Ephesians 5: "Shameful even to speak"

[Ken]

Ken,

Homosexuality, transsexuality, weird fetishes like “furries”, and pedophilia actually are disgusting and sickening, though.

There is no excuse for trying to celebrate or publicly praise these things. As the Bible teaches us, they are wrong, indecent, and “God’s righteous decree is that those who do such things deserve to die”.

Luke 16:18 states "“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

And

Leviticus 20:10 states “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

Deuteronomy 22:22 says something similar: "If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel."

And you know what? I have seen 2nd marriages celebrated and publicly praised, even ones involving professed Christians and Anabaptists within my own extended family.

God allowed divorce and remarriage though-divorce is hated by God, should not be celebrated. But die to hardness of hearts He allowed it.
Homosexuality was never condoned and it should not be paraded as it is something to be proud of.
Its speaks against Gods Creation and Satan knows and loves mocking His Creation and satan hates marriage, representative of Gods design and Christ and His Bride the Church. Thirty years ago Ken, would you have defending this open celebration or have you always believed they should parade & push it on the public? You can't tell me this should be normalized- have we fallen that far?

It really depends on which verses you choose to focus on doesn't it? If we were to rank all of these sins based on the amount of attention the Bible gives to them I doubt homosexuality would even make it into the top 20. And virtually all of the verses addressing homosexuality are focused on men. Gay women get off almost Scott free in the Bible. I'm neither gay nor divorced and so don't feel it is really my place to be judgmental about either.

In any event, as to your question. 30 years ago I was living in Washington DC on temporary rotation and living in an apartment on 17th street in Dupont Circle. The DC pride parade passed right by my front door. It was frankly pretty transgressive and flamboyant. Today 30-years later they are completely changed and mostly corporate. I saw the one in Portland a year or two ago and it was 75% corporate floats with ordinary looking folks in matching t-shirts and pretty boring. The flamboyant types seemed to mostly be an after thought. Sure you can probably find Twitter video clips of people doing transgressive stuff. But if you stand there and watch the whole parade go by it is very boring and corporate and mostly stuff like Verizon, Nike, AT&T, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, local hospital chains, etc. with a bunch of ordinary folks wearing corporate-branded t-shirts and handing out corporate-branded swag. In another decade or two if that trend continues, gay folks will probably barely bother to show up and it will just be corporations doing their own self-interested messaging. Shrug. There is nothing in America that doesn't get completely commercialized to the point of meaninglessness including pride month.

[Valerie]

Do you think homosexuality wasn't mentioned a lot as you say because it wasn't something that people following God tended to struggle with? When you think about it the Bible is for people who are trying to love God and live according to his ways. I don't think there needs to be a lot said about homosexuality because it is not a common human weakness. But He did reger to it as an abomination and most Christians until recently have the impression by reading through his word that was the wickedness crying out to God that caused Sodom and Gomorrah to be destroyed. Yes there were other sins that Sodom and Gomorrah had but I don't think Sodom and Gomorrah became the way they were overnight there was a gradual accepting and then they became what they became- and therefore lot was told to grab his family and get out-
I think America is becoming increasingly more like Sodom and Gomorrah and all the ways that they did not just the homosexuality but certainly with it being paraded is flying in the face of God's teaching. Who would have thought we'd never see the day when libraries had drag queens come in to read to the children?? Romans 1 explains this- our pastor recently went through Romans 1. I think he needs to periodically remind the church. Our pastor is not political so he just reads God's word ask us to do the same and draw our conclusions. Right now he is in the book of Jude.-

5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the lord, having saved the people out of the land of egypt, after we're destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but let their own abode, he has reserved an everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries"
Doesn't this sound eerily familiar? As Jude just said, we seem to need reminded.

[Valerie]

That being said, how do we apply mercy? Last year when Roe v Wade was overturned, there was a rather small but loud group of protesters continually showing up at our town square. They were quite the angry mob and not only were protesting against pro-life but many were dressed in rainbow type clothing so there was a combination of we will show you type attitudes. How does one apply mercy to an angry mob promoting sin?

We've been talking about Pharisees and not to be like one and who wants to be a Pharisee?? When the Pharisees questioned Jesus in Matthew 9 because He was eating with tax collectors and sinners.
"When Jesus heard that, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

How do you apply mercy which also, according to what Jesus just said, had a certain expectation of repentance? What I am sensing from the crowds is that they don't want repentance they want acceptance and then Christians that are going down the slippery slope of acceptance don't seem to be concerned for their souls and their future eternity-
What does mercy look like to an angry mob that wants their sin accepted and celebrated? You implied D&Rs expect the same. Are they the same? How did we get here? I know I've read the implications that many anabaptist groups blame those who have been married and divorced for opening the door to now what we see in the lgbtq promotion. But even Jesus allowed for divorce when there has been sexual immorality in the marriage. Or in the case we're an unbeliever leaves the marriage said Apostle Paul.

[Grace]

The title of the thread is "Shameful even to speak". Shamefully the Bidens hosted a "Pride Event" on Saturday at which time they hung a rainbow flag between two American flags. At the Biden White House event there was some baring of female body parts. The lack of shame and evilness is beyond reprehensible.

[Valerie]

The title of the thread is "Shameful even to speak". Shamefully the Bidens hosted a "Pride Event" on Saturday at which time they hung a rainbow flag between two American flags. At the Biden White House event there was some baring of female body parts. The lack of shame and evilness is beyond reprehensible.

That is because Obama who lied when he said marriage is for one man and one woman when he was running the first time, then being a hypocrite lit up the White House in rainbow colored lights had a party at the White House and told the gay activist "this is your country now." How prophetic was that!!" There was a minister that was at a gay pride parade or celebration who was there praying. A policeman walked up to him and told him to quit doing that. When the policeman walked away he began to pray again the policeman came back and handcuffed him and took him away.

Get used to it. George Soros just announced that he is retiring and his son is taking his place and furthering the cause according to him of the lgbtq rights and liberal prosecutors and abortion rights, I think this is why as Ken pointed out corporations are getting on board because George Soros funds corporations and people that will promote these ideologies. He is a proclaimed atheist therefore from a spiritual battle point of view he is using his money for evil and to promote evil because he has no fear of God and neither do those who are jumping on the bandwagon.

[Bootstrap]

Admittedly i am having a very hard time with the LGBTQ community.

Me too. That's a struggle I am close to, both in my family and in my denomination.

The title of the thread is "Shameful even to speak". Shamefully the Bidens hosted a "Pride Event" on Saturday at which time they hung a rainbow flag between two American flags. At the Biden White House event there was some baring of female body parts. The lack of shame and evilness is beyond reprehensible.

Donald Trump has also been pretty loud about things that are shameful to speak of - promising that his courses can teach people how to seduce married women, saying he can touch women's private parts in public and nobody can do anything about it, bragging that he can walk into the dressing room when minor females are naked at his beauty pageants.

The world is, in fact, worldly. Neither Biden nor Trump stands for Christian morality.

But we should. And we should stop acting as though the political sphere is the place where we do that.

[Ken]

The title of the thread is "Shameful even to speak". Shamefully the Bidens hosted a "Pride Event" on Saturday at which time they hung a rainbow flag between two American flags. At the Biden White House event there was some baring of female body parts. The lack of shame and evilness is beyond reprehensible.

Yes, flags and skin. it is so shameful and evil when that happens at White House events, isn't it?

[Bootstrap]

The title of the thread is "Shameful even to speak". Shamefully the Bidens hosted a "Pride Event" on Saturday at which time they hung a rainbow flag between two American flags. At the Biden White House event there was some baring of female body parts. The lack of shame and evilness is beyond reprehensible.

Yes, flags and skin. it is so shameful and evil when that happens at White House events, isn't it?

When a First Lady has been a nude model, with photos widely available on the Web, that's "bare skin" too, I think.

But perhaps we should scale this back? We d o not need to speak of all the shameful things politicians do. Especially not to defend them. And we certainly do not need to believe every prurient rumor that people make up about politicians on "the other side" either.

We need to get our minds out of the gutter. As Ephesians 5 teaches us.

[Soloist]

At the same time, there is nothing more perverse about homosexuality, transgenders or pedophilia compared to pornography.

We seem to forget that they all are perverse and the root is lust. For out of the heart of these people flow forth lust and the sin of adultery is just as bad as the sin of homosexuality.
Mercy to those who are ignorant, mercy to those who are lost in addiction… ready to extend them a helping hand but never tolerating the sin.

[Grace]

Bootstrap post_id=195189 time=1686663650 user_id=67]

When a First Lady has been a nude model, with photos widely available on the Web, that's "bare skin" too, I think.

But perhaps we should scale this back? We d o not need to speak of all the shameful things politicians do. Especially not to defend them. And we certainly do not need to believe every prurient rumor that people make up about politicians on "the other side" either.

We need to get our minds out of the gutter. As Ephesians 5 teaches us.

Yet you just spoke of the shameful and gutter minded, things Trump and Melania did. (And the they both did shameful things which I will not defend).

Why is it that some here, always are very quick to bring up the shameful things about Trump, yet when we are reminded that Biden has done equally as shameful things, we are chided as having our minds in the gutter. And when we point out the shameful things that happen under the current president, it is equated to defending Trump, when no one here has done that.

BTW, Melania Trump wasn't bearing her body parts on the White House lawn at a presidential event. And the shameful indecent exposure on the White House lawn at a Biden endorsed event is not a prurient rumor. I would post the many links on the matter, but won't, because it is so disgusting.