The United Methodist Church ended its special conference on Tuesday February
26, 2019 in St. Louis. They reaffirmed their “decades-old” rule concerning LGBT
clergy and marriages. It was supported by a 53% majority. As expected, the 47%
dissenting are not happy. In Bishop Gregory Palmer’s message to the West Ohio
Conference he spoke of “lament and hope,” and stated that the Bible “talks
about if parts of the body is hurting, the whole body is hurting,” referring to
1 Corinthians 12:26. He goes on to say
that this “injury in the church is in some way an injury to the whole.”
What is this “injury” in the church? We should understand that this is
a self-induced injury. And yet “injury” is really not what is meant here. What
is meant is a grievance. It is something they want and the 53% has voted
against it based upon Biblical authority. Specifically, their grievance is that
they want to allow LGBT individuals authorization to seek ordination to the
clergy and gay marriages.
There are plenty of Scriptural passages which support the 53% majority.
Concerning homosexuality:
For
this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged
the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the
men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire
toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in
their own persons the due penalty of their error. (Romans 1:26-27 NASB)
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an
abomination. (Leviticus 18:22 NASB)
Concerning marriage:
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made
them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”
(Matthew 19:4–5 NASB)
In addition, Paul’s instruction to husbands and wives in Ephesians
chapter 5 views husbands as males and wives as females. Peter views the
marriage relationship in the same manner, making reference to the wife as a ‘woman’
(see 1 Peter 3:1-7).
Changing the meaning of these words, husband and wife - as the LGBT
crowd is so inclined - so that each might indicate either male or female is to clearly
obliterate the correct interpretation of God’s Word. When Christians refuse to
interpret the Scriptures as God intended, they are the ones who initiate
division in the whole of Christianity.
Too often, the spirit of the culture creeps into the Church. The modern
day acceptance of un-Biblical trends (women preachers, homosexuality, gay
marriage) is an attempt to pervert Christianity and its witness to the world.
To think that we will help others who are lost to accept Christ as their Savior
by showing tolerance to these un-Biblical trends, demonstrates the lack of
sound Biblical teaching, starting with the seminaries down to the person in the
pew.
It is a Biblical norm that Christians are to obtain their basis for truth
from the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but only when it is rightly
interpreted. Biblical truth is never, never based on a personal feeling or
emotion, nor is it determined by what the culture practices. Be aware of the
fact that the mainstream media are not Christian. They will say and do anything
to obstruct the unity of faithful believers and promote their godless secular-humanist
ideology.
The bottom line is that if Scripture is not viewed as the literal Word
of God, then mankind has no basis for absolute truth and no revelation from the
God of the universe. All that is left than is a book that can be interpreted in
a broad manner without a consensus, having no cohesiveness or singular standard
for Christian living, resulting in an inconsistent witness of Christ to a lost
and dying world. This spells out confusion and chaos, and it should be noted
that confusion does not represent the character of God (1 Cor. 14:33).