In reading through this, it looks like there is room here to consider how people live in communities effectively and maybe look at the bigger picture of what makes life stay in balance. I'm going to refer to the Bible writers as "they" for this post. Bear with me. In the beginning, they wrote that there was man and a singular female helper who was fitting to him. They had a very special union unlike any other. That seemed to set the stage for the idea that both male and female were important and that relationship was separate and special, something we could call "holy" because they wrote that this was given by God, two healthy individuals representing one man and one woman in a garden with no clothes on and left to themselves with nobody peeking. Through the years of mankind, surely at one point or another someone thought they might be better off or happier to be the other gender. But it looks like there were some pretty hefty prohibitions to leaning that way since they wrote to not even dress in what pertained to the other gender. They were pretty specific in only identifying male and female. They didn't say what MEN wore versus what WOMEN wore, but the intention that the gender of the person be clearly identified carries through. It is simpler just having two genders easily identified by anatomy which at this point was covered up in clothing that identified their gender. People had begun to have marriages with several women, but the history we have is that when it came to that union, it was just he and she without others. They did come up with some interesting responses to certain behaviors concerning other types of sexual expression and you don't have to get very far into the book to find them. In at least one place, it looks like God Himself had an interesting response. I would suggest that questioning further isn't a bad idea.
It might be that there really is a serious concern on how mankind behaves and how it impacts the community at large that is obviously beyond what we see. It's not a new concept for society to demand the freedom to make choices. In reality, in only a few settings has mankind NOT had freedom to make choices. For the most part, people were mildly restrained by societal norms. But societal norms don't actually stop behaviors. Some behaviors continue underground. But the fact remains that the thing we can't escape is the consequences I think in this situation, we want to pretend that there aren't significant consequences. The OT folks got into a lot of social confusion with the worship of pagan idols that allowed or commanded sexual rites that involved prostitution using males, females, and children as well as child sacrifice. Many OT prophets were sent to tell them what they had done wrong and what would happen if they didn't stop. When they didn't stop, it happened. I'm not sure how many times we have to face annihilation or near annihilation to realize some of these points. Looks to me that we just may live to see it again, and it it does, I don't think it's going to work out as society expects. The pattern we see in the thousands of years of history in scripture is male/female marriage. Adultery, fornication, prostitution, and homosexuality were all there and generally the historic examples worked out poorly. Why would I think we've evolved or become enlightened beyond them?
On the one hand, I don't have any reason to want to tell anyone else how to live. They wrote that each of us is made in the image of God with the freedom to make choices and that is something that is God-given. They pointed out that He chooses to discipline/chasten those He loves and He chooses to prune us and our lives to get even more fruit when there is some growth and fruit to be had. They left the idea that He doesn't necessarily make a point of denoting the play-actors, but when Jesus called out the lawmakers and religious leaders on their hypocrisy, those people didn't see or hear it. They wrote He doesn't promise to accept just any behaviors from His kids, but He gave us all the opportunities, gives us all that is needed for life and godliness in our knowledge of Jesus, and He generally does not micromanage any of us. He does promise to separate out the sheep from the goats and the chaff from the wheat. There is no fooling Him. He is rich in mercy, overflowing with loving-kindness, yet He is also just. He's God and He gets to make those rules. They wrote all that. My job is to put live under His leadership and encourage others to also live under His leadership. They wrote much regarding the rules to life, so my job is to encourage the study of and application of those rules, including having faith in Jesus for having taken the punishment for our misconduct on Himself.
On the other hand, there is the other side to consider. For the sake of stability, societies have rules. They enforce rules. The courts are full of cases and the prisons are full of people who are detained because of rules about what people can and can't do, all rules created by groups of people for the stability of the community. Ninevah was set for destruction when Jonah was sent to them, but God saw their King-enforced repentance. Here is hoping they were all voluntarily repenting, but just in case, the King made a decree that impacted even the animals. They wrote that when God, who is rich in mercy, saw their repentance, He forestalled the destruction of Ninevah for that time. We aren't told much about Ninevah, but it almost would appear that Ninevah did not have rules against the behaviors for which it faced destruction, but when they heard about the destruction, they figured some things out quikly. There might be additional history proposed from archeological explorations that may help us know why. But with or without rules to maintain a "right" way of living, Ninevah was scheduled for destruction in 40 days with this one last warning given without any hope of changing the outcome. Sodom didn't appear to have rules against their particular set of behaviors either, because they wrote that all the men were out there demanding that the angels come out so the men could have sex with them. It begs the question: How far can we bend before we're counted in as supporters of behaviors that God expresses concern about? Would we even get a warning or have we already and we just refuse to hear Him? Without holiness, no man will see God. Some things are simply outside the definition of holy according to the scriptures. I didn't write it there. We might want to ask who/Who did write it there and why? If the answer is man, maybe adjusting our concepts of what God considers holy is in order. If God wrote that Book, maybe we would be better to stick with His definitions while we live in love towards others by holding onto reality and Truth.
Well, that handles the first part of what you posted. How does that impact the general view of the Sabbath? There is much in common between the two examples you chose, Theophilus2019. I've wondered how much the Church at large has lost by mis-interpreting and compromising the gift of the Sabbath so that now people are confused as to what is even meant by the Sabbath. It has consistently been Friday evening to Saturday evening, it was given by example from the beginning, supported by the writing done by the finger of God, explained in the situation of the manna, the people in the OT experienced many hardships by setting the Sabbath aside, and in the prophets, God indicates that HIS identity is linked to the Sabbath, and that our identity as HIS is also linked there. It's His gift, again and again it's His gift. It's His offer of a "date" - a time aside with Him, a demonstration of His love for us as His. In Job there is an interesting comment showing us that His love is not based in whatever we think we can add to Him, and this love for who we are and who we can be with Him is something the Sabbath shows on a weekly cycle. You've got 7 days in the week, each of them 24 hours. You set one apart as "holy" - separated for a higher purpose on the same day as everyone else following what God said. You've got some general instructions given in the OT and explained in context by Jesus Himself. The Sabbath was indeed a gift for men. It's not a checklist activity. It's for the good of everyone, not just you. Let the maid have the day off. Keep it simple. Do good. Rest and enjoy, be refreshed. Listen for God when He comes walking into your garden and be available for that time with Him. Be assertive and desire Him with your whole heart: draw near to Him and He'll draw near to you. Keep the concept of that special time with Him in your heart everyday and keep your heart calling, Come, Lord Jesus!
Each person gets to do what they want to do, since we don't have any social rules about Sabbath keeping. But why would we want to miss out on Him? I don't. I wasn't raised like this, but now that I know, I'm not interested in trying to find a way to discount this wonderful gift. Nor am I interested in forcing it on others.
As I was writing and taking time away to finish up my tasks, I noticed the posts from Didaskalos and zephcom. You know, there might be something to consider in the forcing of instruction/indoctrination regarding LBGQT into the public school as a kind of religion. Let's pull it apart and look at it objectively. For one thing, it's not solidly backed by science. It's only supported by a minority of people. It is requesting an unfair situation: for example, we don't force people to participate in activities regarding the tooth fairy or Santa Clause. In the school system, for the good of the children, we do require that they learn to read, do math, and study science. So let's look at the science, the facts as we know them regarding humanity. The long track record we have is that for the most part, males are male and females are female. Exceptions are not the norm. How do we handle exceptions? Well, for an example, we don't accept that cleft palate is a norm for babies. We surgically correct the cleft palate the best we can, and we look for answers to help more people NOT start off with this difficult situation. Most of us have heart plumbing that is typical, but we certainly don't want to "normalize" tetralogy of fallot because it killed all or almost all the babies whose hearts developed that way until the 1950's when a surgeon first performed an open heart surgery and the baby lived through it. (I know that baby.) Those are conditions that have been well studied, so we know when something is not normal and our response is to try to fix it so that it's compatible with living. We can't normalize a fantasy, it's not compatible with reality. We haven't been honest that to create a trans-gender is to pretend and that's as good as it gets. There is no changing the gender. We can't change what was built in from the beginning. Back close to half a century ago I remember hearing about a set of boys mutilated by a laser circumcision, and as I remember the story, the parents were encouraged to follow up with further surgeries to make these babies into females. I've wondered if those baby boys were set up to be test cases of sorts, in the type of experimentation that should never happen. People have lived with intended and unintended mutilations but at least they knew who they were. Those babies never grew up to experience pregnancy and nursing because they were not females, no matter what the surgeon did to their bodies. I sure hope it went well for them. I applaud when someone overcomes a disability (kids born without arms who play the guitar with their feet, wounded Veterans who overcome amputations), but I'd sure resist making it the norm so that kids with arms wanted to line up to remove theirs. It's much harder to live without arms! Prosthetics are only a help. What has happened that people think they can live better and happier in lies? It seems to me our response must be to help them live with the reality of their situation. Why hasn't our societal response sounded more like, "We are all in this together, so how can I help you live within the reality regarding the gender of your body and make the most of your life?"
Pretense is a very different animal from imagination. I'm all for encouraging an active imagination where people can use their thoughts to empathize and consider, but they are still rooted in the reality that we are who and what we are, including the things we honestly and truly cannot actually change.
That's what came to mind when I read through this post.
