The Same Sex Marriage Debate vs Codrington

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is how it is important for us to continue in conversation. And so it really is a privilege for me to welcome you here and it is a privilege with humility that we welcome this debate.

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So to Michael and to Rudolph and to those that bring us the debate, may

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God's peace be with us. Thanks so much,

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Jackie. Thank you to Ben. I can't see you with the blinding light. Thank you also to Gary and for having us at Grace Point.

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I'm Michael and I'm from Truthwalk, which is a ministry that's dedicated to encouraging biblical scholarship and discipleship in South Africa.

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So this is not the normal type of event that we get involved in. Normally what we do is we try and bring out leading biblical scholars to teach expositionally, work with local seminaries and churches and try to train people up in the knowledge and fear of the

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Lord. It's a great privilege though to be involved from time to time in events like this, which are highly topical.

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And I wanna thank both speakers for being willing to do this publicly. Thank you to all of you for coming out here.

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Truthwalk, our name comes from something that the Apostle John wrote where he said,

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I have no greater joy than to see that my children are walking in the truth. And the idea is that as believers in Jesus as Lord, we need to be learning truth and we need to be living it out.

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So learn the truth, walk it out. And both of the speakers tonight claim to believe in the

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Bible, claim to believe that it is God's inspired word, but they come down on very different sides of this particular issue.

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And I think the challenge to all of us in attendance today is to really look at what the

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Bible says, to listen carefully to the arguments that they present, and then to seek to conform our thoughts to what

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God says in his holy word. In Acts chapter 17, when the Apostle Paul spoke to various thinkers in Athens, he said, in light of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead,

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God commands all men everywhere to repent. And in Acts 26, when

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Paul is speaking before Herod Agrippa and explaining what his message was, both to Jews and to Gentiles, he said that his message was fairly simple.

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He proclaimed that people need to repent, turn to God, and prove their repentance by their deeds.

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And so it's important for all of us to know who God is, what he requires from us, what repentance means, how to come to him, and then once we profess

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Christ, how he expects us to live. And so I wanna ask you to just join with me in praying that the debate would be done in a respectful manner, but ultimately that God's truth would be magnified and that we would be people who honor

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God's truth. So I'm gonna turn to the Lord in prayer, and then I'll introduce our moderator for this evening.

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Our God and Father, we confess that you are holy and you dwell in unapproachable light.

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And Lord, what an immeasurable gift it is to know true salvation in Christ, to come to him in repentant faith, to be transformed, to be adopted into your family on the basis of his shed blood and his resurrection.

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Lord, we know that this is a really contentious matter, but I pray that your truth would be made clear, that the audience would be receptive, and that the speakers would present good forms of their relevant arguments.

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But ultimately, Lord, both speakers can't be right on this particular issue, and we pray that your truth would shine forth.

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Lord, as Jackie was mentioning, with humility may we come to your word, and may we be doers of your word, may our thoughts be transformed as we gaze at you, as we gaze into the face of Christ, and as we look into your word, and we trust that you will, by your spirit, reveal your truth to us.

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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Rudolf Bossoff is the gentleman keeping the warring parties apart from one another tonight.

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A great deal of the credit for tonight is due to him. He is the director of Ad Lusum, which is an apologetics ministry that helps to facilitate dialogue between different communities in South Africa.

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He's also part of UNPWRT, which is a research apologetic ministry that entertains numerous international speakers.

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He lectures at Ramer Bible College and has moderated numerous public debates. He holds degrees in psychology at the

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University of South Africa, and has also completed his bachelor's in theology from SATS.

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He's currently finishing up his bachelor's of theology honors at the same institution.

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Rudolf has been involved in full -time ministry since 2001. He's currently pastor of a multi -ethnic community in Soweto, happily married to Candace for the past eight years, and he has two rottweilers named

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Cody and Dub. One of the things you'll notice is Rudolf's telephone number is going to flash up on screen.

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There will be a 10 -minute break, during which time you can pose questions either via SMS to Rudolf's phone number, or you can write notes.

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I have about four notepads up in the front, so you're welcome to write notes. We'll collate them, and then the questions will be posed to the various speakers.

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If any of you have insomnia at any stage, I'm sure Rudolf would also love to have midnight calls and answer difficult questions in apologetics any time of day or night.

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And if any of you would like to come to the next event that Truthwalk is doing, it is a teaching conference with Dr.

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Robert Yarbrough, who will be teaching through John 13 to 17 at Medran Chapel.

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That event runs from the 22nd to the 24th of October. You should have a brochure in front of you, and if you want to join our mailing list, then just send an email to the address that I've mentioned, or if you'd like to know anything further about Truthwalk.

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Thank you, and over to Rudolf. Sorry, one last thing.

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I have two gifts, the same gift to each speaker. If you get lost during the debate,

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I didn't want one of you to have more info than the other. Thanks for that.

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Let me just start off by saying what an incredible opportunity this is at this day and stage of our country to have this dialogue.

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I don't know about you, but I think this is gonna be a wonderful exchange, and for Dr. Graham and Dr.

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James, I think in South Africa, the hardest thing to do is to find two people to come together and not to have a fight.

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If you come to have a fight, Joshua, where are you? Can you just please stand?

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Joshua's quite big and he's strong, and he will also help me moderate the debate. So if you just feel inclined towards fighting tonight, we will organize it for you under house.

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Let me just say to you, please, in all seriousness, that we are a Christian community coming together.

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Majority of us, I presume. And tonight, the discussion is not if Jesus is divine.

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We all can agree that Jesus is divine. I mean, in John 15, verse one, he says, I am divine.

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So the question tonight specifically that we wanted to raise, and basically the two gentlemen on my left asked for me to just inform you, is we wanna actually look at the central question tonight.

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Does God affirm homosexuality? I wanted to sink in because I think that we as a community need to speak about this, and we need to speak about this honestly and openly.

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And therefore, we are looking forward to it tonight. Just a few things that you need to keep in mind. There's a few house rules.

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The facilities are at the back if you need to go to the bathroom, et cetera, et cetera. Please, no eating, drinking in the auditorium except water.

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And again, the house rules, no lacquer while the authors and while the people are speaking on stage.

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No dancing, no screaming, no jesting, no booing, no takbirs. I don't know if there's any

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Muslims here. Absolutely, please, not even applause. We will ask you when to applaud, and please just try to speak and just try to help us engage these gentlemen on the stage respectfully.

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Let me just also say that if we look at tonight, and if we look at specifically the community that we are addressing and the topics that we are addressing,

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I need to say that we are gonna use the shorthand homosexual to refer to the entire LGBT community.

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And therefore, we need to understand that when these gentlemen speak, they're speaking with a consideration of respect and openness and honesty to their own convictions.

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Therefore, I ask you to please just absolutely respect them and to give them ample time so they can speak from their perspectives.

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Graham, if I can just quickly give you a short biography of Graham. He's the founder of International Partner Strategic Insights from Tomorrow Today Global.

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He travels internationally helping organizations of all types and sizes to understand the disruptive forces shaping the world right now.

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Graham is also a fully trained and qualified pastor, having completed theological studies to master's level, including biblical languages.

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He was ordained in the Baptist Union, South Africa, but left the denominations 10 years ago on matters of conscience, including the one that he's gonna be discussing tonight.

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He blogs about Christian faith issues at www .futurechurchnow .com.

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And Graham has been married to his wife, Jane, for 24 years, and they have three daughters. And Jane is a pastor in the

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Methodist Church of South Africa. Now you can applaud, okay? Welcome, Graham.

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Let me just say tonight as well, the partner that he will be engaging with is

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James White, who is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetic organization based in Phoenix, Arizona.

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He is a professor having taught Greek systematic theology and various topics and fields of apologetics.

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He has authored or contributed to more than 24 books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

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He's an accomplished debater, having engaged in more than 147 debates.

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When we end Durban on Tuesday, it will be 150. So that'll be incredible.

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Okay, so he has basically debated with a few people, critics like Barty Ehrtman, John Dominic Crossing, Marcus Borg, John Selby Spong, and in recent years, he has debated in such locations as Sydney, Australia, as well as in mosques in Toronto, London, and South Africa.

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He's currently an elder of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and he's been married to Kelly for more than 32 years, 33 years, this is outdated a bit, and has two children and one grandchild,

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Clementine. And you can welcome him with a warm welcome as well. I'm just quickly gonna give you a short introduction of how this debate will work time -wise.

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We will obviously start the conversation with James going first for 25 minutes, and then after that,

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Graham will speak for 25 minutes. Then what we will do is, again, in the same order, we will have, obviously,

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James, or Graham, speaking for 10 minutes, James for 10, and then, oh, Graham, sorry, for 10 minutes,

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James for 10 minutes. Then we're gonna have a 10 -minute break. And during the break, we're gonna flash the number.

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You can SMS your questions during sort of the conversation, or even in the 10 -minute break, you can

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SMS it to that number, and I will make sure I'll jot it down because just after the break, we can have questions from the audience for 20 minutes.

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Whatever questions you've written down or whatever questions you are gonna SMS, I'm gonna jot them down, and I'm gonna ask the individuals to answer them in their respective form.

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I can just ask you, in your messages or even wherever you sort of write down your specific question, to write down who it's specifically addressed to.

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Please don't give me a doctoral thesis. Please just give me a very short question. Make sure that whatever you've written on the end, that there's a question mark.

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So please, just keep that in mind. And then we will obviously have them ask each other questions, and they'll give answers for about 10 minutes each.

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We're gonna ask Graham to ask James questions first for 10 minutes, and then Dr. White to ask Dr. Graham questions for 10 minutes.

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And then we're gonna have our closing statements for approximately five minutes each, and that is it.

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So have a lovely evening and enjoy this with us, and I give over to you, Dr. White, for your podium. Well, it is an honor to be with you this evening.

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We have very little time and much to speak about. There has been much discussion of this subject over the past number of years.

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You might say, why even bother trying to get together and talk about it again? Well, very rarely is the discussion with two sides that have a very strong belief.

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Very often it is a monologue rather than a dialogue. Well, we have a dialogue this evening, and I hope you will listen and listen very carefully to what we have to say.

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I believe that this subject fundamentally asks the question, has

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God spoken with clarity? Has God spoken with clarity? We believe,

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I hope we have as a shared belief this evening as Christians, something such as the deity of Christ.

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Have you ever thought about what you would need as far as revelation, clarity of revelation to believe in the deity of Christ?

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It's an amazing thing to believe that God would enter into his own creation. I've stood in mosques and defended that belief, and it takes a tremendous amount of faith in divine revelation to believe that that revelation testifies that the second person, the

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Trinity, entered into human flesh and lived amongst us 2 ,000 years ago. That's an amazing thing.

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That's a scandal to many in the modern world. And so we have to believe that God has spoken with clarity on that.

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And we have to believe as Christians that God has spoken with clarity on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, or we of all people have no hope whatsoever.

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And so if God can speak with clarity on that, we all recognize there are other issues where God has not spoken with as much clarity.

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I mean, we have differences of opinion amongst believing people as to, for example, the exact timing of events surrounding the return of Jesus Christ.

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We believe that Christ is going to return, but exactly the methodology, if we were to start having a debate amongst you all, we'd probably find out there are more opinions on that subject in the crowd than there are people in the crowd.

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And so we recognize there are some things that are absolutely central, and then there are some things where men and women of goodwill within the body of Christ can disagree.

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Where does this subject come in that spectrum? I am convinced that this is a gospel issue.

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I am convinced that if we cannot define what sin is, then we have a very hard time explaining the necessity of a

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Savior. And when we come to this subject, I am convinced that the

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Bible nowhere at any time says anything positive about the subject of homosexuality.

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And there are many homosexual scholars who would agree with me on that subject, by the way. And the reason it does not do so is because of the clarity of the positive case it makes for God's intention in creation and the creation of man and woman, the relationship that is to be theirs, their role in the continuation of the human species, and the fact that the

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Bible uses marriage and the relationship of man and woman as an example, as a paradigm of Christ's own relationship to his body, the church.

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I do not believe that there is any question that the time of the writing of the New Testament, there was absolute 100 % unanimity amongst all

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Jewish writers of the Second Temple period, Tanniatic Judaism, as to the interpretation of the

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Old Testament law on this matter. There was no question, there was no debate about what Leviticus 18,

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Leviticus 20 actually mean, none whatsoever. And there is absolutely no indication that Jesus or any of his disciples rejected that 100 % unanimous understanding that existed in Judaism in their day.

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And as a result, when we come to the New Testament, when we read the writings of the apostles, we see a consistency.

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And you see, folks, in less than a week, I'm gonna be standing doing another debate, but I will not be wearing shoes because I will be standing in front of the

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Qibla of the second largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere, where I debated last year and defended the deity of Christ.

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And they've invited us back for two nights this year. And I will be talking about war and peace and Christianity and Islam.

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And I will be talking about the synoptic gospels and parallelisms in the Quran in two -night debates.

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I would not do that if I did not believe that there is a

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Christian truth that is consistently testified by the Theanostos God -breathed scriptures.

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You don't find liberals standing in mosques defending the deity of Christ in debate with Muslims, because they don't have a foundation.

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They have nothing to stand on. They do not have a sufficiently high view of the consistency of scripture to be able to engage in that dialogue.

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And it is that conviction that allows me to defend the deity of Christ, the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the doctrine of the

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Trinity, justification by faith that brings me here this evening, because it is that consistency that forces me to say that there is only one consistent testimony given to us in scripture on the subject of God's view of homosexuality.

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Now, people will say, well, there's only a few passages. Some would say as few as six.

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I think there's more than that, but let's say there are six fundamental passages that deal with that issue.

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If you think that that is why the Christian church down through history has held only one view until this last few decades, really, no matter what

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John Boswell had to say, you've missed the point. Because you see, the reason we only need a small number of texts that specifically say this is not right according to God's creative decree is because of the positive testimony of scripture in regards to what

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God's purpose is in human sexuality. Now, Jesus addressed that very subject in Matthew 19.

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He did so in the context of the Jews trying to drag him into a debate. There was a debate raging between the school of Hillel and Shammai over the nature of divorce, and hence, over the nature of marriage.

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And one side said, well, you can get a divorce for any reason in the world. If your wife burns the toast, if she's displeasing in your sight, for any reason, you can divorce her.

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The other school said, no, no, there has to be pornia. There has to be some specific sin involved that would dissolve that marriage bond.

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And they were having debates. And so, as often happened in the gospels, they decided to get Jesus involved with this particular debate.

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And so they asked him about it. And Jesus' response was not to side with one side or the other.

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Jesus' response was to take us back to God's creative intention. He takes us right back to Genesis 1 and 2.

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And he says, have you not read? Do you not know from the beginning, he who created them made them male and female?

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May I comment that to question that is to question God's goodness and creation, that it is in fact an act of rebellion and it will not bring about life?

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From God's perspective, maleness and femaleness are good things. And we live in a day, we live in a day where we've decided that we are absolutely autonomous creatures.

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We have no creator. We have no maker. Therefore, there is no law and I can determine what

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I am. God has no say in these things. As Christians, we can not go there.

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Not and affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ because he said from the beginning, God made them male and female.

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That was God's doing. And then he says, a man shall leave his father and his mother.

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There's your family, a father and a mother. Are we truly to the point as Christians, we no longer know what father and mother means?

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Can anyone truly argue that the scriptures are insufficient to reveal to us and that God's very creation of us as human beings is insufficient to reveal to us what a father and a mother are?

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He shall leave his father and his mother and he shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

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He goes back to the very purpose of God in that creation. And yes, there is more to the male female bond than just sexual union, but it's never less than that.

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And the very fact that he draws that out from the creation narrative, where God blesses that union of Adam and Eve tells us very clearly that the

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Lord Jesus Christ would have had something to say to our debate this evening.

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And one of the biggest questions I have to anyone who would affirm quote unquote gay Christianity is simply this.

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Why didn't Jesus say something here? Because if he's our maker, he's our creator, then he would know that between 1 .6

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and 2 % of the people in front of him were by their very creation, constituently homosexual.

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And here was his chance. Here was the time for Jesus to be the great liberator.

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And instead he affirms what people today call a stereotypical view, a sexual binary.

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He in fact makes the law and the laws understanding of what marriage is even stricter than any

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Jewish interpretation of the day understood it to be. So much so his disciples are like, well, then who should get married?

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And so my question for anyone who affirms quote unquote gay Christianity, was

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Jesus God? Did he know the hearts of men? Then why was he silent?

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Why was he silent? I believe very clearly that Jesus said what he said because he is the

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God of the Old Testament. Those are his words and those were his actions. And he made man male and female.

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And everything that happened in the Old Testament, every time there was polygamy, that was a step down from God's creative intention.

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Jesus never said a single word that would lead us to believe that we should reject the moral law of God in regards to the subject of human sexuality and adopt a new radical paradigm.

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He never said a word. Well, then it must have been left up to his disciples. Well, there are a couple of references to the subject from his disciples.

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In Romans chapter one, the apostle begins by explaining the bad news before he gets to explaining what the good news is.

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And beginning in Romans 1 .18, he explains man's rebellion against God going far deeper than anything that was written before him, including the wisdom of Solomon, contradicting the wisdom of Solomon in a number of places and clearly giving us

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Paul's own understanding paralleled in Ephesians and Galatians and elsewhere to try to say that Paul is arguing against himself.

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He's saying the Jews up is a radical rejection of the actual text of the book of Romans.

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And in that description of man's rebellion against God, in that description of man suppressing the knowledge of God, one of the examples that he gives of the result of that one who bears the image of God, rejecting his

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God and turning away and worshiping the creation is to demonstrate that the result of that impacts every aspect of man's being, including his most innermost being.

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And he uses as an example of that, homosexuality. There really isn't any question about it.

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It's not pederasty. It says that men burned with lust toward one another.

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It's not just excessive lust. It's clearly drawn,

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Romans 1 is clearly drawn from Genesis 1 and 2, from the creation narrative.

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That's what fucis, that's what nature there is referring to. It's not about long hair in 1 Corinthians. It's drawn from Genesis and Paul is saying, sin affects all of man.

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So much so that we have the only direct reference to lesbianism in the New Testament. And I think what

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Paul is saying there is, is if even the strong maternal instinct of the woman toward having children and nurturing children, if even that can be impacted, then sin impacts all of man.

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And that's his point in Romans 1. That's not the only place that he addressed the subject, however.

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In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul gives us a vice list.

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It's not the first place he gave it to us, but he gives us a vice list. And he uses two terms there.

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And one of the terms, some people theorize, Paul himself coined. Maybe he may have drawn it from a

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Jewish source before him that we're not familiar with, a rabbi or something. He certainly was deeply involved in that area.

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But the reality is there's no question about what the term means, because it's drawn from the

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Greek septuagint at Luke, I'm sorry, at Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20.

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It just takes the two words for men and bed, activity in bed, puts them together, arsenokoites, and it's what men do with men in bed.

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And for the apostle Paul, who is steeped in the law, for the apostle Paul, who in the very preceding chapter in 1

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Corinthians 5 had had to deal with incest in the church in Corinth.

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And he said, you should have known this. Not even the pagans do this. Where did Jesus ever talk about that? Oh, Jesus didn't, but it's in Leviticus 18 and 20.

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He's clearly drawing from the holiness code. He's making application in the new covenants.

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And so there in 1 Corinthians 6, he says, all these people, people who are slanderers and people who steal and adulterers and so on and so forth.

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And then he includes, and I think the ESV got it right here, the active and passive partners in a homosexual, a male homosexual relationship.

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Now, no one would have been shocked by that because as I said, who in that century disagreed?

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It was a given. And if we want to know what Paul intended, we don't go to sources three and 400 years later and try to read them back into Paul.

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We read Paul's use in the context in which he gave it. And when we do that, his meaning is very clear.

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Very, very clear. And so we have a united testimony.

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We have the positive teaching that is found about marriage from Jesus.

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This is continued by the apostles themselves. So much so, it's so central to Christian thought that Paul can liken the relationship of Christ the church to a husband and his wife.

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The very idea of covenant in marriage very clearly requires us to understand the male -female relationship.

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You cannot talk about a covenanted monogamous relationship between two men and two women, not biblically.

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And that's why I said at the beginning, the real question here is, is the Bible sufficient to reveal to us the answer to this question?

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Does God affirm homosexuality? Does God give it as a gift? How can we as Christians on the one hand say to the world that God has spoken with enough clarity for us to know that Jesus Christ was the incarnate

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Son of God, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that it is through faith in His name that a person has forgiveness of sins, while at the same time saying, but we're really not sure what sins are, despite the fact that there was absolute unanimity from Genesis to Revelation on that particular subject.

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There is absolutely nothing that one can find anywhere that in an unbiased fashion you can say, oh yes, that positively reflects upon homosexual practice.

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There's just nothing there. You have to say, well, they just didn't know, and that is where we are today.

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What we're being told now in the church today is that, well, okay, let's say everything you say is true there and those texts are about that, but none of this has anything to do with loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships.

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Now, let me just point something out. That's called arguing in a circle. That's called assuming what you have yet to prove.

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Now, I took the time. I know that Dr. Codrington has certainly taken the time to listen to some of my debates on this subject.

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I took the time to read all of his blog articles as well. More than 25 times that phrase appeared.

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This has nothing to do with loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships.

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It's called arguing in a circle. That's called assuming that there is something that you haven't proven exists yet, because for Christians, we have to be able to demonstrate that God recognizes these things as a covenant, as being monogamous, it has a meaning to it, that this is somehow something we drew from Scripture, not something we're inserting into Scripture.

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And yet, in my reading of book after book after book, that's exactly what the revisionist position does, is assumes, well, it can't have anything to do with this.

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He's talking about something else, trying to change the ground.

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Now, I looked very carefully at the sources that Dr. Codrington has used in his presentation.

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By the way, I'm not sure if you've looked. There's over 120 pages, and you're not done yet. 120 pages long, and that was full -sized pages.

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I imagine if I formatted them, it would be a pretty full -sized book. The sources,

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Boswell, Vines, Scanzoni, Mollenkot, Scroggs.

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In other words, all the revisionists, there was a reference to D .A.

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Carson on how to do exegesis, but you're not gonna be quoting D .A. Carson on any of these references, because he's gonna disagree with you on every single one of them.

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I believe that a fair, even semi -partial, and an unbiased examination of New Testament scholarship in regards to doing believing exegesis of the entirety of the

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New Testament will lead us to only one conclusion, and that is that God designed man and woman, and that the only proper avenue for that relationship to exist, a loving relationship to exist, is not with a mirror image of myself, but with one who is different than myself, male and female.

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That's what brings about life. That's what affirms God's right to define human behavior to His own glory.

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And so what do we do as Christians in a society that has decided that there can be no rules?

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If you decide that this is how you are, well, that's just the way it is. What are we called to do?

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Well, we're called to faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a new thing the church is being called to deal with.

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Well, the subjects may be new, but every generation is called and tested in regards to its faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

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And when Caesar says to us today, you will not repeat Jesus' words, we as Christians have absolutely no choice at this point, because to be a follower of Christ is to recognize that I have died with Him.

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My life is no longer mine, and He can do with me as He wills. And so I have an authority an authority to follow.

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And when I asked the simple question, what did Jesus teach? There is only one biblical answer.

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Any revisionist answer requires us to fundamentally abandon the sufficiency of Scripture.

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And in my experience, all those who become involved in the revisionist movement eventually adopt positions where they abandoned a previous belief in the sufficiency of Scripture by bringing other authorities in that end up determining their exegesis and their interpretation.

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I do not believe that quote unquote gay affirming Christianity can maintain any kind of orthodoxy for any long period at all.

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Because to arrive at this position requires such a fundamental abandonment of the very form of exegesis that gives us the deity of Christ and the resurrection and justification by faith that you can no longer maintain them.

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You abandon that on this one issue over here. And you can no longer be consistent.

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That's the issue. Listen to both of us this evening and ask a simple question. Who utilizes the exegetical methods by which we derive our central doctrines and beliefs about who

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Jesus is and our purpose in this world? And who abandons them? And why?

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That is the question this evening. Thank you very much for your attention. Thanks everyone.

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Now we can turn to Dr. Codrington. You can start with your 25 minutes. Thank you very much and good evening.

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Thank you for taking the time to come out. The question before us this evening is, is same -sex marriage biblical?

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Which obviously requires us to answer another question. And that is, does

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God affirm homosexuality? Is homosexuality acceptable to God? To answer each of these questions is going to take a lot more time than we've got available this evening.

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And there's a lot of nuance to each of the positions that Dr. White and I are presenting. And we ask that you understand that, that neither of us can go into the detail we would probably prefer to go into to back up some of the bolts and bold statements that we're going to have to make.

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But please know that both of us believe truly that we can back them up. And hopefully some of your questions will bring out some of that a little bit later.

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I want to start this evening by acknowledging that I don't think this debate is going to change anybody's mind.

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I think that whatever you came in here believing this evening, you're going to leave believing the same thing.

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It's a highly emotive topic. And it's deeply entrenched in our psyche.

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For many Christians, this comes down to, as Dr. White referred to it, a gospel issue. This is at the core of our doctrines.

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And if we were to change our mind on this issue of homosexuality and God affirming it, we are chipping away at some of the deeply entrenched positions of our

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Christian faith. And in fact, as Dr. White has suggested, are going to the heart of what it means to be a

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Christian. This traditional view of homosexuality is the majority view.

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It's been held throughout scripture by the majority of Christians and the majority of Christian thinkers. Never unanimously, but the majority.

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And we must not change this view lightly. We must not change a view that deals with the eternal destiny of people's souls, that deals with the heart of what it means to be either for or against God.

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We cannot deal with this lightly. We cannot change our minds on a whim. We cannot change our minds because we want to, because we feel that it's necessary.

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I believe that the only valid reason that we could have for changing our position is that we come to understand that our interpretation of scripture was incorrect and inadequate in the past.

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So what I ask of you here this evening, especially those of you who have come with the traditional view, who have come with the view that is opposed to the one

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I'm about to present, for those of you here this evening and those maybe watching the debate and the recording is just consider this.

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In front of you this evening is a born -again Christian, formal theological training, including original biblical languages, who loves

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Jesus and who believes that the Bible is God's final word of authority.

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God still speaks to us today, but he will never contradict what he has already said, and he is entirely consistent and has been throughout history.

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In fact, if you look at the stage, you'll see two of us who believe that. I think three actually,

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Rudolph, yeah. The difference is that I've studied the

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Bible and I, on this topic, see that we have misinterpreted and misunderstood

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God's word for thousands of years. I believe that the prohibitions against homosexuality and same -sex marriage in the

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Bible are based on cultic temple practices, are based on abusive sexual situations, and that they still apply today, but do not talk to our topic, which is of homosexual marriage, loving relationships.

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I'm not alone in these views, far from it. Increasingly over the last few years, more and more evangelical

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Bible -believing Christians have begun to change their minds on this topic, including our own

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu. So, it's too simple to believe that we've all abandoned the truth.

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It's too simple for you to just believe that we've been blinded by the God of the sage. It's too simple to believe that we have been trapped by the devil's delusions.

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You're welcome to test our lives against that theory. I hope we pass muster, but it's too simple for you to think that that's what's going on.

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Maybe there's something in what we're saying, and maybe we've seen something as we've studied the scriptures that is worth your time and attention.

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You're here, so I assume you believe that. This, in fact, is what is meant by the

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Christian tradition. This is what it means to be part of this Christian tradition, that we, on an ongoing basis, get together and talk about what it means for us to understand and know

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God, and what we believe He is saying to us. We know that God never changes, and His revelation of Himself to us stands the test of time, but we know for sure that we are capable of misinterpreting and misrepresenting

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God. As Christians here today, we stand in a long line of Christians who have done precisely that, misrepresented and misunderstood

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God. The list is long. It includes the divine rights of kings, women as property of their fathers and husbands, arranged marriages, feudalism, heliocentricity, the

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Crusades, purgatory, salvation by deeds and not by faith, epilepsy as demon possession, slavery, evolution, the age of the earth, the rights of women, universal suffrage, divorce, segregation, mixed marriages, apartheid.

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The list goes on. It's a long list. It's a horrible list. It's our list. God might never change, but we often have to, because some of what we believe needs revising and has been a misinterpretation of God's eternal law.

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Jesus told us this would happen, and he told us we had the Holy Spirit to help us when it did. And so here we find ourselves in our generation.

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Like other generations before us have had to do this, we do it today, and our generation does it with homosexuality.

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But the only basis that we have, as Dr. White, I think, has said, and I agree, is that we have to do it on the basis of this book.

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I am not a revisionist. I'm not here to tell you that we ignore this. I am not here to tell you that, yeah, there might be stuff in here that was credible at some stage, but not today, no.

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I'm here to tell you we've just misunderstood it. God was clear all along. So if I'm right, and if God does affirm homosexuality,

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I'm gonna have to do three things. Firstly, I'm going to have to explain those six passages.

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I'm gonna have to try and make a bit of sense of why God has been consistently against them.

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But as Dr. White said, that's not gonna be enough. I've gotta go further. I've gotta explain why Jesus didn't take the opportunity to sort it out when he had the chance.

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He was asked a question, and he went back to creation, and he said, one man, one woman, one flesh, and I'm gonna have to explain to you what was going on there and what he meant, if I'm right.

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And thirdly, I'm going to have to show you positive examples of gay relationships from the Bible. I think

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I'm right. Gonna have to do all of that. Let's give it a go. I'm not gonna be able to do justice to that.

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I've got 17 minutes left. But let me overview my response. Our question is, does

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God affirm or reject loving, lifelong homosexual relationships? So let's look firstly at those direct references in the

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Bible. In Genesis 19, and there is a slight parallel to this in Judges 19 and 20, we find two separate but similar stories.

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Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, maybe the story at Gibeah is less familiar to you. In both stories, strangers arrive in a city.

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They are taken in for the night by somebody who was a foreigner, who was an outsider to the city.

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For whatever reason, the men of the cities go to the house and they demand that the foreigner who was living amongst them bring out these strangers.

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It could have been just an issue of safety. It could have been a lot more.

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I'm sure it was. In both cases, they demand to rape these strangers, signifying a horrifying culture in both cities.

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The host offers a woman. The offer is not taken up in Sodom, but in Gibeah, the woman is taken up.

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And she is gang raped through the night. And left to die on the doorstep in the morning.

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These are disgusting stories. Horrific, almost impossible to read. The cities and their inhabitants are all destroyed.

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God's wrath rightly on them. But if we read these stories as condemnations of homosexuality,

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I think our view of sexuality is really rather twisted. The key word in each of those stories is rape.

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And the violence of those stories is against women. The fact that we ignore the women in those stories so that we can see homosexuality is disgusting.

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And shows the patriarchal underlying of our culture still to this day, which I think the

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Bible speaks against. How people miss that in order to see homosexuality is beyond me. But there's more convincing proof than my outrage.

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You see, in the exegetical, Dr. Carson's exegetical tradition as Dr.

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Weitz and mine, you can actually go to the Bible to find out what was going on in Sodom. Because 28 times in the

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Bible, the sins of Sodom are actually listed. Let me read one or two to you.

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So Ezekiel 16, 49. Surely as I live, says the sovereign

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Lord, Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters. Now, Sodom's sins were pride, laziness, gluttony, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.

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She was proud. The loathsome things, so I wiped her out. Boom, right there.

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We can look at the Bible. It's a pretty good book to read. You can read Jeremiah 50, verses 38 and 40.

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Because the whole land is filled with idols, and the people are madly in love with them.

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And then he talks to Babylon and he says that I will destroy you just as I destroyed

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Sodom and Gomorrah. And the neighboring sounds for the same reasons. And there are 28 others.

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None of these references are sexual, except for a really weird one in the book of Jude, but that refers to men and women having sex with angels.

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It does not deal with same -sex relationships. Read your Bible, it explains itself.

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So, we'd better then look at the second set of Old Testament passages, which is Leviticus 18 and 20.

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This is, well, let's have a look at them. You see, in Leviticus 18, the chapter starts this way.

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Then the Lord said to Moses, say this to the people, the Israelites. I, the Lord, am your God. So do not act like the people of Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you.

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You must not imitate their way of life. You must obey all my regulations, and be careful to obey my laws, for I, the

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Lord, am your God. If you obey my laws and regulations, you will find life through them. I am the

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Lord. So, now, don't do the following things. The context, the entire context.

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Go and read the first verses of Leviticus 20. I won't read those for you now, but they're pretty identical. They are about the cult of Molech.

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The context here in this passage of the Scriptures is called the Holiness Code, and it is specifically talking about the things that the surrounding nations were doing, especially what they were doing at their temples, especially some of the practices that these people had to identify themselves with the cults of the day.

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Things like tattoos, and shaving their hair, and having family orgies, and especially, and specifically, temple prostitution, and male temple prostitution.

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And when he talks about defiling yourself or being an abomination, these refer to the cultic practices that were taking place in these temples.

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In Leviticus 18, 24, do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the people

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I am expelling from the promised land have defiled themselves. In verse 27 of the same chapter, all these detestable activities are practiced by the people of the land where I am taking you, and their land has become defiled.

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Do not do this. The land will vomit you out. The context here is very, very clear.

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It has to do with Israel being holy. Holy means being set aside, being obviously different, being away from the practices of other people who follow other gods.

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These laws still apply today. As Christians, we should not do these things. We should not align ourselves with other religions or cults.

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You can have a tattoo if you like, but if you have a tattoo of a cult, you've stepped over the line.

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You can shave your head if you want to, but if you're doing it in order to align yourself with a cult, you should not do it.

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God's word stands eternal. These verses, however, have nothing to do with loving homosexual relationships.

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They don't, it's clear. It's not there at all. So let's move to the New Testament, and we get to 1

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Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1, where, as Dr. White said, Paul actually made up some words.

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Now, the Greek and Roman culture was filled with homosexuality. It was everywhere, it was accepted, it was common, it was part of culture, and there were lots of different words that Paul had available to him to use to describe homosexuality.

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If he had a problem with homosexuality, he would have used any one of those words, except he didn't, he made up some words.

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And he pulls a word, arsenokoitos, and another word, malakos, which means literally soft, and he puts these two together, and he says, yeah, this is what

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I have a problem with. And as you've heard from Dr. White, and I agree with him entirely, Paul is deliberately referencing back to Leviticus, and saying you must understand what

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God said in Leviticus. You cannot be involved in cultic practices. You cannot be involved in aligning yourselves to what was going on in the temple.

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Some of you have all been doing these things. And he was speaking to Corinth, Corinth, which was a

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Roman capital, and had all of the evil and disgusting things that the Roman leadership brought with them.

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You've seen the movies, you've heard the stories. It was a port city, one of the major trading ports in the

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Western Empire. You know what goes on in port cities. Some of you are from Durban. And it was one of the centers of a temple worship that was specifically prostitute -based.

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We believe that there were over 1 ,000 teenage boy prostitutes aligned to the particular temple in Corinth.

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By the way, the Book of Romans and the Book of Timothy were both written while Paul was in Corinth, writing to those two churches.

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So Corinth is important for us to understand, and it had almost exactly the same stuff going on that was going on back in the

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Book of Leviticus. So no, you know, it's not difficult to understand why Paul channels

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Leviticus and says, there it is, God has spoken, listen. Asinokoitos refers to men who frequent boy prostitutes at temples.

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Malachos refers to young boys who deliberately put themselves into those temple practices as many young boys did, including

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Mark Antony, for example, as a way to make money while they were teenagers.

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If we accept this as the correct translation, by the way, the rest of the books make a heck of a lot of sense. So for example, if you have your

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Bible in front of you, please look at 1 Timothy 1, verse nine. There's a vice list there that Dr.

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White referred to, and it's a beautifully written piece of literature because Paul puts pairs of sins together.

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These are the people who will not inherit the kingdom of God, lawbreakers and rebels, a pair. The ungodly and the sinful, a pair.

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The unholy and the irreligious, a pair. Now he goes for three, people who kill their fathers, people who kill their mothers, and people who just kill.

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Then he goes for another three, the sexually immoral, the asinokoitai, and slave traders.

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And then he goes liars and perjurers. Can you see the great pairing, the literature structure?

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What's slave traders got to do in that list? Like there's a random thing in that list. If asinokoitai is not about prostitution with boy slaves, it makes complete sense when that's the translation.

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People who are sexually immoral who go and have sex with young boys and the people who supply the boys to those temples, disgusting.

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All disgusting in God's eyes. We see the same thing in 1 Corinthians 6 because the very next verse after this says, the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the

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Lord and the Lord for the body. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ themselves? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?

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Never. You can't just quote the one verse and then just stop reading. You keep reading and you discover

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Paul has a particular issue in mind. And by the way, that really explains the rest of Corinthians 7, 8, and 9 as well, where he continually just goes back to the holiness code.

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You cannot do stuff like divorce or eating food or anything like that that is just like the people in the city around you.

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So then we get to Romans. This is an important passage. But let me just say four quick things about it.

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Paul talks about women having unnatural sex. Go and actually read it for yourself. He doesn't say women having sex with women.

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He says women having unnatural sex. Unnatural sex for the Jews, unnatural sex in the

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Old Testament where there is no reference to lesbian sex, but lots of reference to unnatural sex.

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Unnatural sex is having sex during your menstrual period, is having anal or oral sex, or is withdrawing during sex so that you do not inseminate the woman.

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Any sex which did not lead or had the potential to lead to procreation was unnatural. That's what that word means.

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And then he says this is not sinful. In verse 18, he talks about it being evil and sinful.

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In verse 28, he's going on to talk about things being evil and sinful. But in between where he talks about homosexuality, he just calls it shameful.

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Shameful things in the category, and when we see this throughout the rest of Scripture, shameful things were simply things that were culturally unacceptable.

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And Paul's gonna go on in chapter two to talk about the culturally unacceptable things of circumcision.

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His whole point is that Jews and Gentiles were fighting with each other, seeing the world in fundamentally different ways.

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And the Jews looked at the Gentiles who walked around in very revealing clothes, in fact, did most of their sport naked, had public baths with nakedness everywhere.

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This was horrible to the Jews. They just thought it was disgusting. And then the Gentiles looked at the

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Jews and they said, that whole food thing, we really like our shellfish. And pork's pretty cool.

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And that whole circumcision thing, I don't think so. And this had caused one of the major splits.

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This was the defining factor of debate in the early church. There'd been a huge fallout in Antioch.

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Paul wants to come to Rome to build Rome as his new base because Antioch had fallen apart on him. And he says to the

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Jews and Gentiles, hey guys, you've gotta get on with each other. And Jews, you look at the Gentiles and you think that the stuff they're doing is shameful.

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Gentiles, you look at the Jews and the stuff they're doing and you think that that's disgusting. Just get over yourselves.

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Read Romans chapter two, verses one to five. Don't stop reading at the end of Romans chapter one.

01:00:00

Paul didn't put chapters and verses into his letter. It's meant to be read. And he says, do not judge each other on these issues.

01:00:09

These are not issues to be judged on. But then he says about the men, so that's the woman.

01:00:16

He then says about the men, hang on, you guys are going against nature.

01:00:23

Paraphusam. You can't just make up what Paul was saying.

01:00:28

Paul uses that phrase a number of other times. He uses it in one Corinthians to say, do you not know that it is against nature for men to have long hair?

01:00:37

Seriously? In Romans itself, he's going to say that God himself has grafted the

01:00:44

Gentiles into the Jewish tree against nature. If God can do something that is against nature, it is not inherently evil.

01:00:53

No, it is against nature. Here's a right way to put it. Graham Codrington, against his nature, got up yesterday morning and went for a run.

01:01:02

That is against the nature, as Paul means it here. It is against his character.

01:01:08

It is against cultural understanding. Notice once again, my fourth point about Romans, that the whole of Romans 1, 18 to 32 is cast once again in the context of idolatry.

01:01:22

The context of idol worship and cultic temple practice. I think the scripture is clear.

01:01:30

I think the scripture is consistent. I think the scripture always has been consistent. That what

01:01:35

God is against is the abusive sexual practice that go with cults and temples.

01:01:46

But what about Jesus? Because Jesus said, hang on, hang on, hang on.

01:01:51

From the beginning of time, have you not heard, have you not read that God made them male and female, and that they are to become one flesh?

01:01:59

Well, first of all, as Dr. White correctly pointed out, Jesus was answering a question. Jesus was never direct when he answered questions.

01:02:10

You may have noticed that. We should always look for the deeper meanings.

01:02:15

But in this one, it's simple, actually. He was answering a question about divorce. The divorce that was being talked about at that time was men and women, the debate

01:02:23

Dr. White referenced. So he doesn't have to give the entire marriage context. He answers the question.

01:02:30

If homosexual marriage is okay with God, this passage still works.

01:02:36

The passage still says, don't get divorced. Two men married, fine, don't get divorced.

01:02:42

This is a covenant, keep it going. So the second thing I need to say is that the concept of one flesh is interesting.

01:02:48

Is this purely sexual? I mean, in Ephesians 5, Paul says the following.

01:02:56

So Paul says, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. The two will become one flesh.

01:03:02

He's quoting Jesus, obviously. But then he says, this is a great mystery.

01:03:08

But I am talking about Christ and the church. Is Christ and the church's relationship sexual?

01:03:17

What does one flesh mean? It's not a sexual thing. Sure, it includes sexual intimacy in it, but it isn't sexual.

01:03:24

It is about two people committing themselves together for life, intertwining their affairs and their future, and it creates a magnificently beautiful picture of what

01:03:33

God has done for us and what we need to do with him. And I don't think it has to be a man and a woman to be able to do that.

01:03:41

Maybe we'll come back to that a little bit later. So finally then, in a few seconds,

01:03:47

I need to show you where the Bible shows us same -sex marriage.

01:03:54

It doesn't. But then there's a lot of things the Bible doesn't show us.

01:04:00

Doesn't show us democracy. Doesn't show us a woman being in charge.

01:04:06

It doesn't show us the end of slavery. It gives us some really cool examples of really deep relationships,

01:04:15

David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi. Those weren't homosexual relationships. I'm not claiming that. I am convinced that when

01:04:22

Jesus heals the centurion's young boy in Matthew 8 and Luke 7, that that was a gay relationship, and that Jesus doesn't condemn that relationship.

01:04:33

Book of Hebrews says that it's good for everyone to be married, and if you accept that God affirms same -sex marriage, then you can take that as an affirmation.

01:04:42

But you know what? We wouldn't be here tonight if the Bible did affirm same -sex marriage with a positive example.

01:04:50

But there are a lot of things the Bible doesn't do, and it requires us to look at the principles behind it.

01:04:58

Gays are not broken. Homosexuality is not a choice, nor is it a punishment, nor is it a sin.

01:05:06

It's just one of a vast number of minorities, like red hair, freckles, left -handedness.

01:05:12

God made some people gay, and He expects them to obey His rules. But God loves them,

01:05:18

He affirms them, and He's pleased when they get married. Thank you. Thank you,

01:05:25

Dr. Codrington. We will now have Dr. White rebuttal for 10 minutes. I hope you all noted, and I need to ask that the timer be started at 10 minutes if we could, please.

01:05:46

I like to be punctual. I'm Scottish, so please.

01:05:52

I only get 25 minutes. That's a little bit long. You don't wanna do that to me. It'd be a little unfair. We'd be here all evening.

01:05:59

I want you to notice that the fundamental concluding assertions of gay

01:06:07

Christianity were just made in an overage of time at the end of the presentation without any biblical foundation given for them at all.

01:06:16

They were just made as direct assertions that God makes gay people gay. That's just the way it is.

01:06:23

And they're not broken, and why not spend 25 minutes demonstrating that from Scripture?

01:06:29

Because gay Christianity doesn't believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, and it can't.

01:06:35

There is no way that you could prove the deity of Christ utilizing the exegetical methodologies that were just illustrated in front of you.

01:06:44

You couldn't do it. It's not possible. And so, when you can go so far as to say, well, you know,

01:06:51

I think very clearly the Pideas that was healed by Jesus, that was clearly a homosexual relationship, there isn't a shred of evidence, historically, grammatically, lexically, but it was just thrown out there at the end as a statement.

01:07:11

Why not found it in Scripture? Because this is a revisionist perspective.

01:07:17

We are revising the fundamental moral and ethical structure of the Christian faith. That's what revisionism is.

01:07:24

You may not like the term. If you want to come up with a different term, that's fine. But let me illustrate this in its fullness by asking you to walk with me through Romans chapter one.

01:07:34

Now, Graham didn't pull this out. He didn't, it would take too long to explain anyways. But I would refer you to his blog articles on this because his first address of Romans chapter one in his blog articles was to assert that in essence,

01:07:51

Paul is setting the Jews up in Romans 1, 18 through 32. Those aren't Paul's teachings.

01:07:57

He's using another Jewish source and then in chapter two, he turns around and refutes anybody that would believe what

01:08:02

Romans 1, 18 through 32 says. That is the most radical perspective I've ever heard. No one in church history held that.

01:08:08

Nobody. First article I know of is from 1994 and it guts the exegesis of Romans.

01:08:17

Absolutely eviscerates it. Let me prove that point to you. Turn with me in your Bible to Romans chapter one.

01:08:24

I have seven minutes and 50 seconds. Let's see if we can do this. For the wrath of God is being revealed, literally present tense, from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

01:08:35

It's a literal holding down. They are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. And by the way, all of this is perfectly consistent with the

01:08:44

Old Testament teaching that you will find in Isaiah and other texts like that. Paul isn't coming up with something new, but he is certainly giving us an insight that to me is one of the most amazing insights into the human mind and the human heart that crosses all boundaries of geography, language and everything else.

01:09:02

Romans 1, 18 -32 is true in any language, on any continent, in any culture.

01:09:08

That's what's amazing about it, because it's God speaking. It's God speaking. Men suppress the truth and unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

01:09:20

By the way, this actually is in contradiction to the wisdom of Solomon, which by the way is fundamental to the assertion that Graham makes about what

01:09:26

Paul is actually drawing from here in the scholarly sources he cites, but it contradicts that. Anyways, God has made his truth known to them,

01:09:35

God has made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are unapologetus, they are without an apologetic.

01:09:48

There is no way that the person who has created the image of God can come up with a consistent defense for his rebellion against God.

01:09:57

If you're creating the image of God, you're always gonna have to be borrowing from God's world to reason, to make sense of the world around you, there is no consistent anti -Christian apologetic, you'll always be able to find the holes in it.

01:10:11

For even though they knew God, they had not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, their speculations, their dialogues, their thinking, their minds, and their foolish heart, center of human emotion and act, their foolish heart was darkened.

01:10:29

Professing to be wise, they became fools. Notice please, I don't have time tonight, but notice the parallel in 1

01:10:36

Corinthians 1, verses 18 and following there about the preaching of the cross. And then notice, they exchanged, notice the word exchange, they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible

01:10:48

God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four -footed animals and crawling creatures.

01:10:54

Again, the echo of the creation narratives here and the man made in the image of God rejecting the very parameters that God has placed upon his own creation.

01:11:04

There is a result of this rebellion. God gave them over in the lust their hearts to impurity.

01:11:11

There is a direct relationship between action and the relationship that you're supposed to have with the one who made you.

01:11:18

And when you reject him, then your relationship with the creation around you is going to be twisted and that results in impurity.

01:11:28

So that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they did what?

01:11:35

Exchange, there it is again, they exchanged the truth of God for the lie. And they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.

01:11:45

So what is Paul's point here? He is talking about fallen man and how fallen man is twisted because once you separate yourself from the source of life, it is going to have an impact in all of you, not just in your external behavior, but internally as well.

01:12:03

All of man is impacted by the fall. For this reason,

01:12:09

God gave them over to degrading passions, desires that lower them from where God intended them to be.

01:12:19

For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

01:12:26

Please notice there's only one way to understand this. What does it mean to say women exchanged the natural function for what is unnatural?

01:12:39

What does that mean? Especially given what the next verse says and the context of the twisting of the intended purpose of the creation, now the creation is in rebellion, there is a twisting of that.

01:12:53

And so even their women engage, their very personal expression is altered by this rebellion against God.

01:13:04

And this is described as a degrading passion. For even their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

01:13:15

And the same way also the men, in the same way also, the connection is very clear, it cannot be avoided, in the same way also the men abandoned what?

01:13:26

The natural function of the woman. What is that? That's not long hair.

01:13:35

The context of Romans 1 is creation, God's intention, his revelation through creation, the man that is made in the image of God is now twisted, his thinking has become futile, and now we even see that even in his created being, there is a twistedness because of this fallen nature.

01:13:53

Here's one of the examples, men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

01:14:00

That's not pederasty, that is mutuality. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

01:14:13

Do you see the flow of the thought? Do you see the flow of the argument? God creator, man created, man rebels, man suppresses.

01:14:21

As a result, man is impacted to the very inner core of his being. That's what

01:14:27

Romans 1 is about. Now, he then goes through this list of sins and he finishes by the amazing statement which we've all seen to be true, that even though people know that God's just judgment upon these sins is death, they not only do these things, but they want company, they encourage other people to do the same thing.

01:14:51

And how many times have we seen it? Doesn't sin love company? A person alone, they'll only do certain things, but man, get a whole group together and it gets dangerous.

01:15:02

So in chapter two, what happens is Paul then turns to the Jew and he doesn't refute what he just said.

01:15:09

He then says, you who possess the law, but you don't do the law, do you think merely possessing it is gonna make you right before God?

01:15:19

Of course not. And so then the conclusion, chapter three, is we have concluded that both

01:15:25

Jews and Greeks, both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. And the whole point is we all stand before God with our mouths closed, justly judged by God.

01:15:39

Now, that's the exegesis, that's the method of interpretation that leads us to believe in the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the

01:15:45

Trinity, the resurrection, justification by faith. I didn't have to revise anything.

01:15:52

I didn't have to come up with wild theories about things and then only at the end make all of my positive assertions.

01:16:00

This is allowing the word of God to speak for itself. And that,

01:16:07

I'm gonna keep repeating it, is what we're all about this evening. Who will be consistent in their handling the word of God and believing?

01:16:16

That's the question. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for your attention.

01:16:22

Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Thank you, and I'll watch the clock a little bit closer.

01:16:30

It's your 148th, my first debate, so I'll try and get this right. 10 minutes, thank you.

01:16:38

Dr. White asked a really great question and I think maybe I didn't do it enough justice, so let me come back to it.

01:16:44

He asked, why didn't Jesus say anything? Here he is, he's standing, he's been asked the question, and he has an opportunity.

01:16:52

If God's happy with homosexuality, why didn't Jesus say anything? Suppose we could ask the same question about why was

01:16:59

Jesus silent about Roman oppression? He had many opportunities. He was given a coin, he was asked, what do we do with Caesar?

01:17:07

He was given all sorts of things. Why was he silent about Roman oppression? Surely he wasn't happy with that.

01:17:13

Why was Jesus silent about slavery? Paul himself, too. I mean, in fact, they weren't silent.

01:17:20

They affirmed it. Why? Why did they do that? And why was

01:17:25

Jesus silent about the treatment of women? He had many opportunities. In fact, he did more than hint.

01:17:32

He actively went against the culture. He put big, bold kind of things into the culture that showed he had a much different view of women than the people at the time, but he never said anything.

01:17:46

He never corrected the patriarchal society of the day. Was he silent?

01:17:56

Maybe not, actually, because in Matthew 19, again, we love to stop reading when we think we've made our point, but in Matthew 19, as Jesus is talking about divorce and he's talking about the man and woman and the one flesh, he then says this, the disciples say, whoa, then it's better for nobody to marry.

01:18:18

Jesus says, well, not everyone can accept this statement. Only those whom God helps. Some are born eunuchs.

01:18:26

Some have been made that way by others, and some choose not to marry for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

01:18:33

Let anyone who can accept this statement. Why never quote that verse when you're bashing the homosexuals?

01:18:41

It's right there, right there. Now, of course, this is gonna be a contentious discussion because the word that we know to be eunuchs is men who have had their appendages removed.

01:18:54

That's not their arms. But there is another way to look at eunuchs, and there is another tradition in the

01:19:02

Jewish culture that called homosexual men eunuchs. I ask you to just read the chapter knowing that little piece of information.

01:19:10

Read that verse and ask yourself if Jesus was, in fact, silent.

01:19:16

But let me look at marriage because that's the heart of this. I agree with Dr.

01:19:21

White. This is it. This is where it comes down to. So what does it mean that God made them male and female, that he made them one flesh?

01:19:36

It's a nice thing to say, but let's try and parse it out. Let's try and say, what does it mean? Does it mean that the image of God is only evident in married couples, that all of you here who are single, all of you who are unmarried, you somehow are deficient in your representation of the image of God, that only in marriage is the image of God perfected on earth?

01:20:04

Well, that's just nonsense, of course. The image of God is in each of us as individuals.

01:20:11

Paul himself, although he had been married, he would have had to have been part of his rabbinic tradition was probably a widower and tells us he prefers people to be like him, not to have a wife.

01:20:23

So singleness can be a gift from God. Singleness is affirmed. Singleness was Paul's desired version of the image of God for you.

01:20:32

So we don't need to have a marriage to show the image of God. So that falls away.

01:20:39

Is the purpose of marriage then procreation? This is going to be another argument, that it's only when a man and a woman come together that life can emerge, the procreation aspect.

01:20:52

So then all of you who are married here who have no children, what are we saying to you if we say that?

01:21:01

And worse still, if you chose to not have children. If for some reason you can't have children and it's a desperate situation and you really wish you could, maybe we could have a conversation.

01:21:13

But some of you have chosen not to have children. Are you in direct defiance of God?

01:21:19

Are you an abomination? Are you defiling God by doing that? I really cannot see that in the

01:21:26

Bible. I cannot believe that we would say that. But if that's what you want to do with this one flesh passage,

01:21:34

I see that you have no option. If you are going to deal with homosexuality using that logic, you have to deal with childless couples with the same logic because they are not bringing life.

01:21:48

You don't need to have children to be a family. You don't need to have children to have a marriage.

01:21:59

Some might go to Timothy and then say, but what about the church leaders? He was told that a church leader had to be married to about one wife.

01:22:07

Yeah, but it also says that that church leader has to have children, plural.

01:22:14

So if the elders of your church, if any of the elders of your church are unmarried, does that mean they're in defiance of God's will for church leaders?

01:22:23

If they have less than two children, if they only have one child, Bible is clear, it's plural, children.

01:22:31

And those children need to be old enough that you can see whether they have obeyed or disobeyed God. You can't go to one

01:22:36

Timothy to back yourself up here and look at the church leaders. That's a different thing. That's talking about something else.

01:22:45

So what then is the purpose of marriage? What is this one flesh?

01:22:51

Well, I think the right word here is covenant. Covenant is a theme from cover to cover in this

01:22:57

Bible. We even talk about the old covenant, the new covenant. God had covenants with Abraham and with Moses and with David and he had covenants with his people and Jesus brought a new covenant and the

01:23:06

Holy Spirit brings a covenant and God covenants with himself on our behalf. He covenants with us, people covenant with each other.

01:23:13

Covenant is a theme like no other throughout scripture. And what God asks of us to do as his children is to demonstrate the covenant nature of his nature to each other.

01:23:27

We covenant to be church together. We covenant to share our faith walk together.

01:23:35

Some of us covenant in small groups, accountability groups and discipleship relationships. But there is no covenant like the covenant of marriage because what marriage does is it brings two people together and deeply intertwines their lives.

01:23:51

It puts their fates in each other's hands. It means that they give up their own desires for each other.

01:23:59

It means that they now live selflessly for others. We don't even do that for our children. We do it for a period of time and then we ask them to move on.

01:24:09

Sometimes faster than others. We don't do that for our parents.

01:24:15

We are with them for a time, but then it is time to leave. In fact, that's what the marriage is.

01:24:22

Leave that relationship and form a new one that is to last for as long as your life shall last.

01:24:29

By the way, not longer, there won't be marriage in heaven. This is not an eternal institution. It is, as Paul said, a great mystery that is a symbol of Christ and his church.

01:24:42

And that is not a sexual symbol. In what way is Christ and his church male and female?

01:24:50

In what way is God and Jesus male and female? Why would we need this most precious of all covenant relationships, the marriage, to be male and female?

01:25:07

Sure, out of it may come children, but may not. That doesn't matter.

01:25:15

What does matter is that it is lifelong, committed, deeply intertwined, and brings the love of God into the world, sharing that love through hospitality and then open home with others.

01:25:36

That's what Jesus wanted. That's what he was telling people marriage was about.

01:25:43

And I think if you put into that environment a man and a man and a woman and a woman,

01:25:51

I do not see why they can't show fully the love that God has for us and the love that we are meant to have for each other.

01:26:03

I really can't see why not. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

01:26:14

We can have a 10 -minute break so we can just sort of correlate all the questions that we've received, and you can stop right now.

01:26:22

I think my cell phone's gonna conk out. But please, you're welcome to do not leave, do not run away, the debate is not over, but please just stick around and we will immediately start at 2040.

01:26:35

Okay, thanks. We're gonna do that.

01:26:47

I'm gonna ask the gentleman to stand at the podium and I'll read them the questions and then they're ready to answer.

01:26:53

We will start, we've not tossed a coin. So what we'll do is, because James flew all the way from America, we will let him go first, as we've done with the

01:27:05

USA in the rugby match. We allowed them to play a bit.

01:27:17

See, we show love. And let me just say to you, Dr. White. Excuse me, this isn't on yet,

01:27:22

I need to have it turned on. Hello, there we go. I didn't even know we had a rugby team. I have three box jerseys and I have no

01:27:33

American ones, so don't get me on 64 to nothing, okay? Okay, so we're gonna do that and I'll start off.

01:27:43

I'm gonna be seated because I've got so much technology to contend with. But let us start with a question to Dr.

01:27:50

White. Dr. White, if homosexuality is such an abomination to God, why doesn't it sort of disappear when someone becomes a

01:27:58

Christian? Why doesn't it disappear when, I guess the question is being asked, does regeneration remove desire for sexual sin?

01:28:08

I'm not sure how that would be related to the seriousness of the sin because the term pornoi, pornos, pornia is obviously something that gathers together all sorts of sexual sins, and yet that is something that Christians are called to avoid.

01:28:28

And so the idea of it, well, if it's so serious, then why doesn't that just disappear? I'm not sure what that has to do with the seriousness of the sin, but be that as it may,

01:28:36

I believe in 1 Corinthians chapter six that it says such were some of you, not such are some of you.

01:28:46

And I do believe that God can change hearts and minds. Now, just because you're born again doesn't mean that you don't end up continuing to fight against remaining sin, including anger or heterosexual lust or anything else.

01:29:03

But the biblical teaching is it doesn't become the driving force that defines who you are.

01:29:08

And this is one of my biggest problems. And you didn't say how long we had. Are we doing a minute? I mean -

01:29:13

A minute each is fine. Well, I'm gonna have to figure out what a minute is, but let me just make this one point and I'll make it very briefly because I wasn't timing it.

01:29:24

I am deeply concerned that the gay Christian movement utilizes a sexual orientation as definitive of who they are in Christ.

01:29:35

That deeply concerns me. And I think it's a fundamental flaw in the position that is grossly unbiblical.

01:29:44

Dr. Codrington, you okay? Nothing. Okay, Graham. If the creation mandate for marriage is to multiply, how is it possible that a homosexual couple can accomplish this?

01:29:59

I think that the statement in Genesis that you are to be married and you are to go forth and multiply is not a command, but a blessing.

01:30:13

The Hebrew word that is used there is used in many other places through the Old Testament and it is always as a blessing.

01:30:21

And children are seen as a blessing to a marriage. And those of you who have struggled to have children and then had them will possibly have the feeling of that blessing.

01:30:36

But I don't believe that it was a command in the sense that that is a requirement of marriage.

01:30:44

Fantastic. This is a question directed to both of you. So there's not gonna be any.

01:30:49

Sorry, you first. Sorry, Dr. Wright. I thought you didn't want to say anything because you said nothing. Yeah, right, okay.

01:30:57

Let me just very briefly say the consistent biblical testimony is that there is an expectation of the creation of life in the beautiful union of a man and a woman, that this is a blessing from God and it is an expectation so that when it is not granted, look at the women of the

01:31:15

Old Testament whose hearts are broken, they're pouring themselves out to God. Why am I childless?

01:31:21

They viewed this as punishment from God. The fact that that is not even a possibility for the mirror image of male and male and female and female is why it's not ever even brought up as a part of marriage in Scripture.

01:31:41

Fantastic. This is a question to both of you. So I think both of you can really discuss this because this is,

01:31:48

I think, closely related to everyone here. As a homosexual, will I go to hell because of my orientation?

01:31:55

Dr. Wright first and then Graham to you. Well, first of all, I don't accept the terminology, let me start this,

01:32:02

I don't accept the terminology of orientation. I don't believe that any one of us can say, well,

01:32:08

I'm oriented toward anger and we know that those who have anger are under God's wrath.

01:32:13

A person goes to hell because they are a sinner fallen in Adam and not redeemed by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

01:32:23

That's the only reason anyone goes to hell and that includes people who steal or murder or slander or anything else.

01:32:32

The point is, in the biblical perspective, who is saved by Jesus Christ?

01:32:39

The repentant believer. To be a repentant believer means that you don't say to God, I will believe in you if you will accept this.

01:32:50

Repentance says, you define things, I submit to you. That's the difference. I also don't like the way in which we've talked about orientation as an issue.

01:33:03

We're all orientated towards sin, but nobody's going to hell because of their orientation.

01:33:10

Now, there's ways to interpret that. You go to hell because your orientation leads you to actions that are sinful and God judges the actions and your heart and the things you think and so on.

01:33:26

But those who are judged by God are judged on the basis of what they do and don't do.

01:33:32

So regardless of what you believe about homosexuality this evening, nobody's going to hell because they're homosexual.

01:33:39

If they're going to hell for homosexuality, it's because they act out on their homosexuality.

01:33:45

I don't believe that, but that I think is the only logical position that you can take. So you cannot be against homosexuals.

01:33:51

You can be against homosexual activity, which is a very different thing. And I don't believe either of those are going to take you to hell.

01:34:02

Fantastic. I will again maybe ask

01:34:07

Dr. White, do you want to respond on that question? Because it's such, we've received numerous questions specifically focused on that question.

01:34:15

But we both had an equal amount of time. Fantastic. Then I'll go to Dr. White first and ask the following questions.

01:34:21

Do you believe homosexual Christians can be celibate yet still be homosexual? Again, I really reject the terminology of homosexual

01:34:31

Christians. I don't talk about slanderous Christians. I don't talk about angry Christians. I don't talk about murderous Christians.

01:34:38

This is not a term to be used to define the new nature that is given to a person by faith in Jesus Christ.

01:34:48

And so I know that there are Christians who experience same -sex attraction. I don't think they're the majority to be perfectly honest with you.

01:34:56

But I know that there are Christians who experience same -sex attraction and the church, if they desire to be pure and holy, should stand by them and help them in that desire for celibacy and for purity, for service to others, whatever else it might be.

01:35:11

But I'm very, very troubled when we start our questions off with terminology that in essence already determines what the answer is going to be and that that does not come from a biblical worldview but primarily from a secular worldview.

01:35:27

Could you just ask the question again so I get the wording? I have moved on, so excuse me.

01:35:34

The question was, do you believe homosexual Christians can be celibate yet still homosexual? I think that the only logical position that you can hold if you hold a traditional view is that you have to ask people who are battling with their sexuality, this would be language

01:35:54

I think Dr. White would be comfortable with, to remain celibate because the sin would be the acting out of the urges.

01:36:04

I am a murderer, I just haven't committed any murders and I'm not gonna be judged as a murderer if I don't.

01:36:12

But the sinful nature in me could easily murder and lie and slander and steal. And the only thing that you can judge is the activity.

01:36:23

Question directed to Dr. Codrington. What do you make of Leviticus 18 verse 21?

01:36:29

You shall not lie with a male as you with a woman. This is an abomination. How is the

01:36:34

Bible not clear about God's position on this matter in this passage? God's very clear.

01:36:41

In the context of temple prostitution, people who have sex with their children, people who have sex with their mothers -in -law,

01:36:52

I've always wondered about that one, I'm not sure that's ever been a temptation. People who have sex with animals, people who drink blood, people who have tattoos and shave their hair, and people who engage in cultic prostitution, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual, are doing something that is wrong in God's eyes.

01:37:14

That's what that passage is saying. And Leviticus 20 repeats it and says, if they do that, kill them. I have been preaching through the

01:37:25

Holiness Code for a number of months now and I do not have time to expand upon all of this. But the artificial restriction of Leviticus 18 and 20 to merely it's only wrong because it's done in a cultic setting is unmaintainable if you actually try to deal with all of it of Leviticus 18 and all of Leviticus 19 and all of Leviticus 20.

01:37:50

You can't do it. Jesus didn't do it. And so what is wrong about lying with a male as you lie with a female is just as wrong whether you're in a cultic temple or in the privacy of your own bedroom.

01:38:05

And I ask a simple question. Was there anyone here that believes Moses would have taken any other view?

01:38:13

One person. Okay, Dr. White, do you believe women should be silent during worship if you claim that everything in scripture is absolutely consistent with the contemporary views?

01:38:28

I don't understand the statement that's absolutely consistent with contemporary views, but I certainly believe that the

01:38:36

Bible gives us specific instructions as to the leadership of the church. And yes,

01:38:41

I'm one of those stick -in -the -mud folks that actually believes that Titus and First Timothy is still relevant today. And I did not even begin to understand what

01:38:49

Graham was talking about in regards to having to have children and things like that.

01:38:54

That was an amazing reading of the requirements, but it seems rather obvious to me that the form of church government that is provided by Paul was one that emphasized a specific context of worship.

01:39:09

And within that context of worship in my church, all the elders are males, if that's what is being asked.

01:39:16

We do believe that that is a, not something that goes back, it's something that goes back to creation.

01:39:21

It's not merely a culturally relevant thing. I know we're not supposed to ask questions back, so I'll just make this as a statement.

01:39:29

If it's not culturally relevant, then I hope the elders in your church, so this was what

01:39:35

I meant, are also not only men, but they are married men with two or more children who are in their teens or older.

01:39:43

I don't know how you can read the one bit of the passage in one way and not read the rest of it. That was the point I was trying to make.

01:39:51

Okay, question to Dr. Codrington. Does God have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah?

01:39:58

That's the question. No, absolutely not, because if you go back and read from Genesis 14, you will read that those cities were evil beyond anything else that any other person had seen.

01:40:08

It wasn't actually the night that the strangers came that God punished the cities for. They were punished well before, and Abraham had asked for them, and the

01:40:18

Bible 28 times tells us what those sins were, and that city was going down.

01:40:24

It wasn't about homosexuality. It was about inhospitability. It was about lack of compassion and justice for the poor.

01:40:32

It was about all sorts of things that you can read in the Bible if you read it. No, God doesn't have to, and I think he could do it again.

01:40:44

Unfortunately, in Dr. Codrington's discussion of this, and I don't have time to expand upon this. I didn't make it a part of my presentation, but there are numerous significant differences between Sodom and Gomorrah and Gibeah that were not mentioned, and though he has repeated this now tonight twice, he has skipped over Ezekiel 1650, and I will ask during cross -examination what

01:41:06

Toivah in the singular in Ezekiel 1650 is referring to, because he has repeatedly said, never is homosexuality associated with this.

01:41:16

It is, plainly. Thanks, Dr.

01:41:22

White. The following question is directed to you, Dr. White. It says the following. How would you answer me today if I tell you that I am born this way?

01:41:34

Well, I would answer you the same way if you came to me and said that you're going to continue to be angry with your spouse because you were born that way, or you're going to continue to desire to have a natural intercourse with animals because you were born that way, or that you're going to continue to steal from your employer because you were born that way.

01:41:53

I say to you, yes, you were born as a fallen son or daughter of Adam, but my Savior is more powerful than your fallen nature.

01:42:01

And the Bible says, such were some of you, not such are some of you.

01:42:07

And therefore, that's why we are called to holiness. And as the book of Hebrews says, a holiness without which no one will see

01:42:15

God. Christ, by his spirit, changes hearts and minds.

01:42:21

That's what he's in the business of doing. I think that's what the whole issue of the Christian life is all about.

01:42:29

I agree entirely with Dr. White and the personal people who asked that question. You need to change the way you think about what this debate is about.

01:42:38

This debate is about not what you were born as, because we could all have been born in sin.

01:42:43

The question is, is your homosexuality sinful? That's the right question. I say it isn't,

01:42:49

Dr. White says it is. Question to Dr. Codrington.

01:42:55

If Leviticus 18 merely refers to sexual practice in idol worship, can we say that it's okay to commit loving incest or bestiality as long as it's not connected to temple worship or idol worship?

01:43:09

That's a great question. I'm glad it's been asked, because that is a fallacy of logic.

01:43:14

It's the obvious fallacy of logic. All cows have four legs.

01:43:20

That has four legs. That table is a cow. That's just what you've done there with Leviticus.

01:43:28

You've said there's a whole lot of things that were happening in the temple and you can't do them because they were in the temple.

01:43:35

If it's outside the temple, you can do any of them. Of course not. Sex is for marriage, and sex has to be consensual.

01:43:41

It has to be mutual. It has to be loving. We don't have to say you can't have sex with animals.

01:43:47

We don't have to say you can't have sex with children, because sex, by its nature, has to be consensual, mutual, and loving.

01:43:52

That's the consistent witness of Scripture. It doesn't matter that those verses are just there for the temple.

01:43:58

It's clear that the Scripture would not allow those things. I think we just saw the artificial creation of a standard that then allows you to escape the actual logical error of your position, because what has been said was, well,

01:44:13

Leviticus 18 and 20 is irrelevant because it just had to do with what's going on in temples. As long as it's done in private, it's okay. As long as it's, and then we had this, this is the consistent witness of Scripture, that it's consensual.

01:44:24

Really? How many women were married to someone that they didn't even know in Scripture, and that was considered okay?

01:44:31

Where do we get this? Where do we even get the idea it has to be monogamous? Well, we get that from the gender binary, which is getting thrown out the window today, too.

01:44:39

The reality is it is an artificial stricture to say that what made the homosexual activity in the temple wrong was that it was in the temple.

01:44:49

No, it is a fundamental violation, and even the text says that. As a man lies with a woman, there is a natural way, this is

01:44:56

Romans 1 all over again, and it doesn't matter whether it's in the temple or the private bedroom, it is a destruction of God's created order.

01:45:08

Fantastic. Next question. I opened up a

01:45:13

SMS and it says, good night, my love, and it was my mom, so. Just wanna say to you, it's nine o 'clock.

01:45:19

Anyway. Dr. White, what is your comment on hermaphroditism, considering a man that was made male and, considering man was made male and female?

01:45:33

Well, it's really unfortunate this question comes up, I'll be perfectly honest with you, because it seems so very, very obvious and plain to me that the entire subject of homosexuality has nothing to do with extremely rare genetic aberrations resulting in a person who has a fundamental disorder in their body.

01:45:53

Someone has a fundamental sexual disorder in their body, you come alongside them and you help them to try to live the best life they can to the glory of God and to find his calling in their life.

01:46:02

That has nothing to do with someone choosing to engage in sexual behavior, having all the equipment

01:46:10

God gave them in such a way that is directly opposite to what God has said creates life and is important for our flourishing.

01:46:20

There really isn't any parallel between the two, though unfortunately, even when I was on CNN a few months ago,

01:46:26

I had a medical doctor throw that one out as if it was somehow relevant to the subject, so it does come up very frequently and unfortunately is not really relevant.

01:46:37

I'd probably go along with that, except just to say one thing. If there's any body or people in the audience who fall into that category or are in a bisexual category, then

01:46:50

I think that those people indicate to us that sexuality is much more of a continuum than we'd often be prepared to admit, that we are not just all male and all female, but there is a continuum there and we do need to consider that.

01:47:07

It's well beyond what we can do this evening, but there is a consideration of what does that mean for those people.

01:47:16

I think we can finish off. We're actually out of time. We're a minute over 20 minutes, can you believe it? I think we can finish off with this question to both of you, first to Dr.

01:47:24

White. How should I treat a homosexual in my church? Well, obviously, it depends on what your role in the church is and what the stance of the church is.

01:47:37

I mean, obviously, are we talking about a repentant homosexual that desires to be in the fellowship of the church, but recognizes what the

01:47:45

Christian gospel stands for and does not demand that we change the tense of the verb in 1 Corinthians 6 from were to is?

01:47:54

That you're gonna approach someone who desires that kind of help and assistance in living a holy life completely differently than someone who comes in and says,

01:48:03

I know your beliefs are this, I'm going to change that and you need to accept me as I am, despite the fact that I reject the very teachings that you are presenting to me.

01:48:13

Those are two completely different contexts, and so I'm not sure which context, and I'm putting that all within the context of a church that is standing upon the historical position that the church has had all along on this matter.

01:48:29

Obviously, if you're in a church that doesn't do that, your response is probably gonna be very, very different than my own.

01:48:39

Some of your churches are very clear. You don't want gays in your church. I think that's actually the best position if you're going to have the traditional view because unfortunately, what's happening at the moment because society is shifting and this debate is now happening, some of your churches don't affirm homosexuals, but you welcome them.

01:48:59

You welcome them as projects. You welcome them as broken people that you can fix.

01:49:06

You draw them into your church and you promise them that they can come and have fellowship with you, but all the while, you treat them as sinners who are broken, who are being punished by God, and who need fixing.

01:49:18

And when they want to be in the worship team, you'll say no, and when they want to be leaders, you'll say no. Rather, just say to them, don't come here.

01:49:28

If homosexuality is treated as a sin in your church, please make that very clear and tell homosexuals to come to our church.

01:49:39

Thanks, you can applaud them. What we're going to do now is we're basically going to allow

01:49:44

Dr. Codrington to ask James questions for 10 minutes and then James will try to answer them and then

01:49:51

Dr. James will ask Graham questions and vice versa before their closing statements.

01:49:57

Thanks, you can go for it, Graham. Can you just give us 10 minutes there so I can see where I am in timing?

01:50:15

So first of all, Dr. White, thank you very much. I think you have given one of the most eloquent overviews of the traditional position that we have and I hope people get the recording and show it because I don't think it can be done better than that.

01:50:29

Just three questions, I think, depending on our time. There's only one other commandment that I know of that goes all the way back to a creation principle that is analogous to the one flesh reading and that is the

01:50:46

Sabbath. God rested on the Sabbath, so we must rest on the Sabbath. Do you believe that we should still obey the

01:50:54

Sabbath rules today? Well, I would imagine you're familiar with the use of the

01:50:59

Sabbath in the book of Hebrews and the application is made in the New Covenant of what the

01:51:04

Sabbath is and how the Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ. I do believe in the

01:51:11

Lord's day and I do believe that there is an appropriate place for the church in its worship to gather together corporately as the book of Hebrews says.

01:51:26

But in regards to the Sabbath itself, the argument of the book of Hebrews is that that was pointing to a rest and that that rest was gonna be found for those who would be repentant and believe in Jesus Christ.

01:51:42

And so the application that is made in the New Covenant specifically is that that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ in that sense.

01:51:49

So I do believe that there are things that go back to the creation mandate that point us to the finished work of Christ.

01:51:59

But this particular subject has to do with God's creative intention. In our bearing the imago

01:52:06

Dei and what that means. And in the sense that we flee to Christ as our final rest, we continue to fulfill that even today, yes.

01:52:17

And so as Paul talked about the fact that in Christ, there are no longer

01:52:22

Jew or Gentile, there are no longer male or female, that many of the distinctions that had been put in place where the

01:52:30

Jews for example, had held the image of God in their nationhood beforehand, that now fell away in the

01:52:37

New Covenant. On the basis of Hebrews. I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said. Did you say the Jews held the image of God?

01:52:43

Yeah, so as a nation, the Jews were the ones who were to hold the light, God's light to the world, who were to be the city on the hill.

01:52:51

Okay. It's almost not like you're saying they believe that only they had the imago Dei, but no one else did. I wasn't sure what you were doing.

01:52:57

Well, I'm pretty certain there were a few Jews who believed that and I'm pretty certain that's what Paul was trying to correct in Romans and Corinthians, but that's not my question.

01:53:05

My question is, and I know your answer, but this is the format of this, so I'll put it as a question. Do you not believe that in the same way that the book of Hebrews shows us that in Christ and in the

01:53:17

New Covenant, that the creation principles were leading to Christ and that in Christ now, the creation concept of covenant may now be fully realized in Christ and can be realized in any relational covenant that people could enter into?

01:53:36

Well, if you're asking, does the book of Hebrews give us a basis for defining covenant so that a male -male sexual relationship could be viewed as the same thing as marriage in the

01:53:50

New Testament, absolutely, positively, 1 ,000 % no. I see nothing in the argument of Hebrews, nothing in the concept of covenant.

01:53:58

The very idea of the relationship of male and female is central to Ephesians chapter five, not because it's sexual, but because Christ is the savior of the body.

01:54:07

One is differentiated from the other. It is not a mirror image. So in what ways, then, could a homosexual couple not show that imago dei?

01:54:17

The imago dei? Yeah. I wasn't talking about the imago dei. I've never stated that the imago dei requires a male -female expression because I believe that both males and females contain and demonstrate the imago dei.

01:54:32

I do believe that there is a greater demonstration of that imago dei in the creation of life that cannot happen in a male -male relationship or a female -female relationship, but that doesn't mean that a single man does not bear the image of God.

01:54:46

So I've never made that argument. Well, of course, science is working out ways to do that right now, the male -male, female -female thing, but I think we'll leave that aside for the evening.

01:54:55

But so let me go back to my question and take the imago dei out and put in the issue of covenant, then.

01:55:02

In what way would a male -male relationship or a female -female relationship be deficient of a description of God and us or Christ and his church?

01:55:13

Real simple. There's no husband and wife. Husband and wife are absolutely husband.

01:55:20

I'm sorry. I can actually appeal to all of us as human beings.

01:55:26

You know what a husband is and you know what a wife is. You're a married man with children and you know a wife is not a husband and a husband is not a wife.

01:55:34

And I remember many a time at two o 'clock in the morning when my son's diaper exploded, we could tell the difference between a husband and a wife.

01:55:40

And so could my kids. I think that right there, fundamentally, you see, words, verbs are filled out by their direct objects.

01:55:56

I married Kelly. The fact that Kelly is who she is colors and determines the nature of that verb to marry.

01:56:06

Kelly is not my mirror image. She's gorgeous. I'm not. And she's all sorts of other things that I am not.

01:56:15

She's not my mirror image. And that type of relationship of husband and wife cannot exist between two males.

01:56:25

And I don't even know why we keep saying two. Between males and females. It cannot. You're at a disadvantage because you don't know me, sir, but you might be interested to know that when the diaper did explode, it was a 50 -50 chance that I would have been the one to do it.

01:56:42

You kidding? I was the one cleaning the bassinet out. What are you talking about? In a parenting course that my wife and I used to run,

01:56:51

I was the one who did the breastfeeding demonstrations. True story. I think that you would also...

01:57:00

Don't ask and there's no video evidence. I think that what you are showing to us is not biblical.

01:57:08

I think it's cultural. I spent many years being supported by my wife while I was a student and she was working.

01:57:16

She is the pastor of a church. And I am not. No, it's not. It's just a response to a statement that you made, which

01:57:24

I think is incorrect. So my question is this. Do you not think that what you have presented as a picture of what a male and female have to do in a relationship is cultural, not biblical?

01:57:33

No, completely and totally not. You cannot show me a culture that will long last, that cannot tell the difference between a husband and a wife.

01:57:42

I think I could, actually. I don't believe that you can. I said that will long last. Let me move on to...

01:57:48

And let me make this statement. Once again, Jesus's words were, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

01:58:02

If we redefine the meanings of those words, we are redefining Jesus's own teaching without any positive defensible evidence from Jesus that he would ever have allowed the redefinition of his words in that way.

01:58:19

Except that the word Adam, which means man, also means mankind. But let's move on. How do you explain the misinterpretation of Scripture through history?

01:58:29

If God has spoken consistently and we stand here tonight and we should all just flow with Scripture and know for sure that what the saints of old have taught us is right, how do you explain the misinterpretations of Scripture through history?

01:58:46

Well, it's pretty easy for me to answer that question because I deal with individuals all the time who are attempting to redefine what the

01:58:55

Bible says. You bring ignorance to Scripture, you bring tradition to Scripture, you bring,

01:59:00

I'm not talking about you, I'm saying, I was using a generic you there. You bring other sources of religious authority such as other

01:59:08

Scriptures, whatever else it might be to Scripture and you will end up misinterpreting it.

01:59:14

And so it's like asking a question, how do I explain the number of people who have to call

01:59:21

Apple to get basic instructions on how to get their

01:59:26

MacBook Pro to work? That's because they won't read the instructions in their context. Especially if you start as a

01:59:32

Windows user, pick up a Mac, it's really gonna throw you a curve. On what basis then do you believe that you've got all the interpretations right?

01:59:40

I didn't claim infallibility for myself. What I am claiming is that the Bible is sufficient when it is handled consistently to answer these questions, when it is handled consistently.

01:59:52

And I am saying that your handling of it is grossly inconsistent. And I'm saying the same of you.

01:59:58

And I'm leaving it to the audience to decide who has demonstrated that this evening. So am I. Good. Thank you, sir.

02:00:07

That's it? Zero. Okay, Dr. White, your turn. Dr. Codrington, in Ezekiel 1650, the singular toevah is used.

02:00:17

Why do you not view that as having to do with homosexuality, especially in light of the use of toevah in the

02:00:25

Levitical law? Toevah as I understand it, and I know you're a better Hebrew scholar than I am, but toevah as I understand it is simply something that is defiling, is an abomination, is something that is aberrant to God.

02:00:43

And when we look at Ezekiel, and if you have your Bibles, why don't you go there and have a look at Ezekiel 1649 and 50 it lists a number of sins.

02:00:51

And then the phrase, I'm using the New Living translation as I read here, it talks about the loathsome things that I believe that's what we're talking about there.

02:01:02

Yeah, but it's not a good translation. It's translating to plural. It's a singular. It's the toevah.

02:01:07

What is the toevah in light of, if we interpret Ezekiel, as having knowledge of the

02:01:13

Mosaic code, what is the toevah? Which of the sexual sins is described as toevah?

02:01:19

I think a lot of them are described as it and a lot of other things. In the holiness code? And a lot of other things are described as toevah as well.

02:01:26

So you don't know what the toevah is? Okay, you don't know what the toevah is. I just needed to know if you knew what it was. You said you believe that Moses would have interpreted his words the way you do.

02:01:40

So you believe that Israelites, that two male

02:01:45

Israelites could have gone to Moses and say, we want to live together as married people faithfully.

02:01:53

And Moses would have said, hot dog, let's do it. That's an Americanism, I'm sorry.

02:01:58

No, that's fine. I fully understand that, fully understand that. I'm not sure Moses would have said precisely that. No, I get what you're saying.

02:02:04

The Hebrew version of it, the kosher hot dog, something like that. There must be kosher, yeah. Being a beef hot dog at least.

02:02:11

Yeah, something like that. No, I get that. That's a great question. And it's an important question.

02:02:17

Because I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have. And I think that's what Romans 1 is about. Because the

02:02:22

Jewish culture had a very particular, and we might even today use the word prudish view of sexuality.

02:02:29

Even prudish view of their bodies, which they still do today. I live in a very orthodox Jewish community, and we still see the full covering for both men and women.

02:02:39

And so, slightly tongue in cheek, put my hand up to your question earlier, but it's a fair question in response to that.

02:02:46

I think that Moses may have had the response that Paul had in Romans 1.

02:02:52

To say these things are shameful. That these things are things which are culturally unacceptable.

02:02:59

And I think that he probably would have had the same response that Paul, the rabbi, would have had. Which is to say, don't do things that are going to be a stumbling block to other people.

02:03:08

Don't put stumbling blocks in the place of other people. So, to pause your question slightly,

02:03:14

I think theologically, he may have said, I think this is fine.

02:03:21

Well, I mean, he was speaking scripture, he was speaking God's word, so he would have said, this is fine. I think he probably would have said to the people, don't do it.

02:03:30

And I'm not trying to avoid your question. Can you give me anything from Moses to substantiate that other than your feelings?

02:03:36

No, I'm giving you what I think Paul has helped us in the rabbinic tradition to understand about. The difference between something that is evil and something that is shameful.

02:03:45

And I think that's an important distinction. What is a degrading passion? In what context?

02:03:51

Romans chapter one, he describes, it's the introduction to the discussion of homosexuality. It's a degrading passion.

02:03:57

Well, it's the introduction to the whole passage, actually. Not just to the passage. So, here's how

02:04:03

I see Romans one playing out, very simply. That there are people here who are against God, who are opposed to God.

02:04:13

And what happens in the way in which that opposition to God demonstrates itself is they first of all start to worship other gods.

02:04:22

They start to put things in front of God. Then they begin to descend into culturally unacceptable practices.

02:04:30

And they move from those into things that are demonstrably evil, and murderous, and all of those things.

02:04:37

And they eventually descend down to having no mercy, no empathy, no love, no humanity about them at all.

02:04:45

And I think there's a clear progression as you read through Romans one of how that happens. If degrading passions is therefore part of the heading of that, that's how the degrading of the passions happens.

02:04:57

From turning away from God, to doing things that are shameful, to doing things that are evil, to having your entire humanity stripped away from you.

02:05:05

I think that's a good description of what a degrading passion is. And yet, the reason

02:05:12

I ask specifically is that this is the therefore of verse 24.

02:05:18

So, it's smacked out in the middle. It's not a header. And it says, therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

02:05:29

And then you have the exchanging of truth for a lie. And then finally, you get to 26, for this reason,

02:05:35

God gave them over to degrading passions. So, you don't see anything here about these are made in the image of God, but these are passions that degrade the image of God.

02:05:46

You just see this as, where does the term cultural appear here? The shameful. So, the things that are shameful.

02:05:54

What term is that? Animatei, or animai, sorry, in the Greek. The things that are shameful in what they were doing.

02:06:04

I think Paul is showing a progression in Romans 1. A progression that leads them into things that are, first of all, shameful, and then things that are evil.

02:06:15

And the way we understand this is when we turn to chapter two. Paul's going to then say to the

02:06:20

Jews, look, I've painted this picture. I've painted a picture of the evil, nasty Gentiles.

02:06:26

But be careful of how you judge. Please go and read the first few verses of chapter two. Be careful,

02:06:32

Jews, how you judge these people. Be careful that you are not judged in the same way that you have judged them.

02:06:40

And then he's going to go on to talk about circumcision, which is their shameful act, as far as the

02:06:45

Gentiles were concerned. And he's then eventually going to, in chapter three, get to the point of saying, we're all in this position.

02:06:53

We're all in a position where we are capable of very quickly moving away from God.

02:06:59

And all of us are in need of God. So the phrase pathe atamias, degrading passions, you say that's simply something that's shameful culturally, that it's not reflective of a exchange of the truth of God for a lie?

02:07:20

If they're doing it in a cultic context, if they're doing it in the temple. Where's the cultic context here in Romans one?

02:07:27

You pretty much pick it up from 18 to 24, just as you've read it, where they're making little idols.

02:07:33

I went through 18 and following in my time, and I never had to use the term cultic once.

02:07:40

Could you show me where it's found in the text itself? Yeah, verse 23, is that good enough? Instead of worshiping the glorious ever -living

02:07:48

God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people or birds or animals or snakes. Okay.

02:07:53

So God let them go ahead with their degrading passions. And so the - It's exactly the context, right?

02:07:58

So the futility of the minds and the darkening of the understanding, this is only within cultic worship?

02:08:08

No, there's a progression that's going. That's the same sentence. The progression is that they move away from God, God gives them over.

02:08:17

This is actually the punishment that comes from God, is that God allows people to do the things that they want to do.

02:08:25

It's a very scary passage here of scripture, that God allows you to do the things that you want to do.

02:08:35

And those shameful things become evil things, become things that completely eat you out from the inside.

02:08:42

So when does the cultic context end? I think it's all the way through. So all the -

02:08:48

But different commentators would argue that in different ways. So all the sins mentioned?

02:08:55

So if you're greedy in the temple, that's bad, but if you're greedy outside the temple, that's okay? No, because there's a change in word here.

02:09:03

He goes from calling things shameful to calling things evil.

02:09:09

And you can see that in verse 28. So when they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds.

02:09:16

He now uses the word evil instead of degrading or shameful. And it then repeats, and it let them do the things they shouldn't have done.

02:09:25

Can you lexically demonstrate what you're saying, that those terms are not at all semantically related to one another?

02:09:33

Yes, I can. And I don't have that in my head, unfortunately, not being a

02:09:38

Greek scholar as yourself, but you can certainly find them on my website. Then let's do it this way. Do you see in verse 28, it says,

02:09:46

God paradidimi, paradocan, the heiress form, right? God gave them over.

02:09:52

Didn't that appear earlier in the same, well, how about verse 26? For this reason, God did what?

02:09:58

Paradocan, gave them over. But that's precisely the point I'm making. Paul is showing this progression.

02:10:04

Each time God gives them over to the next layer of progression towards complete and utter annihilation of their humanity.

02:10:13

So that we get to the end of this here, they refused to understand, break their promises, heartless.

02:10:18

They are fully aware of this death penalty. They go right ahead and do it anyway. And that's what he's moving towards.

02:10:25

And then in the next verse, in Romans chapter two and verse one, he's gonna turn around and hit his readers and say, but you do the same things.

02:10:36

Even though you possess the word of God, that's true. But so what you're saying is, disobedient to parents in verse 30 is farther down the progression than the degrading passions a few verses earlier.

02:10:49

That's the only way we can, it is. I would agree with that. Okay. Which is why I don't believe that homosexuality is as much of a problem as you do.

02:11:00

Okay, fantastic. Again, well done for both of them. If you can give them a hand.

02:11:10

Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks. I know some people always say,

02:11:15

I would love to do that. Trust me, you don't wanna. What we're gonna do now is Graham's gonna have 10 minutes just for his last word.

02:11:22

And then I'll give it over to Dr. White for his last 10 minutes. I think

02:11:32

Dr. White has given a great summary of the traditional position.

02:11:38

I think he's been fair. And I think that he has done it in a way which shows,

02:11:46

I think, the only way that people who hold the traditional position should be holding it. And that is fairness.

02:11:53

There's no homophobia in it. There's no gay bashing in it. It's simply a belief in God's word.

02:12:01

I hope I've done justice to a biblical evangelical alternative.

02:12:09

Unfortunately, we cannot just agree to disagree. Unfortunately, there is no compromise position between us.

02:12:19

If one of us had turned around and said, well, let's skip that verse.

02:12:25

Or if one of us had turned around and said, well, I'm not quite sure the Bible actually means, was it what it says it means?

02:12:31

Well, then you could, I think, make an easy decision. What I hope I've achieved this evening is to show you that you can use a traditional, old -fashioned,

02:12:42

Baptist, Methodist -rooted, evangelical exegesis of the Bible and come to a very different position.

02:12:50

I know that this debate is unlikely to have changed your mind or your position. But I hope that you have seen that maybe, just maybe, this issue stands in the line of a long line of issues that Christians have been very embarrassed about as time moves on.

02:13:12

We have created a world of pain for our LGBT brothers and sisters and friends, and many of the things we criticize them for are actually caused by our attitudes and our actions towards them.

02:13:23

We've made it almost impossible for any of them to live healthy lives. We've made it acceptable for parents to disown their own children, and for churches to put people out.

02:13:34

We condemn many of them to a lifetime of loneliness and unfulfilled love. It's time to change, not because the world wants us to.

02:13:42

In fact, the majority of the world doesn't want this change. It's time to change, not to accommodate these people's lifestyles or unrepentant choices, but because God and his word require us to change.

02:13:59

It's time to change, not because all change is good, but because this change is good.

02:14:05

So in conclusion, I just wanna go back to God's word, especially to the book of Romans, where we were finishing our questions.

02:14:13

And I want to ask you just eight simple questions. I'm gonna put these up on my blog.

02:14:18

It's gonna be in the video that will be available, the audio of this, so you can go back to these in your own time, but here they are.

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Reading Romans, question one. Do the homosexuals you know worship little statues of animals, birds, and reptiles?

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You cannot take some parts of this passage literally and then ignore the others. If you know of gay people who are worshiping idols, tell them to stop.

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It's wrong. God's word is against it. By the way, that's true of your heterosexual friends too. Secondly, do the homosexuals you know flaunt their sexuality shamelessly?

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Do they have degrading passions? Do they make a public spectacle of it?

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Christians are called to modesty and decorum. If you know shameless gay people, tell them to stop.

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It's wrong. By the way, this applies to your heterosexual friends too. Thirdly, are the homosexuals you know out of control sexually?

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Fourthly, are they promiscuous and lewd? Are they inflamed with lust?

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Does their sexuality both dominate and define and control them? If so, tell them to stop.

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It's wrong. By the way, this applies to your heterosexual friends too. Fourthly, are the homosexuals you know acting contrary to their natures?

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Are they experimenting with homosexuality, just trying it out? Are they really just homosexuals?

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I mean, heterosexuals who are confused or going through a phase? If so, tell them to stop.

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It's wrong. Fifthly, do the homosexuals you know appear to be homosexual because God is punishing them?

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And if so, for what? Sixthly, are the homosexuals you know descending into moral chaos?

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Are they exhibiting total antisocial and unethical behavior?

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Go and read Romans 1. Look at that list. See the progression. And ask, are the homosexuals you know descending into moral chaos?

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Are they so entirely devoid of empathy and love and compassion and mercy that we can't even call them human anymore?

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Does this characterize the homosexuals you know? That's what Paul says is going to happen.

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If you believe the traditional view, that's what's going to happen. Is it happening? By their fruit, you will know them.

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Seven, in Romans chapter two,

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Paul says this. You may be saying, what terrible people you've been talking about.

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I'm reading from the New Living Translation. You can read whatever version you like. We'll be fine.

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But you are just as bad. You have no excuse. When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself because you do these very same things.

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Do you? If you know what Paul was talking about, do you really? And we know that God in his justice will punish anyone who does these things.

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Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing them and not judge and condemn you too? Don't you realize how kind, tolerant, patient God is with you?

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Don't you care? Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin?

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But no, you won't listen. So you're storing up terrible punishment for yourself. Seriously, how do you respond to that when you judge your homosexual brothers and sisters and friends?

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Eighthly, have a look for me, please, at Romans 14, verses 13 and 14.

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How do you respond to this? I'll read this time from the NIV. Therefore, and this therefore,

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I think, is actually a therefore that comes at the end of the whole book. The whole book of Romans is focused on the single issue of the distance between Jews and Gentiles.

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Paul is coming to Rome. Five years before writing this letter, the Jews had been hounded out of Rome by the emperor.

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A year or two before he writes the letter, the Jews are allowed back into Rome and they come back into a church that was the only church at that time that had been built up by Gentile leaders and had taken a slightly different path in their view around food, in their view around the

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Jewish calendar, in their view around circumcision. And Paul wants these Jews and Gentiles to play nice with each other.

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Because in Antioch, it just blew up. It was him and Peter had the biggest argument ever.

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It threatened to split the church just years after Jesus had left. And Paul does not want this to happen.

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This is the purpose of this letter to the people in Rome. And so he gets to his main point.

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Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.

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I am convinced, being totally persuaded in the

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Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself.

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How do you respond to Romans 14, 13 to 14? Let me finish.

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What can we say about these wonderful things I'm reading from Romans chapter eight? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

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Since God himself did not spare his own son but gave him up for us, or won't God who gave us Christ also give us everything?

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Who dares accuse to whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No.

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He is the one who has given us the right. Who then will condemn us? Will Jesus condemn us? No. For he is the one who died for us and raised us to life and is sitting in the place of honor next to God.

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Can anyone separate us from the love of God? Tonight's debate has been approached dispassionately.

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I've approached it as requested and as guided by the format. But my heart bleeds for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

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I'm sorry I couldn't bring emotion to this debate on your behalf, for we have hurt you.

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But God loves you. God made you. God loves you not in spite of who you are.

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He loves you because of who you are. And he wants you home. Obey his law.

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Do the right things. But God loves you.

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Thank you, Dr. Codrington. Now Dr. White for his last 10 minutes. I may respond to all the questions.

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There was a very emotional appeal given that we need to change.

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That same movement is now happening with other groups as well. The same process that has brought us to this night is now happening in regards to intergenerational sexual activity.

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And the very same words could be uttered in defense of numerous other perspectives with just as much emotion and just as much an appeal.

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Does a person have to worship a reptile to have degrading passions?

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Of course not. Is an absurd reading of Paul to say that every person that he's discussing will engage in every activity he's discussing.

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Just as it is painfully obvious that in the vice list at the end of the chapter, he is not saying that every person he's discussing does every single activity to the nth degree.

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There are many people who engage in violence who have great respect for their parents. This is a gross mishandling of the text.

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Number two, do they flaunt their sexuality shamelessly? Ever been to San Francisco? Ever seen a gay pride march?

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Oh, we're not talking about them. Why aren't you talking about them? That seems to be the vast majority.

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Well, we're only talking about a small minority, okay? I think it is flaunting your sexuality when you demand the church redefine marriage so that you can engage in that activity.

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That's flaunting, especially when it ends up changing how our society deals with the subject of marriage.

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Are they out of control sexually? What does that mean? If the sexual desire is provided by God and must be determined by his parameters, then yes, they are.

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Because they are desiring sexual activity with a mirror image. That is out of control. Number four, are they acting contrary to nature, to fusis?

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I obviously disagree that God, by fusis, by nature, creates someone to experience and to act upon homosexual desires.

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I'm not saying there are people who do not have same -sex attraction. I know that there are. It's a fallen world. It's not kata fusis.

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It's not according to nature. Number five, is God punishing them? Well, how do we know when anything is punishment in this world?

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When you see a tsunami, you know that God's wrath is being revealed from heaven, but do you know that it's the same kind of wrath that's being dispensed to each person that experiences that tsunami?

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No, you don't know that. But what does it mean to be given over to something? What did that mean?

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I pointed out that even though Graham was trying to cut that text into parts and say, well, it's all progression, this is this, all of it is in the paradidimi, pareidokon, he gave people over.

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What does that mean? Does it always look the same for every person? No, it doesn't.

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Number six, are they descending into moral chaos to where we would not even call them human? Again, this is the idea that you've gotta go through all of Romans 1, and this is gonna be experienced by every single individual.

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That is a gross misreading of the text, just as the final question is a gross misreading of the text.

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Look at all of the classic commentaries, and you can say, oh, they all got it wrong. Okay, fine, but I don't just think standing here asserting it proves it.

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But look at the classic commentaries. What's Romans 14 about? It's about inter -Christian experience. Do not judge your fellow servant of Jesus Christ in these particular areas.

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He's not talking about Romans 1. He's not talking about the things that he laid out there. That is a gross misuse and misreading of the book of Romans.

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And which one of us actually could walk through Romans verse by verse, point by point, and be consistent in the exegesis that we use?

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You are the audience this evening. You get to answer that particular question. I asked

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Graham, why didn't Jesus say anything? He said, well, Jesus didn't say anything about Caesar, slavery.

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Jesus, from our belief, is their maker and their creator. And you're gonna tell me that knowing that he made these people with this deep desire for this monogamous relationship, which as any fair analysis will say, is a small minority of what calls itself the homosexual community today, a small minority.

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But Jesus knew that he made these people this way, and yet he reinforced the stereotypes?

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What Jesus said about Caesar was radical. Render the things that are

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Caesar's things that are God's that are God's. That was a radical statement. Jesus was willing to make radical statements, just as he was about women as well.

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I'm sorry, it doesn't make any sense to me to say, well, that's the case.

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Jesus just didn't wanna rock the boat too much. He rocked the boat a lot, and his followers turned the world upside down.

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The attempt to redefine arsenikoites through the use of couplets and triplets was very imaginative, but it fails to anyone who was reading the

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Greek. Because not only do you have to go from a couplet to a triplet a few times without any contextual reason as to why, but it ignored the term that it is related to in its context, which is of course pornois, pornaya.

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Which is the broad category of sexual sin that again, my friends, any

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Jewish person reading in the first century would have included any homosexual relationship within pornaya.

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If you say otherwise, prove it. Give me documentation. There isn't any. There isn't any.

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It's a given. It's a fact of history. So the normal means of exegesis would be to look at that and to look at the septuagint background to understand where Paul's coming from and interpret it in that way.

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That's not what Graham did. Why? Because he has another authority. He may not see it.

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I don't know what causes him to be involved with this subject. I told you why I'm involved with this subject.

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Believe me, this is not a pleasant issue to be engaged with. I don't like reading all these books that come out all the time on this subject.

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But I have to do it to be consistent as an elder in the church of Jesus Christ. And so I'm forced to it, and I am forced to apply the exact same standards here that I do everywhere else.

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You must be consistent. You cannot define the word true without using the term consistency.

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You can't do it. And so who's been consistent this evening? Who's position exegetically, theologically, historically is consistent, and who is saying we need to make a radical change?

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I am saying that if we are to look, for example, at 1 Timothy 1, that the meaning of arsenikoites there, given it's with pornayah, given the fact that even in Hebrews, when it says the marriage bed is to be undefiled, there is no way that any unbiased examination of the lexicography and the history of the text would allow you to think that that marriage bed could be inhabited by two men or three men or four women or two women or anything else.

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It's impossible, can't be done. You must overthrow the sufficiency of Scripture and bring in other authorities to be able to make that argument.

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And so as a result, no matter what the society says, no matter how it costs us, and there are people who want this to cost us greatly, there are people who are starting to call us haters and bigots, all because we hear

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Jesus' teaching, we hear the authority of the word of God, and we recognize this is not human flourishing.

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This is not what God intends. And if we dare stand, oh, you're a terrible person.

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And we may indeed have to face the question, whose face will we fear,

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Caesar or Christ? Caesar or Christ? You are the judges this evening.

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You've got some homework to do. Check us out. Go back and listen, not just once, maybe two, three times.

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Write down what was being asserted. Graham has a blog with lots of material on it.

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I've got a book, Same -Sex Controversy. Numerous debates with people who have represented that position.

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The responsibility is yours. If you're a Christian, someday you will stand before the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And the question is, what will He say to us? Who did we fear,

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Him or the world around us? That's the question each one of us has to answer.

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Thank you very much. Thank you so very much for all your time that you've given us.

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And I just want you to, as you leave, you know, you've been encouraged from both sides to really go and investigate and to really go look at the material that have been written.

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And Dr. Codrington, his blog is GrahamCodrington .com. Future Church Now.

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And Dr. White is A -O -M -I -N, Alpha and Omega Ministries .org.

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And please go drop a comment and please don't send spam, hate mail, anything like that.

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You can send donations. But anything good. And enjoy your night and thank you once more for being such a wonderful audience.