I am a woodworker. It began as a hobby and is now a small business. Mostly I make canes and “artsy” furniture. I’m old school and do things the old way. There is an old rule for making a horse out of wood: “Start with a tree……remove anything that doesn’t look like a horse.” And that is what I do.

This week I picked out a nice black walnut board and began making a cane. As I removed the “stuff that didn’t look like a cane”, I worked my way down to a defect. It was a split in the wood……and for a cane, it was a fatal flaw. I sawed it up, tossed it into the fireplace and started all over with a new board. I had about $10 in materials and $20 in labor invested in it; but, the cane wasn’t valuable enough to justify the $100 worth of effort it would take to salvage it. It was a good practical decision……and I am a good practical woodworker.

But, then it occurred to me……I am like that piece of walnut. So are you. We look good on the surface. But, when you start peeling away the layers, you begin to encounter flaws, some of them merely cosmetic…… some of them potentially fatal.

We are the raw materials that go into our society, our culture. And God is working with those materials. He is constructing a kingdom here on earth. He has an vision that he is working toward. And that vision is summed up in the two primary rules of the Bible:

Love God……love man.

So, he works away at his workbench……..removing anything that doesn’t look like “Love God……love man”.

And he works his way down to a flaw in the material……my flaw…….or yours. And that is where things change…….where God is different from me.

Instead of tossing me into the fireplace, he uses me……just as I am. He invests the effort and resources necessary to draw something beautiful out of something flawed.

I’m sure that this process will work better if I am fully engaged…….and I try. But, God will use you and me……and all of our flaws……to build something beautiful……..even if we don’t cooperate…….even if we reject him outright.

Why would God continue to invest his effort in working with flawed materials? Why doesn’t he just toss us into the fireplace and start all over?

Because he loves us.

That’s just the way he operates.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Jeremiah 18:1-6, ESV

Cindy and I spend a lot of time in Arizona. There is an operation out there called Biosphere. It is a sealed environment. It began as a serious scientific investigation into what it takes to create a sustainable ecosystem. At one point there were even people living in it. Ultimately, however, it seems to have devolved into a tourist attraction.

Why?

Biosphere failed because its ecosystem was not sustainable and could not be made to become sustainable. We hear a lot about sustainability these days. We worry about climate change because an ecosystem that is heating up, as ours clearly is, is not sustainable. That is to say, our ecosystem, earth, cannot go on like this indefinitely. Good intentioned people are working hard to change things in order to acheive sustainability……..in order to achieve survivability.

They tell us that climate change is an “existential crisis”.
And they are right.

They propose solutions:
Electric cars
Wind and solar power.
Mass transit

They hope for a tech breakthrough:
Fusion energy

But, the cold hard truth is that world population has tripled in my lifetime and will double again in a few decades. In spite of our best efforts, our global “carbon footprint is getting worse, not better. At some point in the future “planetary warming” might slow down…….but, if so, that slowing hasn’t begun yet. The cold hard truth is that there is no viable plan to stop the warming much less reverse it.

What this means is that sustainability on this planet…….is a mirage.

What this means is that life, as we know it, on this beautiful planet simply cannot go on indefinitely. The best we can hope for is to delay our inevitable doom. The science is crystal clear and we are ignoring it.

And that…….is the bad news.

But, there is some good news. It turns out that science is telling us……if we will only listen….. what the Bible has been telling us for centuries. This planet is not immortal. It was never intended to be immortal. Sustainability is a human idea, not God’s idea. God planned for a beginning. God planned for an end……and it is going to be ugly.

Secular humanists cling to sustainability because they have no “plan-B”. For the same reason, they ignore the long term projections of science.

Christianity, however, describes an end to this physical world that aligns with the long term projections of science at least in broad strokes. In addition, Christianity offers the hope of a world after this world.

Christianity agrees with science that the planetary ecosystem that we call earth is doomed.

But

Christianity offers sustainability…..for your spirit.

And that is the good news.

in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

2 Timothy 3:1-5,ESV

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

Revelation 21:1, ESV

Some background:

My dad died when I was 17. I never thought about death before that……I thought about it a lot after…….and I was terrified. I worried a lot about my death……at age 17. I decided to live my life in such a way that, if I died at age 40, I’d have gotten my money’s worth. I became a practicing secular humanist. This went on for a decade or so. I married a great woman and had 3 sons……who were challenging. I had a good hard look at Christianity. I decided that there was enough hard evidence for the resurrection of Christ that it was true. And if the ressurection was real, then the teaching of Christ was very important. I became a practicing Christian. And here I am.

So……..what is death. Death is a curtain that we approach at the end of this life. And at age 70 that approach is getting close for me. We cannot see through the curtain. We cannot know with absolute certainty what lies behind it………no matter how confident we are. It is a drastic change. Scientists would call it a singularity.

What is behind the curtain? There are three possibilities: nothing, something good, and something bad.

Nothing means nothing. No person, no place, no you, no creator. In a word, when you die, your friends and family put you in a hole and cover you with dirt. This is the end point for secular humanists, who believe that if you can’t see it, measure it, or manipulate it…….it cannot be real. The implications of nothing in our daily life are profound. Because you are the highest life form (you personally…..not mankind in general) you get to define what is right and what is wrong. You can do as you please. All you have to do is define your appetites as being right……..define your personal morality as being right……..you can even define your sex however you want. The problem is that everyone else is doing the same thing and they demand that you honor their definitions. Your decision to give the money in your pocket to the guy with the little cardboard sign on the exit ramp is no more valid than the thug’s decision to kill you and take the money. The pro life advocate’s belief in the value of life is no more valid than the abortionist who spends his day killing unborn children. In practice, this is how our culture works. And don’t bother committing the unforgivable crime of our culture……..telling the other guy he is wrong. His definition of right and wrong is every bit as valid as yours. The irony is that he will waste no time in telling you that you are wrong. Tolerance seems to be a one way street. The good news is that “nothing” is pretty safe. No matter what you have done, there is no lasting consequence.

Something, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. It could be temporary or eternal. It could be very good or very bad. The good news, if you are a Christian, is that you get to choose your fate. Recognize Christ……or deny him. Choose eternal goodness or eternal badness.

The irony is that, purely by accident, Henley was right in his poem “Invictus”.

“I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”

“Invictus” by Henly

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7, ESV

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4, ESV

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalms 23:4, ESV

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus, talking to a bad man who recognized his divinity, Luke 23:43

I begin this week with a very narrow but very complex question.

What does God want……..from mankind……from me?

This post obviously begins with the assumption that God, the creator, exists. If you don’t believe in a creator…..if you believe it’s all a big series of accidents…. then relax, you can do as you please…….there are no overarching rules……..there are no expectations…….there is no reward and there is no punishment……..as long as you are right. But, the probabilities are working against you.

God went to a lot of trouble to create the 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. He went to a lot of trouble to design the 200 billion chemical bonds that make up your and my genome…..all of it exquisitely tuned, interconnected, and coordinated to make life possible. But why? He must have had a purpose in mind. What could God have hoped to get out of all of this effort?

The answer, I believe, is found in our very nature. It is there because we bear the fingerprints of our creator. It is written on our hearts. It is written on our hearts because it is important to God. And, as it turns out, the most important desire of our hearts is exactly the same as the most important desire of God’s heart.

Relationship.

Ask any adult, “what is the one thing that you have lost in your lifetime that you regret the most?”

Ask any adult, “name one thing that you would give up everything else for?”

The most common answer by far will be a relationship.

The Bible underscores this. Over and over again, the question comes up. “What does God expect of me?………What does God require of me?”
The Bible gives us a lot of guidelines; but, there is only one thing that is absolutely required. There is only one non-negotiable prerequisite.

Relationship.

Relationship can be thought of as the distance between you and God. You can almost measure it. You can compare this distance on a day to day or a year to year basis. You can compare it over time for yourself. You can compare it over time for our culture as a whole.

And this raises the central question:

How close are you to God today? As a nation, how close are we to God today?

Are you closer……are we closer…… today than yesterday……are we closer……this year than last year?

I would caution that, as a culture, our distance from God is growing. My ability to heal that gap……for the culture as a whole……..is limited. But, the distance between me individually and God is completely in my hands. The distance between my family and God is also in my hands. The greatest gift that I can give to my family is to grow our relationship, to diminish the distance between us and God.

This is critical……because, in the end, the quality of your life, will be judged by that one measurement. When you die and move on to phase two of your existence, that measurement is the only data point that will matter.

Anything that you do that increases that distance is failure. Anything that you do that doesn’t affect that distance is irrelevant. Anything you do that draws you closer to God, is progress.

So, consider the metrics that you use to assess your life:

Your net worth
The value of your house
The success of your children
Your position at work
The win/loss ratio for your favorite sports team
The distance between you and God

Only one of these has any lasting significance.

There are two corrolaries that flow from this.

Your distance metric can be improved….right now.

The guy with the little cardboard sign on the exit ramp could have a better distance metric than yours.

Something to ponder.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

Jesus, John 14:6-7, ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Jesus, Matthew 7:21-23, ESV

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:10-13, ESV

I’m 70 years old. I spent 25 years in one formal school or another. Then I went to work. At the end of my career, I realized that most of the knowledge that I used every day in my work……I learned “on the job”. The real lesson here is that no matter what you do for a living…….if you are breathing……. you are learning. Life is one big school. Your only real graduation…….is when you die.

In grade school, your teacher presented you with information. Some of it went right over your head. Some of it you didn’t agree with. Some of it you slept through (mea culpa). And some of it stuck. Today, I want to explore the information that stuck. It is this teaching/learning that matters, because this is what has shaped you……that will continue to shape you….into the person that you are and will become. There is a caveat here. When a teacher presents you with information, you don’t get to choose whether to learn it or not. The fact is that you retain most of it……. whether you like it or not…… whether you agree with it or not…….whether you even realize it or not. You retain this information whether it is good for you……or whether it is bad for you.

At my age I have been exposed to a great deal of information. Some of it is constructive and some of it is destructive. As I sit here, there is a jingle from a drug company ad that I cannot get out of my head. From time to time an image of a woman from my days as a subscriber to Playboy returns. I don’t like this information, I don’t want this information; but, I chose to let it into my life and it will be there till I die. And it will be a part of what shapes the man I am still becoming.

So, what’s the point?

You absorb the information that you are exposed to. You have very little ability to filter through this information, once you have been exposed. And this information shapes the person that you are becoming. This information shapes your character. There is an old line from the early days of computer programming. For us old farts this was the age of “punch cards”. Look it up if you are under 60.

“Garbage in…..garbage out.”

Put bad data into a computer and you will get bad analysis out. There is a multibillion dollar industry whose only business is to expose you to data…..information…..that profits them. It is centered around your TV, your smart phone, your radio, even the pump at the gas station. Soon your refrigerator will be in on it. Some, possibly most, of the information that these people are selling you is bad for the development of your character.

How can you protect yourself?

There is only one way. You have to pre-filter the information that you allow into your life. You have to pre filter the information that you allow to shape your character.

Here are some of the things that I try to filter out of my life. You need to make your own list:

“Entertainment” that centers around killing people……most crime shows, most westerns, most war movies. Over half of TV shows include violent content. By age 18 a typical young person has witnessed about 10,000 murders on TV. By comparison, only 1/3 of 18 year olds have been to church 1000 times. For most young adults, the number is drastically lower.

Late night TV. Johnny Carson has been replaced by talk shows that are selling a political agenda.

Smart phones that will provide you with information that proves that what you believe is right and true……no matter what you believe.

Filtering out this information will create a giant void in your life. How do you fill that void?

Call a friend on the phone…….and talk.

Join a club.

Read a good book.

Volunteer.

Get involved in serving others.

Get active in your church.

In short…..you need to become more discriminating in the sources of information that you incorporate into your character. This will not be easy.

You are swimming upstream.

“When you dance with the devil…… the devil doesn’t change…….you do”

Nicholas Cage commenting on a violent film in the movie “8 mm”

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Jesus commenting on how what we see shapes us, Matthew 6:22-23, ESV

Who was Mary Magdalene?

A prostitute…….probably not.

A sinner……..probably (we all are).

A wealthy patron……maybe.

The wife of Jesus……probably not.

A real historical figure…….probably.

A woman once possessed by demons…..probably.

An important companion of Jesus…..definitely.

The first person to encounter the risen Jesus…..definitely.

Mary doesn’t get a lot of ink, but she gets more ink in the gospels than many of the apostles. When the apostles ran and hid……even Peter…….she stayed close to Jesus. After his death, she went to the tomb with the intention of caring for his corpse. The apostles were sleeping in.

So what is the main thing that we need to know about Mary?

After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene…….first……before Peter……before Paul……before the apostles…….before his family. This was his choice. He chose to appear…….he chose to appear to Mary. This was arguably the most important event in human history……..and he shared it with Mary.

He shared it with Mary because she was very important to him…….because she was the most loyal of his followers……..because he could trust her to handle the knowledge properly.

I think that Mary Magdalene…….and Mary Jesus’s mother are extraordinarily important characters in the New Testament. The fact that they get little coverage may be related to the position of women in society at that time.

But, they were important……to Jesus……and that is all that counts.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

John 20:11-18, ESV

We see it again and again in the Bible…….the family tree of Jesus. It is typically recited as a lineage…..from Adam through David to Joseph. Jesus’s maternal lineage……through Mary……gets very little coverage.

And yet the simple biology of the matter is this:

Jesus was the son of Mary.
Jesus was the son of God.
Joseph……….was an innocent bystander.

And yet, Joseph’s lineage is clearly important.

It is important……..because it is a fulfillment of prophesy.

It is important from a legal perspective.

It is important……..because fathers matter.

But

Throughout the Bible, when Jesus talks about his father…….he talks about God. He never mentions Joseph…….not once. Joseph is never quoted……not once. After the annunciation and the birth of Jesus Joseph gets 2 direct mentions. Once when he leaves Jerusalem……and forgets Jesus. Once when he flees to Egypt to escape Herod. Overall, the silence of Joseph and about Joseph…….is deafening.

This must be important…..but what does it mean?

God shaped and developed the spiritual life of Jesus. God, Jesus, and the holy spirit are distinct….but inseparable. On the other hand, Joseph tended to the physical needs of Jesus……food, shelter, clothing, and protection…….at least until he was an adult.

The only conclusion that I can draw from the profoundly limited coverage of Joseph in the Bible is that, compared to the spiritual development of Jesus, his physical development…….beyond his basic survival……was inconsequential.

So……..Don’t lose sleep over your physical situation during your short time in this broken temporal world. Your time here will be over in a flash. Focus on developing your spiritual situation……….because you have a soul that is eternal. Your spiritual self is going to last forever…….for better……or for worse.

So…

The lesson of Joseph?

Your spiritual situation is critical.
Your physical situation is inconsequential.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

Jesus, Matthew 5:29, ESV

if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Jesus, Matthew 6:30-34, ESV

This week’s post is primarily directed at Christians. If you are an atheist or a committed secular humanist, you may find it helpful……..in understanding what is going on in our heads……in understanding what drives us……in making sense of what looks like foolishness.

Human beings do bad things…….little bad things……horrible bad things. Some of us do them occasionally…….some of us do them constantly. But, we all do them. Some of them we can rationalize…….justify. Some of them we do because we just enjoy them.

My homework assignment for this week will be hard, but potentially very rewarding. I want you to meditate on something that you have done……something that was wrong. You could choose something small……the parking meter that you didn’t feed. But, if you take the easy way out, you will gain very little. Rather, I want you to meditate on the big screw-up…….the worst thing that you have ever done. Worst, not because of the consequences…….worst because of the wrongness of it. This will probably be something that you have been dragging around for years….possibly decades. It may be something that you have never shared……something that nobody else even knows about.

Next, I want you to visualize your death. You float above your body. You move toward a bright light. You see old friends and relatives. And then you meet Jesus. And he walks up, gives you a hug, calls you by name, and says “welcome home”. And his welcome is absolutely sincere and completely defined by love. Because he either doesn’t know about your big screw-up…….or he doesn’t care. Because your big screw-up and all of your other screw-ups have been forgiven……forgotten……erased.

What’s the point?

The point is that the bigger your screw-up, the more precious the forgiveness of Jesus is. And that is the second part of your assignment. I want you to meditate on the worth of that forgiveness.

I once read an essay by a pastor. As young man, he got his girlfriend pregnant and pressured her into an abortion that she didn’t want. Decades later, he shared this with his congregation…….and was shunned. This severely damaged his ministry and may have cost him his job. He concluded, “Jesus has forgiven me……why can’t they”.

We are all dragging around past sins. We don’t talk about them because we are embarrassed. We don’t talk about them because others won’t forgive us. Even worse, we don’t let go of them because we can’t forgive ourselves. Everybody thinks that we believe we are pure…..better than everyone else…….but we know.

And yet, Jesus, the creator of the universe, has forgiven us.

When we drag around past screw-ups, we devalue what Jesus did for us on the cross. In a way, what we are saying…….is that we don’t trust in his forgiveness……..or we don’t believe in it.

This doesn’t hurt Jesus……he loves us unconditionally. But it is devastating to us.

So the final part of this week’s assignment?

Forgive yourself……and prepare for that hug……from a guy who loves you absolutely and unconditionally………..from a guy who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about your big screw-up. Because what he really cares about is the relationship that you and he share.

That relationship is the most important thing in your life. And failure to embrace Jesus’s forgiveness interferes with your ability to embrace Jesus.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

David, Psalm 103:11-12, ESV

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

Paul. Ephesians 1:7, ESV

“What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.”

Marghanita Laski, an atheist, reflecting on forgiveness

I recently saw a photo taken by the Hubbel space telescope. It was aimed at the Andromeda galaxy, the closest galaxy to earth. The number of stars in the image was shocking. So, I looked it up.

How many stars are up there?

200 billion trillion.

Of these, on a typical urban night, about 2,000 are visible. They are separated by large areas of black. But, the black isn’t empty space……. the rest of the stars are there……we just can’t see them with our eyes……or with our best multibillion dollar telescopes…….because they are too far away. In fact, if we could see every star, the night sky would be a uniform white with a few brighter spots due to the closer stars. Even with our best tools, we cannot see the entire universe. Furthermore, the light from the furthest stars has been travelling for a long time to get to us. Earendale, the furthest star found by the Hubble telescope is 28 billion light years away. Scientists estimate that it was 13 billion years old when it emitted the light we are seeing. It is a very large star which would typically have a lifespan of a few billion years. In other words, the star Earendale…….documented and measured by one of our most sophisticated telescopes……is likely already dead and gone.

What’s the point?

The point is that we cannot see everything that is real. The fact that we cannot see or measure, or analyse something does not mean that it is not real. Even worse, some of the things that we can see, like Earendale, are no longer real. The fact that we can see, measure, and analyze something does not mean that it is real.

The simple reality is that science cannot see or measure or analyse the entire universe. We cannot see, measure, or analyse the big bang and what followed it. We can detect radiation that was emitted about a half million years after the “big bang” but we are completely blind for the first 400,000 years and almost completely blind for billions of years after that. We fill in that blind spot……millions to billions of years……with assumptions, extrapolations, and theories. And even these assumptions change about once every ten years. The fact that this year’s theory as to how the universe began is different from last year’s theory means that last year’s theory was wrong. And next year’s new improved theory will mean that this year’s theory is wrong.

The greatest of the assumptions behind these theories are:

There is no creative intelligence behind it all.

Even if there is a creator, he is bound by the same rules of nature that we are bound by.

If we cannot measure it…….it isn’t real.

If we can measure it…….it must be real.

And that doesn’t even begin to deal with the mass and energy that are missing. The 90% of the universe……the so called “dark matter and dark energy”……. that science simply cannot find. Dark energy and dark mass are real…..but we cannot detect them.

This is the house of cards that secular humanism builds on when it tells us that there is no creator.

This is the house of cards that you are wagering your future on……..when you believe the scientist when he tells you that he has it all figured out…….when he tells you that there is no creative intelligence, no God, behind it all.

we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:18, ESV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Paul, Colossians 1:15-16, ESV

Sex….is for one husband and one wife.

There it is.

Arguably the most unpopular teaching of Christianity.

It is so unpopular that the vast majority of non-Christians reject it. Our civil laws clearly repudiate it. Our society does not accept it. Furthermore, a significant minority of Christians reject it.

Today, I will focus on same sex relationships. Extramarital sex between a man and a woman is a topic for another day. So what are the arguments for and against extramarital, same sex, intercourse.

For same sex intercourse:

The primary teaching of the Bible and of Christianity is love…….Love God…..Love man. There is no “but”. There is no “except”. We are to love everyone….from God at one end to our “enemy” at the other. To teach that it is wrong for a man to love another man is to reject the very heart of Christianity.

Homosexuality is inate….common….normal. I have no doubt that many of us are born with a natural, inate physical attraction to others of the same sex.

Same sex marriage is common and legal. This takes same sex intercourse out of the category of adultery.

Against:

Every reference to same sex intercourse in the Bible is strongly critical. The Bible uses descriptors like: abomination, unrighteous, shameless, unnatural, dishonorable, and immoral. These descriptions come from the old testament and from Paul in the new testament. Same sex intercourse is never once described in a positive light. This is repeated over and over. In the Bible, things are repeated……because they are important.

But, what does Jesus say? He never specifically addessses the issue of homosexual intercourse. When he gets close to the issue of extramarital heterosexual intercourse, he defines it as sin but is more concerned with repentance and reconciliation. Jesus clearly and unmistakably defines marriage as a rite involving God, one man, and one woman.

Conclusions

First, marriage is a rite of the church…….not a rite of civil government. Marriage was created by God before man created civil government. It is a contract between a man, a woman, and God. Nowhere does the bible define marriage as a union of same sex partners. Same sex marriage is a creation of our culture….of our laws. It is not a creation of God. It is legal……but, the fact that it is legal……. does not make it right. History is replete with laws codifying activities that we all would agree were and are wrong. Just look at Nazi Germany. Just look at “partial birth abortion”.

Second, regarding commonality. There are many common desires, innate predispositions, that are wrong. For a list, just read the ten commandments. The fact that a desire is common, even inherited, does not mean that acting on it is right.

Third, there is a distinction between love and sexual intercourse. We are to love everyone without exception. Sexual intercourse, on the other hand, is strictly limited to one man and one woman. Sexual intercourse outside of traditional marriage falls into the category of entertainment……..recreational sex.

What it comes down to is this:

The Bible and same sex intercourse cannot be reconciled. You must either reject same sex intercourse……or reject the Bible. If you reject the Bible, you are saying either that God, paradise, and hell do not exist……..or that you are smarter than God……. that what you want is more important than what God wants.

And that is a good working definition of hubris.

You must either trust your intellect, your desires, and your appetites……..or trust your creator.

Just because you want something……..does not make it right.

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will live with his wife. The two will become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. Let no man divide what God has put together.”

Jesus discussing marriage and divorce
Mattew 19: 5-6, ESV

And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Jesus instructing a woman guilty of extramarital sex.
John 8:11, ESV