I would like to start by telling you ways much I dislike this query. It’s not because I fear cultural pressure (from either side) on this issue. My goal is all the time to proclaim what I feel God says to us in His Word and to accomplish that as one who follows the way in which of Jesus. I don’t like this query since it starts from the improper place.
It seems to me that a few of these questions will go in cycles. For one month, we’ll all debate whether or not it’s improper to wear yoga pants. Then, we’ll have a discussion on whether or not a Christian can have a tattoo. And all of this prepares us for the “Can I watch Game of Thrones” season. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
This gives me the identical feeling at any time when I read Jesus’ interaction with the religious leaders—especially Matthew 22. They are focused on answering all of those questions on what we will and can’t do. While Jesus answers them, it comes across as he’s playing chess, they usually are playing checkers. They are coping with much less important matters. It’s like he’s telling a completely different story than they’re.
And that’s why I don’t really like this query. Because even when we get it “right”, I’m not entirely sure that we’ve won anything unless we will tie it back into that much greater story which Jesus is telling. That is what I’ll try and do to reply this query. But first, we’d like to define our terms.
What Is Sin?
What do people mean once they say, “Is this a sin”? I feel most are asking whether or not this thought, desire, or motion is approved by God. We understand that sin is falling in need of a normal. Most of the time, we expect of sin as a selected and observable motion. But we also understand that thoughts and desires will also be sinful.
The Bible gives us each a straightforward and an elaborate picture of sin. Simply put, a sin is anything that fails to live as much as God’s standard of conduct. As some have said, any thought, word, or motion violates God’s will and His moral standards as revealed within the Bible. But the Scriptures may also consider sin to be an entity that is just not dependent upon human actions. A full picture of sin is more complex. I appreciate what Cornelius Plantinga Jr. says about sin in his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin:
The Bible presents sin through major concepts, principally lawlessness and faithlessness, expressed in an array of images: sin is missing a goal, wandering from the trail, and straying from the fold. Sin is a tough heart and a stiff neck. Sin is blindness and deafness. It is each the overstepping of a line and the failure to achieve it — each transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a beast crouching on the door. In sin, people attack, evade, or neglect their divine calling. These and other images suggest deviance: even when it’s familiar, sin isn’t normal. Sin is the disruption of created harmony after which resistance to the divine restoration of that harmony. Above all, sin disrupts and resists the vital human relation to God, and it does all this by disrupting and resisting in numerous intertwined ways.[1]
Sin is one other word for all of the brokenness and rise up we contribute to life outside of the Garden of Eden. Sin wrecks God’s shalom.
That is what we mean by sin. Now, what will we mean by “being gay”?
What Do We Mean By “Being Gay”?
This is a fundamental query that should be asked at any time when discussing this topic. Do you mean a homosexual motion or a homosexual desire?
The reality is that the word “gay” is just not a biblical word. For much of the history of English language the term meant “joyful”, “carefree”, or “shiny and showy”. To show how radically language changes, if we take the term to mean “joyful,” perhaps one could argue that Christians are called to “be gay all the time” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). Some of you likely rolled your eyes. Yet, you’ll sing “Don we now our gay apparel” at Christmas time.
Language changes, and so we must be clear about what we mean after we say “being gay.” And it’s vital that after we bring the Scriptures into our discussion, we don’t impose a secular meaning onto a biblical text. It’s also vital to not make the Scripture speak in an area where it doesn’t speak.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines gay as: “sexually or romantically drawn to people of the identical gender or sex.” This is the language we’ll use throughout the article. We are differentiating between a sexual same-gendered motion and a sexual same-gendered desire/attraction. I feel that when most individuals ask, “Is being gay a sin?” they’re asking a few disposition wherein someone has an attraction to a different person of the identical gender.
What Does the Bible Say?
The Bible doesn’t use the identical categories that we use with regards to this discussion. When it involves verses about homosexuality, it is generally concerned with acts and never desires. Yes, there are arguments made that the Bible doesn’t even condemn homosexual acts. I’m not convinced by those. For the sake of our discussion here, I’m assuming that Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10, amongst others, consider homosexual acts to be lawlessness—or to make use of the word of this text, sinful.
We now come to the crux of our query. Am I failing to live as much as God’s standard of conduct if I desire something that disrupts God’s created harmony?
One path we could take here could be to return to the Garden of Eden. Can we are saying that Eve was “sinful” when she saw that the forbidden fruit was pleasing to the attention and good for food? If she was even subtly drawn away to desire something that God had explicitly forbidden, can we are saying that humanity would have still been plunged into smash if she had resisted this desire? It’s a superb query. The problem, though, is that Scripture doesn’t really speak to this. And the Scripture doesn’t mark Eve’s bite as that which plunged us into smash, quite it was Adam’s.
Instead of taking place the route of speculation, let’s attempt to diffuse this a bit and apply our query to a completely different topic. Is an anxious heart a disruption of God’s created harmony? Sure. I’d argue that there won’t be one shred of tension in the brand new heaven and the brand new earth. There shall be no irrational fears. All of our fears could have already been forged upon Him, and they’ll have been answered by His fullness. Anxiety isn’t a part of God’s shalom.
And yet, I actually have anxiety. Some of it has to do with my childhood. Other parts need to do with the alternatives I’ve made along the way in which. It’s complicated. At times, I feel like I can control it. At other times, it looks like it’s my “natural” response to certain stimuli. Depending on who you ask, you may say I’m anxious.
Now, one might say that anxiety is different than “being gay.” Am I actually desiring to be anxious? Not really, but additionally it is a mirrored image of the brokenness and lasting rise up of my heart. Anxiety happens once I’m not trusting God. Anxiety happens once I’m grasping for control as a substitute of a posture of humble submission under the mighty hand of God (1 Peter 5:6).
I’m left to conclude that my anxiety is sinful.
I can hear the words of protest now, even in my very own heart. “You’re going to make me feel shame on top of my battle! You don’t understand! If I could change this, I’d. Do you’re thinking that I want to be anxious? Do you’re thinking that I would like to have these anxious responses? This looks like who I’m, and I’m unsure I’ll ever conquer this!”
Yeah. I get that. I feel that also might provide help to understand the experience of those that have same-sex attraction. The only major difference is that our anxiety is a “respectable” sin. Only within the rarest of instances have I been told that my propensity toward anxiety makes me an unbeliever. Can you imagine having this struggle and being told that the very existence of the struggle separates you from Christ?
I said in the beginning that I didn’t like this query. I don’t think it’s ranging from the proper place. We need to position the query inside God’s Bigger Story.
How Does This Relate to God’s Bigger Story?
Let’s return to my anxiety for a moment. Why do I would like to fight you should you tell me it’s sinful? Is it because I would like to hold onto it? Do I would like an excuse to now not need to keep fighting this battle? If that’s the case, am I actually agreeing with God that it’s a part of the brokenness and rise up of life outside of Eden? Do I would like God to not bring me whole redemption?
Perhaps I’m afraid of the shame and guilt that attach to me if I call it sinful. If that’s the case, then I’m forgetting the gospel. Jesus deals with every ounce of my shame and guilt. I can come clean with any sin and rise up since it doesn’t get the last word over me. Jesus does. Call me an anxious person, wonderful. That’s not my fundamental identity. Say that I’m sinfully responding to stimuli as a substitute of trusting Christ. Sure. But that doesn’t get the last word. Jesus does.
There is a greater story here. I like the way in which Tim Keller has said this. “The gospel is that this: we’re more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared imagine, yet at the exact same time, we’re more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” That means I don’t need to feign innocence. I don’t must fight this battle of whether or not something is or is just not sinful.
Jesus is redeeming all of it. He is overturning the curse and bringing us into shalom. And it’s often a bloody and sloppy mess. Redemption is awkward. If I would like to hold onto brokenness and rise up (whichever sin we would like to make use of to define it), then I’ll dig my grave outside of Eden. But if I trust Christ in fixing all of these items—then I can pack my bags to a renewed Eden. And there all brokenness and rise up shall be gone, and it won’t really matter which certainly one of the 2 we called it. We could have shalom. And that’s the query, and the story, that basically matters.
…At the Same Time! Patti Height Testimony – The Becket Cook Show Ep. 168 from The Becket Cook Show on GodTube.
[1] Plantinga, 5
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Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He can be the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the creator of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing house is http://mikeleake.net and you possibly can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a recent writing project at Proverbs4Today.
