"Today, our common sense and belief about things is different. We do not automatically assume that homosexual love is depraved, sad, or rebellious at its heart. We know comparatively well-adjusted homosexuals (who must always struggle against a society which constantly condemns them in order to feel self-righteous). A committed homosexual love seems, to us, to be as pure in heart as any heterosexual love. And that is, in fact, acknowledged by many conservative ministers who nonetheless teach against homosexuality. Their basis? A purely arbitrary rule laid down by God in scripture and biology, which amounts to saying that God sees
homosexuality as an "abomination".
Hunter,
First you give us a lengthy essay trying to show us that the Word of God in both the OT and the NT are culturally and socially conditioned, and then you bring us to the infallibility of your "Today, our common sense and belief about things is different".
What you have done in your own mind is destroy the eternal and forever truthful precepts in the Word of God and substituted in their place the relative values of twentieth century pagan America. It is your words: Today, our common sense and belief about things is different"., that culturally conditioned and a product of its age, rather than the Word of God. You have attempted to twist the truth into a lie and turned black into white; an impressive fulfillment of Scripture.
Every historical period and every era has their own perceptions and prejudices shaped by their unique social and cultural experiences. Each age and each ethnic group develops their own set of values from their unique experience. In this scheme of things, all values are relative.
An analogy may help. It is like a mechanic, a doctor, a dentist, a body man and a minister approaching an accident. The doctor will concentrate on the medical aspects, the dentist on the teeth, the body man on the damage to the car and the minister will concentrate on the persons salvation. Each will remember the accident in their unique way. Their memories of the accident will be conditioned by their professions. Although all the facts about the accident exists, each person is limited in grasping these facts because of their preconditioning. Each person can only recount what "he has seen".
This is what man faces when he tries to analyze morality and historical events without the Word of God. He simply lacks an eternal and absolutely accurate measuring stick to measure things.
This is the state of man without God and the Word of God. Man can only evaluate and see things according to social and cultural conditioning.
It is not so with the Word of God. God sees all things. He does not possess a limited and relativistic knowledge of events and things but an absolute and comprehensive knowledge of all things. This is why the Word of God transcends the prejudices of historical eras and cultures. It is an eternal measuring stick that never varies because it is based on absolute truth and reality. The Word of God gives us eternal truths that transcends all of our cultural and social conditioning. It slices through all historical and Culutural eras and gives us Eternal truths.
When you compare the historical and social deviations of the ancient Hebrew Cutlure contained in the OT, you are simply looking at the wraping paper and not the eternal precepts contained in the Word. The Word of God is always contained in the wrapping paper of language and culture and transmitted through the vehicle of language, but the spiritual observer automatically removes these cultural entities to view the pure Crystal of eternal truths contained in the wrapping paper. The Greek and the Hebrew languages were the vehicles and the wrapping paper was the Hebrew and Greek cultures.
This principle was clearly evident in Jesus. He spoke His Words while in the rush and anxiety of life. He spoke the language of Greek and Hebrew and was emersed in the Hebrew Cutlure, but look at the Words of Eternal Truth that He always spoke. People were all around Him demanding His attention and distracting His mind, but everyone of His Words are Eternal Truths that transcend all cultures and historical eras.
His Eteranl Words clearly identify Him as Divine.
It is the same with all the Divinely inspired Word of God. It is Eteranl and True. It transcends all ages and Cultures and speaks to the essence of truth and the heart of man today as it did in ancient Hebrew culture.
To prove this principle, isolate yourself in quietness and try to write one page of words of eteranl truth--words that will transcend your cultural prejudices and you historical era. You will find that all of your words are tainted by your previous social and cultural conditioning. You will soon come to the conclusion that Jesus and the Word of God are Eternal and not the cultural conditioned precepts that you have implied in your writings.
Regards
Emile |
