To Olliefranz,
No thats not so, the Bible makes no reference to heterosexual or homosexual acts, the sexual acts the Bible condemns are all those outside faithful marriage which means in terms of homo and heterosexual, all homosexual acts and most heterosexual acts
Exactly my point. The Bible does not say "homosexual acts are sinful." It merely gives examples of sexual sin. Some of those examples are heterosexual (that is, they involve partners of both sexes) and some are homosexual (that is, they involve partners of the same sex).
Yes I would agree with that, but add that all God created was good so yes it does say so even if not in those words.
Where does it say this? Where does the Bible refer to sexual acts privately?
Again, that is my point. If marital sex was not supposed to be private between the couple, then it would be proclaimed publicly. Since there is only the one (sinful) example of otherwise private marital sex illustrated in the Bible, the Bible treats other peoples' marital sex as none of our business.
Why not. If the examples of sexual acts as sin are not conclusive how do you know they are sin?
That is not at all what I said. The examples that the Bible gives of sin are sin. The examples themselves are not inconclusive.
However, to expand on the list of sins beyond the examples given in the Bible may be justified by the Bible (as in the incest laws), it may be just fence-building (as in the Jewish dietary laws) or it may exceed limits clearly indicated in the Bible. To expand the fact that every example of heterosexual sex is an example of sexual sin into a claim that all heterosexual sex is sinful is to deny the passages noted in my earlier post that sex within marriage is permitted.
A claim that a ban on all homosexual sex is biblical needs to show that a total ban does not deny any other part of Scripture, and that it is not simply a "fence" around the actual sins.
Rape is not mentioned as the sin in Genesis 19, knowing the men carnally yada is. Yes we would call this rape but we would also call the men having sex with the daughters rape in that respect, which would mean homosexual rape is wicked but heterosexual rape isnt. I suggest therefore that it is quite obvious rape is not the issue, yada sex is the issue, same sex acts.
Whether or not the word rape is used, the mob was not friendly, and they were not going to take "No" for an answer. The only way you can claim that it was not rape is to assume they were only flirting.
And how do you get around the fact that in Gibeah, the situation was identical, including the call to "yada" the strangers, and what happened to the concubine was clearly rape and murder?
Having cast your doubts on what is sin, you then propose there are only five passages. You cant be unsure if you are sure.
I'd like to comment on this, but I have no idea what you are claiming here.
There are, like I said, not counting the passages concerning Sodom, Gibeah, and Ammon, only five passages where the example given is clearly homosexual in nature. In every other passage either no specific example is given, and it talks about immorality in general terms, or the example is heterosexual in nature. If I am mistaken, then please cite another passage which clearly gives a homosexual example.
None of this has ayny scriptural support. What kinds of homosexual sin or another are mentioned?
In 1 Corinthians 6 and in 1 Timothy 1, Paul refers to sinners he calls "
arsenokoitai." This is one form of sin, and would appear to be homosexual in nature. In Romans 1:26-27, Paul is quoting a famous passage about a situation that the Greek philosophers recognized as "
para physin," a phrase that would be in this context an equivalent of calling it sin. This is another form of sin.
I changed the word "kind" to "form" in the above paragraph since you incorrectly fixed on the the common phrase "kind of like" meaning "almost like" to interpret my original paragraph, when all I was saying was that murder is a sin of one kind (violent), theft is a sin of another kind (disrespect of property), and arsenokoiten is a sin of yet another kind (sexual). This also answers your next paragraph:
With arsenokoites I think we can see all the sins in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 are sins not kind of sins. And no longer with those who were washed, they werent kind of washed, they were washed.
Some Christians sadly fail to realise it.
No all Christians realize that they are only counted as righteous because they are "washed in the Blood." But some Christians fail to realize that in all three Pauline passages, the list of sins is given, not to use to judge one another, but to point out to each of us that no one measures up on his own. We all fail in our own efforts and it is only God's Love and His Grace that give us any hope. Romans 1:18-32 is immediately followed by Romans 2:1-3. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is immediately followed by 1 Corinthians 6:11.
James tells us:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
James 2:10-11
And Jesus Himself tells us:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Matthew 7:1-5
As has been shown not only is that assumption not so, it is an assumption. There is no implication of consent in the use of the word. You merely keep repeating the same assumption which I have claimed is baseless.
Nothing of the sort has been "shown" in this thread. And in other threads in this forum, it has been claimed that there is no implication of consent, but no true effort has been made to prove that claim. In one thread you brought up the fact that consent is not an issue in the incest verses, as if that proved it was not an issue in verse 22. But that is precisely the point. The sins in verses 6-17 are sins whether there is consent or not, so they are phrased in ways that do not imply lack of consent.
But not so with verse 22. There are two separate, but related Hebrew words "
mishkav" and "
shakav." Both mean to lie down. Both can be used to euphemistically refer to sex. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 both use "
shakav" to refer to "Lying with a man." Every other time the Bible chooses to use "
shakav" to refer to sex, there is an element of non-consent that goes beyond mere seduction. Every other time. Why should this one time be different?
The rabbis that built the "fence" around the Leviticus command implicitly agreed. Although the proper way to refer to the verse would be "
Zakar Shakav," they refered to the command (with the "fence" in place) as "
Zakar Mishkav." The fence includes consensual sex. The original command does not.
And so the Bible doesnt. The Bible affirms Gods purpose is man and woman in faithful union or celibacy, same sex acts are already outside that before they are specifically condemned as error (ie Romans 1)
Romans 1 is a whole 'nother ball of wax. As I posted earlier, I'll post on Romans separately.
Paul wasnt just familiar but an expert in the law, so he knew the Spetuagint, thats why arsenokoites obviously refers to Lev 18 and 20.
And that is exactly what I said. Why does this sound like you are taking me to task?
So its clear that firstly same sex acts are contrary to Gods creation purpose for man and woman and thats why they are condemned .
Sexual reproduction, which admitedly normally requires genetic material from both a male and a female, is one of God's purposes in creating Eve. But not his primary purpose.
According to Genesis 2:18 God said that it is not good for a man to be alone, that he needs a companion, a helpmeet ("
ezer" -- someone who helps or comforts). The word appears outside of Genesis 19 times. In all 19, the help is from the "mercies" of one's enemies. In three, the help is military in nature, in the rest, it is God's help that comforts as well as saves.
There is nothing specifically sexual in being a helpmeet, the relationship between Jonathan and David could probably be described as between helpmeets. Although if your closest helpmeet is also your spouse, there is no condemnation of loving sex.
Your thinking fails at the first stage where you make an assumption that is actually contrary to what the Bible says, then you build on that assumption with more assumption.
Please show me where I have made any assumption contrary to the Bible, since everything I mentioned is either an example from the Bible or a noting ofthe fact that the Bible specifically chooses not to comment on a particular subject with a warning not to infer too much from that fact.
It is possible that I failed to heed my own warning and made unwarranted assumptions, but I don't believe you can show anywhere where I assumed something in direct contradiction to the Bible.
What you really need to do is show what scriptures support same sex unions.
The Bible does not "support" or "endorse" opposite-sex sex any more than it does same-sex sex. But it does permit it in the union called marriage. I promised that in a future post I would show that it does allow for same-sex marriage. It is implied that it permits sex within that union, just as it does with opposite-sex marriage.
You already know my main argument along these lines and have never been able to counter that argument with anything but the a priori assumption that same-sex sex is always sin.
