‘MAKING SENSE OF THE BIBLE (2)

The Church of Scotland is asking local Kirk sessions and regional Presbyteries to think hard about the issue of whether we should have practicing homosexuals as clergy.  A report will go in to the 2011 General Assembly with Recommendations. May next year will be a crunch moment.  Inverness Presbytery is holding a Conference to deal with the matter and our Kirk Session intends to follow suite.  I’d like to have a congregational consultation so that we know what your  thoughts and feeling are. 

In the last magazine I pointed out that Jesus offers guidelines for us to make sense of the Bible’s teaching on sexual misconduct.  He called adultery a sin but didn't feel it necessary to invoke the OT punishment (death by stoning).  Therefore I or anyone can rightly call homosexual practice a sin without us needing to invoke the drastic punishment laid down by the OT.

Jesus stood for the letter and the spirit of the OT Scriptures. Mt 5:17-18 “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” So he stands by the words and letters of the OT.  In the Sermon on the Mount in Mt 5 he repeatedly confronts and challenges a harsh understanding and application of the OT.  He attacks a wrong spirit and promotes one that brings out the intention behind the original words.  One example is Mt 5:21-22"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment...”  Here Jesus affirms that it is not only actual murder that is wrong—so also is a vindictive hostile spirit.  The intention of the commandment is the protection and promotion of life by God.  Therefore life denying and diminishing attitudes are wrong too.  The last thing we need are strident and aggressive tones Whatever side of the homosexual debate we are on.  If you wonder why some sections of the OT are no longer applicable for us today it is because Jesus himself is the fulfilment of them.  Take all the symbolism and practices we find in the worship and sacrifices of the tabernacle & temple.  Since Christ is the perfect sacrifice and has offered up the  only worship offering that is acceptable to God, all the things that pre-dated his crucifixion are now redundant.  Then there are all the ritual purity laws.  Food, drink, clothes, non-Jews were all sources of religious contamination.  A holy identity meant separation from them.  But Jesus died for all kinds of sinners, not just Jewish ones.  He taught that uncleanness does not come from dishes but from the human heart.  He sent his disciples out across the world and sent his Spirit ahead of them to save and include Gentiles of all sorts and conditions.  So the need for OT religious and ritual distinctiveness is dealt with and satisfied when we find out new identity in Christ and live by the power of his Spirit.  The lesson from Jesus is that those of us who say we believe in the divine authority of the whole Bible but do not literally apply these sections of the OT are singing off Christ’s own song sheet.  Still, there are difficulties about what parts of the OT have ongoing application for today and which are limited to the culture and circumstances of ancient Israel.  A common argument is that current homosexual relationships between committed Christians is a phenomenon with no parallels in the OT or NT because it is faulty homosexual issues that the Bible deals with e.g. homosexual acts in the context of idolatry or exploited relationships.  However all the way through the Bible it is not the quality or fault of a particular relationship that makes it sinful and forbidden—it is the act itself that is wrong.  Some people say we can drop Lev 18:22 “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman” without seeming to realize that this is a chapter that is  imbedded with the profound moral values that stop incest, child sacrifice, bestiality, and the sexual exploitation of a wife by a husband. Lev18: 1-23.

(more next magazine)