//Not long ago, I got pulled into a conversation that grew quite heated, about whether homosexuality was a sin. This is such a critical topic in today’s Christian world that I thought I would just try to explain how a liberal Christian typically views it from a Biblical standpoint.

Most of us agree that homosexuality is listed as an abomination in the Holiness Code of Leviticus. That’s where this all stems from. It’s right there alongside being lame and blind.

The problem is, some Christians still tend to associate abomination with sin. It is an abomination to be lame, not a sin.* If you are born blind, you are an abomination before God, not a sinner. Yes, many in N.T. times believed this made you a sinner, but Jesus taught differently.

But the prophets objected. Isaiah, especially, dreamed of a day when a Messiah would come and make all men equal.  Being different wouldn’t mean being wrong. The lame would walk, the blind would see, the deaf would hear. Great signs and wonders would happen, and God would rule in righteousness from that day onward.

A liberal Christian believes the New Testament is serious when it proclaims that that day has arrived. The Messiah has come, with signs and wonders. Whether you believe Jesus literally changed or healed the lame, the blind, the homosexuals, whatever, is somewhat irrelevant, because he didn’t get ’em all…there are lots of blind people today.

But if you believe the Bible, that age has begun. There is no longer segregation, no abomination as the Holiness Code taught, and all people may share together in the age of God’s rule.

Therefore, it’s hard for me to imagine anything more anti-Jesus than the division this topic is causing. If I may be blunt (I rarely allow myself the pleasure, here, so indulge me) the “righteousness” of the overly conservative is the righteousness of the Pharisees, still playing Temple-God, still dividing people into two halves…the acceptable and the unacceptable.

*The Bible does not specifically list the blind and lame as abominations, it merely associates them as such. The word abomination, while it sounds horrid in today’s language, described a number of seemingly innocuous differences and imperfections throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

//I often quote verses from the Old Testament prophets to highlight their expectation of the new age. We are told, for example, that in that day, bread and wine will be plentiful. In this verse, the wine is said to be so plentiful that it flows down the mountains.

But I had never paid attention to just how big the bumper crops of grain would be! Amos says the reaping will be so plentiful that when the plowman comes by the next year to till the fields, the reapers will still be gathering from the last harvest!

Such was the dream the prophets held for the reign of the Messiah. This reign of God was never to be fulfilled up in heaven, but in a replenishing of this earth.

//It’s been a week since my last post. I’ve been relaxing on a camping trip; perhaps the first time I’ve missed two or more days in a row since the blog began. So let’s fire things up again with a controversial topic.

I am often asked how I can endorse other religions as a possible path to God. Isn’t the scripture clear that only Jesus can save? Today’s verse is probably the most quoted argument, but another verse in Acts may be even more clear (Peter is speaking of Jesus):

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. –Acts 4:12

So pluralism must be a colossal mistake, right? But as a liberal Christian, I just don’t read it that way. We need to be cautious about reading verses in the shadow of traditional Christian dogma. These verses were written in an age when Christians could see no other hope of “salvation.” The Jews wanted a savior, someone to set right the world’s wrongs, and along came Jesus. Having rejected him, what other savior could they expect? Who else, in that day and age, was bringing to the Jews a message of compassion and hope?

Early Christians could see no one else on the horizon. These verses were written in a dark age when the Teacher of Righteousness, a man sent from God, had just been crucified. The verses were a cry to the rejecting world to see in Jesus the only way, for no one else in the world seemed to understand God as Jesus did.

Two thousand years later, I think we’ve found many more wonderful examples of how to live a godly life, from many different flavors of religion. What was true 2,000 years ago is no longer true today.

//Sometimes we, in our sheltered age, have a hard time relating to the parables of Jesus. Here is one that is often misread.

Jesus asks a question: Which of you shepherds wouldn’t leave 99 sheep behind the go and find one?

The answer, of course, is none of them would be so foolish. Leaving 99 sheep in the wilderness is utter madness! No shepherd having any business sense at all would take that risk.

Having left the crowd with a good laugh, Jesus then explains that that is precisely what God does!

I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

The ninety and nine “just” persons, Jesus explains, hold no interest for God. His joy is only in the one who, becoming “lost,” finally recognizes his frailty and turns to God for help.

This is a parable about accepting the sinner, while shunning the self-righteous Pharisees.

★★★★

What a great storyteller! Pennington has written a page-turner, and though the production is not the most professional, I guarantee the plot line will keep you engrossed.

In Pennington’s story, mass hunger follows an energy drop after about a third of the population simply disappears. Is it the rapture? Is an apocalypse on the horizon? Four friends gather for survival, and try to make sense of Scripture and science.

This is not another Left Behind lookalike. Pennington is not a Bible scholar, and if you’re hoping to learn about the end times, you’ll be disappointed. This is an unorthodox look at faith, at life’s simple purpose, and ultimately at good and evil. A little sappy, a little evangelical, but definitely recommended.

//This is the sort of Bible verse that leaves me puzzled. Surely, it’s a mythical reference, an ancient story collected and included in the Bible, but where does it come from? Are we really supposed to believe that the writer of Genesis was suggesting that all the tent-dwellers around him descended from Jabal, and all those who play pipes descended from Jubal?

Here’s the really odd thing about Jabal and Jubal: These two brothers lived before Noah, so they must have died in the flood. They couldn’t be the ancestors of anyone.

//King David dreamed of building a house for God, but God declined the offer, awarding that privilege to David’s son, Solomon. Instead, God built David a “house” … that is, a dynasty.

A FEW scholars are skeptical, considering David’s kingdom to be mythical, or at least very small. No archaeological record has ever been found referring to King David.

That is, until 1993. Then, during an excavation in Tel Dan in northern Israel, archaeologists uncovered several fragments of a stele dating to the 9th century BCE. In it, an unnamed king (probably Hazael) of Aram-Damascus boasts about victories over Israel and Israel’s ally … the “House of David.” While the stele’s authenticity has been established, scholars continue to debate its translation, specifically the meaning of the “house of David.”

Here is the translated text:

1. [ ]…[ ] and cut [ ]
2. [ ] my father went up [ ] he fought at […]
3. And my father lay down; he went to his [fathers]. Now the king of I[s]/rael had penetrated
4. into my father’s land before. [But then] Hadad made me king,
5. And Hadad marched before me. So I went forth from [the] seven[…]/s
6. of my rule, and I killed [seve]nty kin[gs] who had harnessed thou[sands of cha]/riots
7. and thousands of cavalry. [And I killed …]ram son of […]
8. the king of Israel, and I killed […]yahu son of [… the ki]/ng of
9. the House of David. And I made [their towns into ruins and turned]
10. their land into [a desolation …]
11. others and […Then…became ki]/ng
12. over Is[rael…And I laid]
13. siege against […]

//Have I blogged about this topic before? I can’t remember.

It’s a question that often comes up: When did Israel switch from polytheism to monotheism? And the answer is, there was no abrupt change in beliefs; it gradually evolved, from polytheism (worshipping many gods) to monolatrism (worship of only one of these gods) to henotheism (recognition of one supreme god, far above all the rest) to monotheism (belief that only one god exists).

Yet we do have a sort of “enlightenment” age in the Bible, as seen in the second part of Isaiah. Monotheism comes of age here, during the exile in Babylon (the second half of Isaiah was written much later than the first, by one or two different authors).

At this point, the author seems to delight in the discovery of a single God, repeating multiple times in the chapters from 43 to 45 words like There is no God besides Me. Chapter 41:29 reads exultantly, about other gods, Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

Ray Vincent calls this stage a “kind of liberating atheism,” reducing the powers-that-be to a single God. See his book here.

//Hebrews is a fascinating book, one of the deeper theological works of the Bible. While the New Living Translation is not my favorite by any stretch, it seems to be the only translation which makes clear the point of this verse. Consequently, many readers gloss over this verse without reaching its conclusion:

Jesus was not initially perfect, but was made perfect through suffering.

That does not mean he sinned! Indeed, verse 4:15 makes it clear he did not. Rather, as verse 5:8-9 explains, Jesus learned obedience through his suffering, and “once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

Interesting theology from an anonymous author, a book that even conservative scholars struggle to assign authorship to.