Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Sexual Ethics”
Our Bible verse for today: “… He who created them in the beginning made them male and female, … For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Matthew 19:5
Our thought for today: “There are a number of good reasons for Jesus to have not directly mentioned the issue of homosexual behavior in His teachings.”
First, as has already been noted in an earlier devotional message, in this passage in Matthew chapter 19 Jesus restated and affirmed the pre-sin sexual ethic established by God in the Garden of Eden. By doing so He implicitly ruled out every other sexual activity that falls outside of the God-ordained pairing of a man and a woman in marriage. There were many other expressions of human sexuality which are forbidden by God and which Jesus also did not mention. But when he affirmed the pre-sin ethic established by God in the beginning, He effectively ruled out every other potential sexual activity – including homosexuality.
Second, Jesus didn’t mention homosexual behavior because He didn’t need to. His ministry while on earth was carried out almost exclusively to the Jews geographically located in Biblical Palestine. Homosexual behavior wasn’t much of an issue in that culture. Such practices were rare among the Jews and therefore it wasn’t necessary for Jesus to teach that lesson to those people.
However, earlier in the Old Testament, when the Jews were in such close proximity to cultures where homosexual behavior was prevalent, the issue was addressed by Moses. Likewise later in the New Testament, when the Christian faith began spreading outside of Jerusalem and beyond Palestine, the people of God once again found themselves in close proximity to cultures where homosexual behavior was common. So God had the Apostle Paul restate and affirm the Old Testament prohibitions against it.
The words of Jesus are without question the most important words in the Bible. But they are not the only words in the Bible. God gave us the entire Bible for a reason. Jesus Himself did not speak every word that needed to be spoken and He did not teach every lesson that needed to be taught for all people in all places for all time – but the Bible in its entirety does. When the people of God needed to be told that God forbids sexual relations between people of the same gender, He had Moses do so in the Old Testament and He had Paul take care of it in the New Testament. Therefore it wasn’t necessary for Jesus to speak to it.
Tomorrow we will begin a discussion about sexual orientation. Are people born gay?
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 