Gay Marriage: A Ministerial Conundrum (Part 1)
This question was recently asked on a friend’s Facebook feed in response to a video on gay marriage:
…I have some friends who are a happily and legally married gay couple. Though I am so encouraged by everyone’s comments about inviting homosexuals to church I have to ask, what would your opinions be about this specific situation if this couple came to your church? Would your wish be for them to eventually realize their wrong ways and repent from their homosexual lifestyle (and thus getting a divorce, marrying a woman or remaining celibate) or would you simply leave them as they are, a lovingly committed, dedicated married couple? Also, before you answer remember Jesus’ words about divorce. Not wanting to start anything here, just adding to the discussion. Blessings.
It’s a very interesting question and one I’ve been struggling with since listening to David Platt at Secret Church. He asked the same question about a polygamist and said that he should stayed married to his wives and continue to support and take care of them in the way that they had before. The repercussion is that their polygamy would disqualify them from leadership (“husband of one wife”). So, does this apply to gay marriage as well?
In 1 Corinthians Paul says that a believer married to unbeliever should not divorce if the unbeliever agrees to stay with them and then shortly after states that we should “remain in the condition in which we were called.” (1 Corinthians 7:12-22) Though this does not speak of the topic of homosexuality (same-sex marriage would not have been a issue at the time) it is something to look at as we think about the question. This is not something that will just go away, if you are a part of a church, and especially if you are in ministry, you will have to face this some day.
Obviously this is just the beginning of thinking through this. It is obvious from scripture that a gay marriage is not a God honoring union, but neither is polygamy. One could even argue that such unions were not marriages in the eyes of God.
So, what do you think? Should a married gay or lesbian couple stay together after becoming believers? What if they have children? What if one of them has been a stay-at-home mom or dad, supported by their spouse?
I’ll be coming back to this soon, expounding on my thoughts and looking at more scripture. In the meantime, what do you think?
Check These Out 7/20/11
Just Say You Want to be a Pastor
If you are reading this and you believe God may be calling you to pastor an existing church, even the type of church you would consider to be dysfunctional or unhealthy, I hope you will be cautious in the language you use to describe your ministry desires. The church is not a problem to be solved, but the Bride of Christ for whom he died. No church is perfect, and some have serious problems. But loving the Lord, loving his church, loving lost people, preaching the Word, and keeping close to the cross is always the right recipe for pastoral leadership, regardless of what state the church might be in when you begin your pastoral responsibilities. Don’t think of yourself as a revitalizer or a reformer—think of yourself as a shepherd, a servant of the Word whom the Lord will hopefully use to help accomplish his gospel purposes in his church for his glory. In other words, just say you want to be a pastor.
Spiritual warfare is real…it happens everyday and the main goal of the enemy is to get us to doubt and discard God’s Word!
I do not write this to scare you (and for the record, Charisse does not live in fear about this bad dream she had!) I write this to encourage you to pray like you’ve never prayed and to DIVE into God’s Word…because if the enemy is trying to keep you away from something then it MUST be good for you.
I’ve learned over the years that the simplest way to judge gray areas in the Christian life like movies, television, and music is to ask one simple question: can I thank God for this?
Information or Transformation? A Crisis in the Church
We have to find a way to transfer all this incredible information that we know in our minds to our hearts so it can be lived out. We have to find a way to, as James puts it, “look intently into.” The word for “looks intently into” (parakypsas) literally means “to stoop down” in order to have a good close look.
Check These Out 7/11/11
The good news is that our salvation is not dependent on our success at making right choices, even the right choice of faith. In fact, the Bible regularly reminds us that we cannot consistently make good choices with our corrupt wills. As Paul puts it, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19, niv). Instead of relying on an autonomous free will to remind us to make right choices, we are called to simply trust what Christ has done for us on the cross and through his resurrection.
Why You Might Be an Ear-Tickling Preacher
But let us not underestimate the evil intentions of the human heart. We crave a message that puffs us up. We read Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector and rightly condemn the Pharisee for his pompous prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector.” Then we thank God that we’re not like the Pharisee.
Ironically, the very message that is supposed to cut us low, the message of the Cross, can be delivered in such a way that people walk out of the sanctuary patting themselves on the back. Thank God I’m not like those people!
Monday’s Ministry Musing: Why I’m Sick of Hearing “Good” Sermons
And here’s the deal. I have preached “sermons” that are void of the gospel myself. I am just as guilty. I have preached on relationships in such a way that teens engage in legalism instead of gospel-driven obedience. I have preached a text from Paul that would make Paul vomit because of its gospel-deficiency. I have preached a text from the mouths of Jesus that had little to do with Jesus and more to do with us. I have preached sermons that would make me vomit. May I never preach another one.
How-To Tell If A Worship Leader Is A Superstar Wannabe
The motive for what we do should be pure, especially in God’s eyes, otherwise it’s all in vain.
Check These Out 7/7/11
All Great Spirituality is Subversive
So when we follow Christ, everything about us becomes subversive. We have the audacity to stand in the middle of the world and weep over the false idols of culture, the power, the money, the sex, the fashion. And we do the same within the church. We say to the religious that their rules will not redeem them, to the performers of ritual that their actions have no power. We say to the angry theologian that Jesus is not an idea, and to the fundamentalist that he is too cowardly to accept or give grace.
Is Church Membership Biblical?
When you begin to look at these texts it becomes clear that God’s plan for his church is that we would belong to a local covenant community of faith. This is for our own protection and maturation, and for the good of others.
Maturity as a believer in Christ is when I consistently make the decision to trust and obey what God’s Word says rather than the way that I feel. BECAUSE…honestly, there are going to be times as human beings where obedience isn’t the easy thing or the fun thing…but it’s always the right thing.
Every time He spoke, He was simultaneously excluding some and including others. Some, after hearing His particularly difficult teachings, turned away and “no longer walked with Him” (John 6:66). But others were drawn to Him. They did not simply accept the unknown, but were fueled by what they did not know to learn more. And the fascinating thing is that when people drew near, when they asked Him to explain, as the disciples did, He was happy to oblige.
Check These Out 7/6/11
Following revelations of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s adultery and Anthony Weiner’s sexting comes news that the state of New York will legally recognize the “marriage” of homosexuals. While the legal modification of marriage continues the not-so-gradual removal of nuptial boundaries, heterosexual marriage is likewise undergoing a transformation. Veteran journalist Mark Oppenheimer featured Dan Savage, “America’s leading sex-advice columnist” and homosexual activist in a recent New York Times piece that championed adultery. Gaining national prominence for his It Gets Better Project—”an archive of hopeful videos aimed at troubled gay youth”—Savage believes that public discourse about sexuality (and monogamy in particular) is “dishonest.”
“Treating monogamy, rather than honesty or joy or humor, as the main indicator of a successful marriage,” says Savage, “gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners.” Such “unrealistic expectations” of sexual fidelity seem to be the fuel for many divorces. From his perspective, the promotion of monogamy actually “destroys more families than it saves.”
The Devilish Debate Over Choice vs. Chance
Yes, God really did say that homosexuality is a sin. God really did say we would be tempted to sin, which includes homosexuality. God really did say we can be forgiven and He can make us whole again. He said He loves us, doesn’t leave us and wants to be with us. Which, by the way, is not the typical way Christians treat sexual sinners … even those who confess and repent.
He also said Satan is a liar, so, when Satan appears as the voice of modern culture and repeats his age-old promises, why should we be surprised that they’re delivered with the precision of a practiced deceiver? He’s slick, and not just because he’s a serpent.
Seven Things I Try To Do In Order To Raise A Godly Daughter
#7 – We pray together every night…I always want her to remember that her daddy made it a priority to pray with her. I’m not telling her to pray…I’m teaching her how.
Missional Communities series | Final Post
Well folks, this is our last post in our long-running Missional Communities series. And what better way to end it than by ending without new content; rather, an easy reference list of each of the past posts. Hope you find this helpful in the months and years to come.
Check These Out 7/5/11
Book Review: Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle
One of the big questions in the Love Wins controversy centers on whether or not Christian universalism and the opportunity for post-mortem salvation is defensible from Scripture. The authors quickly move through a handful of the major proof texts offered in defense of universalism to focus on to the larger issue of post-mortem salvation. In their search for proof texts in its defense, they found exactly none.
Which area of sin does the enemy target the most in pastors?
I had a harsh reminder of this recently as I received word of another promising, extremely gifted, young man who had to leave the ministry over an inappropriate relationship with another woman not his wife. How clever is our adversary? How cunning are his ways? He knows this accomplishes his purposes more than anything else. And guess what…
Check These Out 6/30/11
The Gospel, Evangelism, and Discipleship
Is becoming a disciple of Jesus the natural way to say ‘Yes’ to the gospel I preach?
This question has been revolutionizing my understanding of the gospel, evangelism, and discipleship. For example, if we see the main message of the gospel as “Your sins can be forgiven,” it does not naturally lead to becoming a disciple of Jesus, because once you’ve got the “forgiveness contract” signed, discipleship seems like an optional extra-curricular activity for people who are into that kind of thing. Gospel-as-forgiveness is an anemic understanding of what the New Testament proclaims.
Who should we support with our charitable giving?
“The only authoritative voice is the New Testament teaching about finances. To what did the early church give? There were three groups that funds were given to:
- First, the needy in the church (Acts 2:44-45), such as helping believers in crisis (Acts 11:28-30), feeding hungry believers (Acts 8:1-3), caring for widows who are believers (1 Tim 5:8-9), and so on.
- Second, the needy in general, who are not necessarily believers (Luke 10:30-37; James 1:27).
- Third, material support for traveling apostolic leaders, such as Jesus, Paul, Peter, etc (Matt 27:55-56; Luke 10:7; John 13:29; 1 Cor 9:1-14; Philip 4:15-16; 3 John 1:3-8).
In Viral Jesus, I’m going to tell the story of our history, where the changes came from and why. I’m going to explain the changes in our theology focus and why they have damaged the ability of the Church to fulfill her commission from God. I’m going to explain what happened in China with real accounts from their exciting story. I’m going to tell real life stories of how this is just beginning to impact places like Western Europe and the United States. And, I’m going to explain how we too can once again recapture the strategic genius of the Early Church of our brothers in China, India and other non-Western Great Commission hot spots.
Realizing the church can survive, and even thrive, for a season without them might give more pastors the courage and honesty to seek help for themselves or their marriages. But if the entire system is built on the premise of singularity rather than redundancy, it may keep more pastors in denial about their needs or reluctant to share their problems. In short, singularity may be more efficient in the short run, but redundancy may keep more leaders serving and thriving in the long run.
Check These Out 6/24/11
Despite Horses And Buggies, Amish Aren’t Necessarily ‘Low-Tech’
It’s quite clear that Amish groups that monitor technology in a discerning way — with an eye to its effects on the community in the long run — do last longer and have more cohesion in their community. The group I was with had almost zero attrition in their members. They were very watchful of technology. There are Amish groups that adopted the automobile early on and those groups either disappeared all together or became small and attenuated, because the automobile is very destructive to community relations that are based on face-to-face contact.
He Loves Me Not… (Review: Love Wins)
I realize this is a pretty negative take on the book, so I want to take a moment to offer a few more thoughts. Unlike many, the thing that troubles me about Love Wins is not its conclusions. Oh, I disagree with them, but they were what I expected and I’m not one to enjoy getting apoplectic at how wrong others are. What made the book so hard for me to read was its total lack of respect and honesty.
Love accommodates. Love finds what the other needs and aims for it. Love goes out of the way to make sure the other “gets it” and feels loved.
It’s funny but it’s sad…I’m a pastor and, granted on Sundays I’m dressed a little nicer and always wear my contacts, there are times I’m out in town in shorts, a hat, and wearing glasses and I will pass one of my fellow church members on the street. I’ll say “hi” and they’ll stop, look surprised, and say, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t recognize you!” Okay—but how many other 6’5 guys do you know walking around this town? But it’s sad—I can stand up, preach, shake hands, etc. and not be recognized and part of it is we don’t look long enough at a person we’re passing on the street to even know if we know them!
For us, community will be more difficult to build and by necessity take more intentionality. So what steps can we take to recapture biblical community in our churches?
We Share Responsibility For Coach Tressel’s Fall
Those of us who have been a chaplain, coach, or player at the collegiate level know that, in certain programs, players get paid. And I’m not talking about that rinky-dink stipend check for off-campus living expenses. Because many college athletes and high school prospects are unfairly denied free market value for their services (a peripheral debate better left for another time), the “corporate” arm of many major athletic departments finds a way to reimburse them. Those of us believers engaged in sports ministry know this for a fact. For some reason we have ignored it as a non-issue. For some reason we deactivate our moral compass when confronted with it. I have an idea why.
