Sex and the Created Order

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'The Creation of Eve' by G.F. WattsYes, it’s Valentine’s Day. That this post deals with the topic it does has little to do with the day and a lot to do with something I read this last weekend that shocked me. Al Mohler added grist to the mill a couple days ago (radio show, blog). Now I can’t get the ideas for this post out of my head. Kind of a “write or be tormented by it knocking around in your thoughts until you do” thing. I hoped to post this yesterday, but the combination of a migraine and an ice storm knocking out my satellite Internet connection pushed things into this fateful day.

Although I hold to a Sola Scriptura position on the authority of the Bible, I feel that some folks who share my position do so at the expense of other means by which God reveals Himself and His will. One of the means by which God speaks that perpetually receives short shrift from the most ardent Solas proponents is general revelation, best thought of as the created order. General revelation doesn’t speak against special revelation (the revealed word of God in the Scriptures), but supports it.

To ignore general revelation is to forget that God Himself appeals to it. When God confronts Job, He doesn’t quote Scripture to him, but summons visions of His divine authority from His created order:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements–surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?”
—Job 38:1-16 ESV

And…

“Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?”
—Job 40:15-24 ESV

When God punishes the pride of Nebuchadnezzar, He warps the created order to humble the haughty king:

All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.
—Daniel 4:28-33 ESV

Paul reinforces the power of the created order to testify to the truth of God’s will:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
—Romans 1:18-20 ESV

What truth are these men and women trying to suppress? Not special revelation, but general. They curse and rail against the created order. Just as God pointed Job to the created order to prove truth, Paul teaches that He still uses that means to speak to us.

Christ Himself appealed to the created order when faced with a doubting disciple:

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
—John 20:24-27 ESV

The body of Jesus conformed to the created order, proving to the doubter that he touched real, physical flesh. Though fully God, Jesus possessed a fully male human body in keeping with the created order. He was born of a woman in line with created order. And he died a real death.

Even with the existence of special revelation, general revelation’s ability to speak about the nature of God and His creation continues. The truth of created order found in general revelation can only be ignored at our own peril.

Which brings us to sex.

Because I have roots in the Lutheran Church, I still follow trends and events in the historic church Luther founded. Much of my theology contains what I learned in that church. Without the Lutheran Church, I wouldn’t be here.

This last weekend, I followed a link through The Boar’s Head Tavern to an increasingly common story of a minister facing removal from the pulpit. The reason? He professed his desire for another man.

The shock to me? This Lutheran pastor and I graduated from the same class in high school. We ran in some of the same cliques of people, too.

I grew up in a churchgoing family. I got “the talk” when I was in third grade, so I knew about sex. But I was a good kid and never pushed the issue. You saved yourself for marriage and that was that. The mere thought of disappointing God or my parents by having sex outside of marriage definitely kept me in line.

As for other forms of sexual expression outside of typical heterosexuality, my naïveté lasted well into my mid-20s. I suppose I read over all those biblical passages talking about homosexuality and just didn’t quite understand what the word meant and wasn’t all that bothered by not getting it. Whatever kind of sin it was, it didn’t apply to me. And those taunts I heard some other boys called in school, I knew they intended to convey some message about being less than a man, but the depth of those words didn’t register

Only when AIDS hit did it dawn on me that men had sex with other men. Even then, I didn’t exactly understand how.

I thank God that I led such a sheltered life for so long. I’m saddened that my son won’t have that same opportunity.

I’ve never written about homosexuality here. I’m not as naïve as I used to be, though. I voluntered with a ministry in Chicago that went into gay bars and ministered to the men there. The stories would break your heart. Watching lanky teen prostitutes selling themselves on the street corners to tired old men who long ago lost their looks in what is a subculture of appearance. The anger. The loneliness. The palpable feel of the demonic as we would walk those streets and pray. Volunteers in that ministry struggling with homosexual dreams at night after praying through the streets of the neighborhood. The overwhelming oppression.

The violence against the created order.

When Paul appeals to the created order in Romans 1, noting how those who flaunted it succumbed to the punishment of God by having normal affections warped against that created order, he’s not quoting Scripture but Creation. He melds the truth of general revelation with the preponderance of sexual imagery in the special revelation of Scripture. He appeals to archetypal imagery of God as Initiator and His people as the Receivers of His Spirit and riches. The Lover and the Beloved of Song of Songs. The Bridegroom and Bride. Christ and the Church.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
—Genesis 1:27-28 ESV

You won’t hear this expounded this way in too many pulpits, but the first command of God to Mankind was, “Have sex. Often. Fill the earth with your offspring.” Our sexual dimorphism exists to create life, expressing in our sexuality the very creative power of God Himself because we’re made in His image. It reflects the union of Christ and the Church, the fecund riches of God poured into His people. The Initiator entering the Receiver. All of receptive creation is feminine against the masculinity of God expressed through His acting on us as the prime Initiator. The created order not only reflects sexual dimorphism expressed through heterosexuality, it demands it in order to show the fullness of God. Particularly in God’s highest creation, Mankind.

Created order provides all the wisdom we need to understand that homosexuality cannot be condoned by the Creator God, as Paul notes in Romans 1. The first command of God fails in light of a world subject to non-reproduction, to barrenness replacing fruitfulness, to Receivers casting off their position to become Initiators instead. Or Receivers receiving apart from an Initiator. It’s the old argument from the Garden, “You can be like God.” In rejecting the truth of Initiator/Receiver, homosexuality seeks to supplant God Himself. All sexuality that exists apart from the intent of created order does.

I felt the delusion permeating the raw streets of the Hilltop region of Chicago. The truth of God exchanged for a lie.

It’s easy to find the simplistic path, though. It takes no effort to blame and point fingers, to condemn. But that’s not the way of the Lord. As much as I’m thankful my church upbringing sheltered me from perversion of the created order, in another way, I’m disappointed.

My hearing nothing about homosexuality in my young Christian days reflects the painful reality that no one in the church gave one damn about homosexuals. Better they just keep to themselves, stay out of sight, so our own little ivory tower won’t pick up their squalor.

If Christians hadn’t completely ignored ministry to homosexuals decades ago, we wouldn’t be fighting a lot of the moral battles we are now. The Church’s utter lack of care for homosexuals sent them running to whatever group would listen. We weren’t listening. The feminists were. We know the results.

As you all know, I worked in Christian camping ministry for a number of years. Poll the staff if camping had a profound effect on them as youngsters and every hand would go up. How could anyone not give back to something that had so dramatically changed life?

Contrarily, many people who can’t find help from some professional or institutional source take it upon themselves to rectify the lack so someone else won’t face it. I know scores of people who couldn’t find help when they encountered a crisis, so when they got on their feet they rectified the lack by becoming a helper.

For this reason, I believe one of the reasons we’re seeing so many homosexuals in pastoral positions is in part because at some point in their lives the Church kicked them in the head. The Christians in their lives were the ones yelling, “Faggot!” at the top of their lungs. They received all of our condemnation and none of our love. Not very Christlike.

So they rectified the lack.

Rather than going out to deal with real people facing real problems and real temptations, we people “who got it right” walled ourselves into our ivory towers. Now instead of possessing the land because we went out into neglected highways and alleys long ago, we’re finding our comfortable Evangelical castle stormed, asking how to get back to Camelot, but forgetting that we left the very people attacking us out of the Kingdom.

A sad situation. But we sowed the wind and now we’re reaping the whirlwind.

Don’t get me wrong here. I do NOT support practicing homosexuals in the pastorate. But neither do I support practicing adulterers, practicing alcoholics, practicing liars, and those who practice their woeful pride 24/7/365. God knows we have enough of all of those already. Sin is sin. All sin demands repentance. Demands it!

As Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ bids a man, He bids him come and die.” We are no longer our own. Our lives, whatever they were before Christ, are now hidden in Him. As a married man, all other women had to die to me so that my wife may enjoy my body all to herself. But this does not mean that she is my fulfillment and I hers. Only Christ alone can fulfill.

God deals with people’s old nature differently. Some parts of it die right at the foot of the cross, never to trouble again. Not all of it goes quietly, though. We struggle with the leftovers of that old nature until the day we die. Sanctification guarantees that Christ in time will deal with even the most ingrained sin, even if death alone provides it finally. Homosexuality is no exception. As part of the old nature, the Lord can choose to kill that desire at the cross, or like Paul’s thorn, He might leave it in to drive a man or woman to Himself in times of darkness.

For this reason, I will not condemn Christians who war with their homosexuality as long as they understand Christ stands against that sexual remnant of the old nature, that rejection of His created order. Adam’s original pure nature included a desire only for Eve and for God. His fallen nature, on the other hand, does not. But a New Adam came, and He calls us to be remade in His image. Any man who struggles with homosexuality must understand that to be a pastor, the created order must be maintained and the old nature must die. Just as I made an exclusive promise to one woman and to one Lord, so he must make an exclusive promise to one Lord. If the process of sanctification works so that he desires a woman one day, then praise God. But if not, then his affections must be channeled to God alone. The Lutheran pastor in this case crossed that line and now must face the penalty for his error.

What a waste. Worse yet, it looks like the ELCA Lutheran assembly will technically defrock him (as they should), but they’ve put off his removal date until after their summer conference. I’ll let you guess what’s going to come out of that conference.

Maybe I should start shaking my head now.

I read Al Mohler’s cautionary post and watch the devastation now rending the Anglican/Episcopal Church, and my heart breaks. How can we think God’s only going to judge the homosexual community, that somehow we’ll get a free pass for how we’ve dealt with them?

How to fix it? Apart from a supernatural move of God, the whole issue resembles Pandora’s little indiscretion. I don’t have a perfect answer except to pray that God moves and that we move, too. We need to stop treating homosexuals as Untouchables and enemies. How do the Scriptures say we should heap burning coals on the heads of those who oppose us? By loving them more than they despise us. In the same way, we must lovingly continue to call for repentance. Though some treat those two ideas as incompatible, they’re both sides of the same love coin.

We need to follow Jesus to the true meaning of love. And of sex.

32 thoughts on “Sex and the Created Order

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  2. Brandon

    Wow Dan, this is a very good post! As a pastor I have struggled with how the church might be effective in ministering to the homosexual community. The bible says that “love never fails”…It’s time to stop using that verse in weddings only and start applying that truth to all people in all situations and circumstances.

    Be blessed…
    Brandon

    • Brandon,

      Whenever the Church descends into an “Us vs. Them” mentality, it fails to love. I think we need to repent of that, first. We need to recast it as “Us (who were formerly Them) and Them.” Yes, we are saved and they are lost, but we were lost once, too. If we fail to acknowledge the supremacy of Christ in saving the lost and our own sinfulness, then of course we’ll construct a barrier to keep the rabble out.

      God desires that no one die the second death. That must be our desire, too. If the love of Christ compels us, then our compulsion will be to tear down the barricade.

      This does not mean being soft on sin. It does mean that we lead with love and the offer of salvation and the call to repentance occur in due time. This means being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, something the Church has forgotten now that we’ve replaced listening to Him with fancy programming.

      Christ announced His ministry by reading the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue:

      And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
      —Luke 4:16-21 ESV

      That’s the marching order for the Church today, too. Are we doing that with the homosexual community? Are we proclaiming liberty and the Lord’s favor? Again, neither of those means excusing sin, but let us proclaim the Good News of freedom so people can rejoice. At that point, they’ll be more willing to kneel at the foot of the cross.

      • Heather

        Dan –

        Good words here as well! You said, “God desires that no one die the second death. That must be our desire, too. If the love of Christ compels us, then our compulsion will be to tear down the barricade.” … I whole-heartedly agree. And yes, you’re right — This means being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, something the Church has forgotten now that we’ve replaced listening to Him with fancy programming.

        It’s interesting to me that people think that to love a person struggling with homosexuality that we are soft on their sin. This is simply not true, for love does not rejoice with unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.

        I think most people do not even understand what true agape is … really. We love to speak the truth rather than speaking the truth in love. We love pizza and we love God all in the same sentence. What is love? Most don’t have a clue … I’m only now really beginning to understand what it truly is, I must confess.

        You also said, “That’s the marching order for the Church today, too. Are we doing that with the homosexual community? Are we proclaiming liberty and the Lord’s favor? Again, neither of those means excusing sin, but let us proclaim the Good News of freedom so people can rejoice. At that point, they’ll be more willing to kneel at the foot of the cross.” … we (generally speaking) aren’t proclaiming liberty to the captive when we’re in bondage to our hate and our fear. When all we preach & teach is hate and condemnation, that’s all that the world sees as well … who wants any of that?

        ~Heather

  3. Heather

    This is an awesome post, Dan! I have long been one who is disgusted with the way we (the church in general) treat people struggling with homosexuality, just as you have stated.

    I once heard a man preacher say, “A young teenage boy ought to be able to stand up in front of his church family and confess that he is struggling with homosexuality and be embraced and loved on and prayed for without fear.” Yes, this is true, it OUGHT to be that way, but it is NOT that way.

    We have got to begin ministering, but not out of pity — out of love ……… Love never fails …

    Blessings!

    ~Heather

    • Heather,

      You touched on the key word here: fear. Much of our reaction to homosexuals comes from fear. I battled that in my own life when I was volunteering for that ministry in Chicago.

      But fear is of Satan. There is no fear in God’s perfect love. We need to get over our fears if we’re to live the way I outlined in my response to Brandon above.

      I’m not saying it’s easy. But it’s what we must do. We’ll be learning as we go. In other words, we’ll be walking by faith.

  4. dan macdonald

    Dan,

    One of the great posts on this issue I have read, ever. Good balance between conviction and compassion; may your tribe increase. May we learn to get the gospel enough to be free of self-righteous judgment, and fear of popular opinion.

    Dan MacD

  5. Chris Stiles

    In my opinion; Any christian who gets very hot under the collar about ‘what homosexuals get up to’ but never speaks out about the epidemic of prison rape – or worse still makes jokes about it, which seems to be fairly common – is a hypocrite.

    Secondly, to understand homosexual urges as one of the consequences of a broken creative order precludes crass insensitivity of the “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” form. Such statements do not display love for a fellow fallen sinner, so much as put the boot in.

    • Chris,

      It’s easier to make jokes than it is to do something tangible in the name of Christ. I agree on the prison issue, though I have no understanding how to change it. What do you suggest?

      • Chris Stiles

        Speaking out about it would be a start – it would only be a start – but it would be an important first step. The impact of evangelical groups expending a tenth of the energy on this issue as they do on the issue of gay marriage would send a very powerful message.

        Or are we all so wedded to a particular conservative view on law and justice, that we’ve forgotten that the God of Perfect Righteousness is also the God with a heart for the vunerable ?

  6. I think one of the painful issues the church faces, and the struggles the Episcopals and others are having seem to confirm this, is that we are unable to hold one another accountable in love. We err in either withholding judgement, which leads to apostacy, or withholding love, which leads to hypocricy (clanging bells). We need to cleave to the word of truth and judge one another (not non-believers) according to the word, in order to be a holy people, but we need to do so with love, so that we may regain and not alienate our brother.

    What we do instead is either try to beat the hell out of people, or change the rules so they can still be accepted. Sigh.

    Thanks, Dan. I can feel your passion in this one. Now we just need to stop admiring the view, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.

    • David,

      The older I get the more the tension proves real to me. The same Jesus who says, “Unless you repent, you will likewise perish,” is the same Jesus who says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Too often, we either soft on sin and heavy on the love, or we bludgeon people on sin and give them the impression that love is some far away concept.

      I get tired of the either/or Christianity we seem to espouse here in the United States.

  7. I think my sin as a Christian in this regard is the same as the priest and the Levite … I’ve just walked by on the other side of the road.

    I haven’t insisted that mine is the right or the only side of the road to walk; I’ve just walked on by. I haven’t tried to bind up the wounds or pour on oil and wine. I’ve just walked on by.

    I know it’s wrong and it’s sad and people are hurt by it and sometimes dying in it, but it’s not my problem, so I’ve just walked on by.

    And I’ve excused my bypass route even though there was plenty of traffic there because it was safer, and after all, the other side of the road doesn’t look that dangerous on TV, and people seem happy living there. They don’t look wounded. So what business is it of mine?

    Dan, how do I stop walking on by?

    • Heather

      Keith –

      What a great observation! Most of us do the same thing if we’re honest … we just walk on by. How do we stop walking on by? It may seem over-simplified to say “just do it”, but for me that is exactly what it took … just jumping in with both feet and beginning to love on people. I went on a trip recently and spent a week doing nothing but ministering to homeless people, hurting people, addicted people, prostitutes, and more … it lit a fire down deep in my soul that spurs me on to not walk on by anymore.

      Ask the Lord to show you how and where you can begin, to give you a passion for reaching out, to take away any fears you may have and to give you an understanding and a love for those He is calling you to love. Ask Him to show you what real love – agape – truly is. He will do it and He will change your life!

      ~Heather

    • Keith,

      I hope this doesn’t get too long, but here’s what I think:

      1. It’s about “putting off.” Not procrastinating, but putting off chains that bind us. Putting off the old man. Putting off stereotypes. Putting off worries of the flesh. Putting off fear. Then we put on Jesus.

      2. I think it’s asking the Lord to make us better lovers. People who lead with love. That idea of leading with love seems to be dominating my thinking and action lately. And it’s making me think differently.

      3. God became like us, in part, so that he could be as we are. Are we being like others are? Do we try to understand the chains that bind others? Or do we judge first? I’m not saying be soft on sin, but some sins are tough to overcome. Life is a battle! Understanding how they came about in the first place can help us guide others through the repentance and restoration stage.

      4. Simplify I. The priest and Levite walked on by because they were too busy with things to bother with people. We Americans are insanely busy. And when we’re not, we fill up every second of the day with noise or busywork that amounts to nothing.

      5. Simplify II. Stop consuming. Start cleaning out your life of material things. Let God sweep that stuff away. It only binds us.

      6. Take time to listen to others. Talk with the people you meet in the every day course of living: cashiers, bank tellers, the gal behind the counter at McDonalds. Ask them how they’re doing. You do that often enough and the fear of doing it will pass. Plus, they’ll be more willing to open us to you in the future.

      7. Pray that God would pour into the same passion for people that lived in Jesus.

      That’s what I would do.

  8. Don Costello

    Dan, I have to say that there is more at work here than meets the eye. Do you ever wonder why liberal denominations such as the Episcopalians or Methodists wring their hands over homosexuality when they have their conventions? Do you ever wonder why we never hear about the Assemblies of God or the Churches of God or the Southern Baptist wringing their hands over the issue of homosexuality at their conventions? The reason is because one group rejects the authority of Scripture and the other does not. If you ever read the position papers of these liberal denominations on human sexuality and how it relates to their view of Scripture, you will know exactly why they are having the problems they are having. They invent one disclaimer after another to circumvent the word of God.”Yea, hath God said?” As far as I’m concerned, the true believers in Jesus within these half baked churches need to separate themselves from the unbelievers. It’s about time.
    As far as the church’s attitude toward homosexuality, we do have alot of room to grow. But during the last ten or fifteen years there have been numerous Christian organizations that have purposely been reaching out to homosexuals in love with the gospel and with some success. For the most part though, militant homosexual groups have been successful in labeling these attempts as hate filled, intolerant, and homophobic, which could not be farther from the truth.
    It is a fact that the words of the prophets concerning this issue in our day are coming to pass exactly as they said it would.”…as it was in the days of Lot…thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
    Personally, do I need to show more love? Absolutely! And I will.But I don’t feel bad about whats happening with some of those churches, on the contrary, I’m cheering the good guys on.
    Your brother in Christ, Don.

    • Don,

      I agree on the issue of Scripture. The problem, though, is that folks are finding ways to warp Scripture to condone (or at least pardon) homosexuality. That’s one reason I noted that general revelation, also of God, permits no such warping. The two reinforce each other, as Paul notes in Romans 1. When an activist tries to tell me that Jonathan and David engaged in a homosexual relationship, I can refute that twisting by appealing to general revelation’s antithetical response. So in that way, general revelation serves as a buttress to special revelation and vice versa. Yet too many of us don’t appeal to general revelation or even understand how it works.

      As for other ministries to homosexuals, many of them lead with their agenda first, rather than love. The group I volunteered with definitely led with love first. By going where homosexuals congregated, they let it be known they weren’t afraid of being among them. Many ministries make homosexuals come to them. This group went right into the heart of the lifestyle and said, “We want to listen to your stories.” That willingness to hear confession within the heart of the subculture broke down barriers that couldn’t be touched any other way. Militancy has a way of falling apart when people meet others on those others’ level, rather than having a superior attitude. It’s like when two foes battle until one of them invites the other to his house for a homecooked meal and a glass or two of wine. Suddenly, the defenses fall.

      We Christians need to be better at meeting people where they live, rather than forcing them to come to us. Too often, our attitude is “clean up your mess and then we’ll welcome you.” We need to welcome others first and then help them clean up their mess second.

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  10. Peter

    Wow, great post.

    How long does it take you to write these posts?

    They are so complete and balanced, I’m always amazed at your wisdom and insight.

    Peter

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  13. I stumbled on your blog quite by accident, but I have enjoyed reading your posts. A lot of your thoughts run parallel with my own.

    A couple of summers ago (2006), I preached a series on “Who is My Enemy?” and shared how heartbreaking it is that we have dropped the ball in ministering Christ’s love to the “unacceptables” – liberals, feminists, homosexuals, the poor, etc.

    I think you are right on. Thanks for sharing your heart.

  14. Randa

    I once had the idea cross my mind that people who think they’re homosexuals, were just created to have no desire for the opposite sex and be celibate. Only the over-sexualized world has confused them to assume that, because they don’t desire the opposite sex, or because they don’t feel urged to act in a way that might impress the opposite sex, that it must mean that they themselves need to pursue the same sex.

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