From: John W Burgeson (jwburgeson@juno.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 12:52:51 EDT
George, provocatively, wrote: "Though I think that Paul is speaking of
gentiles in general here, let's pursue
possibility B, that he's referring to some manifestly bad subset of them.
Consider one
member X of that subset who lies, cheats, steals and also engages in
homosexual activity
with a single partner in a long-term relationship. According to this
interpretation of
Romans we can & should consider all of these things as sinful. Now
suppose this person
has a dramatic conversion experience and comes to talk to me (M). The
following
conversation might ensue.
X "I'm sorry for my sins, believe in Jesus Christ as my savior and
want to
start living as a Christian. What kind of changes should I make?"
M "To start with, you should stop lying, cheating and stealing."
X "What about my homosexual relationship? I was told before that that
was
sinful too."
M "It was then, but it's OK now."
This seems kind of odd to me."
It did to me also -- at least at first. But the clause "According to this
interpretation of
Romans we can & should consider all of these things as sinful" may be the
hooker here.
Your thought question points out, at least to me, that if one wishes to
assert that same-gender relationships are not sinful, then one must also
assert (as I do) that it is likely that Paul was considering gentile
homosexual acts only within a pagan ritual. It does seem 99.44% likely
that he knew of the prohibitions to the Jews in Leviticus.
I can see where your point does weaken my case somewhat. Thanks.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
www.burgy.50megs.com
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