A near death experience account began my own transition from being pretty much in line with the typical church attending Christian view of what the Bible teaches about the LGBT community. A good friend of mine has written an article on this topic that I believe will assist in bringing many of us conservative Christians up out of darkness into significantly greater light / love / truth! Give us conservatives good information to work with...... and we can change. I asked Robert if I could post his pdf file as a blog... and he said sure. http://lgbtandthebible.blogspot.ca/
The author of this amazing writing has also written "God's Peace Plan for the Holy Land." Both of his books could be used to save the lives of members of the LGBTQ community who are in great danger in Islamic nations. http://godspeaceplan.blogspot.ca/2014/07/gods-peace-plan-for-holy-land-peace.html
The argument makes a fatal error - and an error which shows a lack of knowledge of the Bible, Hebrew, Judaism, Christianity. He writes "The problem is, lesbianism isn’t mentioned in the Law.". Wrong. The words "homosexual" and "lesbian" and "gay" (meaning homosexual) don't appear in the Bible but those words are modern. That does not mean that homosexuality was not addressed, or that God did not create humanity to be heterosexual. Homosexuality was banned by the Jewish Law from the beginning, there is nothing in the Bible (NT or OT) that indicates homosexuality is acceptable. All references to homosexuality are negative. There are many areas in the Bible which address the relationships between people. Marriage and family are always described as heterosexual, the ideal is a man and a woman. Even when the problems of marriage are addressed, they are addressed in terms of a heterosexual marriage, and the problems are often accompanied by solutions and encouragement to help people strive toward God's plan of a man and a woman. There is an abundance of direct writings in the Bible that relationships are to be heterosexual and monogamous. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates homosexuality is good or acceptable. <> The article also is full of mistakes such as that Paul was writing in code. For example from the article: 2 Peter 3:15-16; 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” So, Peter said that Paul wrote all his letters using the same technique. He then went on to say that unspiritual people would find it impossible to understand things written using this technique, and that subsequently they would distort the meaning of scriptures written this way. Clearly, what Paul wrote needs to be read at more than face value. Wow, totally wrong. Peter is writing that Paul writes the same basic argument in all of his letters. If you read all of Pauls works, its obvious that with one exception (the personal letter to Philemon) that Paul is making the same argument in all of them. The words in the letters are tailored to the audience, but the message is the same. For example, Romans is an intellectual work, written in a formal academic structure (scholastic diatribe) that educated people will recognize, to a highly educated audience deeply familiar with the Torah and who will understand fundamental arguments rooted in the Torah. Corinthians is written for a church in Corinth no more than 3 years old, to an audience of working people who are struggling with basic concepts. Think of Romans as a PhD thesis, Corinthians as a populist self-help manual. But both Romans and Corinthians advocate the same message - the Gospel, which is salvation through faith in Jesus. Peter - an essentially uneducated man himself - points out that Paul's arguments are rooted in the Torah as all Rabbinical arguments must be (Paul was a Rabbi, very highly educated, from a very successful and wealthy family who were citizens of the Roman Empire). That means to truly understand Pauls arguments requires a certain level of understanding of the Torah and study to understand Pauls message. People ignorant of the Torah, and who are unwilling to do the work required to understand the argument, will distort Pauls message. Romans requires a significant amount of study, it takes real work, and as a result its message is often distorted by ignorant and closed minded people. It has nothing to do with some secret code.
I think many people in organized Religion are simply in a never ending Fight. So the Muslims fight Jews and everyone forgets the basic teachings of Jesus / Yeshua. The woman caught in the very act of Adultery / fornication, note; the man is never mentioned, chances are he was a high ranking Sanhedren or other. Jesus said, he who is without sin, cast the first stone, then bent down taking his sight off those men giving them a chance to escape, when he raised his eyes, he asked, woman, where are thine accusers ? None Lord, Neither do I accuse you, Go your way and Sin no more. All sins are of sameness save one, Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for which there is no forgiveness, neither in this World nor the World to come. If being of L.G.B.T. is indeed a Sin, it would be no worse than telling a lie, or sex out of wedlock, it is not a mortal Sin and only needs repentance. Note that Jesus never mentions this matter.
There is a theory that homosexuality was perhaps indirectly addressed in Matthew 8: https://www.blueletterbible.org/nkjv/mat/8/8/s_937008 Since Roman centurions and their servants so often had relationships that were considered sinful by the standards set forth by Moses........ the quickness of Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus to send healing to the servant of the centurion says a lot about how different he was from the leading religious teachers of his time period...... and ours as well.
Fire off the BS Cannon face it the Bible has clear verses banning homosexuality in the OT and NT, not sure about the Sodom and Gomorrah story but since God lied and Lot was a piece of moral crap I tend to discount that as any kind of moral tale. My take on this is f--- the Bible unless you can prove its the infallible word of some sky being its another old religious text constructed in the Early Church from books politically popular and made canon. God could clear this up by showing up and talking to us easily enough.
Reconciling LGBT & the Bible Reconciling Shellfish & the Bible Reconciling Polyester & the Bible Reconciling Hamhocks & the Bible Reconciling Murder & the Bible Reconciling Incest & the Bible Reconciling Genocide & the Bible Reconciling ANYTHING & the Bible is mental masturbation.
I can reconcile fact with fiction. Well... If I only had my phone whilst being abducted by aliens from that UFO. Maybe God doesn't want us to know about space aliens?
Then perhaps you can do so?....here is the list to make it easier. Reconciling LGBT & the Bible Reconciling Shellfish & the Bible Reconciling Polyester & the Bible Reconciling Hamhocks & the Bible Reconciling Murder & the Bible Reconciling Incest & the Bible Reconciling Genocide & the Bible
I think that taking lives in self defense...... or in defense of people who cannot defend themselves can be reconciled....... with both the Jewish and Christian Bibles. http://www.politicalforum.com/index...e-military-and-police.464405/#post-1066384559 An apology to all members of the military and police! Can a true Christian, be a policeman, and take a life? * Yes.... 10 vote(s) 76.9% No, never..... 2 vote(s) 15.4% I am not sure..... 1 vote(s) 7.7% I never saw those verses in that light before. 0 vote(s) 0.0%
You mean much hate speech begins in jest. Very true. Do you encourage your dog to bite people you do not like too ?
Ignoring the fact that god doesn’t exist, if he/she/it did not “intend” to create gays how did they come about? How does such an omnipotent being make such an error?
What an utter load of tripe. No input to the thread at all. What a waste of time. Either contribute sensibly or butt out.
If a god thought the bible was in any way important, it would have appeared on the bedside of every person, written in every language on the first day. Hell, even a middle-aged woman from England was able to get her books printed in almost every language and distributed around the world in two months, it took this god 1500 years ... not much of a god who can't match the feat of a middle-aged English woman. Either that, or the bible was just not that important to said god.
Why is it that Christians immediately see any critique of their God based upon what they write about it as HATE? Could it be some strange fixation with what that emotion entails?
Which first day....the first one for Adam or the first one for the book(s)? Probably just the one the snake spoke for the Adam scenario...perhaps a couple hundred for the book one.