The righteous will live by faith August 5, 2010
Posted by matthew5sixteen in Christianity.Tags: Christianity, faith, homosexual
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In an August 5, 2010 post, Justin of The Truth Shall Set You Free wrote about Christianity being a faith and not a culture. He argues that we, as Christians, should live by faith and not by the law.
Justin states, “The heart of Christianity is FAITH in Jesus, not a political or social ideology.
Because it is a faith, it is extremely adaptable to any cultural/historical situation. Thus, the cultural umbrella of Christianity is full of true diversity. Various Christians can be culturally opposite things: conservative or liberal, slave-owner or abolitionist, anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic, anti-homosexual or pro-homosexual, etc.”
Justin states that on issues like homosexuality, there are verses that support both sides of the argument. One verse may condemn the act, but another verse will say that Christ came to save sinners.
Justin states, “We are repeatedly told that God is reaching out to sinners, to the lost sheep. And we are assured that repentence and sorrow for sin are far more important that righteous behavior. Everyone knows that we are called to “condemn the sin, but love the sinner.” Thus, Christian culture is infinitely variable.”
Justin states the Christianity shines brightest in a culture of decadence. He provides ancient Rome, pagan Europe, and modern America as examples.
Justin concludes, “The Good Book is the perfect guide to worldly happiness, there is no doubt. People should be encouraged to follow its moral precepts for their own good, out of loving concern. We spread the gospel of Christ out of love, to save people from hell, the hells of this world and the next.”
I look back on my life at the times when I was “fervent” for God and tried to live by the law. I did this because I believed that through the law, I could come closer to God. But I did not understand that it is by faith that we are saved.
I think Justin wrote his post as a commentary on the current battle over homosexual marriage in the United States. I guess I can also comment on this matter.
In my life, I have known several homosexual people. By the world’s standards, they were pretty decent people. Some were even raised as Christians. They made, in my opinion, some interesting arguments based on the Bible as to why homosexuality is not that bad. One person mentioned that Jesus never talked about homosexuality. I guess he was implying that if it was such a bad thing, Jesus would have mentioned it during his ministry. I saw his viewpoint.
Justin suggests that we should live by faith and not try to impose our beliefs on others through secular laws. I see Justin’s point. It is better to be a light to others and influence them by love than to force others to be like ourselves.
I guess we should ask ourselves, is it better to spend our resources trying to keep homosexual marriage illegal or is it better to spend our resources to help the homosexual community deal with their problems? By helping them, we would be showing them the love that Jesus showed us while we were in our own sins. I’m not saying we shouldn’t call homosexuality a sin. But I am saying that Jesus came to save sinners, not to condemn them. (John 3:17.)
We all sin. If we try to depend on living by the law to save us, we will fail. But if we live by faith, we will be saved.
I leave you with these verses:
“All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.‘ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” (Galatians 3:10-13.)
Matthew5sixteen.
Thanks for the comments, M. It is a perplexing issue from a religious angle. For one, I think democracy should be respected, and that judges should not be overturning the direct voice of the people in such matters. For two, I do think it is OK to outlaw such practices, in the name of public health and the rights of children, for example.
But I do not think our Christian faith requires these things. As you mentioned, I think it is possible that one can be a homosexual and saved by God’s grace. I am not one to limit God’s grace.
As a responsible Christian, it is perfectly OK to attempt to minimize the amount of open sin in society, especially for the sake of the young who are easily misled down Satan’s many paths of self-destruction. To abandon children to needless temptation is irresponsible, and GET THIS: we are called by God to care for our fellow citizens!
So, perhaps making their destructive behaviors illegal is CARING for them! For example, how many millions of homosexuals would be alive today if we locked up the first AIDS carriers, as we used to for the sake of public health? For the appearance of tolerance, millions have died! Is that caring? I think not.
Hi Matt,
“The Law” is just a handed down set of instructions, and as such produces another law: “Laws are made to be broken” . Thererfore, the law must be written in your heart – and for that to happen you must understand the law.
Faith on the otherhand has no redeeming quality for it is based on the pride of ignorance, for if understood it would no longer be faith but a realization and not someone else’s ‘Holy’ experience but your own. Faith then is the mere taking on trust before being able discovered for yourself, it is a journey, a seeking, and not a life-time ambition to remain within the Peace of Blindness unto your last breath taking as many down with you as you can.
If you do not return to your child to be a Jesus yourself, you failed, as you need to give up resentment and judgement and forgive ‘seven times seventy times’ each and every day.
Carrying the ‘blood of Christ’ as a mantle of Salvation without salvation allows you to approve others who claim to have different mantles of Salvation.
Love and truth are not taught, but remembered where they were once lost.
Homosexuality, to me, is no different than pre-marital sex. God set laws concerning these things as a means to PROTECT us and no less.
Homosexuality is dangerous physically (I don’t know about mentally…never done it) – but it wasn’t HOMOSEXUALITY…it was SODOMY – whether between a hetero couple or a homo couple, sodomy was what was outlawed as dangerous.
The new testament does have an obscure verse in Romans 1 that casts a sweeping judgement on homosexuality as a bastardization of God’s creation, but not a condemnation in and of itself. Paul claimed that these people do this because they no longer hear God’s voice and have raised up other gods to fill that void (at least that’s how I read it).
Current medical science has shown why sodomy is so dangerous and why AIDS has been known to be more prevalant among the homosexual – the anal tissues are less resilient to the transmission of diseases than are the tissues lining the vagina (my source was a nursing student who had learned that in class that day).
From a political standpoint, I think it is in the society’s best interest to support hetero marriage over homo marriage simply because the former provides a backbone of a strong social structure and the latter is simply for companionship – however, America’s current bastardization of marriage has made that argument totally irrelevant. The Family unit is no longer the nuclear social structure that it used to be.
Greece – the most liberal culture in history I can possibly think of – outlawed gay marriage and required all men to marry women…and yet it put higher value on homosexual relationships than hetero…leads me to believe they were clued in to the dynamics of the nuclear family unit building a stronger society and richer culture.
@Everybody,
Thank you for your response.
@Christina,
Being raised in such a liberal state has made my feelings on this matter rather liberal. All I have to go on is what the Bible states about homosexuality and sodomy. I guess I’m a good example of someone who really needs scripture in their lives. I don’t really know the medical aspects of homosexuality. And I suspect that homosexuals would be critical of any scientific facts that cast an unfavorable light on their homosexuality. I guess it’s just human to ignore something that doesn’t fit with our desires. I do that sometimes. I ignore the fact that eating too much chocolate is bad for me and eat as much of it as I desire =).
I didn’t know that about Greece, though. It’s interesting that the Greecian culture would outlaw gay marriage. I’ve heard before that some ancient cultures also made abortion illegal because they wanted people to have more babies so that there would be more citizens to serve the culture. Maybe Greece was thinking along those lines?
@Matt
I didn’t know that about Greece, though. It’s interesting that the Greecian culture would outlaw gay marriage. I’ve heard before that some ancient cultures also made abortion illegal because they wanted people to have more babies so that there would be more citizens to serve the culture. Maybe Greece was thinking along those lines?
Yes, they were – but also, a government can focus on other things that enrich the culture of their society when there is a nuclear family unit taking care of themselves. When a mother and father are both present in a home with children, not only do you have future citizens, but a teacher, role models (for both genders), and a contributor to society (in whatever form that may be). It allowed government to focus less on what families could provide for themselves and more on the “nice to haves” that have made these societies and cultures so incredibly impressive that they still leave an imprint on our history.
Matt,
at the NARTH website psychologists are healing the minds of men and women with same-gender sexual fixations. They call it “disassociation of affection” like a young girl can sleep around with older men because she is seeking the absent father in her life, where sex and abuse is better than no affection at all from father-figures.
Prostitutes have twisted upbringings and so do our sodimizing friends. May they be helped before they damn us all.