Commentaries
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 Handling the Truth On the Use and Misuse of the BibleA cafeteria-style approach to Scripture just won’t work. Enjoy the steak and potatoes, but eat your broccoli, too. I’ll explain, next on BreakPoint. Listen Now | Download
Last week, I received a comment on YouTube challenging the assertion I made in our Sexual Brokenness series that homosexual behavior was one of the many ways we exhibit sexual brokenness. Dennis asked, “Why do you focus on that sin and ignore the rest of Leviticus? There are laws in there against gluttony, eating pork and shrimp, and wearing cotton-poly blends.” You know what? He’s right. In the book often quoted to condemn homosexual sin, these other things are condemned also. So what do we do now? Yesterday we talked about how important it is for Christians to commit themselves to the Scriptures. But it’s not enough that we read and quote the Bible. How we read and quote it matters too. A lot. The basic fact is that we evangelicals often misuse the Bible in ways that can look just silly to the outside world. We’re often quick to quote verses or moralize stories out of context. For example, we’ll quote Jeremiah 29:11, and claim that the promise found there means God has plans to prosper us and not harm us. But we’re unaware that that particular promise was delivered to Israel, a nation whom God had just punished by sending them to captivity. The problem here is not that we don’t know what the verse says, but that we don’t really know what the verse means, because we don’t know the rest of Jeremiah 29, or the rest of Jeremiah, or where this promise fits in the whole scheme of redemptive history. This sort of proof-texting reveals our tendency to selectively focus on certain parts of the Scripture, like the promises, while we ignore the other parts, like the curses. Jewish philosopher and Rabbi Abraham Heschel once remarked to a group of Christians, “It seems puzzling to me how greatly attached to the Bible you seem to be and yet how much like pagans you handle it. The great challenge to those of us who wish to take the Bible seriously is to let it teach us its own essential categories; and then for us to think with them, instead of just about them.” Ouch! But he has a point. The Bible is not a set of disconnected stories or self-contained phrases. Even the morals and the songs found in the Proverbs and the Psalms are given to us within the context of the history of Israel, which is given to us in the context of the history of everything—from the creation of the heavens and earth to the re-creation of the heavens and earth. This big picture of the Bible should always be the backdrop whenever we read any part of the Bible. And we should keep in mind what kind of book we are reading: history, theology, poetry, prophecy, proverbs, or letters. A letter shouldn’t be picked apart like a proverb, and history shouldn’t be read as theology. Reading it as it was written, in light of the larger context of redemptive history, will help us learn what God is revealing to us about Himself and the world. Which takes us back to Dennis’s comment about Leviticus. Leviticus clarified God’s law for the Israelites. Some of these laws were specific to Israel, to set them apart from the other nations. Other laws reflected God’s created order for everybody—such as the the one man-one woman sexual love described in Genesis and later endorsed by Jesus and Paul. Any form of sexual brokenness is harmful precisely because it violates God’s good design which Jesus said was “from the beginning.” And because Scripture reflects the world as it actually is, the tragic results of sexual brokenness are evident not only in the Bible but throughout human history. Folks, we must be thoughtful and thorough in our use of the Scriptures, and if you visit Breakpoint.org and click on this commentary, we’ll link you to several terrific resources to help you develop strong study skills.
Further Reading and Information
Reading Wrong, Reading Right The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story Reading and Teaching the Bible on Its Own Terms The Big Picture Story Bible The Urgency of Reading the Bible as One Story in the 21st Century
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2.You are aware of the heretical church (really a cult) of which I wrote, aren't you? It is called the Metropolitan Community Church. There is an article on it in Wikipedia. Also, for more details on how it began and how Christian rejection of "gays" in need of repentance (if we don't have anything to do with the unsaved in order to avoid welcoming the unrepentant, the Great Commission never gets fulfilled) may have had something to do with it, I would recommend an audio message by the late Dr. Walter Martin called Homosexual Holocaust, which can be downloaded for a small fee at http://users.datarealm.com/rini/cart/perlshop.cgi. From time to time you may be able to listen to it for free at http://www.waltermartin.com/realaudio.html.
[Please do not read into this response a reviling tone -- none is intended. Just a vigorous response to an important topic.]
I really do think we have a God-given desire for the opposite gender -- not just sex in general. I think it's pretty obvious that "normal" people specifically DO NOT have a desire for the same gender, and that, on the contrary, they find even the though of it revolting. So, I don't think the God-given sex drive is gender neutral. It definitely is not.
I also do not think that when we take a stand against homosexuality, that we are at fault for creating a heretical homosexual church. I do agree that we should have compassion and try to help homosexuals overcome their horrible malady, but we need to treat it as just that -- a horrible malady. The problem is that they have convinced society, and to some extent the Church, that it is not a horrible malady, but rather a benign normality. If the unrepentant practicing homosexuals want to pursue a heretical perversion of Christianity, then we cannot stop them -- it is their right. But make no mistake -- it is much better for both the Church and the unrepentant to HAVE a separate heretical "church" than to welcome the unrepentant into the ranks of the orthodox. Read 1 Cor 5, the whole chapter. Same basic issue.
I've heard this argument time and time again. From hard core pro-gay agenda types to Christians in our own Bible study groups. It's almost like people are getting their "talking points" from the same place.
The argument goes that since Leviticus forbids eating shellfish and also forbids homosexuality, that we can throw out both prohibitions because one of them no longer applies. Just plain silly. I don't blame a non-Christian for making this error, but Christians should know better.
Another similar argument is that all sins are the same and we shouldn't get more ruffled about homosexuality than we do about, say, gluttony. I got a BreakPoint recommended book recently (the one by Plantinga) and he said something to the effect that all sins are equally wrong, but they are not all equally bad. Very true! Gluttony will not break apart my family nearly as fast as adultery would!
Also, consider heterosexual fornication vs homosexual fornication. Heterosexual fornication, like most sins, is a forbidden fulfillment of a God-created desire -- a desire that is essentially good (just like gluttony is based on a unrestrained God-given desire to eat). It is God's design for men to desire women and vice versa. But homosexual fornication is NOT based on a God-given desire (see the last half of Rom 1). It is against nature from the start -- something never intended by the Creator and definitely not comparable to heterosexual fornication. They are not the same. As Plantinga said, they are equally wrong, but not equally bad.
God Bless!!