[CS-FSLUG] God Didn't Say That

[Aaron Lehmann]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 03:39:56PM -0600, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
> >
> >To me and perhaps the larger majority of Christians "The Bible teaches 
> >us to
> >love God and neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40), and to allow
> >the Holy Spirit to develop within us the qualities of love, joy, peace,
> >patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and 
> >self-control
> >(Galatians 5:22-23).
> 
> 	There is a difference between loving someone and trying to make the 
> case that a given behavior is good, honorable, lovely, etc. (Phil. 4:8) 
> "'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are profitable. 
> 'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things build up" (1 Cor. 
> 10:23).
> 
> >When children, youth and adults embody these values, regardless of 
> >sexual
> >orientation, we are growing into the whole people God hopes we will 
> >become.
> >You or I may hyperfocus on a person's sexual orientation, but God 
> >loves the
> >sum of all of our parts."
> 
> 	To an extent I agree. I've gone on the record saying that we ought 
> 	to love homosexuals, that we ought to reach out to them, etc. BUT, I say 
> this because we should reach out to all sinners. I'm a sinner as well. 
> At the same time, WE SHOULD NOT attempt to distort the Bible to argue 
> that what they are doing is not sin. What we should do, is lovingly 
> help them show the fruits of the Spirit and escape sin... just like I 
> hope others do for me.

But, are we to demand that they be free of their sin before welcoming
them?  Many homosexuals feel that they are shunned by Christendom, and
by extension God, because of what they feel they are unable to cope
with.  Is there some way to say, "At some point this must be worked on,
but when that point comes, you will realize it is workable."?  After
all, Christ did not come to save the righteous, but the sinners.  If
there is a way, what is the proper way to do it?

> 
> 	Remember, "Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself." 
> (James 2:17). We know that it is "by grace you have been saved through 
> faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, 
> that no one would boast" (Ep. 2:8, 9). How we reconcile this is clear: 
> we are not saved by works, but we should seek to do good works as fruit 
> of the Spirit -- a sign of our salvation. If someone cannot tell the 
> new me from the old me, what kind of witness am I giving? Therefore, 
> the church *should* recognize and attempt to encourage Christ's body to 
> be pure. The problem is not that some people's sin is homosexual 
> activity but that people are trying to argue that this is not a sin. 
> These are two different things. The only way we can come to God with 
> repentance and faith is if we honestly seek to repent.

True dat.  Does one have to repent of all his sins immediately?  I mean,
I'm constantly realizing that things I hadn't thought about when I was
first a Christian have very sinful roots.  I don't believe that my
ignorance of them, willful though it likely was, invalidates my
Christianity during those times.

Aaron Lehmann