Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Sexual Ethics”
Our Bible verse for today: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” 2 Timothy 4:3 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “We must not twist the clear meaning of Scripture.”
Matthew Vines is a twenty-four year old professing Christian from Kansas. He was raised in a Christian home and attended a conservative Presbyterian church. Matthew is also openly gay.
After graduating from High School, he went off to college at Harvard University. Upon arriving there he was astounded to discover the openness and encouragement he found for the gay lifestyle. After two years at Harvard Matthew dropped out to work as an advocate for gay Christians.
In 2012 he delivered a speech in a liberal church, attempting to make the case that with respect to homosexuality, the Bible has been misunderstood and misapplied for thousands of years. Matthew attempted to show that the passages which seem to teach against homosexual conduct, actually only apply to lust-driven short-term hook-ups, not to long-term committed homosexual relationships. In order to achieve his purpose Vines had to engage in a substantial amount of Scripture-twisting and deception but in the end, he was able to construct an argument which on the surface was somewhat convincing to those who were eager to accept it.
The speech was videotaped and posted to YouTube. It went viral and to-date has been viewed over 700,000 times. In early 2014 the speech was published as a book entitled “God and the Gay Christian” and quickly became a best seller.
Matthew admits that he himself is not a Bible scholar, he has no training in the Biblical languages, and he does not even have a Bible College education. Additionally, the “Bible scholars” whose work he did draw from, mostly all come with a gay-friendly bias and their work is largely dismissed in most of the Christian world.
I bring this to your attention simply because Matthew’s video and book have become a sensation in the gay community and are being offered-up as “proof” that God is not opposed to committed long-term same-sex relationships.
Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson is a gay New Testament scholar who does have extensive training in the original Biblical languages. He is an advocate for same-sex relationships, but at the same time he is refreshingly honest about what the Bible really does and does not say about it:
“The task demands intellectual honesty. I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says … we know what the text says. (However), I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witness to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us.”
What Johnson says there is that he knows full well what the Bible says about homosexuality and he doesn’t care. He relies instead on how he feels. He then fulfills his desires and claims God’s blessing upon it.
That attitude is sad, even tragic, but at least it’s honest. Matthew Vines should learn from Luke Johnson. Tomorrow we will think a little more about Biblical accuracy, and then we will address the question of sexual orientation. Does God create people gay?
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 