My wife brought a fellow blogger’s posting to my attention – in fact two such posts (one from back in 2010 and another from two days ago).
I wrote on this topic extensively a few months back, but I’m back for another crack at it because of the above two entries into the public consciousness.
What brought me back to the topic of gay marriage is not a change of opinion or heart (both of which would rely on my own faulty human emotions and reinterpretation of The Holy Word of God and the very meaning and Truth behind the words contained within). What brought me back is the concept I see littered throughout those two pieces I linked above – that of a re-definable God.
Let’s settle something right now.
God is not human, that he should lie,
not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Numbers 23:19
He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.
1 Samuel 15:29
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:17
I the Lord do not change.
Malachi 3:6
God is immutable. The God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament. God, Spirit, Son – all are the same since the beginning of the frame of existence that we call time. The metaphysical aspect of this concept is that the Triune God exists at all points in time simultaneously so if God changes, then there can be no true god as the concept would then be bound by a dimension of the universe that he created.
The author of those pieces I linked above does not seem to understand this fundamental concept about God and is prescribing a course of behavior completely at odds with the Word of God. This is a particular dangerous thing to do. While there are some who read what this woman writes with a grain of salt and strong understanding of scripture and are able to test what she says (and what she says is sometimes right and true, which makes it all that more insidious). Someone without a scriptural understanding and lens to measure her opinions over, they are incapable of spotting the inconsistencies and omissions of scriptural truth.
By biggest problem lies in these quotes:
Your parents are Christians who carefully choose what we believe and follow in the Bible.
No. No. No. No! This is the biggest lie that Satan has managed to interject into the world and deep within believers that must be rooted out. You do not get to pick and choose for yourself what is Truth. That is your pride speaking. That is you saying that you know better than God Himself.
What I’m trying to say is that each Christian uses different criteria to decide what parts of the Bible to prioritize and demonstrate in their lives. Our criteria is that if it doesn’t bring us closer to seeing humanity as one, as connected, if it turns our judgment outward instead of inward, if it doesn’t help us become better lovers of God and others, if it distracts us from remembering what we are really supposed to be doing down here, which is finding God in every human being…
STOP! Finding God in every human being? Okay… problem. BIG BIG PROBLEM. You can see the finger of God in every person, every creation, but you cannot find GOD Himself. We are made in His image – that’s it. Purge this thought from your mind now because it will grow like a cancer and pervert your understanding of God’s nature and the nature of our relationship with Him. Do not assign your personal pride to another person. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
God gave you the Bible, and He also gave you your heart and your mind and I believe He’d like you to use all three.
Well, that almost sounds like a good idea. I wonder what scripture says about the heart.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7
But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.
Jeremiah 17:7-10
For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
Matthew 15:19
Well then, sure seems like judging by the heart is a bad idea – it is easily swayed and emotionally led.
Shifting gears here a bit – when you redefine words you change their meaning to you, but not the meaning when they were written, nor the intent of the author. The author of Momastery relies on these redefinitions to validate her opinion. She relies on scripture’s call to love, but she badly misunderstands the various types of love. And here is where she falls into a terribly tenuous place for her – because of her platform and audience, you could consider her a teacher. I have a tiny fraction of the same audience, but I hold myself as God will upon judgment – as a teacher as well, and for that reason I carefully reflect on scripture, context, and pray upon every word I write so as not to lead someone else astray unintentionally.
Let me try to set something straight here. Like I said, not everything the author said was wrong, and that’s why it’s difficult for some to separate the truth from it and discount the rest without a strong scriptural understanding. We’re going to head back to the immutability of God.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
This is the Gospel. This is Truth. God loves every one of His creations – mankind – that He Himself, through Christ, offered the only pathway to righteousness through the crucifixion and resurrection. This God is not a different God from the one who wrote His laws in stone on the mountain in Exodus or provided the remainder of the Law. Remember – God is constant and unchanging. The God that rained fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah, sent the plagues on Egypt, and struck down entire armies is the same God who became man two millenia ago. God is fearsome in His might, majesty, and absolute demand of perfect adherence to His law. God – pure goodness, pure love, and holiness unblemished in even the slightest way – cannot tolerate sin, even the tiniest one because it is a corruption of the image of God and the bearer of that corruption cannot survive an encounter with the pureness of God. So the author is neglecting significant chunks of scripture in order to justify their understanding of God and sin. She discounts Levitical law and various points in the bible where sexual immorality, sodomy, and unnatural relations are expressly prohibited as sinful and meriting death, but forgets that God is unchanging. She, and so many others, want God to change because it is IMPOSSIBLE for man to follow all of the law without Christ, and that is not unexpected – Christ never promised an easy path – but to use your public pulpit in order to spread mistruths… well scripture has a lot to say on that as well.
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute….
2 Peter 2:1-2
…these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
2 Peter 2:12
they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
2 Peter 2:18-21
When you deviate from the perfection and completeness of scripture and begin picking and choosing in order to validate your own opinion, you are acting out of pride. That in and of itself is bad, but to spread your word as truth rather than The Word and The Truth, you are supplanting God and essentially telling Him that He is wrong and spreading that understanding to others and potentially causing them to fall away from God also.
Now, I will briefly touch on a few things that she got right.
God loves all mankind. Yes, absolutely, otherwise redemption would have been withheld from us.
We are not to judge others or condemn others. Judgment is reserved from God alone and Christ alone is our intercessor.
We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Absolutely. We’re all in the same boat – we’re all sinners hopelessly lost and in need of the grace and mercy of God, our Father and Creator. But the author fell short again here… I will end this session with a question – do I truly love my neighbor if I tolerate and celebrate his or her lifestyle if it is sinful? Am I doing them any eternal favors, by not bringing them into the saving grace of Christ which will free them from the bondage of sin?
freedomsbrushfire 