When Two So-Called “Married” Women (or Men) Repent

One of the sweet advantages of insisting that there is no such thing as same-sex “marriage” is that there is therefore also no such thing as same-sex “divorce.” In the days ahead, this will be very good news for many who repent.

In the years to come, God will be merciful on thousands of those who have been damaged by the present moral madness of our culture. He will exalt Christ in the conversion of many who have lived in same-sex relationships. More complexities than we can imagine will be presented to us in the church.

One of the more difficult scenarios will be what the church should do when, say, two women, who have lived in a so-called married state for some years, are converted to Christ, repent of their sin, and want to join the church. And what if they have children?

In this uncharted territory, here is a map with some of the biblical guideposts I foresee. It is not exhaustive. I invite every pastor to pray that God would grant him the great privilege of leading new believers through this process.

1. Rejoice. We should join all heaven in the joy that our Father and the angels feel over this repentance.

“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7)

2. Pray. This is going to be complex and difficult. We need humble wisdom beyond the merely human.

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)    Continue at John Piper

The Queen James 'Gay' Bible

The Story: A new revision of the King James Bible---dubbed the Queen James Bible---edits out all references to homosexuality in order to provide a Bible translation "edited to prevent homophobic misinterpretation of God's Word."

 The Background: The unnamed editors of the revision say they chose to use and retitle the King James Version to the Queen James Version because of the "obvious gay link to King James, known amongst friends and courtiers as 'Queen James' because of his many gay lovers."

The website for the "big, fabulous Bible" claims that homosexuality was first mentioned in the Bible in 1946 in the Revised Standard Version:

There is no mention of or reference to homosexuality in any Bible prior to this---only interpretations have been made. Anti-LGBT Bible interpretations commonly cite only eight verses in the Bible that they interpret to mean homosexuality is a sin; Eight verses in a book of thousands!

Ironically, the site explains that they didn't completely remove the offending verses because, "Revelation says not to 'edit the book,' and people often extend that to mean the entire Bible, not just the book of Revelation." The editors then go on to say, "We edited the Bible to prevent homophobic interpretations. We made changes to eight verses."

An example of one of their edits is Romans 1:27. Here is the verse in the KJV:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

And here is the new QJV translation:  Continue at Joe Carter

What’s At Stake in the Homosexuality Debate

The stakes could not be higher in the homosexuality debate, because — to put it rather bluntly — homosexual activity is a sin that parallels idolatry. The Apostle Paul seems to draw this connection in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, and he certainly does in Romans 1:18–27.

Robert Gagnon, a leading scholar on sexuality in Scripture, says these themes are closely related for Paul because both idolatry and same-sex intercourse equally oppose the designs of the Creator. He sees several strong connections that link Romans 1 to the creation account in Genesis 1–2. In his acclaimed book The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Gagnon writes, "Idolatry and homosexual behavior are in some measure parallel (not just successive) phenomena since both are presented as willful suppression of the obvious truth about God and God's design in the natural world."¹

Pagan idolatry is twisted because it is the act of rejecting the Creator and replacing worship of him with the worship of what he has made. Similarly, homosexual acts are twisted because they reject God's natural design for human sexuality.² Thus, homosexuality and idolatry are related. Both are evidence of a twisted distortion of God's design for men and women, both dehumanize men and women, both are rooted in a rejection of the Creator. That is to say, the distortions of idolatry and same-sex intercourse are foremost rooted in a worship disorder (Romans 1:21, 24–25).   Continue at Tony Reinke

Arousing Ourselves to Death

Pornography is about more than biological impulses or cultural nihilism; it is about worship. The Christian Church, in all places and in all times and in all communions, has taught that we are not alone in the universe. One aspect of “mere Christianity” is that there are unseen spiritual beings afoot in the cosmos who seek to do us harm.

These powers understand that “the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18). They understand that a disruption of the marital sexual bond defaces the embodied icon of Christ and his Church (Eph. 5:32). They know that pornography, in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ, joins Christ, spiritually, to an electronic prostitute or, more likely, to a vast digital harem of electronic prostitutes (1 Cor. 6:16). And these accusing powers know that those who unrepentantly practice these things “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9–10). Read it all HERE

Pride and Prejudice and Porn

Pornography teaches young men to view women as depersonalized sex objects, and because pornography seems to create an insatiable desire for increasingly extreme forms of objectification, the hard-core pornography common today and readily accessible to anyone with access to the internet is shocking for its level of violence and degradation. According to Dines, hard-core porn is a staple on many college campuses and there is little stigma attached to consuming it. Read it all HERE

HT: Tim Challies

When God Abandons the Public Schools

Shame on Christians? Sean Penn

HT: Symphony of Scripture