Last Friday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, voted to accept homosexual men and women who are living in monogamous relationships into the ordained ministry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082100532.html
(This blog is not about bashing homosexuals or the ELCA, so please read to the end. There’s a point in here for all of us.) Here’s the deal. I understood the compassion that spurred the action of that church assembly. Sexual identity is a complex issue that has been the source of much bigotry. Slogans like “God didn’t make Adam and Steve,” and rude “queer” jokes reveal ignorance and, when disciples of Jesus do it, it reveals a spiritual deficiency, a failure of love. But this is where it gets tough: our desire to show love for others must not lead us to reject or reinterpret the clear teaching of the Holy Scripture just to accommodate a contemporary value! I would defend the personal dignity of a person who is homosexual for that is what love compels me to do. I cannot offer support for same-sex relationships or to practicing homosexuals who wish to serve in ministry for the Scripture prevents me from doing that. “A passion for evangelism, (that is to bring people to Christ) divorced from a passion for biblical faithfulness, almost always results in the loss of the gospel. The gospel is just too “prickly.” It has too much to confront and irritate people in every culture.”
– Andy Johnson, ©9Marks. Website: www.9Marks.org.
At a conference I attended recently, a missionary spoke with me about two extremes that we Christians fall towards in our dealing with the culture that surrounds us. At one extreme we become so much a part of the culture that we become ‘syncretistic.’ Our commitment to Scripture is so diluted we no longer have a Gospel to proclaim. At the other extreme, we fail to understand how to wisely apply the Scripture’s wisdom to our culture and we fall into ‘irrelevance,’ our message and/or practice so disconnected from the world in which we live so that we cannot lead people to life in Christ Jesus.
Many of us get only part of the message about Christian love – like our Lutheran friends who are ready to ordain practicing homosexuals. Love not only involves accepting others as Jesus did. It also means we are willing to speak truthfully to those who are sinning against God, others, and themselves truthfully; as He did! In Scripture, we find truth that is timeless, that is greater than any one of us, that demands our conformity to God’s will painful or not! Of course, our proclamation of it must be firmly rooted both in other-centered love and self-effacing humility. “Turn or burn,” is hardly the tone Jesus Christ would want us to adopt. There is no place for defensiveness, nor can we just be about protecting our traditions or our personal preferences. Neither of those is necessarily the truth though many confuse them with the Truth! Discovery of truth requires that we are careful students of the Scripture who are led by the Spirit and guided by the long history of scholarship that is part of the Church’s heritage to us.
The crux of the matter, disciple, is that either we accept the full sufficiency of the Scripture to guide our lives or we don’t submit to it at all. We can’t choose the parts we accept. Wayne Grudem, author of a fine systematic theology, writes about the Holy Word: “all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.” He rightly says: “Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.”
So, let’s bring this down to you and me.
Are we prepared to allow the Scripture to judge our actions, choosing to respond in obedience while fully trusting the wisdom and Truth of it? "God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey." (Hebrews 4:12, The Message) That’s for you and me, right where we’ll live today! IF we are willing to say, “I know what the Bible says, but…” and choose our own way over God’s way, we are a terrible spiritual condition. We have turned ourselves into the judges of Scripture which will quickly cause us to become morally adrift.
Here’s a word from the Word for your ponderings. Let it live in your mind and heart today and make it your prayer.
Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.
Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts.
They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths.
You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully.
Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!
Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.
As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!
I will obey your decrees.
Please don’t give up on me!
Psalm 119:1-8 NLT
Amen
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