Background:
The following was written to a friend, out of love for the lost and a desire for all to repent and turn back to God (2 Peter 3:9). It was for a professing believer that continued to teach a false gospel and push that false gospel on others. My desire has always been to help steer people away from false doctrine and towards a more Biblical path. I hope that any future reader can gain something from this. – Ben
A Letter to Shannon
My old friend,
I’m writing this article to you in the hope that true repentance will be the result. This is not coming from a hateful heart, but rather one out of love, from a seasoned believer and teacher in Christ Jesus who desires that all people repent and believe in Him for the forgiveness & atonement of sins (Romans 10:9-10). The word repentance means humbly receiving conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit –not ignoring conviction from the Holy Spirit, as He is a person of the Trinity, being God Himself, whose purpose is to be our Helper in the faith according to John 14:16, Ezekiel 36:26-27 and other verses– and after receiving that conviction, wholeheartedly desiring/hating/turning away from that sin (Jude 1:23), asking God for forgiveness of that sin in Christ Jesus (Matthew 6:12, 1 John 1:9), asking for help & strength to not fall again into temptation (Matthew 6:13), and genuinely desiring to turn & run back to God (Hebrews 12:1, Joshua 23:8).
I have spoken about this issue with you both privately and publicly (with Galatians 2:11 as precedent), and you have refused to repent from your public, habitual (continual) sin. The issue here is not the sin itself, as all sin is sin and every sin’s wage is death both physically and spiritually (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:14). The issue is that you say that you are a Christian (meaning, that you wholeheartedly believe/trust that Jesus is your only path to salvation and that if you believe in Him you desire to obey Him), and yet, you not only publicly state this, but also publicly, continually, practice/condone, and teach that sin of homosexuality is okay and Biblical.
I’m writing this to you because you had just posted an article that stated wrongly, that God in His Word (the Bible) never stated that homosexuality was a sin but rather due to translation error, it really meant the sin of paedophilia and therefore the sin of homosexuality is not specifically called out or prohibited in the Bible. (Here is a link to that article: https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/2019/3/8/what-about-romans-124-27). I’ll get to why the article is false in a minute.
In previous talks, we’ve already (privately) discussed two topics on understanding the Bible. For those not in the know, I’ll quote that below:
So, in regards to Scripture, there are two ways to read it: Eisegesis [Icy-Jesus] means that you read the text in whatever way you want (basically using Scripture to preach your own words rather than God’s words). Then there’s Exegesis [Exit-Jesus] which means that you look for the proper context of the verse in question by examining the surrounding verses, comparing it to other verses in the Bible (to make sure that the text in question lines up with what else God has said before. This is important because God is the same always (Hebrews 13:8) and never changes His mind (Numbers 23:19) and God is not the God of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33) so this means any Scripture which seems to contradict the verse you’re looking at needs to be re-examined). There’s also the historical context of who it was written to, what it was written for, when it was written, what language it was originally written in, and any grammatical or contextual nuances of that originating language.
Now Exegesis is Biblical interpretation, and it’s not as hard as it sounds, but it does mean that you must do your research. Why is that? Because false prophets have gone into the world to deceive everyone. (1 John 4:1)
I’m not sure where you are in your walk with Christ, so I apologize that I’ll start from the beginning. If you already know this stuff, just read it and know I’m not trying to talk down to you or anyone.
…
So, I guess the next thing to talk about is sin. Sin is not just mistakes as some people may say, but rather sin is disobedience and outright rebellion to God, God’s Law, and God’s Holiness/Goodness (Isaiah 59:1-2, 1 John 3:4, James 4:17). That’s why sin is talked about like it is in the Bible. It’s not just “I messed up”, but as Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:1-8:
“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
The emotions and response from Isaiah might be lost on us, but this was a man who saw God’s glory (not His full glory mind you), and fell down in fear saying “Woe is me!” or rather “I am a dead man! I’m being ripped apart because of my sin!”. Sin is awful because not only does it separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2) but it also blinds us to the Truth (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). As C.S. Lewis said:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Sin is very dangerous, and to get A LOT of Scripture supporting this claim, I’ll ask you to read the article below. Once you’ve read both of these long messages and that article, tell me what you think.
https://benbrockn.wordpress.com/2018/09/07/do-we-have-free-will/
After this, I politely asked about what your thoughts were on the topic of Exegesis, the meaning of sin, why sin is so dangerous, and the natural state of mankind. You saw that message but never replied to it. I politely asked again to which you replied you were very busy [paraphrasing]. The last I heard from you was on the 6th of June.
Prior to that, I asked you publicly on 15 May to honestly discern what these Scriptures (below) meant, referring to your unrepentant sin but without directly calling it out, out of respect for you. You instead ignored the question:
Shannon, because I love you as a friend and I know you know the truth, at least some of it, I would ask you to honestly answer me what you make of these Scriptures? We can talk in a PM.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)
“But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)
“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)
“Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” (John 14:23-24)
As you can see, we’ve had many talks about the Gospel, and this list wasn’t exhaustive as I had other discussions with you before these.
So now we will get into that article and why it is teaching false doctrine:
First, the article starts talking about how the author noticed a certain Old Testament Scripture verse in the English translation verses a German translation. He then jumps to the Greek in the New Testament and states that a specific word “arsenokoitai” doesn’t exactly translate to “homosexual” but instead “paedophilia”.
This is your first red flag. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not Greek, so you would use the original Hebrew translation not a Greek translation. What they did in the article was sneaky… They looked at the Old Testament in German and other European languages, and then without looking at the original Hebrew, they jump straight to the New Testament to the Greek word “arsenokoitai” which only appears in two verses of the New Testament (not in the Old Testament, because that was written in Hebrew, remember?) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10. And their whole article hangs on this one word, that it was “mistranslated” because “the word homosexual wasn’t even invented until 1862”. This is a straw-man argument since Leviticus 20:13 doesn’t need a new word to convey the same message in a simple phrase –> “a man that lies with a man”.
That Hebrew phrase has a synonym in the Greek (New Testament) called “porneia” (or “pornea“).
They failed to mention the word “pornea” (or “porneia“), which is translated as “sexual immorality”. What does that phrase mean? It’s a broad term that means “anything outside of the scope of sexual intimacy between a one-man and one-woman marriage, as founded by God in Genesis 1 & 2“. If we look back at the Old Testament, we can easily understand why this term “pornea” or “sexual immorality” was used here:
The punishment was death:
- Man having sex with his neighbor’s wife (Leviticus 20:10)
- Man having sex with his father’s wife (Leviticus 20:11)
- Man having sex with daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:12)
- Man having sex with another man as if it were a woman (Leviticus 20:13)
- Man having sex with an animal (Leviticus 20:15)
- Woman having sex with an animal (Leviticus 20:16)
The punishment was branding with a hot iron:
- Man marrying/having sex with a woman and her mother (Leviticus 20:14)
The result was uncleanness, and the punishment was to be exiled until ritually purified:
- Man having sex with his sister (father or mother’s side) (Leviticus 20:17)
- Man having sex with a woman while on her period (Leviticus 20:18)
The punishment was being guilty of disobedience/being shamed/having un-atoned sin:
- Man uncovering the clothing of his mother’s or father’s sister (Leviticus 20:19)
The punishment was specifically from God, the couple would be childless:
- Man having sex with his uncle’s wife (Leviticus 20:20)
- Man having sex with his brother’s wife (Leviticus 20:21)
These are all various (and not all-encompassing) sins against God and others in the form of sexual impurity/immorality. Why is this? Because God called His people to be Holy as He is Holy as we see in the next few verses in Leviticus 20:22-27 (corresponds to 1 Peter 1:15-16).
.
Second, while trying to advocate for paedophilia in these verses, they still fail because they completely ignore the fact that they’re *still talking about a male having sex with another male*, which is still homosexuality regardless of the age of either person. The author shoots themself in the foot trying to differentiate this, and completely skips over that part to push his agenda onto the Holy Word of God.
.
Third, hanging onto only two verses and throwing in some (shady) history as filler, doesn’t make an argument. There aren’t just two verses with the same Greek word in the NT, there are multiple verses in both OT & NT that explicitly state that homosexuality is a sin in the Bible:
- “And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”” – Genesis 19:5
- “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” – Leviticus 18:22
- “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” – Leviticus 20:13
- “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” – Matthew 15:19
- “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” – Romans 1:26-27
- “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ” – 1 Corinthians 5:11
- “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality” – 1 Corinthians 6:9
- “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” – 1 Corinthians 6:13
(I got tired of writing them all out)
- 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
- 1 Corinthians 7:2
- 1 Corinthians 10:8
- Galatians 5:19
- Ephesians 5:3 & 5:5
- Colossians 3:5
- 1 Thessalonians 4:3
- Hebrews 13:4
- Revelation 21:8
Again, the sin you deal with is still sin. The fact is, we’re all broken by sin, each person who is saved by Christ is fighting something – anger, pride, lust, sadness, depression, substance abuse, porn addiction, same-sex attraction, emotional/physical abuse — every Christian, and even every unbeliever is fighting something, which is why Christ alone is the only hope and solution for all people. When it comes to the ultimate effect of sin, homosexuality/sodomy is not “worse” than any other sin but rather on equal footing as lust, or anger, or pride, or lying, or murder, etc… All sin is equally defiant and rebellious against a Holy, Good God (Isaiah 6:3-5, Isaiah 59:1-2, Romans 6:23), even if the consequences of sin are different (as in, lying hurts relationships while murder ends a human life, but both are in rebellion to God).
There is hope in Christ Jesus to have strength to overcome any sin (Psalm 46:1), and there is no shame (condemnation) any more for those who continue on, daily, to wholeheartedly repent, believe, trust, and obey Christ (Romans 8:1). You may endure a lifelong struggle with same-sex attraction as some other Christians do, just as other Christians have a lifelong struggle with anger, or lust, or pride. Do not let the “struggle” get you down (wrestling with temptation, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Ephesians 6:11-13, & James 1:12-16). Even the Apostle Paul struggled with temptation! (Romans 7:15-25). And this is the role of Scripture, to teach us and help us grow closer to Christ, even when we are struggling:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17
But here’s the issue with homosexuality… not that it’s different than any other sin, but that it’s an ongoing, unrepentant sin. It’s living a life contrary to God while praising Him. It is the same thing as praising God while lying daily, or stealing daily, or murdering daily, or raping daily –that’s the point– …it’s not the sin, but the continual act of sinning.
Shannon, by not only practising unrepentant sin, but also teaching this un-Biblical doctrine to others, you are playing with fire — literally. As the Scripture says in James 3:1:
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”
If God judges those who teach with greater strictness, then what will He do to those who twist His Words (Scripture), and teach both believers and unbelievers to not only sin against Him, but that He will love them all the while living in habitual, unrepentant sin? We know what He will do because He states it in His Word, in 2 Peter 2:1-6 & v9:
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.”
The verse below was also a warning to Jerusalem in Ezekiel 24:14, to remind everyone that the wrath of God on sin is coming for those who refuse to repent. For the city of Jerusalem (it’s people), refused to repent for so long, God’s wrath on their sin arrived swiftly and He did not relent:
“I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD.””
In the same vein, by your walk/speech in Christ with unrepentant sin, you are offering up to God strange fire (profane/disrespectful worship), in the same way that Nadab and Abihu decided that they were going to worship God in their own way rather than worship Him according to God’s Way (His Word). What does the Scripture say?
“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.” – Leviticus 10:1-2
As we spoke before, the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God we worship today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), God does not change His mind, lie, or change His Word (Numbers 23:19, 1 Corinthians 14:33, Isaiah 55:10-11). The same God who got righteously angry at people who decided to worship Him in a disrespectful way in Leviticus, was the same God who got righteously angry at people who decided to worship God in a disrespectful way in the Temple (Jesus and the money-changers in John 2:13-17). This is the same God (Jesus) that we worship today as Savior, and the same Savior you proclaim you follow and obey.
Does this not worry you?
What about your friends? The ones who clearly don’t read their Bibles or the atheists who don’t believe in God at all, saying “you do you”, and “love is love”, and “you and God are fine”?
- How do they know what God says or wants?
- How do people who clearly live a life apart from God and can’t understand the Scriptures because they are not saved (1 Corinthians 2:14), know what God actually requires of mankind?
- By what standard do they get that information? Their own opinions? From a worldview that believes that all gods/beliefs/religions are the same and it doesn’t matter in the end?
- By that same worldview that believes they’ll go to Heaven “just because”, to meet a God that they hate and rebel against?
Does that make logical sense to you?
To listen to people who deny the God that they say is completely okay with doing whatever because “love is love”, right? And that I must be a “hater” because I dare speak the Bible which is against secular culture? I mean, it’s no skin off their neck if they’re wrong, right?
In conclusion, this letter to you is my last effort to plead with you to repent and turn back to God. If you ignore these pleads and warnings, and show no signs of repentance, then I will take your actions seriously per the Word of God, and disassociate myself with you as Scripture states:
“But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindlernot even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” – 1 Corinthians 5:11-12
“And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” – Mark 6:11
“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” – James 4:17
If you repent, feel free to contact me.
“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” – Luke 13:3
<Original work by BenBRockN. Feel free to reblog, ONLY if you give credit to the original author (me). Thanks!>