Hey gang!
Starting to feel good again as after two postings, the blog is up to about 30 reads a day. Glad you guys are here and giving some thought and feedback, whether in comments or in emails. Thanks for the mostly positive feedback from yesterday's post.
Late last night, as I do on a lot of evenings when my wife is watching Netflix, I started looking through news stories and commentaries and I found an interesting one on Duck Dynasty guru, Phil Robertson. I have to tell you that I really like the guy. I may not agree with everything that rolls out of his mouth, but overall I like him.
The article I read was from ABC News and talked about his new book, UnPHILtered, The Way I See It. When you can throw your name into a title, you know you are cool, LOL. Anyhow, the link to the article is here.
In the article, Robertson spoke to ABC's Ryan Owens about the book and his comments from last year that got him in a little trouble with some people. In his December comments, actually from an interview he recently had done with GQ magazine, Robertson called homosexuality a sin, didn't recall any mistreatment of blacks in his growing years in Louisiana and said that Nazis needed Jesus. On the last one, I can firmly say that everyone needs Jesus, not just the Nazis. In another ABC story from that time, he was quoted as saying that he "will not give or back off from my path." He stated, further into the first story, that the comments in question were actually scripture verses, which he didn't think would offend anyone.
In the latest article, Robertson tells Owens that he'll let people read the book and decide. "So people can read it and decide for themselves, but people need to get it in their head, dude, I don't hate anybody."
Truthfully, I believe he is being sincere. You don't have to. It is your opinion, but I will, in the case of Phil Robertson, give him the benefit of the doubt. You may say that I don't know him and you would be correct. My thought on Robertson is this: He has not been caught doing anything that gives me a reason to distrust him. All of us have said things we wished we wouldn't have said, but there hasn't been a pattern of words or actions to have doubt. We see these type opinions in politics all the time. However, the difference is that some politicians cross the line too many times with both and we are forced to see why distrust is in order.
I'm not here to debate black treatment in the south in the 1960's, nor am I calling for Nazis or any other race to need Jesus any more than anyone else. However, what I want to talk about today is Phil's statement about how his words were scripture and not his own words.
I appreciate that Robertson didn't back down from God's Word when called on it. He pretty much claimed his statements. He took a stand. The only difference I might say here is that when we use scripture to paint a picture of or for people, those words become ours, even if they were first noted in scripture.
When I quote scripture, I try (and we all should) to learn where it came from in the Bible. I won't say that we always need to be saying "chapter and verse" notations at the end of a quote, but we should give people a reference point when needed. If I am going to talk about why homosexuality shouldn't happen, I could quote Leviticus 20:13, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
Let's branch out a little more on this though. Leviticus 20, starting in verse 10 and going to verse 21, God's Word is not just talking about homosexual relations here. Moses is writing also about other forms of sexual impurity that are not to be tolerated in his time. That includes adultery (verse 10), boys sleeping with their mothers (verse 11), bigamy of marrying both mother and daughter (verse 14), sex with animals (verses 15-16), sibling marriage (verse 17), and relational marriage (verse 17, 19-21).
My question is from this text, why in the 4000 years or so since, is homosexuality the one sin that stands out in our current culture. I hate to tell anyone sleeping under a rock that ALL of the other topics in the preceding paragraph are still happening around the world. I want you to understand that I am not beating a banner to say that one or any of these are acceptable, according to God's Word since Leviticus.
I want to be fair here in saying though that if you wish to "cast the first stone" at homosexuals, then why not the others. The casting of stones is a story of an adulterous female in John 8. In the story, a woman is brought before Jesus by the Pharisees (the upstanding people of Jesus' day) and they remind Jesus that by law, this woman is to be stoned. The Pharisees then put the ball in Jesus' court by asking Him what He thinks about that. He finally responds in verse 7 with, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
This is where Jesus begins to show us that we are to act differently than the world expects from us. After all the men left in verse 9, he asks her where her accusers are in verse 10. Once she realizes that they have all gone, he shares with her in verse 11, "Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin." As Rebecca St. James eloquently puts it, "Go and sin no more!"
I am not going to sit here and debate whether homosexuality is sin or not. The Bible has spoken. However, the Bible has also spoken on many other things as sin. What bothers me most about sin and it's lack of being forgiven on earth by people is that we judge which sin is worse than another. We tell people that this sin makes you unlovable by people in our community, in our workplace, in our schools, even in our churches. I might be able to forgive you for speeding and running over my foot. However, I might not be able to forgive you if you shoot my head off with a semi-automatic rifle.
One of my high school English teachers once told me of a phrase she liked to use, "We don't smoke and we don't chew and we don't like boys who do." So in her world, if you smoked or chewed, you were outcast from her world. ALL of us do the same thing. We may not give it a mantra, but we all decide where the sins rate in our minds and we judge people.
James gives us a standard which we should all strive for in the fourth chapter of his book of the Bible. Starting in verse 11, "Brothers, don not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgement on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?"
If you have ever read "The Scarlet Letter" for English class, you know the story is of a woman caught in shame of adultery and is forced to wear the letter "A" on her garment as a reminder of her sin. The sin itself was not the reminder, but every day when she put on her clothes, it was there. The memory of the sin was there. Have you ever felt like, whatever your sin is today, you are being forced to wear it, by your memory or by someone else continuing to be unforgiving to you because of that sin? It doesn't have to be that way.
Jesus does not want you to walk through your entire life feeling like you can't be forgiven. He wants to take our sins, as David says in Psalm 103:12, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." He wants us to throw that letter in the trash and let the garbage man take it to the landfill, never to be seen again. He wants to forgive whatever your sin is. Ask Him and walk away from the sin. Go and sin no more!
I can't promise you that people are anywhere near as forgiving as Jesus is. Someone used to say all the time, "I can forgive what you did, but you still have to deal with the consequences." You see that happen over and over again in the Bible. The sin was removed, but people still had to live with the decisions. David in his adultery, Moses in not getting to see the Promised Land, and the list goes on. Just remember that Jesus is with you and as I said in the last post, go find people that will help you stay away from sin and encourage you on the road of righteousness.
I love you guys!
Frank
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