Read the Word

I have just read an excellent blog by R T Kendall urging people to read the Bible more. There are many Bible reading plans available and a good list can be found here . I would like to suggest one more scheme, one I have used for many years. It works like this:

Split the Bible into three sections:

1. Genesis - Esther
2. Job - Malachi
3. New Testament

Put a book mark at the start of each section. The bookmarks can be physical bookmarks in a physical Bible (remember those!), or, as I do now, you can use bookmarks in YouVersion or some other electronic source.

Then read one chapter each day from each section, advancing the bookmarks one chapter.

When a bookmark reaches the end of a section, just put it back to the beginning.

I have used this for several years, starting with physical bookmarks, not using the digital version! There are several advantages to this scheme, including:

• You have a variety of types of reading each day, eg narrative, prophecy, gospel. This helps when you encounter the "boring" bits. I know we shouldn't find the Bible boring, but there are some parts which are easier to read than others. However, we should persist with the difficult bits, one day you will be surprised and find that a light suddenly dawns.
• You will get through the whole Bible in a little over a year. You can of course read two or even more chapters per section per day if you wish.
• If you read  from different parts of the Bible you will sometimes be amazed at the connections.
• The sections are not the same size, so you can keep using this plan forever and each time you go through it the different sections will be at different stages, so it will never repeat.

Here is some practical advice as well. The Bible is the greatest book there is and there are sometimes when we read it that we have the most amazing encounter with God, something really hits us. However, there are times when I read it and afterwards wonder, "what good did that do?" Most if the time it is somewhere inbetween the two, and most of the time I do feel edified, built up, by reading the Bible, but sometimes I don't. This is normal. When we encounter such times just press on. Even when we don't "feel" the word doing us any good it still builds us up, and days when we feel the benefit will arrive again.

Whether you follow this plan or one of the many others, read the Bible!

Romans 1:26,27(c) - Homosexuality : Some pastoral comments

So what if you do experience same-sex-attraction (SSA)? Where does all this leave you? Well, if this is you well done for sticking with this! Let me say a few things.

As I have said before, Paul is talking about homosexuality here as one example of sin. Later he will talk about salvation and that salvation is open to all, and all here does mean all. So what if you experience SSA, does that exclude you from the kingdom of God? In itself it does not, in the same way that feelings of hetersexual lust do not. What matters is what we do in response. If we indulge or entertain these thoughts, whether SSA or heterosexual lust we are heading for trouble, but having to resist temptation is, sadly, a normal part of the human condition.

What about “pray the gay away”, or being set free from homosexual feelings? Well with all sins we may be set free from them suddenly, either at conversion or after some special encounter with the Lord, but this does not happen with all sins, nor even with most sins. For the most part being “set free” is a gradual process and involves learning self-control. Sadly parts of the church have sometimes promoted the idea that all people who come to Christ who experience SSA will be miraculously “set free”, and if they aren’t there is something wrong. This doesn’t happen with any other sin, so why should homosexuality be any different?

Society seeks to define us by our sexuality. This is a lie, while sexuality is important, we are not defined by it. We are defined by the fact that God created us and by the fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for us.

What about counselling or psychological help? Well this might be helpful in some cases. There are moves in the US, and I think in the UK, to ban counselling of this nature. This seems very strange to me. If someone has SSA feelings and would rather not have them then counselling of some form might help, why deny it to them? Especially at a time when society is quite happy to promote pumping someone full of hormones and carrying out mutilatory surgery on parts of their body which are in perfect working order. Why one is OK and the other not is beyond me.

Finally, I have listened to people like Sam Allberry and other friends of his on Unbelieveable, and to Rossari Butterfield. These are all people who experienced SSA, the latter was a promoter of gay rights and a lesbian who then turned to Christ. What strikes me about them is the depth of commitment and love for Jesus that comes over, the joy in their salvation that comes over.

The gospel brings freedom for all people, and eventually we will get there!

Romans 1:26,27(b) - Homosexuality : What the Bible says

“God gave them over ...”. Again we have this phrase. A common argument today is that people are “born gay”, sometimes people ask “if homosexuality is wrong why did God make me gay?” Well first of all the matter of being “born gay” is to say the least very contentious, and certainly not everyone who practices homosexuality is “born gay”. However, taking this verse talks of God giving people over to shameful lusts. It also talks about homosexual relations being unnatural. Again, this deeply offends our society. So what is the Bible saying? Well sex is intimately connected to reproduction. Reproduction is not the only purpose of sex, but it is a very important one! Homosexual sex clearly cannot lead to reproduction. So what is the Bible view of someone having homosexual feelings? It is that these are a symptom of the fall, they are a symptom of our sinful nature. Now, remember that Paul is using homosexuality as one example. All (or virtually all)  of us have a corrupted sexual nature. If you have heterosexual feelings of lust for someone other than your wife that is a symptom of your fallen nature. So homosexuals are not special in this sense.

Now revisionists say that Paul was talking about pederasty and so is not condemning stable same-sex relations. This is a specious argument produced by people whose only aim is to justify sin. Even if Paul did have pederasty in mostly in mind that is no argument for saying the Bible is OK with stable same-sex relations. There is not a single positive word in the Bible about homosexuality.

Moreover, verses 26 and 27 speak of women having relations with each other, and of men having lust for one another. So there seems to be a mutuality here, and it is certainly not clear from the text that Paul only has pederasty in mind.

He then says that they “received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Now what does this mean, and what about the undoubted offence it could cause a gay person? Well we see here the effect of sin. We often think of sin purely in terms of what we do and of it being bad. This is all true of course, but there is more to it. When we sin we become a slave of sin, as Jesus said (John 8:34). Sin takes over our lives like a cancer, and this is the effect of all sin. Heterosexual lust has the same effect, hatred has the same effect, lying has the same effect.

So what else can we say? Two things at least. First to reiterate, homosexuality is being used as an example. The majority of sexual sin is heterosexual in nature. All sexual sin causes immense pain. Heterosexual sin leads to the murder of millions of babies in abortion, homosexual sin does not. Heterosexual sin is predominantly (though not entirely) responsible for the sex trade and trafficking of women (and children) for sexual purposes. Heterosexual sin is primarily responsible for the increasing sexualisation of our children. I could go on, but I won’t. The Bible teaching is that anything outside of God’s plan of sex within the marriage of a man and a woman is sin and is destructive, both on those involved and on society as a whole.

Secondly, we need to remember where all this is leading and that is to God’s gift of salvation in Christ, for all. Reading these verses and writing this stuff my thoughts are the sooner we get to the latter part of chapter 3 the better! But there is a way to go yet.

There are those who look at this thinking “you homosexuals are a reprobate bunch of sinners”. Well yes they are, but so are we. So is anyone without Christ, and in Chapter 2 Paul will turn to those who have such an attitude. In the next post I will make a few pastoral comments because I realise that what the Bible says here is uncompromising and cuts to the quick.

Romans 1:26,27(a) - Homosexuality : Biblical and cultural background

We now come to the currently most inflammatory verses in Romans 1. Now I will say quite a lot about these verses, but we do need to remember that homosexuality is not the the prime focus of what Paul is teaching, it is one example of the manifestation of sin in humanity. However, it is such a hot topic and one where there is much false teaching in the church that it needs to be addressed in some depth. However, there is an awful lot more that can be said. If you want a full account of these matters, with in-depth analysis of all the Bible teaching then I would recommend the works (books, podcasts, debates on YouTube, blogs etc) of Sam Allberry, James White, Michael Brown, and Robert Gagnon.

We will spend three days looking at these verses covering:

• Biblical and cultural background
• What the Bible says
• A few more pastoral comments

First we need to remember what the positive Bible teaching on sexuality is. It is given in Genesis 1 and 2, and this was endorsed by Jesus (just for those who think Jesus had nothing to say on homosexuality), and sex is for marriage between a man and a woman. Sex in any other context is dangerous, is sinful and is destructive (the evidence for which is all around us). It is worth remembering that in the Leviticus 18 where homosexuality is one of the forbidden acts there are a whole bunch of forbidden heterosexual acts. Furthermore, having sex before marriage was regarded as a most serious sin (Deut 22:20,21). We do well to remember that when it is accepted as the norm in our society, and even regarded as not that serious by many Christians. Why do I draw attention to all this? Because the charge is often made that the Bible has it in for homosexuals. The truth is that the Bible teaches that sex is for marriage between a man and a woman and nowhere else. The Bible treats all violations of this with equal seriousness, and homosexuality is one sin among many.

Now let’s look a little at the cultural background, and this mostly comes from Keener’s commentary. Homosexual activity was common in the Mediterranean world,but not in Judaism. The Jews looked down on it and regarded it as a Gentile sin, reinforcing their view of Gentiles as less worthy. Most homosexual activity was bisexual and the predominant form was pederasty, ie an adult male having sexual relations with an adolescent boy. They would commonly marry a woman later in life. However, homosexual relationships between adult males were not unknown (contrary to what some would have you believe). Homosexual behaviour was looked down on by some, others regarded it as a matter of personal preference. However, Jewish people were almost all against it. The attitude of people in general doesn’t seem that different from today! It may also be the case that the state of most homosexuality being promiscuous, with stable relationships being rare is not that different today either. With the recent legalisation of “same-sex marriage” the picture that is presented is of nice loving homosexual couples, just the same as heterosexual couples except both men, or both women. This may not be an accurate representation of the totality of the situation. Indeed, Evan Davies (a BBC reporter and presenter and who is gay) recently got in trouble for saying that gays are generally very promiscuous. Now I am very cautious about arguments from either side on this, but we should not take things at face value.

Anyone interested in looking at these matters in more details should go to the works of the authors mentioned earlier. In the next post we will look at the text itself, and then consider some pastoral issues.

Romans 1:25 - Exchanging the truth for a lie

“They exchanged the truth for a lie..”. The Greek actually says “exchanged the truth for the lie”. The fundamental lie is worshipping the created rather than the creator. seeking God like qualities in something that is not God. In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were tempted with the prospect of becoming like God (Gen 3:5). That is what is what we have done, it is what atheism and humanism have done. The ideas of atheism and ultimately deluded. It leads to worshipping and serving created things. We see this in extreme environmentalism, with some even wanting to give “human” rights to animals, the obvious contradiction seems to elude them. At lesser extremes there seems to be a blindness in the minds of some global warmers with a religious devotion to their cause. Now, let me make it clear I strongly believe that we should take good care of the environment, we should treat animals well, but we also need to remember that we are made in God’s image, no other creature is. And we see here something of the effect of our fall. To take care of the environment is good, indeed it is part of the divine mandate (Gen 2:15), but then we worship the created and our thinking becomes futile.

We were created to worship the Creator and are to praise Him forever. Amen!

Romans 1:24 - Sexual depravity

So having dealt with the effect of sin on man’s intellect he moves on to the effect on our sexuality, and we move into what is now a most controversial area. Before we go any further we need to say few things. First, the end goal of all this is that we realise what a great salvation we have, but in order to do that we need to realise what an absolute mess we are in, indeed what an absolute mess we are. Secondly, the goal is not to leave us in condemnation (Rom 8:1), but to lead us to salvation. And thirdly, Paul is using the various examples he gives as examples of the effects of sexual depravity. They are not an exhaustive list, they are not necessarily the worst sins (though they are definitely bad), but they were prominent in his day.

The start of this verse is truly frightening, “God gave them over ..”. Now note the next bit, “in the sinful desires of their hearts ..” Note also that this follows on from the intellectual abandonment of God, “therefore”, ie since they chose to worship the created rather than the creator. In the same way, the belief that we are just the product of chance, that we are no different from animals, is instrumental in our behaving worse than animals, in our descent into sexual depravity. If we believe we are created by God, if we believe we are ultimately answerable to God, then we will act differently than if we believe we are just a product of chance and answerable to no-one.

So God gave them over. This is a judgement on our sin, it is part of “the wrath of God is being revealed ...”. Being given over to sexual sin leads people to degrade their bodies with each other, and this includes all sexual sin, heterosexual sin as well as homosexual, which Paul will use as the prime example shortly. Consider the things that people do, the effects of drunken or drug fueled behaviour, and it leads to the degrading of humanity. We are meant to honour our bodies, and to value them, but sexual depravity has the exact opposite effect.

Romans 1:22,23 - Intellectual suicide

1:22,23

In his descent into stupidity man claims to be wise. Very intelligent people claim the whole universe came about by chance. Some claim the universe came out of nothing, and then say there was something there (a quantum vacuum, the laws of quantum mechanics). A lot of the arguments for evolution being the primary mechanism for the development of life are mere hand waving. While Christians are sometimes accused of believing in a God of the gaps, it has been said that some evolutionists believe in evolution of the gaps. By the way, I do not believe evolution is complete nonsense, just that it is in no way able to carry the weight put up on it, Stephen Meyer has written an excellent book on the topic.

So what did man do? He created images that looked like the things that were created. In Paul’s day this expressed itself in images made to look like man, animals, reptiles or birds. But we don’t do that sort of thing now do we? Well, actually we do. In science we have replaced the images of animals etc with making idols out of the processes. We say this process or that process led to the creation of the universe, or the development of life. But where did the process come from, where did the physical law come from? Why is it there? The process was created by God, it is part of His creation. So just as much as earlier generations worshipped the created rather than the creator, we do exactly the same. Now people exist, animals exist, birds and reptiles exist, but they are not gods. Likewise there are physical processes, scientific laws, but they are not gods either, and they most definitely do not explain everything.