An acquaintance of mine "came out" recently. He wanted to tell me about his decision to do so. So we met at a local bar and grill, and over chips and salsa and buffalo wings he told me about his struggle with same gender attraction. He said he just admitted he rolled a certain way and no longer felt any guilt.
He said the New Testament has done away with Leviticus, and doesn't say anything about committed relationships with the same gender. He said what was condemned was prostitution.
Then he asked me what I thought.
I was straightforward. I said lust is lust, and your salvation is not determined by your lust. Salvation is Christ's work. When He resisted the temptation to give in to the lusts of the flesh, the temptation was to turn stones into bread, not to pursue goats.
So lust is lust, whether it be the consumation of food or other strong desire. "You have friends that I know," I said, "whose assurance of salvation rests solely on the fact that they have an opposite gender attraction, and they feel that they are by nature more righteous. But that is not the case. They simply don't struggle against their own lusts like you are being expected to do."
But whether or not he thinks Christ or any New Testament writer spoke of his "identity" issue, Christ did speak of marriage, and defined it as the union of a man and a woman. "Say what you will about Leviticus, and whether or not certain terms appear anywhere in the Scriptures. If prostitution is the issue, then you've asserted that certain behaviors are for the marriage bed, and you can't say that Christ and the New Testament is silent about that."
So what of the lust? There is a remedy and a help for those who cannot contain. He needs to marry a woman.
Though lust is neither the sole nor the primary reason for its creation, marriage is a help for all kinds of lust when entered into advisedly and with the proper gravity. And there is only one kind of marriage—that between a man and a woman.
The great lie is thinking that one's appetites is the basis of his identity, and that because of that assumed identity he can't qualify for marriage.
He said the New Testament has done away with Leviticus, and doesn't say anything about committed relationships with the same gender. He said what was condemned was prostitution.
Then he asked me what I thought.
I was straightforward. I said lust is lust, and your salvation is not determined by your lust. Salvation is Christ's work. When He resisted the temptation to give in to the lusts of the flesh, the temptation was to turn stones into bread, not to pursue goats.
So lust is lust, whether it be the consumation of food or other strong desire. "You have friends that I know," I said, "whose assurance of salvation rests solely on the fact that they have an opposite gender attraction, and they feel that they are by nature more righteous. But that is not the case. They simply don't struggle against their own lusts like you are being expected to do."
But whether or not he thinks Christ or any New Testament writer spoke of his "identity" issue, Christ did speak of marriage, and defined it as the union of a man and a woman. "Say what you will about Leviticus, and whether or not certain terms appear anywhere in the Scriptures. If prostitution is the issue, then you've asserted that certain behaviors are for the marriage bed, and you can't say that Christ and the New Testament is silent about that."
So what of the lust? There is a remedy and a help for those who cannot contain. He needs to marry a woman.
Though lust is neither the sole nor the primary reason for its creation, marriage is a help for all kinds of lust when entered into advisedly and with the proper gravity. And there is only one kind of marriage—that between a man and a woman.
The great lie is thinking that one's appetites is the basis of his identity, and that because of that assumed identity he can't qualify for marriage.
