Homosexuality Disease or Just Sin

[Josef]

Hey All,
The disciples blamed a man's blindness on sin.

John 9:1-3 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Leprosy was thought to be caused by sin as well. People who had it were treated as outcasts of society. They were placed in leper colonies so they would not infect other people. This may have been practical back then. But it made the leper feel like dung (you know the word I want to use) over a condition over which they had no control.

This is the same way most people in the church treat known homosexuals. Some churches, or I should say people in the church, treat homosexuals like lepers; as if homosexuality was an infectious disease. (I find it appalling. Jesus would never treat them that way.) Christians for the most part are not very tolerant. We have to be that way with sin. We should not be that way with the sinner.

Back to the topic:
We know today that leprosy is a medical condition, and it is curable. So it's probably a good thing that somebody said maybe leprosy is not a sin. Maybe it's a condition. What can I do to help?

What if we looked at homosexuality as a condition or a disease. What can the church do to help the people who want help?

I see people coming to this cite who openly admit to being homosexual. Some believe in Christ. They are looking answers on how to live now. (After receiving Jesus)
Some are still practicing.
Some have described a pornography addiction as a gateway to their homosexuality.
Some have adopted celibacy as a cure.
While others are now in a heterosexual condition.

Is there something within this wide range that the condition has, that can help a homosexual who desires change, but is addicted to it.

That is why I find this interesting. If these people (homosexuals) were alcoholics, we (the church) would treat them as people with a disease.

Have you ever thought of homosexuality as a disease? I have not. But it is worth considering.
Is it a brain deformity? (Physical)
Is it an addiction? (Psychological)
Is there a real connection to pornography and homosexuality? (Cause/Effect)
Is it treatable? (Not looking at it just as a sin)
Is it curable? (As leprosy was)

Answers to these questions would go a long way towards helping.

Instead of making homosexuals feel like a great big giant gob of sin on a stick, what can we ( the church) do to help them?

Perhaps we need to change our perspective of what homosexuality is and focus on the cause.
It is easy to say, "Well it's just sin." So is lying and stealing, an the rest of the commandments.

I just thought of something else. If homosexuality is such an awful sin, why is it not on the Ten Commandments?

Maybe God left it off on purpose.
Maybe something can be done to help.
Maybe it is treatable, or even curable.

Yes homosexuality is a sin. Sin is forgivable. So let's forgive and seek a possible way to help. Let's show some of that Agape we talk about.

Please don't let this thread become an argument.
Let's have a discussion. Let's make this thread a safe zone for the participants so we can express ourselves without being bashed for doing it.

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz

 

[Tenchi]

Hey All,
The disciples blamed a man's blindness on sin.

John 9:1-3 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Nowhere in all of God's word is there a similar story about a person's homosexuality. Never is blindness ever condemned as sinful, but homosexuality is, repeatedly and directly, in both Old and New Testaments. There isn't, then, any actual equivalency between blindness and homosexuality. The former is a physical condition, the latter, an immoral behavior.

Leprosy was thought to be caused by sin as well. People who had it were treated as outcasts of society. They were placed in leper colonies so they would not infect other people. This may have been practical back then. But it made the leper feel like dung (you know the word I want to use) over a condition over which they had no control.

Again, the Bible repeatedly recognizes leprosy as a physical ailment but it never does the same for homosexuality. Because these are not equivalent things, as far as God is concerned.

This is the same way most people in the church treat known homosexuals.

And God? Did He not burn Sodom to ash in judgment upon their abominable sexual perversion? Yes, He did. Was He being ungracious, then? Unkind?

Some churches, or I should say people in the church, treat homosexuals like lepers; as if homosexuality was an infectious disease.

Really? I've lived all my life in the church and never encountered anyone who thought of homosexuality or homosexuals in this way. There is something distinctly "against nature" in homosexual conduct, an obvious perversity in it, that it is normal to find disturbing. But this is to respond to homosexuality as God does. Read Romans 1:18-32 or Jude 1:7.

Homosexuals need Christ; they desperately need to be saved. But it is from their sin - including homosexuality, with which they so often closely identify - that they need to be redeemed. If they don't see the terrible danger of their sin, if they aren't warned of the catastrophe that is approaching them as a consequence of their sin, they could well die in their sin and spend eternity in hell. Is it loving, then, to respond to their sexual perversion, their sexual sin, as no big deal? I don't think so and I see nowhere in Scripture where Christians are directed to make sinners feel comfortable in their sin.

Christians for the most part are not very tolerant. We have to be that way with sin. We should not be that way with the sinner.

And God? Does He make this distinction between sin and sinner? Does He cast only the sin of homosexuality into hell? Or does He cast the homosexual sinner into hell? I don't think you actually understand God, as He's revealed in the Bible, well at all.

Back to the topic:
We know today that leprosy is a medical condition, and it is curable. So it's probably a good thing that somebody said maybe leprosy is not a sin.

Whoever said, "Leprosy is a sin"? No one I know of.

What if we looked at homosexuality as a condition or a disease.

Well, we'd be departing from the way God looks at homosexuality. For Christians, this ought to make doing so a non-starter. We are to follow God's lead, not the lead of secular culture.

I see people coming to this cite who openly admit to being homosexual. Some believe in Christ. They are looking answers on how to live now. (After receiving Jesus)

And to them God says:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Is there something within this wide range that the condition has, that can help a homosexual who desires change, but is addicted to it.

A sinner's redemption from sin is accomplished by God, not by "something within the range of the condition (a.k.a. sin)." One is only bound and destroyed by sin, not helped, or freed, by it.

That is why I find this interesting. If these people (homosexuals) were alcoholics, we (the church) would treat them as people with a disease.

??? No. They are people whose foolish, sinful choice has produced a physiological component, but who, in the end, will only find true liberty from their sin and its effects in the One who made them and died for them. Read Romans 6.

Instead of making homosexuals feel like a great big giant gob of sin on a stick, what can we ( the church) do to help them?

??? Who does this? No one I know. But they ARE sinners destined for hell and we show them no love by pretending otherwise.

Perhaps we need to change our perspective of what homosexuality is and focus on the cause.
It is easy to say, "Well it's just sin." So is lying and stealing, an the rest of the commandments.

I just thought of something else. If homosexuality is such an awful sin, why is it not on the Ten Commandments?

Where in the Ten Commandments does it say not to have sex with children? Is this evil activity not so awful, then? Obviously not.

Maybe God left it off on purpose.
Maybe something can be done to help.
Maybe it is treatable, or even curable.

It isn't, at bottom, a physical disease, but SIN for which there is only one remedy. Read 2 Corinthians 5:21, or Acts 4:12.

Let's make this thread a safe zone for the participants so we can express ourselves without being bashed for doing it.

A "safe zone"? That's very...woke of you. How about we make this thread a "truth zone," instead? I think God would approve much more, if we did.

John 8:32
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

 

[JT4444]

Hey All,
The disciples blamed a man's blindness on sin.

John 9:1-3 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Leprosy was thought to be caused by sin as well. People who had it were treated as outcasts of society. They were placed in leper colonies so they would not infect other people. This may have been practical back then. But it made the leper feel like dung (you know the word I want to use) over a condition over which they had no control.

This is the same way most people in the church treat known homosexuals. Some churches, or I should say people in the church, treat homosexuals like lepers; as if homosexuality was an infectious disease. (I find it appalling. Jesus would never treat them that way.) Christians for the most part are not very tolerant. We have to be that way with sin. We should not be that way with the sinner.

Back to the topic:
We know today that leprosy is a medical condition, and it is curable. So it's probably a good thing that somebody said maybe leprosy is not a sin. Maybe it's a condition. What can I do to help?

What if we looked at homosexuality as a condition or a disease. What can the church do to help the people who want help?

I see people coming to this cite who openly admit to being homosexual. Some believe in Christ. They are looking answers on how to live now. (After receiving Jesus)
Some are still practicing.
Some have described a pornography addiction as a gateway to their homosexuality.
Some have adopted celibacy as a cure.
While others are now in a heterosexual condition.

Is there something within this wide range that the condition has, that can help a homosexual who desires change, but is addicted to it.

That is why I find this interesting. If these people (homosexuals) were alcoholics, we (the church) would treat them as people with a disease.

Have you ever thought of homosexuality as a disease? I have not. But it is worth considering.
Is it a brain deformity? (Physical)
Is it an addiction? (Psychological)
Is there a real connection to pornography and homosexuality? (Cause/Effect)
Is it treatable? (Not looking at it just as a sin)
Is it curable? (As leprosy was)

Answers to these questions would go a long way towards helping.

Instead of making homosexuals feel like a great big giant gob of sin on a stick, what can we ( the church) do to help them?

Perhaps we need to change our perspective of what homosexuality is and focus on the cause.
It is easy to say, "Well it's just sin." So is lying and stealing, an the rest of the commandments.

I just thought of something else. If homosexuality is such an awful sin, why is it not on the Ten Commandments?

Maybe God left it off on purpose.
Maybe something can be done to help.
Maybe it is treatable, or even curable.

Yes homosexuality is a sin. Sin is forgivable. So let's forgive and seek a possible way to help. Let's show some of that Agape we talk about.

Please don't let this thread become an argument.
Let's have a discussion. Let's make this thread a safe zone for the participants so we can express ourselves without being bashed for doing it.

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz

I think it's complicated. Our physical bodies have been corrupted as well by the fall. I'll let God sort it out.

 

[miamited]

Hi Josef

I believe that when God's word speaks of His hating that a man lies with another man as he would lie with a woman, that God is telling us that same sex sex is a sin. Now, we can dress it up all we want and make that pig shine with the glory of the sun... but it's still sin in God's sight. We can fool many, many people into addressing the issue and making up all sorts of arguments against such behavior as being unpleasing to God. But I believe that God's word is fairly clear on the subject.

Frankly, it all boils down to the exact same temptation that Eve faced. "Did God really say...?" So here's the question concerning same sex sex. "Did God really say that He destests a man lying with another man as he does with a woman?"

God bless,
Ted

 

[Anaphora]

Homosexuality is sin.
Leviticus chapter 20:13 to document.
1 Corinthians chapter 6:9 to document.

Homosexuals are going to sheol, called hell, if they continue in thier habitual patterns of Sins.
Yes, homosexuals can repent and conform to God's standard, if they choose to ??

Hebrews 12:29. For our God is a consuming fire.
KATANALISKO in Greek means = Consuming fire.

The homosexuals can come to the cross, if they repent and conform to God's standard.

If they continue to follow satan.

Philippians chapter 1:28 . And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.

1 Corinthians chapter 11:32. But when we are judged, we are chastised of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

Habitual sinners are reprobates. They're following satan. This group on judgement day, will follow satan into lake of fire.

Mark 8:36. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?

Those who repent and serve and love God, eternal life.

Reprobates follow satan into lake of fire.

Two different groups.

Not difficult to understand.