Things I wish Christians would stop saying: Anything whatsoever about homosexuality

If you are a Christian and you publicly condemn homosexuality or homosexual behavior, stop it. You’re harming the faith. You’re making Christians look like pinheads.

That’s because it’s not the Christian’s job to tell the world how to live. The Christian has three major jobs:

  1. Be the conduit for God’s love into the world
  2. Introduce people to God through Jesus Christ
  3. Encourage other Christians to become better disciples

There’s so much work to do in just these three jobs that we should be too busy to pronounce condemnation on anyone. There will never be a shortage of people in need: sick, poor, addicted, grieving, lonely, incarcerated. Go and do for them.

Sometimes, people you serve will become ready and receptive to hear more about God. Tell them your faith story and show them what the Bible says about redemption. Let your testimony and especially the word of God penetrate their hearts. After they’ve accepted Christ, help them build their relationship with God. Encourage them, study with them, pray with them, be their friend, and give them opportunities to serve people in need. And so the cycle continues.

Here’s where this gets a little thorny. Part of helping other Christians grow and become better disciples sometimes involves pointing out their sins. On the one hand, Jesus warned us in the Sermon at the Mount to take the log out of our own eye before we point out the splinter in someone else’s – that is, we should we should overwhelmingly focus on cleaning up our own act over correcting others. But Paul in his writings tells Christians that they should directly address the gross, unrepentant sin of other Christians.

It can be tricky to figure out through the Bible what God considers to be wrong behavior. It’s tempting, but risky, to read any English translation of Scripture as direct instruction to us. That’s because the Bible’s books were originally written for an audience that has been dead for thousands of years. Who was the original audience in terms of their history, culture, and level of understanding of the world? What is known about why that book was written? Additionally, do other passages about the same subject harmonize with this one and with the Bible’s overarching message? Finally, because the original language is not always easily directly translated into English, it is often very illuminating to look at the original words to learn shades of meaning obscured in English. In other words, a full understanding of any Bible passage requires study.

Upon that level of study, it’s clear that the Bible unambiguously calls out many sins: God hates divorce. Don’t sleep around on your spouse. Don’t murder anybody. However, I find after some study that the few verses that call out homosexual behavior are ambiguous.

But regardless of what your study leads you to think about homosexuality, those few verses are positively overwhelmed by verse after verse after verse that tell the Christian what behaviors and attitudes to put on. The Bible relentlessly tells you to live a life of compassion and service. Give yourself over to it, and let God sort out the rest.

Here is another thing I wish Christians would stop saying.


Comments

9 responses to “Things I wish Christians would stop saying: Anything whatsoever about homosexuality”

  1. Clare Flourish Avatar

    Hello. Yes.

    In the praise of Hobby Lobby and condemnation of Christian Voice- people are going to withdraw sponsorship of children because CV accepts married gay employees– what I hear is fear and anger. How do you assuage that fear?

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I have no idea.

      All I know is that the Bible says that there is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear. And I can hope that people will meditate on that.

      1. Clare Flourish Avatar

        That was the verse that I was thinking of. And- I think that other post you linked to, not saying “God does not give us what we can’t bear”, is relevant: hugs rather than platitudinous consolation or confrontation.

  2. pesoto74 Avatar

    I think that if Jesus had thought that homosexuality was such a big deal that he would have said something about it. He did say a lot about the problems that the wealthy might have, however it seems like very few Christians today pay much attention to that.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      Good point!

  3. Steve Miller Avatar
    Steve Miller

    Thank you for being a quiet, rational voice.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      Thanks, Steve.

  4. Dani Avatar
    Dani

    Jesus doesn’t discriminate with his love. Why should we?

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      Right! Let Him sort this out later; our job is to love now.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: