Archives for July 2019

Homosexuality and Hate Speech

July 25, 2019 By Mike Sorcinelli

This past Sunday I briefly mentioned something Jesus said on the topic of homosexuality in my sermon How to Interpret Scripture like Jesus (starts at 19:02 and ends at 23:33) to illustrate how some people twist the Scriptures and read meaning into them – to make them say what they want them to say.

The next day I received the following email:

“Your message has taught members of the church and the community to not accept and support the LGBTQ community. There is a lot of hatred going around in the world right now and it’s important that we do our best to love everyone the same.”

Let’s unpackage this a bit, shall we?

It’s not my message. I’m the server, not the chef. If you don’t like the food, talk to the cook. My job isn’t to prepare the food, only to deliver it. Jesus prepared the spiritual meal in Mark 7:21-23. I just delivered it.
The person who wrote this believes that accepting and supporting the homosexual lifestyle is loving, and to teach what Jesus said on homosexuality is hateful. I would like to propose that precisely the opposite is true.

The Bible teaches plainly that the person who lives the homosexual lifestyle – I’m not talking here about those attracted to the same gender, rather those who sinfully act on that attraction – will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.“
Galatians 5:19-20, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures,idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” The phrase “sexual immorality” here is a catchall phrase that would include the sin of practicing homosexuality.
Revelation 21:8, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Again, the phrase “sexual immorality” here is a catchall phrase that would include the sin of practicing homosexuality.

In light of biblical teaching, how can it be loving to encourage someone down a path that will ultimately lead to eternal seperation from God?

Conversely, how can it be hateful to try and warn someone from heading down a path that will ultimately lead to eternal seperation from God?

If someone’s house is burning down and you don’t warn the people inside, how can that be loving? If you do warn them, how can that be hateful?

I would rather make someone temporarily uncomfortable, by lovingly confronting them with the truth of God’s Word that can save, than have them be eternally uncomfortable in hell.

Now I want to be clear that I don’t write this to justify my actions this past Sunday (I don’t believe sharing the truth of God’s Word ever requires justification). I write for three reasons:

To expose the lie in the line of reasoning that says it’s hateful to share biblical teaching on the topic of homosexuality.
To equip followers of Jesus with how to respond when someone tells them the same thing.
To convince those who are accepting and supportive of the homosexual lifestyle that they are doing more harm than good (from an eternal, biblical perspective).

Jesus and Homosexuality, Part 2 of 2

July 25, 2019 By Mike Sorcinelli

I once received the following email:

“In the future when you want to talk about gay people in your sermons, just say what Jesus said about the subject, and that is nothing, nothing at all…Show me a quote by Jesus that is DIRECTLY condemning homosexuality, and the answer is, you can’t.. so don’t you do it either.”

I can only assume that if I receive such feedback from time to time, you (the people of New Day Church) do as well. I’d like to share a biblical response that I would encourage you to share, as you have opportunity. As you share, don’t forget the biblical guidelines for doing so. For it to be biblical, we have to share with “…gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

Now Jesus absolutely said something on the topic of homosexuality, which I covered in depth in my previous post Jesus and Homosexuality Part 1. But let’s pretend for a moment that he didn’t. The argument “Jesus said nothing about homosexuality” is still fatally flawed for the following four reasons:

It’s an argument from silence.

There are lots of things Jesus never mentioned that clearly violate God’s moral. Are we really to believe that Jesus didn’t care about incest, rape, abortion, human trafficking, wife-beating or child-molesting just because He said nothing about them? There are any number of immoral behaviors Jesus did not mention by name; surely we don’t condone them for that reason alone! What reason do we have for believing that Jesus’ ostensible silence on any issue, should be understood as his support for it? The answer is “Absolutely none.”

The argument wrongly assumes that the Gospels are more authoritative than the rest of the books in the Bible.

At no point did Matthew, Mark, Luke or John say their books should be elevated above the Mosaic Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy) or, for that matter, any writings yet to come. What the Bible does say is that “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). This verse assigns equal value to all books of the Bible, which prevents us from elevating some (i.e. the Gospels) over others (i.e. the Torah or the Pauline Epistles).

Even if the Gospels were silent on the subject of homosexuality (which they are not), that would in no way condone homosexual practice. The entirety of biblical teaching must be taken into account before we can make conclusions concerning what the Bible actually teaches on any given subject. Again, even if the Gospels were silent on the topic of homosexuality (which they’re not), the rest of the Bible certainly isn’t. And the books of the Bible outside of the Gospels are just as authoritative as the Gospels themselves, for they were just as much “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) as the Gospels.

The argument wrongly assumes that the Gospels are more comprehensive than they really are.

The Gospels do not provide us with all we need to know by way of doctrine and practical instruction in Christian living. That’s why God gave us the rest of the Bible – the books outside of the Gospels. We need all of it to learn to walk in God’s ways.

It presumes to know all of what Jesus said.

The Gospels never claim to include everything Jesus taught. On the contrary, they teach the exact opposite. The apostle John wrote in John 21:25, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” This means that we don’t have in the Bible a record of every miracle or teaching of Jesus.

I’m not claiming that Jesus said something on homosexuality that we don’t have written down, only that based on John 21:25 we cannot rightly conclude that Jesus’ silence on a subject automatically means that he never said anything on that topic.

CONCLUSION: A specious argument is an argument that is superficially plausible, but actually wrong. That is precisely the case when it comes to the argument “Jesus said nothing about homosexuality.” It looks good from far, but turns out to be far from good. At first glance it appears structurally sound, but if you test the foundation by the Word of God, it all comes crashing down.

Jesus and Homosexuality, Part 1 of 2

July 25, 2019 By Mike Sorcinelli

I received an email this week that stated the following:

“Although in your eyes, it may not be right to be gay…in God’s and Jesus’s eyes, they are accepting and loving of it.”

If you received such an email…or if a family member, friend or co-worker said something along these lines…how would you respond? I’d like to share what I believe is a biblical response and would encourage you, as God provides the opportunity, to share this response “…with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

1. Jesus forbid “sexual immorality” which included homosexual behavior.

Jesus said in Mark 7:21-23, “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” [that is, morally unclean] “Sexual immorality” in this context refers to “sexual acts that are morally objectionable.” Since Jesus said these things to his disciples, who were Jews, we must look to the Mosaic Law (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy) as the standard for right and wrong. In the law of Moses, forbidden sexual sins include (but are not limited to) incest, adultery, homosexuality and bestiality (see Leviticus 18:6,20,22,23).

So: 1) Jesus said that “sexual immorality,” a catchphrase for all sexual sin forbidden in the Mosaic law, was evil and made a person morally unclean. 2) Homosexuality is listed as a forbidden sexual practice within the Mosaic law. 3) Therefore, it is grossly misleading to imply in anyway that Jesus supported the homosexual lifestyle. He wasn’t silent on the subject and what he said explicitly categorized homosexual behavior as immoral.

Imagine with me a parent grounding his kid from “technology” for a week. Within that time frame the kid is caught using his phone. He tries to justify his actions saying “You never said anything specifically about using my phone!” Would the parent accept his justification? Of course not! The punishment was “no technology.” Technology is a catchall phrase that encompasses phone usage.

In the same way, Jesus forbid “sexual immorality.” For the homosexual to try and justify homosexual acts saying “Jesus never said anything specifically about homosexuality” is just as dishonest as the kid saying to his parents “You never said anything specifically about my phone.” It doesn’t matter if it’s mentioned specifically or not. “Sexual immorality” is a catchall phrase for all sexual sin that encompasses the homosexual lifestyle.

2. Jesus taught that God’s created intent for human sexuality was heterosexuality.

Jesus said in Mark 10:6-9, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Jesus makes clear here that God’s created intent for human sexuality is heterosexuality. By explicitly pointing to heterosexuality as God’s standard, Jesus implicitly condemns any lifestyle that falls short of that standard – which includes, but is not limited to, the homosexual lifestyle.

It may be helpful to think of it this way…If the speed limit says 35mph, then 35mph is the standard. Any speed over that standard is breaking the law.

3. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament law, which clearly does not affirm the homosexual lifestyle.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Jesus accepted and affirmed the law – the law that forbids homosexual practice (see Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). One of the reasons why proponents of same-sex intercourse think that they can enlist Jesus in their cause is that they labor under a popular misconception; namely, that Jesus was far more tolerant on sexual matters than his Jewish contemporaries. But precisely the opposite is true. On matters relating to sexual ethics Jesus adopted stricter, not more lenient, demands that most other Jews of his time. For example, in Matthew 5:27-28 Jesus said “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus here takes the baseline standard of the Mosaic Law (don’t commit adultery) and then raises it (don’t even lust). So we see that Jesus’ expectations regarding sexual purity exceeded the expectations both of the Mosaic Law and of the traditions prevailing in Jesus’ day. And so we see that Jesus did not overturn any prohibitions against immoral sexual behavior in Leviticus or anywhere else in the Mosaic Law.

CONCLUSION: The idea that Jesus was, or might have been, personally neutral or even affirming of homosexual conduct is revisionist history at its worst. The portrayal of a Jesus as a first-century Palestinian Jew who was open to homosexual practice is simply ahistorical. All the evidence leads in the opposite direction. In light of the clear teaching of Jesus we can only conclude that those who find in the Gospels a Jesus who is a prophet of tolerance, who forgives and accepts all, regardless of behavioral change, have distorted the historical reality of what Jesus actually taught.