Sorry I haven't posted, I am in England for 24 hours!!!
Not to sure if Driscoll does Rock, I think in another life he would be a bully.
Anonymous wrote:
As far as living at peacewith all men goes, we should or atleast as much as is in our power, but surely thisidoes not give us excuse to compromise the word of God and
say that sin is ok? The New Testament is clear that homosexuality is a
sin, as well as drunkenness, lying, gluttony, adultery etc and is to be
repented of.
Thoughts on a post card please, it's early in the morning, sorry.
5 comments:
This really annoys me with christians, the fact that they focus on Homosexuality or drunkeness or sex before marriage. In 1Corinth cpt 6 or 7 (cant remember exactly) it talks about all these things but it also mentions selfishness, greed etc. There is no level when it comes to sin, all sin is equally bad and therefore I get annoyed when people high light these taboo subjects but dont worry about being selfish and greedy because thats just more exceptable in our sociaty then being guy or getting drunk. The bible also talks about not judging people as well.
"God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again." John 3: 17 The Message.
We all fall short of the glory of God as I'm always reassured. The bible also says he who is without sin cast the first stone etc.
So I think Driscoll needs to read John 3: 17 and then consider where he is 'pointing the finer'. Then perhaps consider is he himself with out sin, which as we know is not possible.
Things like this is what pushes people away from church!
Perhaps I should explain that what I was trying to say, is I'm not saying that sin is ok, but who are we to judge someone for their sin, when we are sinful ourselves (what ever that may be). Unfortunatley humans put sin into a hierarchy where one sin is worse then another and thats not how God see's them.
Why do our list of sins always only include the sins that other people do, rather than those that affect us - pride, judgment, legalism, or greed (the one we all suffer from in the west and is the worst as it kills all those others in the poorer part of the world).
How many of our churches would let David lead the worship group after what he did with Bathsheba & Uriah - and yet that is what happened in the days of the Law in the Old Testament?
On Sunday I sat with a prisoner who said he never felt "good enough" to enter a church, when asked what he wanted to pray for he asked God to help him forgive his mother's killer? He was wanting to find forgiveness for something like that - and yet in so many churches we don't want to find grace or forgiveness? We want to feel good enough holding on to our standards like the pharisees: we might be big and successful but Jesus may well have left the building (and be hanging out in a prison or gay bar near you). Jesus only loves sinners, for as soon as we think we are not we have closed the door to his grace.
Sorry Brain, I have gone off on one again...
Sorry about the long post here, thought it may be applicable.
First let me confess that I am a Driscoll fan too, though I don't agree with everything, Christ has used him to teach me alot.
The following is actually a quote from one of the other pastors at Driscoll's church.
"The Bible is emphatically clear that homosexuality is sin and no one who practices homosexuality will enter heaven apart from repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. But it is also a sin listed among other sins such as greed, adultery, and fornication (see 1 Corinthians 6:9) [& yes pride etc]. These are sins that Christian churches shrug over every day and yet they are rampant in our congregations.
Christians seem to have this tendency to see themselves as champions of morality and outsiders as enemies. But this attitude runs completely counter to the teaching of Scripture, which is to say counter to the gospel. Paul writes the following to the Corinthian church regarding the pervasive sexual immorality among them, he says:
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” – 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Until the Christian church begins to judge itself and deal with its own epidemic of unbiblical divorce, adultery, and fornication how can we presume to judge those outside the church? Until the rate of marital unfaithfulness, divorce, and cohabitation among professing Christians is nowhere near equal to that of the non-Christian populous, how can we claim the moral high ground?
And here’s the reality, according to the gospel of Jesus Christ; there is no moral high ground! “No one is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God, all have turned aside” and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:10-12, 23) Christians are not any more moral than anyone else!
Does this statement surprise you? Well that is because you have been duped into believing that Christianity is about what you do! But the central fact of the good news is that Jesus Christ died for you to appease His righteous anger at you for your moral filth!
Because God is just He had an obligation to kill you but because He is merciful He sent His Son to suffer the crucifixion in your place. Being a Christian means living out of this truth and admitting that apart from Christ, you are no better than anyone else!
When Jesus gets a hold of you, things do change, His love transforms you and enables you to begin to love and obey Him, and you do become a moral truth-abiding person. But when you look at the lives of unbelievers you must remember Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). It wasn’t anything you did; it was all a miraculous work of God.
“You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:1-9).
If this is the case, we should first of all not be surprised when people disobey God and don’t come to know Christ, because in our nature we are all children of wrath. The only difference between a Christian and any other sinner is that Christ bore the believers deserved wrath.
And then we should recognize that even becoming a Christian is not something we do that we can boast about, but rather it is a gift of God and is equally undeserved and is no cause for believing we are morally superior to others.
We are all sinners; we are the problem with society. The condition of the Church has more to do with what ails society than those outside of it do, because it is the responsibility of the Church to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to be the salt of the earth (the preserving flavor of the gospel), and the light of the world (the illumination of the gospel). “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?” (Matthew 5:13).
Rather than raising sectarian walls and guarding our supposedly immaculate Christian communities from outside sin, we need to let Jesus tear down the dividing wall of hostility among us, that is to say we need to have our own sin dealt with so that non-Christians can see the gospel in action. When unbelievers see Christians carrying on happy marriages, remaining faithful to their spouses, enjoying quiet lives in all godliness, they will see those good deeds and rejoice! They will praise God because they will have seen a miracle. It’s simply not possible apart from Christ."
My little brother is gay, he came out 7 years ago when he was 15. I have thought a lot about this stuff but the things I keep coming back to again and again is that I am commanded not to judge and to love my brother as I love myself.
My brother has had several encounters with God and though he is apathetic at the moment he is still interested. If he had encountered Christians who judged him and told him to repent of his sin he would be totally turned off God and church.
It really upsets me when I hear people judging homosexuals. We need to look at our own lives instead of speculating about other peoples. I know I've got a mountain of stuff I need to work on.
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