While I would prefer to not address the topic, I feel like it is necessary. Like it or not, the hot button issue leveled against Christians is homosexuality. I don’t condemn anyone, my own behavior condemns me too because I am sinner myself (see Eph 2:8–9). Contrary to some obscurantists, the NT speaks clearly to the issue. Note the precision of translation in the Lexham English Bible and in the use of past tense:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Neither sexually immoral people, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor passive homosexual partners, nor dominant homosexual partners, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, not drunkards, not abusive persons, not swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And some of you WERE these things, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:9–11)
Note it is not a “special sin” but listed along side drunkards and swindlers and greed… However, there are remarkable distinctions. For instance, have you heard tell of an “greed pride” or “adultery pride parade”? Even more. how many times have adulterers gathered to vandalize churches?
Homosexuals ransack, tag NC churches with pro-gay slogans
Homosexual activists trashed two North Carolina churches over the weekend and spray-painted pro-“gay” messages over the church properties, which sustained thousands of dollars’ worth of damages.
“Because of this, God gave them over to degrading passions, for their females exchanged the natural relations for those contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, abandoning the natural relations with the female, were inflamed in their desire toward one another, males with males committing the shameless deed, and receiving in themselves the penalty that was necessary for their error.(Romans 1:26–27)
About Cris Putnam
It’s not truly a “special sin” the problem is the so-called Christians who claim its not a sin at all…. its the pride aspect that seems special. I don’t condemn anyone, my own behavior condemns me too because I am sinner myself but I’m not at all proud of that fact. “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8–9) — “For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,” (Ro 8:3
” I don’t condemn anyone, my own behavior condemns me too because I am sinner myself ” Cris, I love your work but you do condemn some who believe in Christ but differ with you on some theology. I wont post the links that are on your website to show this as a fact. Please don’t get me wrong, I love your work and wish for you to keep digging and exposing what you find but frankly this statement just made me LOL. We all fall short, I get that part of your statement but can you honestly say you ” don’t condemn anyone”? Homosexuality is a Sin, no doubt about it, but it is no worse a sin, than the one you break once a week, or the ones you think have been abolished and don’t exist. Despite our disagreement, I appreciate your efforts to further the word of God and I respect your opinions. Wishing for you to see truth and expose it in the areas that you need it, not just the areas you think others need.
Yours in Christ.
“Homosexuality is a Sin, no doubt about it, but it is no worse a sin, than the one you break once a week, or the ones you think have been abolished and don’t exist.”
Are you really suggesting that Sunday worship, rather than Sabbath observance, is on a par with living a lifestyle of sodomy? Jesus was far more concerned with those who were turning the Sabbath into some kind of idol than with those whom these people were accusing of breaking the Sabbath. And didn’t He say He was Lord of the Sabbath? I observe a Saturday sabbath myself, but when I read the Scripture, I don’t see any great emphasis on doing so in the New Testament. If anything, I see a strong de-emphasis on Sabbath keeping.
Not all sin is the same, and anyone who maintains that all sin is the same and all of us equally sinful is going to run into serious trouble with the Scripture. All have sinned, and hence all need salvation, but there are nevertheless clearly degrees of sin, and some sinners are worse than others (though it’s a dangerous game to be priding oneself on being better than others). If you are in the Hebrew roots movement, then you will be familiar with the prescriptions for dealing with sin in the Torah: God lays out the appropriate penalty or sacrifice for various sins. …And for some sins there is no sacrifice available, and the penalty is violent death.
I’m not really thinking about homosexuality here, either. If one is looking at the sexual laws, then there’s more about heterosexual sin than homosexual sin. For example, a woman who has sex before marriage and deceives her prospective husband into believing she’s still a virgin is worthy of death in God’s eyes. A man who has sex with another man’s wife is also worthy of death. A woman who cheats on her husband is worthy of death. And so on. It’s a pity that some churches single out homosexuality without balancing it by denouncing heterosexual sins, too. (Perhaps they’d find their pews emptying, though…)
It’s as Cris said, the crux is the rise of defiant, in-your-face sin: the phrase “gay pride march” says it all — an army of proud homosexuals, gleefully flaunting their perversions in the street. Yet they aren’t alone in this: one can see similarly defiant, similarly shameless heterosexual debauchery pretty much every Friday & Saturday night in the cities in my country. The Anglophone nations are going the way of Sodom & Gomorrah, and their citizenry embrace it.
It would appear that we’re witnessing the outworking of the pattern Paul lays out in Romans 1. An eruption of unabashed homosexuality is not so much a cause than a symptom of judgement; of God’s giving a nation over to sin.
Short and to the point and well said! I have addressed this issue in my blog as well and also put homosexuals in the same category as any other sinners. I don’t hate them anymore than I would an alcoholic, thief, drug addict, etc. And for those homosexuals, or really any LGBTQIA, that say they were “born that way”, I say it probably feels like that because you were born predisposed to it through iniquity. And it doesn’t matter if anyone in the immediate family does not share that iniquity, as we know it can go back 3 or 4 generations (Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18)
Reality is that the growing epidemic of what is known as LGBT is prophesied to be an End-Time phenomenon within the general rise of wickedness.
The particular sin of homosexuality I believe to be a greater offence in that it directly opposes the very purpose of Gods sovereignty in the creation of men and women in His own Image. The further push to permit marriage between two men or two women is an insult to God
For there was no sin that the sin of sodom that was so utterly destroyed by God. Unto the prophecy of the days of Lot is the warning of Jesus “Remember Lots wife” not just those who engage in sodom both those that are complacent to it. The State of the West today. Sodom is not just sexual act but a deep agenda trying to change the whole orientation of creation unto the words ‘”They think to change times & laws” Trying to offset the basic family order is but going directly against the most high , against the First Holy Family of God on which is the structure based, that is if one knows what it is, for it to come as the very marker unto the Prophecy of the “Mark of the Beast” forget the sodomites themselves but those that are complacent to this grave sin more so. For just as the angels that left their first Estate likewise are the men of sodom kept in chains(Spiritual Bondage) reserved for condemnation. \
Daniel “He will not regard the desire of Women” which basic desire of a woman is to bring forth children – by Alternate life styles. PP, sexual liberty, desires of the flesh etc critical of which is Sodom., chains the spirit utterly grieving the Holy Spirit—. the very reason God so utterly destroyed Sodom. The Son says the same- beyond this life– just as said in the OT “I will carry you beyond Babylon.” Repent” was the message of the forerunner, John the Baptist confirmed by the Messiah. Complacent cannot repent.