As I read and re-read the title of an article, in a Canadian Christian publication I was aghast! Not that someone would have the view, but that such a view would be printed in a Christian publication, for it’s readers to interpret as the voice of a learned Biblical scholar … of a lover of the Christ whose name we claim.
The entire title of the article was, “Unlearning the Bible to Welcome Homosexuals.”
There is a great misconception in this author’s assumption … that a church has to unlearn the Bible to welcome homosexuals.
To that I say, nay nay!
The Bible is VERY clear that God’s second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27), which is pretty closely linked to the Golden Rule of do to others what you would have them do to you (Matthew 7:12). And it does not indicate that we should only love certain neighbors. So, with that biblical background of the second most important commandment, from the lips of the Son of God, himself … I do not believe that to welcome homosexuals (or anyone else) means we need to unlearn the Bible.
The Bible can be a very complex book, full of what might seem to the casual reader, contradictions.
It is a book full of poetry, history, genealogies, prophesies and fulfillment of those prophesies. It is a book of :
- love and hate
- war and peace
- unification and separation
- creation and destruction
- birth and death
- gentleness and harshness
It is history … HIS … STORY
and we, who claim HIS name,
are the HIS … STORY students, followers, believers.
If the editors of this ‘christian’ publication are willing to print an article, which questions the very authoritative foundation of the Christian faith … the Word itself … then who or what do they believe our authority to be?
I need to make a disclaimer …
I am not a learned Biblical scholar. I have never formally studied the Bible.
But this I do know, as one who pours over it daily :
the Bible is a better authority than science (Isaiah 40:22, tells us that “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” … no flat Earth society in these pages),
and the Bible is definitely an authority with more longevity than I, with an eighty-five year lifespan!
IF
the Bible is not our authority … then who is?
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