Homosexuality and the Christian

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  Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Jeff Lampl
Homosexuality and the Christian

Tomorrow Evening, October 14, at 7:00 pm in the second floor auditorium the Hot Topics class will tackle homosexuality.   Because so many people are so confused about this issue I want everyone to know of this opportunity to understand this complex issue more deeply.   You’re invited to attend this session even if you’re not a regular attender.    

The following is a sampler of the kinds of questions we will address  

1.       Is homosexuality a sin or simply an orientation that is not more or less sinful than a
          heterosexual orientation?

2.       If I’m homosexual isn’t it because God made me that way?

3.       If I am homosexual can I marry another gay person?   If not why not?  If not, does that
          mean that God condemns me to celibacy for the rest of my life?

4.       If I’m a single heterosexual, does God condemn me also to celibacy for the rest of my
          life if don’t marry?

5.       Isn’t it true that Jesus never even addressed the issue of homosexuality?

6.       When Paul writes about homosexuality isn’t it true that he is referring to degrading
          and defiling practices rather than committed, loving homosexual relationships that we
          see in today’s world.

7.       Does the Bible really restrict marriage to one man and one woman?

8.       Are men and women really two distinct sexes or are each of us simply a point on a
          continuum so that the distinction of male and female are archaic categories which
          science has now shown to be irrelevant?

9.       Do children have anything to with how society defines marriage?

10.     Should I attend a gay wedding or bake a cake for a gay wedding or issue a marriage
          license for a gay couple?

11.     Would we at CLC allow a gay couple to attend a marriage enrichment seminar?

12.     Would we at CLC allow a gay man or woman to hold a leadership position in the
          church and what’s the reasoning behind the answer?

13.     Would Pastor Jeff officiate a gay wedding celebration?

14.     What is the biblical perspective on choosing to become transgendered?

15.     Should conversion therapy for homosexuals be banned?

16.     How should I handle my relationship with my homosexual son or daughter? 

Scriptures that will guide us include 

Genesis 1:26-27
Genesis 2:18-25
1 Corinthians 6:9-20
Matthew 19:5
1 Corinthians 7
Ephesians 5:21-33
Romans 1:18-3:31
Romans 8:1, 31-39
Ephesians 4:29

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What to do if This is You

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Monday, October 12, 2015
Jeff Lampl
What to do if This is You

Pastor John Ortberg writes that there are two truths about human beings that matter deeply.

“We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. Partly our raggedness is something that happens to us. Our genes may set us up for certain weaknesses. Our parents may let us down when we need them most. But that’s not the whole story. We each make our own deposits into the ragged account of the human race. We choose to deceive when the truth begs to be spoken. We grumble when a little generous praise is called for. We deliberately betray when we’re bound by oaths of loyalty. Like a splash of ink in a glass of water, this raggedness permeates our whole being. Our words and thoughts are never entirely free of it.  We are tempted and we succumb to temptation.   We are rag dolls, all right.    

But we are God’s rag dolls. He knows all about our raggedness, and he loves us anyhow. Our raggedness is no longer the most important thing about us. We were not created ragged.  

From the beginning there was a wonder about human beings that caused God himself to say “Very Good” as he looked at them in the department store window.  

There was a wonder about human beings that caused the writer of Genesis to say they had been made in God’s own image. There was a wonder about human beings that caused the psalmist to say they rival the divine beings in glory and honor. There is a wonder about human beings still that even all our fallenness cannot utterly erase.    

Lord, amazingly, even when we yield to temptation your love for us remains and your passionate desire for us grows us into likeness of your Son will not relent.   Therefore, Lord, don’t let us yield to the temptation to fall into something less than you have created us to be.

There is a wonder about you. Raggedness is not your identity. Raggedness is not your destiny, nor is it mine.

We may be unlovely, yet we are not unloved. And we cannot be loved without being changed. There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures.  

There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is a love beyond reason.

This is the love of God. This is the love with which God loves you and me.  

Love is why God created us in the first place. Theologians speak of the fact that God created everything freely, not out of necessity. This is a very important idea—it means that God did not make us because he was bored, lonely, or had run out of things to do. God did not create us out of need. He created us out of his love. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.” But the full extent of God’s love was shown not so much when he chose to create us. It was shown when we had become sinful and unlovely.

For God is fully aware of our secret. He knows that we are rag dolls. The prophet Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6, NIV) Every one of us has become ragged, so damaged by sin and guilt that it seemed like the logical thing left was to discard the human race. Toss it out and start over. But this God could not bring himself to do. So God proposed reconstructive surgery.

God proposed to take the human race to where he could change filthy rags and remove the guilt and sin that left the objects of his love so unlovely. There really is such a place. It is called the cross.  

Lord, don’t let us yield to temptation, instead lead us to yield to your reconstructive surgery for our lives          

Question to Consider

 What most tempts you to do, think or say things that fall short of “image bearing” child of God, whom God is training you to become?


Prayer 

“Lord, I suspect that my greatest temptation is the temptation to “settle”, to settle for the immediate gratification of food, a drug, a cheap tryst, a dishonoring compromise, anything that is easier than living into the kind of person you want to train me to become.   All too often I choose easy and lazy over hard but good, painful but beautiful.  Lord help me to choose the good and the beautiful. . . . . even if, especially if, it’s hard.    Amen”  

© 2015 by Zondervan. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Visit  JohnOrtberg.com for more about John Ortberg's work and ministry 

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Kohl's Fitting Room

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Saturday, October 10, 2015
Jeff Lampl

Kohl's Fitting Room

“So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!  This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”    2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT)  

So, there it is.  Kathy and I do most (all?) of our shopping at Kohl’s. 

The above picture is of a Kohl’s fitting room just like the one I used two weeks ago to purchase a new pair of slacks.  I tried on tons of various slacks, mostly because almost none ever fit me.    I guess I need to like the way I look (or is that some other store’s tagline?)  

Someone recently compared the American culture we “swim in” to a fitting room, where we try on all the stuff the store is selling to see if it fits, to see if helps me “fit in”, to see if it will project the identity that I want to have.   Or am trying on what will provide me with identity that American Culture is telling me that I need to have?    

So when I try on the stuff that looks so good on others in ads, why don’t those things look that good on me?   What’s my problem?   I guess I just don’t measure up.   I can try to measure up, but it’s a losing battle!   So, if I try to measure up and don’t, I can go two routes.   I can quit trying and simply accept that I’ll never measure up to what Kohl’s and Macy’s (actually I’m more of a JC Penny guy) tells me is the minimum acceptable stand for decency in appearance, or I can keep trying with the guaranteed result that I will still fail to measure (spelled l-o-s-e-r) only I’ll spend a lot more money getting there.  

Facebook, ads, TV, movies, twitter, Instagram, check out tabloids, People Magazine and Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated in February, all of these and a gazillion more “American Values” vie for your attention and their place in you “fitting room”, the place where you allow your identity to be shaped?  How well do you think you measure up?   And what if you do think you measure up to what others tell you ought to measure up to?   Who are you then?  And how long will that last?  

Is there any other option?  

Find out tomorrow at 9:00 or 10:30 when Pastor Gary teaches us how to allow God to shape our identity in a world that does everything it can to mess with who we really are.

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What's the Big Idea of the Bible?

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    Friday, October 9, 2015
Jeff Lampl

What is the Big Idea of the Bible?

The “Big Idea” of the Bible is that God created a great world.  It does not say how God did it, rather that God did it.  But that world “went south”.  Human beings whom God created in His own image rebelled and the world has been broken ever since.   Yet, through Jesus God is renewing the world and that renewal (which each of us encounters every day) will culminate in a Coming New World (Isaiah 65;17)  

Genesis 1-11 
God creates a good, vibrant world where human beings, God and nature would flourish together, but human rebellion ruins it with sin and death.  

Genesis 12 through Deuteronomy 
As his means of healing the now broken creation, God forms Israel as his kingdom on Earth, in order to triumph over sin, death and evil and give life to all the peoples of the world.  God covenants/promises to be faithful to Israel forever.  When Israel is unfaithful to God, God remains faithful to Israel.  This is the amazing meaning of God’s covenant with Israel.  

Historical Books (Joshua through Nehemiah) 
God exercises his loving rule in Israel’s history by giving them victory to possess the Promised Land, instituting a human king to govern his reign, centralizing his throne in Jerusalem and granting an eternal dynasty through David, exiling Israel to Babylon in judgment for their persistent rebellion, and restoring his loved people to their  land, all in anticipation of sending his Anointed King (Jesus) into the world.  

Prophets (Isaiah through Malachi) 
God guards his loving relationship with Israel through his messengers, the prophets, by calling his people, Israel, to trust Him, announcing judgment for their unfaithfulness, and proclaiming the coming of his Anointed King to rule in righteousness and glory.  

Poets (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) 
God reigns over his people with wisdom, as communicated by the Poets, enabling his people to live meaningful and skillful lives in relationship with him.  

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) 
God’s Anointed King, Jesus, displays God’s rule with absolute power and supreme love, through his supernatural birth, his life of teaching and miracles, and his death and resurrection, which triumphs over Satan and the curse of sin and death and gives life to all people who turn to him in faith.  

Acts and New Testament Letters (Romans through Jude) 
The Risen King, Jesus, launches a new kingdom on Earth of Spirit-empowered believers, to represent his loving presence in the world, and advance his life-giving reign among the nations, until he returns to recreate all things  

Revelation 
Jesus, the conquering King, exercises his holy and life-giving rule over a rebellious planet by reigning over the Church, unleashing future, catastrophic judgment, and by returning in majesty to reign in love over his New Creation.

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Identity in Christ

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Chapter 5- Identity in Christ
By: Megann Graf
October 8, 2015

I love the ending of that statement above.  It doesn’t stop with the declaration of
being a child of God.  It goes in for more.  “I know it. I live it.  I love it.”  Such
simple words but with a powerful meaning.  Do I know it?  If I do, do I live it?  If
I’m living it, am I enjoying it?  Easier said than done, right? 

Well, today, ponder that.  Seriously, that’s it.  I’m just inviting you to think about
that statement with me.  How can we know it, and live it, and love it?  The answer
is simple and yet hard we have to believe.  So, that’s all I’m writing today.  But,
because I think everyone needs a good song to do some thinking with, I’m also
attaching a link to a song.  It’s called “No Longer Slaves.”  Listen to the words.  
Let them sink in.  Listen to it again.  Listen to it when you’re having a great day,
and listen to it when you are struggling.  It has a great message.   You are a child of God-
know it, live it, and love it!  

https://youtu.be/f8TkUMJtK5k

    

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How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth Part 2

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     Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Jeff Lampl

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors at many different times and in many different ways through the prophets.  In these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. God made his Son responsible for everything. His Son is the one through whom God made the universe.  His Son is the reflection of God's glory and the exact likeness of God's being. He holds everything together through his powerful words. After he had cleansed people from their sins, he received the highest position, the one next to the Father in heaven.” 
                                                                                                   Hebrews 1:1-3 (GW)  

Guidelines for reading the Bible:  Part Two  

1.  Recall that the best way to define “God breathed” and “inspired” is by attaching that inspiration to the writers of the biblical texts.   God inspired the authors of the Bible. Christians do not believe that God dictated his words to the authors (as Muslims believe of Mohammed), nor do Christians believe that the inspiration resides in the inspiration of the reader. 

2.  Therefore I believe that God inspired whoever wrote Hebrews to tell us Jesus is the lens through which we should read the rest of scripture.   Obviously the writer to the Hebrews is referring to the Old Testament.    

Therefore, everything you read in the Old Testament must be read asking yourself, “how did Jesus fulfill or rework, live out and explain, affirm or redefine what we read in the Old Testament, especially its most violent sections?  

3.   How then do I reconcile non-violent Jesus with what appears to be an Old Testament God who used violence?   Sometimes it seems like republican believers cite the Old Testament in favor of capital punishment or military interventions or other uses of lethal force while democrat believers cite the Jesus texts of the New Testament.    

What to do?  

Remember that God inspires the writers and that those writers wrote in a certain cultural context using certain idioms, certain styles of writing that were commonly used in the author’s setting.   Doing this helps us to read the bible as it was intended to be read.  

Example

When you read about the God-commanded invasion of Canaan led by Joshua the impression given is one of God ordering the massacre of a 1,000’s of innocent men, women and children.   The massacres seems brutal and without provocation (although see Gen. 15:16) and they make God look like a moral monster.  

So, did the conquest of Canaan happen exactly as described?  Shouldn’t we expect the text to read exactly like we would read an account of a military campaign today?  Some Christians think the answer is yes.   Others say no, it all depends on how you think the author wrote and how he intended the text to be read by those who would read it.  

For example, if the author of the Joshua conquest accounts used typical ancient near east forms of writing which include describing military victories using the common literary style of  the day describing Ancient Near Eastern warfare, then we would expect the description to be exaggerated include some or much hyperbole. Furthermore when we consider other customs, uses of language, and the findings of archeology it is possible to conclude that Jericho was probably a military outpost of perhaps 100 soldiers, with a few servants (Rahab) but otherwise without women and children.  We could therefore conclude that these God-initiated battles were against a Canaanite military first line of defense, in other words a battle against soldiers not ‘innocent’ civilian families.

This brings us back to the question, which is, “what was the author doing and intending when he wrote the conquest accounts?  Was he writing straight history as in an account of the American invasion of Baghdad, or was the author writing an account of the conquest of Jericho, Ai and the rest, kind of like a historical novel which tells us history, but uses a literary style with embellishment that emphasizes a specific point, namely that God is more powerful than the Canaanite gods and on the side of his People and that credit for the conquest belonged to God not people?

Sometimes those who believe the former use these conquest texts to justify American military intervention overseas which leave tens of thousands of men women and children dead.  Sometimes some used them to justify Christian conquest of Europe, and later, crusades in the Middle East.   On the other hand those who read these texts literarily (see above) might be less quick to find in these texts a justification for foreign military intervention which takes the lives of so many women and children.

BACK TO THE BIG POINT:  Personally I learned and have concluded that both positions are held by Bible believing Christians who believe in the full inspiration of scripture.    The question is not which group of Christians is more faithful or are more Bible believing.   Both groups are simply doing their best to get the Bible right.   That’s the job of the faithful Bible reader.

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How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth Part 1

 

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     Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Jeff Lampl

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.  God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”  
                                                       2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NLT)

Most Christians believe that the Bible is inspired by God, but what does that mean?   

When I first started actually reading the Bible I would vacillate between trying to take every sentence in its most literal sense but then thinking of a certain text, “this can’t be literally true!”  The retort, “God can do anything” mostly didn’t work very well for me.   Since that time I’ve come to what I consider the most accurate way of reading the Bible for all its worth.  The following guidelines have been helpful for me and I hope they help you.    

1.  Inspiration means that God inspired the writer of the text. 

2.  Therefore I must consider who the writer was, what he was trying to convey in his culture, what issue he was addressing and how writers in his culture used words and illustrations to make their point.   This means that sometimes what looks to us like the “plain reading” of a text could be wrong if we read our culture, our presuppositions, our idioms etc. back into the text, thereby turning it into something that it isn’t.   This means that reading the Bible well takes work.   We need footnotes, scholars’ insights, pastors, churches and the overall Christian Community to help us understand and read it well.  Bible reading is a team sport.

3.   I do not use the words “infallible” and “inerrant”.   Although I can affirm certain definitions of those words, I have found that too many Christians use those words as “heresy trials” to see who’s a real believer and therefore “in” and who isn’t and therefore “out”.

4.   Of the many Bible reading challenges I have encountered perhaps the most frequently cited one is the problem of the whale in the book of Jonah.   Is Jonah’s being swallowed by the whale an actual event that happened in history?   A literalistic reading says yes.   Skepticism says no.  What to believe?  I recall citing the story of something like that actually happening early last century only to discover years later that this oft cited story by preachers (including me) was a hoax. 

But what if we apply guideline #1 above?  What if the writer of the book of Jonah never intended that it be read as literal history?  What if the writer intended that it be read as a satire or as a parable and his readers knew that?  In asking this question we are helped.  Those who take Jonah as historical reporting will cite their arguments supporting their view.  Likewise those who take Jonah as a parable will cite their arguments supporting their view.   This way the question won’t deteriorate into literalists accusing the non-literalists of not believing the Bible.   Both groups believe it is inspired and each can be enriched by respectful dialogue regarding the interpretation of the other.  

But, some will ask, didn’t Jesus cite Jonah as his “proof text” predicting his resurrection making it proof positive that Jonah has to be historical?  Yes, Jesus did cite Jonah.  No that does not mean it has to be historical.   After all I cite Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia as if he is historical and no one thinks I’m reading the Chronicles literalistically.   Those who see Jonah as a parable simply see Jesus citing a well-known parable and then bringing it to life in his resurrection.

5.  The Bible is rich in its variety of literary genres and I have come to realize that when I impose a 21^st century, “just the facts ma’am just the facts”, newspaper reporting style, literalistic expectation on the bible, I can all too easily find myself on a big adventure in missing the point.

6.  Finally, never forget that a “text without a context is a pretext”.     It’s fun to have a favorite verse, but when a verse is cited alone out of its context it can way too often be used to mean something it was never intended to mean.    2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 above tell us that scripture must interpret, change and challenge us, not be subsumed into what we want to believe.

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