Ephesians 5: "Shameful even to speak"

[temporal1]

I love the way the one pastor reached out to Rosaria Butterfield- she was a lesbian atheist and I think he wrote some letters to her and they began communicating and he just kept asking her questions. She became a believer and left the lesbian lifestyle. She is married and a pastor's wife.

Yes, I really like her. She's local. I haven't met her, but I know a handful of people who have met her.

https://rosariabutterfield.com/

I didn't realize this thread had changed into a topic of Pharisees and I started a thread on modern day Pharisees yesterday not realizing you have this conversation going already. I thought it was still a topic of Ephesians 5 going on here.

What i see is a problem is that it's assumed that people have a Pharisee Spirit if we are discussing the lgbtq topic and it seems like that's all we're focused on is other people's sins.

I don't think that's what Christians are doing.

I think that Christians are very concerned that the sins in the lgbtq community are being exalted to the point that they are not even considered sins that need repenting of.

Therein lies at least my concern and the concern of many I know. I listen to a recent radio broadcast of Rosaria Butterfield and yes that pastor took a great deal of time with her.

But he was not just trying to be friends they were intentionally having discussions that eventually led to her coming out of her sin.

Her own concern is that Christians have become weak in this area of sharing truth.

I have heard other people that have come out of the homosexual lifestyle say similar things- but our society keeps pushing people to exalt the lgbtq community and have pride month!

So when you say that we're focusing on the sin I think it is more that we are trying to convey that there is still sin in this community that needs to be repented of not paraded as something to be proud of.

How can people feel the need to repent of sin if it's not considered sin?

Aren't we then endorsing a behavior that could lead them right to hell?

Well said, Valerie.
It’s hard to believe secular laws, and cultural pressures are are now strongly against even suggesting calling sin, sin; there are laws against counseling for help.

It’s not organic.

I nearly overlooked your new related thread, I hope GaryK finds it. Above, he has a pertinent direct question:

Modern Day Pharisees:
viewtopic.php?t=5759

[Jazman]

I have heard other people that have come out of the homosexual lifestyle say similar things- but our society keeps pushing people to exalt the lgbtq community and have pride month! So when you say that we're focusing on the sin I think it is more that we are trying to convey that there is still sin in this community that needs to be repented of not paraded as something to be proud of.

Has this community not heard this message (from us, from countless 'christian' orgs and politicians) already?
If you asked a member of the LGBTQ community how often they've heard "they should repent and stop parading it, etc etc" what do you think they would say?

I believe I've listened to the Rosaria Butterfield story as well and was moved by it. But you nor I know the full details of all her interactions with that pastor. But I did not get the impression that he was hitting her (or even just little love-tapping) her with 'truth' immediately... I did not get the impression he had intentionally made her a 'project' to set straight and I think that's why it turned out to be a success (but again, I could be wrong on that assumption). Here's a related question:

Could you interact with an LGBTQ community member, as gently/patiently as possible and continue to do so, even if they decided to not take your advice (truth?) and continue in their lifestyle? For the rest of your life/their life?
At what point would "conveying / telling" them about their sin, be the tool that the Holy Spirit may want back for Himself, so He can empower us to try a different tool/approach?

[temporal1]

I wonder if this is apropos? (Prophetic Anger or Personal Anger?)

The young woman appears to have “aced” the ability to recite back to her teachers/professors what they want to hear, to get an A in class. She seems happy with herself.

I haven’t been in school for decades, but lots of teachers fall into this. Few avoid it.

YMMV

[Soloist]

Could you interact with an LGBTQ community member, as gently/patiently as possible and continue to do so, even if they decided to not take your advice (truth?) and continue in their lifestyle? For the rest of your life/their life?
At what point would "conveying / telling" them about their sin, be the tool that the Holy Spirit may want back for Himself, so He can empower us to try a different tool/approach?

I think part of this depends.
A guy or a girl homosexual has relatively no impact relationally. You can eat with them, help them with projects/problems without issue.
I worked with a lesbian, she was my boss basically and we had no issues. We had at least one conversation about my beliefs which came up organically and didn’t spend any time talking about her sin. My belief was obvious as to what my answer would have been if asked.
I approached it the same basic way I conversed with my D/R “christian” coworker, the same one who refused the vaccine and then refused to follow her agreement to wear an N95.
They knew where I stood and we got along.
As for a transgender… that gets much more sticky in terms of being involved in their sin. Names… maybe you don’t know their original name… not much you can do there, pronouns though I believe are sharing in sin as you are basically either affirming them or condemning them. You might be able to for a while and use gender neutral terms but eventually something will happen. I knew if I ever encountered one I would probably end up getting fired or have to quit. Not because I dislike them… as it goes I had two complaints at my work, One because the person asked me my views and they had a transgender daughter and then complained after I shared. The other got annoyed about vaccines despite having asked me.
Thankfully neither of those amounted to anything.

[Valerie]

I have heard other people that have come out of the homosexual lifestyle say similar things- but our society keeps pushing people to exalt the lgbtq community and have pride month! So when you say that we're focusing on the sin I think it is more that we are trying to convey that there is still sin in this community that needs to be repented of not paraded as something to be proud of.

Has this community not heard this message (from us, from countless 'christian' orgs and politicians) already?
If you asked a member of the LGBTQ community how often they've heard "they should repent and stop parading it, etc etc" what do you think they would say?

I believe I've listened to the Rosaria Butterfield story as well and was moved by it. But you nor I know the full details of all her interactions with that pastor. But I did not get the impression that he was hitting her (or even just little love-tapping) her with 'truth' immediately... I did not get the impression he had intentionally made her a 'project' to set straight and I think that's why it turned out to be a success (but again, I could be wrong on that assumption). Here's a related question:

Could you interact with an LGBTQ community member, as gently/patiently as possible and continue to do so, even if they decided to not take your advice (truth?) and continue in their lifestyle? For the rest of your life/their life?
At what point would "conveying / telling" them about their sin, be the tool that the Holy Spirit may want back for Himself, so He can empower us to try a different tool/approach?

Yes. Actually i do. I've had two young lgbtq coworkers in the last year, one presently. One already knew what my position probably was because she throws it at me occasionally but she also always comes to my register as a customer and I have given her a ride home from work and got out of my way to help her before. I have not hit her as you're implying. The coworker I presently am working with is 24 and he is the one that told me him and his two siblings are all lgbtq.. I honestly don't think he sees me as harsh at all. We've had little discussions. He brought it up to me because he said his grandparents are Christians and do not accept them. I had to clarify to him that it's not a question of accepting them it's a question of the fact that they believe the Bible and what God teaches about it and that loving them does not mean affirming their choices so that he would understand the difference. He talks to me all the time about all kinds of things.

What is presently happening is there is a member of the lgbtq community who has for the last couple of years done lectures on how Christians misinterpret the bible. Regarding homosexuality. He is twisting the scriptures to conform to their agenda and now he came out with a book about it. What this will do is a firm to the gay community that living in these relationships is not sin. At all. Do you think this is a good approach for the gay community to reinterpret the scriptures and spread that across the country by way of a book and lectures? Because what is happening are younger Christians now believe that their parents and older Christians have misinterpreted God's message regarding homosexuality.

[Bootstrap]

Could you interact with an LGBTQ community member, as gently/patiently as possible and continue to do so, even if they decided to not take your advice (truth?) and continue in their lifestyle? For the rest of your life/their life?
At what point would "conveying / telling" them about their sin, be the tool that the Holy Spirit may want back for Himself, so He can empower us to try a different tool/approach?

I think part of this depends.
A guy or a girl homosexual has relatively no impact relationally. You can eat with them, help them with projects/problems without issue.
I worked with a lesbian, she was my boss basically and we had no issues. We had at least one conversation about my beliefs which came up organically and didn’t spend any time talking about her sin. My belief was obvious as to what my answer would have been if asked.
I approached it the same basic way I conversed with my D/R “christian” coworker, the same one who refused the vaccine and then refused to follow her agreement to wear an N95.
They knew where I stood and we got along.

I agree.

As for a transgender… that gets much more sticky in terms of being involved in their sin. Names… maybe you don’t know their original name… not much you can do there, pronouns though I believe are sharing in sin as you are basically either affirming them or condemning them. You might be able to for a while and use gender neutral terms but eventually something will happen. I knew if I ever encountered one I would probably end up getting fired or have to quit. Not because I dislike them… as it goes I had two complaints at my work, One because the person asked me my views and they had a transgender daughter and then complained after I shared. The other got annoyed about vaccines despite having asked me.
Thankfully neither of those amounted to anything.

When I worked with transgender people at a very woke company, I just kept using the pronoun "you" and looking directly at them. With others, I used their name to avoid saying "he", "she", or "they". When asked, I would say something like this: "There are some things we disagree about, I don't think that affects our work relationship. If you want to know what I think or why, I could share that with you, but I would want to do that in a way that is safe for both of us. And I want to make sure it doesn't get in the way of us working well together."

[Bootstrap]

What is presently happening is there is a member of the lgbtq community who has for the last couple of years done lectures on how Christians misinterpret the bible. Regarding homosexuality. He is twisting the scriptures to conform to their agenda and now he came out with a book about it. What this will do is affirm to the gay community that living in these relationships is not sin. At all. Do you think this is a good approach for the gay community to reinterpret the scriptures and spread that across the country by way of a book and lectures? Because what is happening are younger Christians now believe that their parents and older Christians have misinterpreted God's message regarding homosexuality.

That's going on all over the place these days. And I do explain, clearly and directly, what I think these texts say and why I think they are being misinterpreted to promote things directly at odds with biblical teaching.

But LGBTQ issues are not the only issues where this happens. Health, wealth, and prosperity gospel is another good example, for instance. Or patriotic militarism. Or dominionism. Or loyalty to political factions. Or worshiping the rich and powerful and shaming the poor. Or Phariseeism. In all of these issues, we need to keep turning back to the core of Scripture in what Jesus said and taught. So how do we do it when we are talking about these other issues?

[Jazman]

I wonder if this is apropos? (Prophetic Anger or Personal Anger?)

The young woman appears to have “aced” the ability to recite back to her teachers/professors what they want to hear, to get an A in class. She seems happy with herself.

I haven’t been in school for decades, but lots of teachers fall into this. Few avoid it.

YMMV

Seriously... that's all you got from it? An assumption about the messenger? (Not anywhere close to the truth btw as I've been listening to her for sometime.) Do you have a counter-argument/point that relates to what she actually said?

[Jazman]

Yes. Actually i do. I've had two young lgbtq coworkers in the last year, one presently. One already knew what my position probably was because she throws it at me occasionally but she also always comes to my register as a customer and I have given her a ride home from work and got out of my way to help her before. I have not hit her as you're implying. The coworker I presently am working with is 24 and he is the one that told me him and his two siblings are all lgbtq.. I honestly don't think he sees me as harsh at all. We've had little discussions. He brought it up to me because he said his grandparents are Christians and do not accept them. I had to clarify to him that it's not a question of accepting them it's a question of the fact that they believe the Bible and what God teaches about it and that loving them does not mean affirming their choices so that he would understand the difference. He talks to me all the time about all kinds of things.

I believe you. In my previous comments I was not assuming you or others with your stance aren't/wouldn't be involved in this way. It sounds like you're having some good interactions.

What is presently happening is there is a member of the lgbtq community who has for the last couple of years done lectures on how Christians misinterpret the bible. Regarding homosexuality. He is twisting the scriptures to conform to their agenda and now he came out with a book about it. What this will do is a firm to the gay community that living in these relationships is not sin. At all. Do you think this is a good approach for the gay community to reinterpret the scriptures and spread that across the country by way of a book and lectures? Because what is happening are younger Christians now believe that their parents and older Christians have misinterpreted God's message regarding homosexuality.

This kind of thing bothers me to... but there's really not much more I can do about it... I can pray. I can be loving, firm, polite, respectful, honoring their God-given dignity, etc, but not much more than that. I'd suggest there's not much more you can do either...
I don't feel I or even my conservative theological community are called by God to do much more than that... Like I said before. the LGBTQ community most likely already knows how we feel about them. All they would have to learn about us is that we go to such&such church and they would instantly know; without me or any of us saying 1 word. So telling them again is pointless, imo.

Secondly, neither do I think we're called to mount some kind of political or cultural movement to tell them Again! or shut them up; passing more laws...etc (to your point about the man twisting Scripture. I'd prefer he not do that; but he does have the Constitutional right and the God's-free-will right to choose this path... so I too must extend those things to him as well.

And finally, in relation to what we can do or should not do - beyond prayerful love/kindness/etc. I wonder if another thing we should do less of is this: harping about it all the time. Bringing 'them' up all the time, every discussion of our culture / context... It is endlessly brought up here; I hear it often in family gatherings, Sunday Schools, sermons and on and on - sometimes it looks like an obsession and to any outsider who happens upon it; it might look like the only sin we care about. It might even look like we are actively using the obsession to ignore the splinters (or bigger?) in our own eyes. I know that's probably not our intention
But that's kind of been my underlying point in this whole thread; When will we be willing to try a different approach other than always talking about 'them' and exhorting each other to more hand-wringing, 'talking' about them or ginning us up to Confront! 'them' Again!

When?

[Bootstrap]

But that's kind of been my underlying point in this whole thread; When will we be willing to try a different approach other than always talking about 'them' and exhorting each other to more hand-wringing, 'talking' about them or ginning us up to Confront! 'them' Again!

Bingo.

And I think the Bible gives us a different approach if we simply follow the example of Jesus. This approach:

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Look to Jesus, purify ourselves, be the Kingdom of God, salt and light to the world around us. But don't be surprised that the world does not get us. Of course they don't. They are "sheep without a shepherd". We should respond as Jesus did.

What is presently happening is there is a member of the lgbtq community who has for the last couple of years done lectures on how Christians misinterpret the bible. Regarding homosexuality. He is twisting the scriptures to conform to their agenda and now he came out with a book about it. What this will do is a firm to the gay community that living in these relationships is not sin. At all. Do you think this is a good approach for the gay community to reinterpret the scriptures and spread that across the country by way of a book and lectures? Because what is happening are younger Christians now believe that their parents and older Christians have misinterpreted God's message regarding homosexuality.

This kind of thing bothers me too... but there's really not much more I can do about it... I can pray. I can be loving, firm, polite, respectful, honoring their God-given dignity, etc, but not much more than that. I'd suggest there's not much more you can do either...

I agree. I can't stop others from misinterpreting Scripture. What I can do is work hard to be true to Scripture when I preach and in materials I create or help create. Again, this isn't terribly different from people who misinterpret Scripture to support the prosperity gospel, militarism, nationalism, political agendas, etc.

And I also believe Valerie when she describes her interactions. My interactions with LGBTQ people are like that too - they don't call me a Pharisee, they know I disagree with them, I think they often seem me as a relic of another time, they find it strange that I put so much emphasis on an ancient book, they want a religion that affirms "who they are", they have bought deeply into an understanding of identity and sexuality that says acting on "who they are" is central to integrity. So there's a gulf between us on this issue. And not just with LGBTQ people, but with mainstream society now. I feel the same gulf with these other issues.

And finally, in relation to what we can do or should not do - beyond prayerful love/kindness/etc. I wonder if another thing we should do less of is this: harping about it all the time. Bringing 'them' up all the time, every discussion of our culture / context... It is endlessly brought up here; I hear it often in family gatherings, Sunday Schools, sermons and on and on - sometimes it looks like an obsession and to any outsider who happens upon it; it might look like the only sin we care about. It might even look like we are actively using the obsession to ignore the splinters (or bigger?) in our own eyes. I know that's probably not our intention
But that's kind of been my underlying point in this whole thread; When will we be willing to try a different approach other than always talking about 'them' and exhorting each other to more hand-wringing, 'talking' about them or ginning us up to Confront! 'them' Again!

I agree. And I just don't see Jesus or Paul doing that.

Here's one indicator: When talking about other sins that are rampant in today's churches, some people will quickly change the subject to LGBTQ, often with dramatic language, sometimes even saying outright that these are the sins we should really be concerned about.