Preacher, I've got a question kickoff

Biblical marriage.  I’ve heard that a lot lately, and its an issue that raises a lot of questions. This Sunday, I’m starting a series called “Preacher, I’ve got a question” at Church of the Way.  People have submitted REALLY TOUGH questions over the last month, and I’ll be using the most asked questions as the groundwork for a 3-week series on Sundays. I hope you’ll come check it out April 7-21 at Archer High School at 10 a.m. & 6 p.m. However, I’m using my blog to answer every question that was submitted, and I might even do a couple a day. However, I want to start off by being a bit selfish and answering the question I’ve been asking myself the last few weeks: “What do you think about this whole gay marriage deal?” So, to kick off a month’s worth of blogs about tough questions, I’m asking myself one. And I promise they won’t all be this long!


There seem to be categories of thoughts here:

Biblical Marriage: I keep seeing Christian friends post on Facebook that they believe in Biblical Marriage, and I keep hearing that term in political rhetoric. I’m not sure they know what that means. Some of the writers in the Bible (here’s looking at you, Solomon) had hundreds of wives. Some married slaves and servants. You had to marry your dead brother’s widow. Most in the Old Testament paid a dowry for their bride. It was not what many or any of us practice now or understand to be faithful marriage. No, I believe in New Testament marriage. Between Paul and Jesus, a very different picture is painted of marriage in the new covenant - picture that includes fidelity between one man and one woman. There is a picture of equality in marriage in the New Testament. Husbands and wives are to submit to one another out of love. It’s clear that Jesus, and later Paul, established a new model of Godly marriage that differed from the traditions even practiced in the Old Testament.

Re-writing Scripture: My biggest concern over this issue has less to do with our government, which I’ll get to, and more to do with the church. Simply, there are some Christians who simply don’t believe homosexuality is wrong anymore. They see this issue as a civil rights issue that we’ve progressed past, much like the issues of women’s rights and racial equality. I just finished Dr. King’s book Stride Toward Freedom about the Montgomery story. I have a hard time believing Dr. King would have seen homosexuality the same way proponents are seeing it today. The Church needs to confess and own the fact that we blatantly ignored Scripture as it relates to women and minorities in decades and centuries past. We didn’t have to reinterpret Scripture to for the civil rights issues concerning women and African Americans. The Bible has always had examples of women in leadership, Genesis has always said that we were created male and female in God’s image, and Paul has always said that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew. Though the issue of slavery has been a tragic reality in cultures throughout the centuries, the Bible moves toward a message of freedom and the release of slaves, a radical statement 2,000 years ago. But the message of progressives today is saying, “We’re not really sure these Scriptures say what we’ve always thought they said.” Or, “We’ve moved past that.” Isn’t that tricky? Do we get to say that the Bible wasn’t talking about little white lies or that Jesus wasn’t talking about lusting after ‘pictures’ of women on a screen or that gossip is okay as long as it’s about someone really mean? Where do we draw the line of re-interpreting Scripture? When do we get to do away with all sin? When it becomes too inconvenient? I heard one pastor say, “Am I so sure that those 5-8 passages mean what we’ve always thought they mean that I’m going to tell homosexuals that they can’t enjoy a faithful relationship?” My response is, “Are you so sure they don’t that that you’re willing to risk eternity on it?” Because, the million dollar question is: What are the implications of being unrepentant over and even boastful in our sin? Two things stick out in Scripture to me. 1) Jesus had no problem bucking the system and calling out the religious order when it was wrong. When it came to marriage, Jesus lifted up a husband and wife and never mentioned homosexuality. He didn’t mind bucking the systems of Sabbath, sacrifice, forgiveness, family, poverty, race, age, finances, and eating codes…but he dared not buck that one. 2) Paul is crystal clear on the issue. Are you telling me that Paul, a Roman Citizen, had no knowledge of committed homosexual relationships and his writing was only about orgies and sex slavery and not what we see today? We don’t give Roman civilization enough credit when we do that. Homosexuality was prevalent. Paul deemed it a sin. I can’t get away from that.

Love: We need to love people. The Church is called to call the culture to repentance, but we love people in the midst of it. The truth is there’s a lot of things destroying the institution of marriage in our world: cohabitation, divorce, adultery, premarital sex, pornography, and homosexuality. We need to offer grace and God’s alternative. No one is judged into the Kingdom. We need to point people to Jesus and God’s Word. For God is the Righteous Judge that convicts our spirits when we are faced with truth. The Church needs to be a place where broken and sinful people can come and hear a message of forgiveness and new life in Christ. People need hope, and we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. But that’s tricky. If I’m doing something that is blatantly against God’s will, I hope those who love me most will sit me down and point out a better way. We can’t water down forgiveness and not ask for repentance. That’s not loving and does no one any good.

Pandora’s Box: My concern on this issue as a country is what it means potentially for America. Are we ready to say that our government should not make any moral judgment on whom I should marry? That’s essentially the message, right? If the government can’t tell me who I can marry, then why should they be able to tell me how many I can marry? Why can’t I marry my cousin, then? Why do I have to marry a human? Who is the government to tell me how old I have to be to get married? I’m not sure what it will mean if we say that we’re not going to have our government offer any moral voice. We do have a moral code in America. We believe it’s wrong to murder, cheat, steal, and lie in many places. We got that moral code from somewhere. I fear that we could be opening Pandora’s Box here.  I'm not sure I want our government telling us who we can marry, yet I'm fearful of what that will mean as we continue to 'progress' as a country.

Allowing vs. Celebrating: Having voiced my fears, if you forced my hand, I’d probably say that it seems America should allow gay marriage because we have chosen to value and fight for freedom in this country. I believe this is the chief thing God has blessed in the United States – freedom. Freedom was God’s gift to humanity, and it has been our Founding Fathers gift to America. We believe in freedom to act and do as you please, as long as you don't harm others.  God gave us freedom to sin if we wanted to. We would not be arrested for sinning against God, but we’d face consequences. That’s where I come down on this. I think you should be allowed to burn the American Flag, but I don’t think you should. I think you should be allowed to have an affair, but I don’t think you should. I think you should be allowed to hate people, but I don’t think you should. I think you should be allowed to look at pornography, but I don’t think you should. I think you should be allowed to ignore the poor, but I don’t think you should. I think God’s vision would be that people don’t exercise the freedom’s they have because they choose a better path. No one burns flags because we respect authority (and the people who died for that freedom under that flag), no one has affairs, nobody hates another, the porn industry files for bankruptcy, and the poverty is eliminated not by government forced distribution of wealthy but through the generosity of those that have been blessed materially. And people can enter into gay marriage, but there no one does it because people found a better way. What bothers me is that so many in the Church are celebrating this. There’s a difference between allowing and celebrating. I think you should be able to burn the flag, but I don’t celebrate it. I think you should be allowed to cheat on your spouse, but I don’t celebrate it. I think God frowns up sin that is celebrated. That’s why, for me, this is a non-issue for how I do ministry. I proudly serve in a tradition that reaches out to homosexuals in love with grace but does not celebrate the sin. And my prayer is that we stay the course, for just because there is freedom doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to our actions. Just because we’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean we should. Though the laws of this country may one day allow gay marriage, and maybe they should, homosexual relationships break the first and oldest command God gave us way back in Gen. 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply.” It seems pretty clear that God’s plan from the get-go was for the women and men to be in relationship, and there might be consequences when we brazenly celebrate an alternative to God’s original plan.