All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NASB)
Thus Saith The Lord; Or Human Authors Of Scripture?
Apprising Ministries brings to your attention Gene Robinson: Same-sex acts unnatural for heterosexuals, which Christian Today (CT) carries in their World News section today. And you should also know it’s largely because of the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—that morphed into Emergence Christianity—(EC) that we would even have to be discussing the man-centered musings of apostates (at best) like Gene Robinson within the mainstream of the church visible in the first place.
For a little biblical perspective, Gene Robinson is the overseer of Episopal churches in New Hamphire, where I was raised and currently reside. Eric Young of CT tells us:
Robinson, who was married and has two daughters, divorced his wife and is now involved in a homosexual relationship. He currently serves as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in The Episcopal Church. (Online source)
In the real world of the historic orthodox Christian faith someone who’s unrepentantly “involved in a homosexual relationship” would be disqualified from being in Christian ministry. However, in our tepid times of postmodern pudding what “Bishop” Robinson dreams makes “world news.” Young begins his CT article informing us:
When the Apostle Paul wrote of the “perversion” of men and women who committed “indecent acts” with those of the same sex, he was talking about people he understood to be heterosexuals engaging in same-sex acts, according to The Episcopal Church’s first actively-gay bishop.
“It never occurred to anyone in ancient times that a certain minority of us would be born being affectionately-oriented to people of the same sex,” Bishop V Gene Robinson stated this week. “So it did seem like against their nature to be doing so,” he added, referring to the exchange of “natural relations for unnatural ones” by men and women, as Paul recorded in Romans 1:26-27. (Online source)
First of all, this is really an old argument originally advanced when the original cult of liberalism invaded the now almost spiritually dead mainline denominations. And secondly, as you can see, the reasoning here is that “Paul” was writing thus and so; as if what is written in the Bible would then simply be Paul’s ignorant, and uninformed, opinion. And this would be true if the Bible was a book containing writings of men who were only recounting their own subjective experiences with God, i.e. simply sharing their own opinions about issues relating to religion; but it is not.
Of our opening text above Dr. Ralph Earle is dead-on-target when he says:
“All Scripture is God-breathed.” That is exactly what the Greek says. The adjective theopneustos (only here in the NT) is compounded of theos, “God,” and the verb pneo, “breathe.” This is one of the greatest texts in the NT on the inspiration of the Bible…
Another outstanding passage is 2 Peter 1:21, which indicates something of how the divine inspiration took place. Here in 2 Timothy we have the fact simply and plainly stated; the process of inspiration is not dealt with. (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 11, 409)
But today there’s a steadily growing number within mainstream evangelicalism—bolstered by erroneous teaching oozing out from warped and toxic EC circles—who would dare to call themselves Christians, when all the while, they’re attempting to cause people to doubt the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Bible. And as you can see e.g. in Emerging Church And Adele Sakler TransFORM Gay Agenda In Evangelicalism one of their pet doctrines right now is the attempt to convince us that the deviant lifestyle of having sexual relations with a member of one’s own sex i.e. homosexuality is a viable one for the evangelical Christian.
And the growing stature within mainstream evangelical circles of gay-affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker and his Outlaw Preachers [read: no law] shows there’s a very dark and threatening same-sex storm, which is right now approaching hurricane force, growing ever closer to the coast of your own local evangelical church. However, despite their insolence, the Body of Christ has always taught that God the Holy Spirit is the Author of the Bible; though He chose to do so through human instruments. Take for example:
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20-21)
It’s high time that we need to remind men like Gene Robinson that, because all Scripture is God-breathed, what’s being discussed e.g. in Romans 1 it isn’t merely “Paul’s view”; rather, what Scripture says, God says. And no one in their right mind is going to argue that our Creator doesn’t know what He’s talking about. But here we see yet another example of the fetid fruit of the highly subjective Spiritual Formation aka Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard, which attacks Sola Scriptura.
The fact is, all mystics have to jettison reason i.e. critically thinking skills in order to go on to create their own synthetic version of reality; another reason why postmodernism, which is actually the flawed philosophy of relativism, is completely incompatible with the genuine Christian faith. Specific to Robinson’s tired argument above, he’s “responding to a question” Young tells us was:
posed by a reporter for conservative CNSNews.com following a press conference in Washington this week. Upon engaging Robinson, the reporter had brought out Romans 1:24-27 and asked the New Hampshire bishop if he thought Paul was correct in describing homosexual acts as being against nature.
Robinson, in response, said the question would take about two days to answer, but to explain simply, the bishop told the reporter that the passage – like any other in the Bible – needed to be understood in its own context. (Online source)
Actually It’s Progressive/Liberals Attempting To Twist Scripture Out Of Its Context
Here we see a straw man argument designed to obscure what the text itself says; but no one’s arguing that we shouldn’t understand Scripture “in its own context.” As I previously pointed out in Brian McLaren, Emergence Christianity, And Homosexuality: What’s So Hard About That? in Romans chapter one we are informed that the LORD God Almighty’s patience one day will run out; and based upon the kind of lunacy in the Lord’s Name we’re discussing here, quite possibly has already done so. In verse 26 we read — Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
As we use our critical reasoning skills, it should be obvious enough to see we’re being told here that what we are about to read next in the text would be things which are considered shameful lusts by our Creator; and His opinion is the only one that matters. And notice also that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any one particular culture; no rather, it has to do with what God Himself as Creator judges universally to be shameful lusts. Consider now the b part of verse 26 — Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
The logical question which should now arise is: What are these natural relations women are exchanging here for unnatural ones. God the Holy Spirit anticipates this question for us and then provides our answer in Verse 27 — In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. We see then — In the same way as the women the men also abandoned — or exchanged — national relations with women for unnatural ones; “understood in its own context” it becomes quite clear.
Now we can understand that, according to His created order, the LORD God Almighty—the very Creator of the universe Himself—has in fact outlined for us that He considers “natural” sexual relations to be those which occur between one man with one woman after marriage. As a result therefore, Scripture then also defines sexual activity between members of the same sex as being “unnatural.” And this is also reinforced in the b part of verse 27 — Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
With this in mind, we can now put all of this together and come to the realization that, according to the Bible, God refers to sexual relations between members of the same sex as shameful lusts. Homosexual relations, which will always be outside of the marriage covenant as designed by the Lord, is also said to be abandoning natural relations and being inflamed with lust (a sin in and of itself) for a member of one’s own sex. Verse 27 then lists this among indecent acts and clearly refers to homosexuality as perversion.
There’s just no way around what these texts are saying because this passage of the Bible concerns proper sexual conduct for men and women of any culture—period. This is part of the created order itself, and so, it would apply to all of mankind regardless of cultural mores of any generation. Robinson and his ilk are the ones attempting to twist the Scriptures out of their context; and in closing this for now, the following from James White and Jeffrey Niell in their 2002 book The Same Sex Controversy proves most edifying concerning Robinson’s old argument above:
This perspective, presented in some of the most popular revisionist works, tries to find a way to allow for a “natural” homosexuality by reading out of the text the basic meaning. [The] exegesis [above] has already shown, however, that this viewpoint is untenable. The entire context would be completely disrupted by such an eisegetical [presupposed] reading.
The focus upon the willful twisting of God’s truth, and resultant “giving over” of men to the results of their own refusal to worship Him and acknowledge Him, is utterly lost if, in fact, the only point here is that of homosexuality itself is not sinful in God’s sight, but rather it is wrong to engage in it if you have “natural” [heterosexual] desires. (126, emphasis theirs)
See also:
THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT
GROWING GAY AGENDA IN EVANGELICALISM
BIBLE OUTS GAY MARRIAGE
QUICK WORD ON SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY
RICK BRENTLINGER OF GAY CHRISTIAN 101 AND KEN SILVA
ANDREW MARIN METHODOLOGY
EX-HOMOSEXUAL FRIEND OF APPRISING MINISTRIES
As a follow-up to SBC Pastor Ed Young Jr In Luxury Cover-Up? here at Apprising Ministries I point you to Ed Young Jr’s blog where he tells us he’s Setting Things Straight and Moving On.
