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Showing posts from January, 2017

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Orgies, Incest

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite all people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible: [Previous Posts on this question: Adultery, Sexual Immorality,  Bestiality,  Homosexuality, Transgenderism, Prostitution, Temple Prostitution] Orgies Romans 13:13  Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality …  drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Transgenderism, Prostitution, and Temple Prostitution

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite all people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer:   Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1:  The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible: [Previous posts: adultery, sexual immorality, bestiality, homosexuality] Transgenderism [to identify one’s gender with that of the opposite, biological sex] Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  [There are only two genders, male and female, and these correspond to biological sex.  Note: Romans 1:26-27, as in the Greek version of Genesis 1:27, uses

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Homosexuality

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible: [Previous posts: adultery, sexual immorality, bestiality] Homosexuality Genesis 19:5 And they [i.e., the men of Sodom] called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them."  [Note: ‘to know’ someone in the Old Testament can mean to have sex with someone, as here.] Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. Leviticus 20:13 If a man

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Bestiality

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible: [Previous posts on adultery and sexual immorality]      Bestiality Leviticus 18:23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. Leviticus 20:15-16 If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.  16 If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman a

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Sexual Immorality

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible:      [Previous post: Adultery.  This is the second topic under Question 3, Comment 1.] Sexual Immorality The early Church warned against ‘sexual immorality.’  This general term, as well as other general terms like ‘impurity,’ ‘sensuality,’ ‘debauchery,’ and so forth, covered every kind of sexual union outside of marriage between a man and a woman.  Sexual sins had already been identified in the Old Testament, and Christians relied on the O

Parable of the Rescuer at Sea

On a sunny, summer day, the disciples and their master sat talking on a grassy knoll in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye.  One disciple told the others about some trustees of a diocese who would not release finances for ministry.  A young man had been encouraged to explore ministry in the diocese and had arrived to begin his training and work, but the wealthy diocese would not put up any funds for his accommodations, let alone a stipend or even funds for education.  'The trustees appear to have understood their role to be to guard the diocese’s investments, not to deplete its funds through expenses incurred for actual ministry,' concluded the disciple. ‘I will tell you a story that I heard as a schoolboy,’ said the master to his disciples.  ‘There was a dairy farmer by the name of Wolraad Woltemade living in the Dutch Cape Colony of South Africa.  In the early hours of the 1 st of June, 1773, one of the Cape’s violent storms put the Jonge Thomas, anchored off Table Bay, at gr

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Adultery

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible? Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible: Adultery: sexual desire or acts with another person’s spouse Genesis 39:9  [When Potiphar’s wife wants to commit adultery with Joseph, he says:]  How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Exodus 20:14  "You shall not commit adultery.  [Note: accusing a wife of committing adultery is explored in Numbers 5.11-31.] Deuteronomy 22:20-21  But if the thing [i.e., that the wife was not a virgin at the time of mar

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: The Purpose of Sex

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 2. What is the purpose of sex? Answer: The purpose of sex is for marital union (‘becoming one flesh’) and marital procreation.  Genesis 1:27-28  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  [Note: Re

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: the Bases for Christian Teaching on Sex and Marriage

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.] Question 1. What are the bases for Christian teaching on sex and marriage? Answer: God’s revelation through creation and His commandments in Scripture are the bases for Christian teaching on sex and marriage. Comment 1: The Church of the New Testament took its teaching on ethics, including sex and marriage, from the Old Testament.  There is, therefore, a consistent Biblical teaching on sex and marriage. 2 Timothy 3:16-17  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Comment 2:

A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Introduction

[This post begins a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  Both Jesus and Paul saw teaching on sex and marriage as part of their missionary proclamation: a catechism or teaching on this subject, and ethics overall, is an essential part of Christian missions.  After all, missionary proclamation is an invitation to live under God's righteous rule, the Kingdom of God.] Note: All quotations from Scripture in this series, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version. Formation as God’s people is first and foremost a matter of being instructed in and of obedience to His commandments.  Through Scripture, God teaches His people to walk in His ways. In the Old Testament, God instructs Israel in the ways of righteousness.  He says, Deuteronomy 6:4-9  "Hear

Announcing Global Christian News: Getting a Christian slant on the news--and Christian news

The news is really a story, created by narrators (reporters and anchormen) and editors whose reporting produces a symbolic universe paralleling but not to be equated with reality in which we choose to dwell or struggle not to do so. Anyone interested in the Church and its mission is constantly frustrated with the story told day after day in the newspapers, magazines, or on television.  Televised news is largely entertainment.  Objective reporting is almost impossible to come by, as is world news or news relevant to the Church.  In a word, we need a different perspective to balance those telling the world's story from a single or secular perspective, or from a predominantly western or American perspective.  Such reporting is helpful, but insufficient, myopic, and distortive without additional input from alternative sources. Christians need a news service that tells their story on the world stage.  They need to hear the story of the Church that mentions people and countries never

The Parable of the Plague

[another modern-day parable] ‘We are going to Ross-on-Wye today,’ announced the master to his disciples.  It was market day in the popular, English town near Wales, and this plan did not seem all that surprising to the disciples.  When they arrived, however, the master led them to St. Mary’s churchyard.  There, in front of the Plague Cross, the master began to teach.  A small crowd began to gather, thinking that they might overhear a tour guide explain some things about the old church and the town’s history. ‘A plague of death has descended upon this land,’ began the master.  ‘It has taken the lives of thousands.  Within a few days of contracting this awful disease, people die.  They are sealed up in their houses, abandoned by fearful relatives; their deaths are painful and lonely.  Bodies are hastily dumped into a pit each night.  Lime is thrown on top, then some dirt, and the process is repeated the following day.  The plague is spread from person to person, but people do not