Recently when the Supreme Court issued the ruling to
make same-sex marriage a legal right I’d read articles and blogs by well-meaning Christians
who say as Christians we should rejoice with the LGBT community. The articles
likened the LGBT community to discriminated groups like African Americans in
slavery time: That this ruling should be placed in the same platform as the
civil rights movement that saw equal rights for the black—something I wholeheartedly
champion—is the point of most of these blogs.
Also the writers claimed
that as Christians we should always show love to our brothers and sisters (they quoted verses which include the words "brothers and sisters") and that God is love and
love prevails over the bigotry against the LGBT community that Christians seem to show.
I cannot disagree that we
should always show love to all, LGBT and non-LGBT, murderers, and non-murderers,
liars and non-liars etc. But as Christians we should live defined by the Word
of God. (Provided we believe the Bible is the word of God, and that the Bible
trumps all. Some people who call themselves Christians may not believe in “sola
scriptura” and live by codes set by other theology and doctrine that is not
solely set by the Bible. I believe these people are not Christians (born again)—at
least until they repent (“metanoia” in Greek—meaning “changing of the mind”)
and believe the Bible is the WORD of God and the words in the WORD must reign
supreme over all other books and even our own thinking—mine included.
When I refer to Christians
here, I do not include these people since I don’t think they are Christians—at
least not yet, and hopefully they will be born again and have the Holy Spirit
live in them—by then the Holy Spirit will help them to “repent” and they will
agree that the Bible is the Word and as Christians believe that
“sola-scriptura” is the only code for a Christians to live by.)
Using the Scripture alone
as a basis for understanding how the Lord wants us to live, believe and think,
how do we handle the issue of the LGBT and the Supreme Court decision on
same-sex marriage?
Let’s tackle
the easiest of the issue—that of love. What does it mean to love someone? It is
after all a great commandment for all believers? (Luke 10: 27 "'Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all
your mind'…'")
The Love chapter
(1 Corinthians 13) qualifies “love” as many thing but in the context we are
tackling it also says:
As defined by 1st
Corinthians 13 : 6 Love does not delight
in evil but rejoices with the truth.
Love rejoices
in the truth it says. So what does rejoice in truth mean?
According to Strong’s concordance rejoice (Number 4796) sygxaírō
means "identify with"
“Truth here according to Strong’s Concordance’s Definition ( number 225) : truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea,
reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man,
Which means we as Christians must identify with moral or
divine truth as defined by God,
And it does not
delight in evil or some translation defines as “unrighteousness”. (1 Corinthians
13:6) “Unrighteousness according to Strong’s is:
93 adikía -- the opposite of justice;
unrighteousness, as a violation of
God's standards (justice) which brings divine
disapproval; a count (violation) of God's justice, i.e. what is
contrary to His righteous judgments (what He approves).
So from this definition it appears that “justice” is
qualified as that which is approved by God. A violation of God’s standards is
actually defined as injustice.
Why am I being so pedantic about going back to the original
meaning? Because there’s a reason why the OT and NT are
written in Hebrew and Greek, and if we want to understand what God’s saying
should we not study what was written?
The Bible after
all says every “word”, “jot and tittle” are so crucial to understanding that
not one should be removed (Jesus said in Matthew 5:18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not
even the smallest detail of God's law
will disappear until its purpose is achieved.)
In fact a
curse is pronounced upon those who alter or subtract a word, by the way. (Rev
22:19) Again if you are not a Christian reading this I’m not speaking to you—but
if someone professes to be a Christian he/she should at least examine each word
(in the original Hebrew and Greek) and see if the words be true for himself/
herself.
I hope at least
in looking at 1 Corinthians 13:6 “love “ is defined as not celebrating with the
Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriages. This is not to say we condemn
the gays and lesbians, but that if we profess we are Christians and believe every
word that proceeds from God’s Word we must not gloss over what God has written
in the Bible. And we should not try to convince or deceive other Christians to
think it’s okay to rejoice with the Supreme Court decision. It’s one thing to
be deceived ourselves but to try to teach other “Christians” with arguments
that would lead others astray holds a heavy penalty.
Again God’s
words not mine: James 3: 1
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
So my brothers
and sisters in Christ (again brothers and sisters is not a broad term to
include every person on this planet—we only become part of the same family when
we have Jesus as our savior and God is our Father,) should we rejoice with the
gay agenda? Should we as Christian rejoice with sinful actions?
Some may argue
that homosexuality is not a sin. So, next time, let’s look at the Bible again to see how
the God of the Bible views homosexuality.
(We will also one
day look at whether it’s important for Christians to believe sola scriptura—a
topic I hope to blog about in the future.)
Emma Right is an award winning young adult and children's fiction author. Her fantasy and suspense thrillers for young people have won multiple awards and have been Amazon best sellers. A homeschool mother of five she hopes her books will empower, entertain and enlighten her readers. Find out more at emmaright.com and get free books for children.
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