Friday, February 19, 2016

What does God say about homosexuality?

For those who believe in God--let us resolve this view that homosexuality is a sin. Is being effeminate a sin? What is homosexuality in the first place?

Some consider homosexuality as a lifestyle, while others, genetic. Definitely, it is not a disease nor a psychosis. Based on 20 years of research about homosexuality, it is when certain DNA genes are turned off that leads to homosexuality.

There is this mistaken view that homosexuality is an aberration--that it does not occur in nature or in the animal and insect kingdoms. The fact is--at least 500 species of animals and insects exhibit or show homosexuality.

Now the question really is--what is God's view about homosexuality? If God considers homosexuality as a sin, then, why is it that God allowed it to happen in the first place?

Those who believe in God believes that God created everything, even homosexuality. It would be extremely unbelievable if God created men and women and then all of a sudden, the first homosexual appeared and God would just say "opps!". Science already identified homosexuality as analogous to CERTAIN GENES being turned off during conception.

Some would say--well, the Bible is explicit in the Book of Genesis that when God created the heavens and the earth and mankind, he created two of a kind, not three. Adam was created from the ground while Eve was formed from Adam's. The question is--when did God create Steve? The bible says "two" but it did not say "two..ONLY." God ordered the world to "prosper and multiply", which means that God created the laws of life. Is it entirely possible that this law also created individuals whose specific DNA genes were turned off that led them to assume the traits of their counterpart sex?

What pastors would not tell you is that God created "man and a woman", the woman's role being that of a "companion" or "helper" of man. God saw man as alone and God then desired to create a companion for Adam. Now, the question really is---did God disallowed a man to have as a companion another man?

What is certain is that God FORBIDS a man from having SEXUAL relations with another man--that is a SIN definitely. There are several passages in the Old and New Testament that shows man-to-man companionship and I will cite some.

1. Jesus and John. Jesus loved John among the other disciples who were basically men. The fact is--John was even considered the "beloved". Everyone also knows how Peter loved Jesus "with all his life" but we never considered John, Peter and Jesus as "homosexuals", right?

2. Prophets in the bible did maintain strong relationships with other men, even until their deaths.

Surely, homosexuality appeared in the bible when Sodom and Gomorrah were mentioned as those cities destroyed by God when "men laid with fellow men" and so did "women with women".  However, certain passages like Luke 10: 10-13; Isaiah 19: 13-14; Jeremiah 23: 14; Ezekiel 16: 49; Zephaniah 2: 8-11, tell us that it was not actually sodomy that condemned the peoples of these two cities. It was their wickedness and perpetual sin.

Now, is the homosexuality which the Bible explicitly considers as sin includes companionship for life of men with men or women with women? No.

What God finds abominable is when two of the same sex lust with each other and do the "un-natural" in a sexual manner, and does it in a habitual manner, as if it becomes "natural" for a man to engage in sexual relationships with other men. That is clearly forbidden.

Now, we come to the final discussion---is homosexuality a purely sexual thing or a gender thing? Clearly, what God finds absolutely abhorrent is when "men lay with other men" or "women lay with other women"--that for God is un-natural, and therefore, abominable, and subject to punishment.

Yet, when men lay with other men, and did so not for sex, but for companionship, then, that is clearly not forbidden. 

That is doctrinally sound. Now, what about marriage? Can two of the same sex enter into marriage? The bible says about marriage is Mark 10:7-9 which says:

"But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Likewise, be guided by what Paul wrote in Hebrews 13:1-25 ESV:

"Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 

Why is it that God created marriage? It is for man to avoid committing sexual immorality which is explicity stated in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 ESV

"But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."

It very clear from these passages that God recognizes the "temptation to sexual immorality" of men. That explains why God created the institution of marriage so that " each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband". When they do so, they become "one flesh." Marriage should be "held in honor among all" because it keeps the marriage bed "undefiled."

This is the thing---though God may allow companionship between men to men, it is explicit that God does not allow marriage between the same sex.

Enuf said.

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