+61 2 9896 1719
PENDLE HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
  • Home
    • Bulletin
    • Sunday Services
    • About Us >
      • Our Beliefs
      • Statement on Marriage
    • Bible Quiz
    • Blog
  • Ministries
    • Men >
      • Men's Events
      • Full Throttle Friday
      • Wings Over Illawarra
    • Women
    • Adventurers' Outings
    • Youth
    • Cell Groups
    • Mission
    • Prayer >
      • Prayer Points
      • Persecuted Church Prayer
      • Ukraine Prayer
    • Testimonies
    • Cherish Orphanage
  • Special Events
    • Gingerbread Day 2022
    • Easter 2023
    • Combined Services
    • Kinder Kapers
  • Sermons
    • Why The Nativity
    • Audio Messages
    • Church On Line
    • In The Beginning
  • Contact
    • Links

Marriage Equality

19/7/2015

0 Comments

 
I have been reading a lot of information lately regarding same sex marriage. There have been recent decisions made to support same sex union in both Ireland and the United States. As a result of these decisions there has been a lot written both for and against what is now being called marriage equality. Unfortunately, many Christians seem to be confused as to what they should believe.

Our Baptist Union of Australia defines marriage as between one man and one woman. A definition I am quite comfortable with. I recently came across and article written by Kevin DeYoung who is the Senior Pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, near Michigan State University. He poses 40 interesting questions for Christin Evangelicals who feel that marriage equality may be a good thing. I post some of his thoughts and questions below in order that you may grapple with the questions.

Kevin DeYoung
For evangelicals who lament last Friday’s Supreme Court decision, it’s been a hard few days. We aren’t asking for emotional pity, nor do I suspect many people are eager to give us any. Our pain is not sacred. Making legal and theological decisions based on what makes people feel better is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. Nevertheless, it still hurts.

There are many reasons for our lamentation, from fear that religious liberties will be taken away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization. But of all the things that grieve us, perhaps what’s been most difficult is seeing some of our friends, some of our family members, and some of the folks we’ve sat next to in church giving their hearty “Amen” to a practice we still think is a sin and a decision we think is bad for our country. It’s one thing for the whole nation to throw a party we can’t in good conscience attend. It’s quite another to look around for friendly faces to remind us we’re not alone and then find that they are out there jamming on the dance floor. We thought the rainbow was God’s sign (Gen. 9:8-17).

If you consider yourself a Bible-believing Christian, a follower of Jesus whose chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, there are important questions I hope you will consider before picking up your flag and cheering on the sexual revolution. These questions aren’t meant to be snarky or merely rhetorical. They are sincere, if pointed, questions that I hope will cause my brothers and sisters with the new rainbow themed avatars to slow down and think about the flag you’re flying.

1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?

2. What Bible verses led you to change your mind?

3. How would you make a positive case from Scripture that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?

4. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?

5. Do you think Jesus would have been okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship?

6. If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?

7. When Jesus spoke against porneia what sins do you think he was forbidding?

8. If some homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?

9. Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?

10. What sexual sins do you think they were referring to?

11. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther failed to grasp?

12. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?

13. Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?

14. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?

15. If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?

16. If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?

17. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?

18. How would you define marriage?

19. Do you think close family members should be allowed to get married?

20. Should marriage be limited to only two people?

21. On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?

22. Should there be an age requirement in this country for obtaining a marriage license?

23. Does equality entail that anyone wanting to be married should be able to have any meaningful relationship defined as marriage?

24. If not, why not?

25. Should your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs without fear of punishment, retribution, or coercion?

26. Will you speak up for your fellow Christians when their jobs, their accreditation, their reputation, and their freedoms are threatened because of this issue?

27. Will you speak out against shaming and bullying of all kinds, whether against gays and lesbians or against Evangelicals and Catholics?

28. Since the evangelical church has often failed to take unbiblical divorces and other sexual sins seriously, what steps will you take to ensure that gay marriages are healthy and accord with Scriptural principles?

29. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?

30. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?

31. What will open and affirming churches do to speak prophetically against divorce, fornication, pornography, and adultery wherever they are found?

32. If “love wins,” how would you define love?

33. What verses would you use to establish that definition?

34. How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?

35. Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?

36. If supporting gay marriage is a change for you, has anything else changed in your understanding of faith?

37. As an evangelical, how has your support for gay marriage helped you become more passionate about traditional evangelical distinctives like a focus on being born again, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the total trustworthiness of the Bible, and the urgent need to evangelize the lost?

38. What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance, and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?

39. Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?

40. When Paul at the end of Romans 1 rebukes “those who practice such things” and those who “give approval to those who practice them,” what sins do you think he has in mind?

Please feel free to comment and let us know what you think!

0 Comments

To journey in Paul's early footsteps

6/3/2015

1 Comment

 
As a Church we have been working through the early years of Paul’s conversion. It remains quite remarkable to me that Paul actually took time to come to grips with his new faith. After receiving his sight back when the Lord appeared to him in a dazzling light he travelled to Arabia. For three years he spent time, no doubt on a spiritual retreat, regaining his perspective. However Galatians tells us that after a visit to Jerusalem, Paul again took time off travelling to Cilicia and Syria, his home town region. This was for a 14 year period. Depending on weather he was out of action for 14 years in total meaning an 11 year stint at home, or whether he was at home for a full 14 years is debatable. However, the point is that Paul was not in a great hurry to take the commission to be an Apostle to the Gentiles and start his remarkable evangelistic missionary journeys.
 
I take comfort in this fact. Sometimes we like to rush at things like a bull at a gate and believe that if we don’t get it done now then there is something wrong with us. Perhaps the fact that we live in a society where we demand instant service and immediate gratification adds to this urgent need to perform immediately. Sometimes of course this is a necessary aspect of modern life and the contemporary workplace. Spirituality however should be considered to be different.  

Just as a baby can only grow to adulthood in small steps over a number of years, so we can only grow to maturity in Christ over time. If such a great Christian as the Apostle Paul took years to work out his faith and come to the point of fulfilling his life’s call, then presumably we can give ourselves permission to do the same. This all points to the fact that the journey is just as important as the destination, so I say, let’s enjoy the journey. In order to do this well, we need to ensure that we don’t put ourselves on massive guilt trips and compare ourselves to other Christians, for God will deal with us in his own way and own time. Maturity after all takes a life time and we will still never be perfect!  

Of course the one word of warning we must all apply is that this process of maturity is not and must never be an excuse to do nothing. Remember, to be on a journey, it is most important to face forwards and walk.
1 Comment

Struggling with the wrath of God

9/2/2015

3 Comments

 
As we have been working through the book of Nahum in our morning services and reflecting on various Old Testament judgement passages as well as passages about the end time from Revelation, you like me might continue to find the concept of God’s wrath difficult to grasp. After all, in the age of the Church, in a peaceful country like Australia we rarely need to consider anything other than God's love. We think of his grace, we walk in relationship with the Lord Jesus, we enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit and embrace the good feeling that knowing God gives us. And quite rightly too! But we must remember the other side of the nature of God. He is a God who will punish sinfulness and act in vengeance towards his enemies and cast those who do not know him away from his eternal presence.

It is this side of God’s character that we struggle to come to grips with. Yet if we were people who lived in the midst of persecution and knew the punishment of those who would kill and torture God’s people, or any other innocents for that matter, we may actually embrace the coming wrath of God. Can a Western Christian ever understand how someone else may gladly say, “they will get their just rewards from God one day” and be glad with that thought? Should not we be like our Lord or Stephen the first martyr who asked for forgiveness for the first persecutors of the Church? Of course, but this is before the persecutors have reached the end of their life – it is while they still have a time to repent.

The reality is of course that God’s age of grace is limited – limited to our life span. This is why it is so important that we come into right relationship with the Lord who did punish sin in the most complete way, in his body on the cross. For those who cannot accept that there must be a punishment that does not include them in the Kingdom of God.

Difficult to grasp, yes! But we must remember that our Lord, Saviour and friend is also Almighty God, creator and rightful judge of all that is against him.
3 Comments

    Author

    Some general thoughts from Pastor Guy of Pendle Hill Baptist Church.

    Archives

    July 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Categories

    All
    Theological Thoughts

    RSS Feed

SUNDAY SERVICES: 9:30 am
ADDRESS: 52 Pendle Way, Pendle Hill.
POSTAL: PO Box 40. Pendle Hill, NSW 2145
PHONE: 02 9896 1719
EMAIL: info@pendlehillbaptist.org
WEB: www.pendlehillbaptist.org.au





 © Pendle Hill Baptist Church 2021