What have they done with God?
August 17th, 2007 by Victor
This past week, a large Lutheran organization has been debating how to involve or exclude, recognize or remove the homosexual leaders of their church as well as determine their position on the union of same-sex couples.
Click here for the story in USA Today
USA Today reported: “The Rev. Robert Goldstein, a gay minister at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago, wore a rainbow sash around his cleric’s collar as he urged delegates to “go beyond the justice of incrementalism” and remove all limits on gay leadership in the denomination. I’m a gay pastor in this church. I serve faithfully. I love it,” he said. “Our church must go beyond institutionalizing fear.”
I was saddened to read this article and hear this news. While studying the letter of Paul to the Romans, I observed the possible cause for the state of affairs today in the world and the church as well.
Romans 1:18-23 - “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
Man does not have any viable to deny the existence of God, yet mankind does this very thing. Part of the reason I believe (and Paul will speak to this later in the letter) is that when there is an acknowledgement of God, then the conviction of right and wrong that man has within him from his God-given conscience must be addressed. However, if you can get rid of the moral standard then you can get rid of morality itself.
Romans 1:24-32 - Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; an although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
When we get rid of God or change His standards to fit our desires, we lose the power of God. No longer do we have a standard of what is right or wrong and we are left to our own devises. Just look at how many of the things listed above are promoted, practiced and even accepted today! Paul is accurately describing not only the world around him at the time he wrote these words, but the state of the evil age currently as well. When man takes God out of the picture, this list describes man doing things the way he wants for his pleasure and glory alone.
Not knowing what the government of the country you live in will do nor what the churches around us will choose - we must be the people who keep God as the center of our lives. We must allow the Scriptures to be our standard for what is right and wrong. We cannot change God for who He is and what He desires.
- How can we do this? What are your thoughts?
Its amazing how much that very passage applies to this very situation.
I wonder if or how scriptures like this where addressed in the meeting.
here is a more recent article:
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/local_news/stories/2007/08/07/lutheran.html?type=rss&cat=21
which says that the proposal mentioned in this article was rejected, but that there is a current protest against the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s policy requiring homosexual pastors to remain chaste.
I just read a pamphlet put out by a group called soulforce that twists and manipulate many scriptures and take them out of there context to make homosexuality ok. They say certain things in the bible are outdated, and that there is no greek word for homosexual, (that the word arsenokoitai used in 1 cor is referring to prostitutes.)
Its really amazing how willing people are to grasp at straw to justify themselves in so many areas of life.
I think we need to hold on fast to what the scriptures simply say about certain topics. If we have 2 opposing sides of interpreting the scriptures, we should go with what they say plainly, and not what requires so much reading into and obscure concepts applied to them. This kind of behavior has gotten people into so much trouble and has led to people following guru’s (like this Reincarnated Jesus,) and following strange doctrines like the trinity (three but really one,) this homosexuality justification, baptism didn’t mean water was involved (look it up in any greek lexicon,) praying to Mary or other Saints, abortion is ok (usually by misreading Exodus 21:22), the 7 vials of God wrath was referring to the watchtower publications, etc. When so much reading into things is required, flags should be raised and we should be on our guard.
When I read the pamphlet by this soulforce group who throughout it claimed to believe in the authority of the scriptures, I saw how much of the Bible they where ready to dismiss. I looked just a little bit into their bizarre word definitions and found answers to their false interpretations quite easily.
We cerntainly need the help of God and the spirit. Points like you have raised above clearly communicate that to me.
Bless GOD
-Victor
Hi Victor,
unfortunately, it seems that such many different interpretations and views of what a scripture statement means are often attributed to “the spirit of God” … that is, folks supposedly arrive at those conclusions because they “perceived this spiritually”, “God told me by the spirit”, “it was revealed by the spirit”, “I learned this not by my own reasoning but the spirit of God taught me”, etc etc etc …
A plain and correct reading of the Scriptures in their proper context provides understanding is often replaced by a “the spirit of God taught interpretation”
How can it be that the spirit of God teaches so many differing and even opposing understandings? Or does the spirit of God perhaps not have anything to do with the interpretation, and folks need to understand that it is not the spirit of God teaching them such things but rather they themselves arriving at such understandings and therefore they themselves are to take the full responsibility instead of pointing to the spirit of God?
Cheers,
Wolfgang
Interesting comments. Clearly, as I stated above, we need God’s help. But this being said, nothing can replace a reading of the Scriptures! Many do not line up what they believe with the Bible and if so, not in light of the context and full canon of Scripture.
However, as I stated in the post, removing God or changing who He is and what His standards are lead to the lack of morality and righteousness listed in Romans 1. Get rid of the moral standard, you get rid of morality.
-VG
John Paul– You grouped together the trinity, homosexuality, praying to Mary or other saints, abortion and the 7 vial of God with “baptism didn’t mean water was involved (look it up in any Greek lexicon).” Are your trying to make a statement regarding your beliefs about water baptism and say that those who don’t believe the way you do are just like those who believe in the trinity, homosexuality, praying to Mary…. ?
Since the first time baptism is spoken about and every other time John is quoted in the gospels he makes reference to the baptism of the holy spirit and fire I am not sure what you mean. You said “we should go with what they say plainly.” It seems to me that water has little to do with the baptism of holy spirit and fire. Maybe Jesus is going to have water on the side when he baptizes with fire?
Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.
If you want to put weigh to your statement of belief I suggest not challenging people to look it up in and Greek lexicon because a Trinitarian may say the same to you in defense of their belief. You do not really think that lexicons, most if not all of which have been written by Trinitarians, are the standard for truth? I can show many places in the scriptures were water is excluded from baptism if you are open minded and not guilty of the things you accused those who believe in the trinity, homosexuality, praying to Mary or other saints and baptism didn’t mean water was involved!
What I was saying that was sometimes foreign concepts leak into peoples understanding of scripture. These were a few of many examples: Heaven as a destination, The immortal soul, your saved based on a one time confession of faith, etc. These are all very different concepts and the only way that I think that they are all alike, is that I don’t believe that the scriptures teach such things.
Vince, in response to your humorous example, Sorry, for the vague statement. what i was referring to what when people where being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and when it was said that the Apostles or Disciples went around baptizing people, and in the great commission Matthew 28:19, that water wasn’t involved or implied.
I do liken myself to have an open mind and am not guilty of believing in the trinity, homosexuality, or praying to saints and such, but I don’t think you need to show me where those verses are, i concede they are there. Of course there are places in scripture where the word baptism is used not referring to water but to the Holy Spirit. But the response to receiving the Gospel was not for the apostles to Baptize them in the Holy spirit (something only Jesus can do,) or to figuratively emerge them in the teachings of Jesus, but to use water. When they baptized them in the name of Jesus Christ, they used water.
My point in that small statement about the lexicon and such is that this word has a meaning. Since I have no interest in studying Ancient Greek im going to leave it up to those who do to define the word. I don’t feel qualified to disagree with them unless another scholar makes a really good case (which we find alot of with many trinitarian instances.)
Actually my whole baptism statement was small. Now im writing all of this?
Anyway, i guess my statement did need clarification, because technically it was inaccurate, thank you Vince for challenging me to clarify and i’ll try and choose my wording more wisely next time.
God Bless
~JP