being a hypocrite. He or she understands that they love God and that they love their brothers and sisters. They aren't hypocrites.

Yeah, they would be hypocrites in accordance with God's Word. And this is why I brought up the question of one's witness. It is impossible without hypocritically doing so, to share God's truth while espousing as right that which He says is wrong.

This person has no standing to tell the nonbeliever that he needs a Savior for unrepentant sin if he is calling sin nonsin. If he can do that, why can't the nonbeliever do the same and not worry about needeing a Savior?

Now all of us fall short and sin. We need to realize that there is a differance between the hypocrite and the Christian that falls and sins. His person asks forgiveness and doesn't hide their sin. The hypocrite lives behind a mask hiding the real sin in his heart.

What there is a difference between is falling and not calling sin sin. And that is the problem in this forum. There canbe no repentance from the committing of fornicative homosexual or heterosexual acts if the person committing said acts disagrees that they are sinful.

 

[GwynApNudd]

Yes, and I have.

Can you show Biblical support for your definition?

You've done nothing more than show that you don't walk the narrow path, and are on a path of your own.

Once again, God's Word shows you to be a false teacher who authors confusion.

And how exactly does this unsupported and baseless accusation show Biblical support for your position? Or even attempt to refute mine?

I have shown the Biblical and cultural references that support my position. Even the one claim you made above supports my position. I'm still waiting to see anything in support of your position.

 

[Zaac]

I sure do love the way conservatives re-write history to suit their needs! Sorry, bub -- but the Founding Fathers were pretty adamant in their belief in a separation of church and state, and it started WAY before the creation of the Democratic Party or JFK.

So you're telling me that you can't look back at the Constitution and the DOI and the early laws of the states of this nation and see the influence of Christendom?

They didn't want separation of Church and State, they just didn't want the State forcing a specific religion on anyone as was being done in England. That's one of the reasons they left.

Then I would presume that you agree with the Dominionists who believe that man's laws (and representative democracy) should be eliminated and replaced with a system built on strict adherence to a literal interpretation of The Law?

I would have to check out more about what the Dominionist believe before I could give a yea or nea to that.

 

[Zaac]

Gee, that goes against so many testimonies of Christians that I've heard.

The most amazing testimonies that i've heard are those where the believer tells of how God has tacken them back thru their life after they became a Christian show showed them how He was with them helping them answering the prayers they prayed, working to bring them to Christ. Yet I keep hearing other say like you do that God isn't with them and doesn't listen to them etc.
I'm sorry, that just doens't fit for me.

dayhiker

And didn't say that God doesn't listen to them. But God does not deal through sin. YOU have to go through Jesus Christ to be able to petition the Father.

And if you are not going through Jesus and you feel like someone is givng your spirit an answer, it ain't God cause you can't have the Holy Spirit---the deliverer of truth---without accepting Jesus christ as Lord and Savior.

 

[GwynApNudd]

So you're telling me that you can't look back at the Constitution and the DOI and the early laws of the states of this nation and see the influence of Christendom?

They didn't want separation of Church and State, they just didn't want the State forcing a specific religion on anyone as was being done in England. That's one of the reasons they left.




I would have to check out more about what the Dominionist believe before I could give a yea or nea to that.

Have you actually read the writings of George washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the other founding fathers? Almost half of them were not what CF calls "Nicean Christians" but were Deists. Most of the Christians would not at all fit the modern definition of fundamentalists (and I mean the definition used by fundamentalists themselves, not the one they would consider a insulting half-truth at best).

They did not just want to avoid having an Anglican hegemony. They wanted to avoid any entanglement of government and religion.

 

[Zaac]

I'm not talking about Christians marrying non-Christians, Zaac.

I'm talking about whether or not a marriage between two non-Christians, or two atheists is Biblically valid.

Biblical marriage is a covenant between Christ, the husband and the wife.

If you are not a Christian, how can you enter into a covenant with Christ?

If you are not a Christian, it means nothing that you are married in a church. You're still lost and cannot enter into covenant with Christ.

If God is sovereign, and God's laws triumph man's laws -- is the marriage of two non-Christians or two atheists Biblically valid?

Let me answer it this way, if it is not valid for either situation, what does it matter? They are still lost and on the way to hell. And if God's Word pointed to it as valid or invalid, the sin or lack thereof still wouldn't save them from hell.

 

[Zaac]

And how exactly does this unsupported and baseless accusation show Biblical support for your position? Or even attempt to refute mine?

I have shown the Biblical and cultural references that support my position. Even the one claim you made above supports my position. I'm still waiting to see anything in support of your position.

In accordance with God's Word, you are a false teacher and recognized as such.

 

[Zaac]

Have you actually read the writings of George washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the other founding fathers? Almost half of them were not what CF calls "Nicean Christians" but were Deists. Most of the Christians would not at all fit the modern definition of fundamentalists (and I mean the definition used by fundamentalists themselves, not the one they would consider a insulting half-truth at best).

They did not just want to avoid having an Anglican hegemony. They wanted to avoid any entanglement of government and religion.

In accordance with God's Word, you are a false teacher and recognized as such.