Parents' rights and the homosexual agenda

[Marshall_Hahn]

If we love God and love our neighbor as ourself, we fulfill the whole law. We can ignore everything else.

That is an awfully big "if".

That which drives us to Christ we keep.

Such as the law, which says, "you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet, etc.".

That which declares our justification by God's grace alone through faith in Christ alone we proclaim.

Which is proclaimed rightly by preaching the whole counsel of God, including the law which condemns.

No, I still do not understand upon what basis you decide what is to be ignored and what is not.

Marshall Hahn

[Brian Stoffregen]

How does one ignore what Scripture says about the practice of homosexuality?  Just curious.

The same way that we ignore many other things in scriptures, like eating pork, or forcing a brother to have sex with a dead brother's wife to produce a child for his brother, or killing homosexuals and adulterers or people who break the sabbath rest, or forcing a rapist to marry his victim, or cutting off the hand of a woman if she has grabbed a man's private parts, or wearing clothes made of blended cloth, and the list goes on of biblical rules that we ignore.


Why do you ignore some of these?

I ignore these items, as Pr. Tibbetts notes, because of the witness of the whole of Scripture.  In particular, there are specific teachings in the New Testament from Jesus and elsewhere "declaring all foods clean" to give one example.  And these things have been pointed out many times over the years on this forum.  But I have a return question.
I assume you ignore all of these items - along with the prohibitions against homosexual behavior.  What things do you not ignore?  And on what basis?  I have never read a coherent explanation for deciding what can be ignored and what cannot by those who use this "shellfish" argument.  It is simply presented as a "gothcha" argument.  Not to lead this whole thread down an unwanted alley, but I seriously do not understand what basis you are using if not looking at the whole of Scripture.  And if that is the basis you are using, then you already have the answer to your question above.

If we love God and love our neighbor as ourself, we fulfill the whole law. We can ignore everything else.


That which drives us to Christ we keep.


That which declares our justification by God's grace alone through faith in Christ alone we proclaim.

I'm not sure about the highlighted phrase.  Are you saying that Christ's death which has fulfilled the law is not sufficient?  Are you saying that we do love God and our neighbor as ourselves outside of Christ's death?  I cannot ignore the fact that God's law has been fulfilled through Christ's death on the cross.  What does that say about love of God and love of neighbor?  What does that say to someone who honestly can confess that he does not love God nor loves his neighbor even on good days?  I'm afraid I do not understand what is being said here about love of God and neighbor.  A Jew might be able to say these things as highlighted above but not a Christian.

I suggest that you take up your argument with Paul, whom I checked before posting that. He writes in Romans 13:8-10:

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.


I'll also quote Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40:

He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

It seems to me that Jesus is saying these are the only two commandments we need. They are sufficient to be used by God civilly and theologically: to keep order in the world and to convict us of sin.


Neither Jesus nor Paul nor I have said that we are able to keep these commands, but they are sufficient. All the others are fulfilled by them. All the others "hang" on them.
 

[Brian Stoffregen]

I had the same reaction.  If we are able to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, we can fulfill the Law.

 


Yup, and the answer is, we are not able to love God and our neighbor as ourself; but that doesn't change what Jesus and Paul said about these commands. All the others are fulfilled in them. All the others hang on them. They should be sufficient for our life together (the civil use) and for exposing our sin (the theological use).

[Brian Stoffregen]

I use that example to mock their position that being homosexual has nothing to do with homoerotic activities.

There are ELCA pastors who identify themselves as "homosexual," who agree with and live by the old Vision and Expectations. They are self-identified as "homosexual" and they engage in no homoerotic activities. They are living proof that being homosexual does not necessarily means engaging in homoerotic activities.



The converse is also true, there are people, often in prison who engage in homoerotic activities who do not identify themselves as homosexuals. Once out of the male-only world, they resume sexual relationships with people of the opposite sex.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Are you trying to make an argument?  Or are you just free-associating lists?

I am stating that we ignore some commands in the Old and New Testament. Do you disagree with that?


The point being, if one wants to say that we ignore the prohibitions about homosexual behavior, it's just one of many commands that we ignore.


Often we offer reasons why we ignore them, like Mark's declaration that Jesus declared all foods clean so we can ignore God's laws about food regulations. Although that gets more tricky since the Apostolic council kept some of the food regulations for Christians. We spiritualize or make it a metaphor so we ignore the literal command about cutting off a sinful hand. We consider Paul's commands about hair length and head coverings to be specific to the culture and situation at Corinth so it doesn't really apply to life for us today.


We could say that Jesus did away with capital punishment when he stopped the crowd from stoning the adulteress; but there are Christians who still support killing certain criminals.


Do you agree with my statement that we ignore some commands in the Old and New Testaments?

[Brian Stoffregen]

No, I still do not understand upon what basis you decide what is to be ignored and what is not.

Why don't you tell me why you ignore some of the commands in the Old and New Testaments?

[Dan Fienen]

What the 10 Commandments do is to discribe what loving God and loving the neighbor as oneself looks like.  I have to agree with one of Robert Heinlein's epigrams, "Man is not a rational creature but a rationalizing one."  In the middle of the last century Joseph Fletch wrote the influencial book, Situation Ehtics based on the idea that love is the fullfilling of the law and so as long as what is done is loving, it is right even if it violates the law as handed down.  As one cab driver is quoted as saying - sometimes you have to break the rules and do what it right.
 
I still remember one example Fletcher gave in the book.  He suggested that sometimes a psychotherapist should sleep (have sexual intercourse) with a client who has self esteem issues to demonstrate to her that she is desirable.  Would you agree that is at times a good idea?
 
We should be very careful when we invoke love as the fulfilling of the law as a reason to disregard the other legal pronouncements - it is so easy to rationalize what we (selfishly) want as the loving thing in the situation.
 
Dan

[Brian Stoffregen]

it is so easy to rationalize what we (selfishly) want as the loving thing in the situation.

If it is what we selfishly want, then it is not love. Love centers on what benefits the other person even if it is not what I selfishly desire.

[Felix Culpepper]

I had the same reaction.  If we are able to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, we can fulfill the Law.

 


Yup, and the answer is, we are not able to love God and our neighbor as ourself; but that doesn't change what Jesus and Paul said about these commands. All the others are fulfilled in them. All the others hang on them. They should be sufficient for our life together (the civil use) and for exposing our sin (the theological use).

From this you conclude that, even though we haven't fulfilled the Law, we can go ahead and dispense with the Ten Commandments?  I think you are wrong.  When and if you are able to love God and neighbor as yourself fully and completely, then you may dispense with the Ten Commandments, but not until then.  Until then, you need the Ten Commandments to remind you that when you serve other gods, fail to praise, thank and call upon God, harm your neighbor, commit adultery, lie, steal or envy the happiness of others that you have not loved. 

Or you perhaps you think that the Old Adam/Eve is completely dead in you, that he/she will never deceive you into thinking that you are acting in faith and love, when you are not?

[Dan Fienen]

it is so easy to rationalize what we (selfishly) want as the loving thing in the situation.

If it is what we selfishly want, then it is not love. Love centers on what benefits the other person even if it is not what I selfishly desire.

Very true, but if the only criteria for decision making is what I see as loving in the situation, there is little to warn us when we are rationalizing as loving what is really something else.  After all, apparently the Bible gives us little or no guidance that we are obliged to follow.
 

If we love God and love our neighbor as ourself, we fulfill the whole law. We can ignore everything else.


That which drives us to Christ we keep.


That which declares our justification by God's grace alone through faith in Christ alone we proclaim.

 

[MaddogLutheran]

No, I still do not understand upon what basis you decide what is to be ignored and what is not.

Why don't you tell me why you ignore some of the commands in the Old and New Testaments?

It's not like people haven't tried to explain it to you.  It's sort of like your argument that a relationship makes homosexual relations okay, except it has an actual scriptural foundation.  I'd also have more respect for your question if not for the matter that you yourself also "ignore" some of these commands you are attempting to bind on others.

Sterling Spatz
(Socrates didn't argue in circles in an attempt to win every disagreement)

[Steven Tibbetts]

I'll also quote Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40:

He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

It seems to me that Jesus is saying these are the only two commandments we need. They are sufficient to be used by God civilly and theologically: to keep order in the world and to convict us of sin.

It seems to me that you are exegeting Matthew 22:37-40 apart from anything else the Lord Jesus says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

[George Erdner]

Is it oversimplifying something that needs to be complicated to recognize that, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" describes a pre-Fall understanding of how things were originally meant to be, had mankind not chosen the path we did? Find a human who could perfectly keep those two commandments, and there would be no need for any others. However, the only human who could perfectly keep those two commandments is the one who reminded us of them. For the rest of us, we need God's Law written out in detail.
 

[pearson]

Is it oversimplifying something that needs to be complicated to recognize that, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" describes a pre-Fall understanding of how things were originally meant to be, had mankind not chosen the path we did? Find a human who could perfectly keep those two commandments, and there would be no need for any others. However, the only human who could perfectly keep those two commandments is the one who reminded us of them. For the rest of us, we need God's Law written out in detail.

But does having "God's Law written out in detail" really help with the problem of whether human beings can "keep" the Law?  We can't keep the two great commandments, and we can't keep the original Ten, either.  It would seem that the more specifically we itemize the requirements of the Law, the more aware we are of our inability to act in accordance with them.  Isn't that Paul's argument in Romans 7?

Tom Pearson 

[George Erdner]

Is it oversimplifying something that needs to be complicated to recognize that, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" describes a pre-Fall understanding of how things were originally meant to be, had mankind not chosen the path we did? Find a human who could perfectly keep those two commandments, and there would be no need for any others. However, the only human who could perfectly keep those two commandments is the one who reminded us of them. For the rest of us, we need God's Law written out in detail.

But does having "God's Law written out in detail" really help with the problem of whether human beings can "keep" the Law?  We can't keep the two great commandments, and we can't keep the original Ten, either.  It would seem that the more specifically we itemize the requirements of the Law, the more aware we are of our inability to act in accordance with them.  Isn't that Paul's argument in Romans 7?

Tom Pearson

While we cannot keep the Law perfectly, if we all do our best to at least try, things will be better for us. After all, didn't God give us the Law in part because He loved us and knew that it would be for our own good if we attempted to follow it, even if only imperfectly? Sure, it also teaches us that we need forgiveness and God's Grace. But who would argue that we should ignore God's Law as if it didn't exist? Should we wallow in debauchery so that we could claim an even bigger portion of God's Grace?