Internasional / 23 July 2015
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THE CREATOR’S BLUEPRINT vs. GAY AND LESBIAN EQUALITY
Puji Astuti Official Writer
I believe in what I would call the ‘Creator’s Blueprint’ for marriage and family. The ‘Creator’s Blueprint’ takes us back to the book of Genesis, where God is creating Adam in the Garden of Eden. These scriptures come before many frequently quoted scriptures about sexuality and marriage, usually taken from Leviticus, the Gospels, and the Epistles. In this scene, God puts Adam to sleep, takes out a rib, and from the rib he creates a ‘helpmate’ for Adam. This helpmate was a ‘she’, and Adam named her Eve. Let’s tune in to Genesis 2:22-25:
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought
her to the man.
“At last!” the man exclaimed.
“This one is bone from my bone,
and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man. ’”
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is
joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
Here the blueprint is given, ‘the man…is joined to his wife and the two are united into one’. There is no shame in this union. At this time I would like to point out, that there was no ‘Steve’, nor any thought or mention of a ‘Steve’ for Adam in the garden, only Eve.
Now, God gives a blessing and then a mandate to Adam and Eve. ‘Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.” (Gen 1:28)
This divine blessing was imparted to a man and his wife. Then, a divine mandate clearly puts an exclamation point on the Creator’s Blueprint for marriage and family. Made in God’s image, man and his wife were to procreate, and to fill the earth. As they followed God’s prescribed pattern for life and marriage, then God would bless them with the authority to govern.
Throughout the entire Bible, scripture points to this sacred union between a man and his wife. Let’s see what Jesus says in the book of Mark, as he addressed the Pharisees.
“But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
Jesus makes several very clear statements: that 1. God made them male and female, from the beginning. 2. That a man is joined to his wife. 3. That God sees this union as sacred, joined together by God. Jesus gave no place nor opportunity to be misunderstood, and lays out again for us His Creator’s Blueprint for life and family.
The Apostle Paul added perspective,
and not only spoke deeply of the marital responsibilities of both husbands and
wives, but clearly laid out moral boundaries that every believer in Christ should follow. These boundaries included
clearly stating that a lifestyle of fornication, adultery, or homosexual relations is sinful, and would bring God’s judgment. Many proponents of the LGBT movement have claimed that if Jesus were against homosexuality, he would have said so. But as a Jew, Jesus was ministering almost exclusively to the Jewish community. The
Jewish community may have had many theological disputes amongst each other, but
they were very clear on homosexuality. Both in the book of Genesis, and in the Law of Moses it was made agonizingly clear that this was forbidden. So, Jesus didn’t need to address that for the purposes of his immediate ministry. But as the Gospel spread from the Jews to
the Gentiles, God used the Apostle Paul to do so because this was clearly needed in the cultures in which the Gospel was going forth. All of these truths are clearly written in
the texts of the Bible, and there is no reasonable, logical or theological way to interpret or translate them in any other way than they are written.
But in today’s culture, Christians are often accused of flagrantly denying many truly loving gay and lesbian people equal rights under the laws that we enjoy as heterosexuals. We are accused of moral superiority, as well as extreme prejudice and even hatred.
Let me be clear in the truth, as presented in the Bible.
I do not believe the sin of homosexuality is worse than other sins. To say homosexuality is worse than other sins is to misunderstand the holiness of God. Sin is sin. Jesus said that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. So, the smallest infraction 'leavens' our lives and will require the blood of Jesus to cleanse us just the same as seemingly more odious and vulgar sins. So why does this sin of homosexuality bring such strong condemnation from sincere followers of Christ towards the gay community, and those who champion same sex marriage, when we ourselves are sinful people needing the same forgiveness that only Jesus can give?
It is because this sin, when legitimized by declaring that it's equally deserving of having the sacrament, the title, the certificate of marriage bestowed upon it, has within it the power to re-define marriage and the family away from the Creator’s Blueprint that brings life and peace. It has the power to project an alternative and relative morality, its relativism bringing a frustrating sense of confusion where there was previously moral clarity. As truth becomes murky, and as the church starts to stray from the Bible’s clear stand to embrace a culturally acceptable stance, the eternal values of the Creator’s blueprint are in danger.
Gluttony is a sin, but does not have the power to re-engineer the definition of morality. Pride is a terrible sin, but cannot be measured or legislated. Mistreating or divorcing one’s wife, or committing adultery are sins, none of which are greater or lesser than homosexuality. However, ‘same sex marriage’ as equal to heterosexual marriage is not the same as homosexuality. ‘Same sex marriage’ goes far beyond an individual partaking in a sinful practice, and becomes a social locomotive harnessing all legal and cultural means to achieve ‘equality’. However, in order to achieve this elusive goal, it must by its very nature aggressively seek to re-define or re-engineer morality, family and marriage. This will happen regardless of the kindness and good intent of some of the gay people and/or non-gay supporters involved in the movement.
It’s true that there have been outrageous acts of prejudice or hostility against gay people from society, and from the church, for whatever reason throughout history. Many times the Church has reacted in anger, rage, judgment, protests and possibly many other expressions, some which never should have happened. But even so, none of the injustices felt by some in the LGBT community can justify what is intrinsically wrong and sinful. Truth cannot morph to accommodate contemporary culture. Truth by it’s very nature, stays consistent throughout all time, and it is either truth or it is not. The mistakes and sins of the church and believers in Christ don’t make the Bible any less true, or disqualify the Creator’s Blueprint for marriage. Homosexuality is still a sin, and same sex marriage is still a great mistake in spite of the church’s failure to live out Biblical truth as a community of believers. Christians are often discredited because of the divorce rate seen amongst heterosexual, Christian couples in the USA. However, divorce rates don’t disprove God’s plan, or make heterosexual marriage less valid…only less valued. It is true; many Christians have sinfully forgotten our vows and promises spoken at the altar in front of many witnesses. But those things don’t make homosexuality, same sex marriage or any other sin-- right, or validate the LGBT passion for equality. In other words, the failure of Christians in today’s culture to be radical followers of Jesus Christ, and love their wives just as Christ loves the church, does not change the unchanging values and truths of God’s blueprint for life and family. It only signals the deep need for this generation of believers to seek God with all their hearts, and repent for their sinful ways.
Same sex marriage, after gaining an elevated place of legitimacy, equality and legal power, can now become the Trojan horse that delivers into society many destructive forces. Think of young children being taught about gay and lesbian relationships in their early years in school, or kids being taught ‘genderfluidity’ as a mandatory part of our educational system. One day Obamacare or national health care systems could even be required to cover the operations needed to move a person from ‘Gender Recognition’ to 'Gender Realization'. Already cases for polyamorous marital relationships are being brought to court, and the idea that groups of multi-gender individuals could fight for the same rights is not far behind. Soon the medical establishment could be researching ways to incorporate the genes of two males or females or even more into an embryonic blastocyst, so the child can ‘inherit’ the traits of all parents in the marriage.
Knowing the LGBT's track record of fighting for equality, how will it now move to attack the dissenting voice of the Church that declares homosexuality as a sin, and gay marriage as destructive? This could be the next level effort of the LGBT ‘equality machine’, which would be to cast the church as misguided, and even be considered to be an evil and hateful prejudice that needs to be rooted out of life and society because of its uncompromising stand against homosexuality.
Now more than ever, it is important that we do not leave the ‘Creator’s Blueprint’ for sexuality, marriage, and family, even to accommodate the feelings, goodness or sincerity we might see in the LGBT community. We believe marriage is a Biblical sacrament, holy before God, and that the Bible gives a clear moral compass for all of us; a right and a wrong. For these reasons, to support this movement, to attend gay weddings, to lovingly accept and support gay family and friends to continue in this lifestyle, is to shed our responsibility to stand for truth, and the Creator’s unequivocally clear foundation of truth for life and family. It is also a failure to train our children in the ways of God, so that when they grow older, they will walk in His ways, and live lives pleasing to God.
Today, the church must take a loving, yet radical and uncompromising stand. We must clearly speak up, that the Creator’s Blueprint for life, family, sex and marriage, is a non-negotiable truth; an unchanging value in the life of every follower of Jesus Christ.
By Mark McClendon
Director
CBN SouthEast Asia
July, 2015
Sumber : CBNHalaman :
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