you could say He was totally silent on bestiality too.

But in fact, He was silent on neither…Jesus gave the Law to Moses…and made it quite clear. When the Church is having immorality shoved in their face with the insistence that we accept it, the answer has to be “no!” and here’s why, and here’s the solution. With EVERY sin.

SRH

I agree with you in objecting to the way some people are shove their views on certain stances in their faces. However, maybe it gives us a feeling of how non-churchgoers feel when the church presents the gospel in a way that can easily be considered as being aggressive and shoving Jesus in people’s faces. I do not think all churches act in this way by any means but there are some forms of evangelism which make me really cringe.

With regard to Jesus’ take on this subject I am far more concerned about the things that Jesus did get steamed up about and which we know what his feelings were because he made them plain. ie pride, envy, gossip, hypocrisy etc on which he had an awful lot to say, and which appear to be rife in many of our churches without a hair being turned or much issue being made or taken with people who display or even in some cases, actively pursue such qualities.

And finally, and this is where I wade in really deep almost over my head, but there is one section of the inspired, authoritative, infallible and inerrant (to take the strongly Calvinist viewpoint on Scripture) Word of God that most teachers tend to shy away from because the implications are too much for most people to envisage. We are informed in Scripture that Jesus was tempted in every way (by ‘every sin’) known to man but was without sin” I think we are fine about the ‘was without sin’ part of the Scripture, but I would like to ask …what does ‘tempted in every way’ actually mean…”tempted in every way…as the verse states or “tempted in every way except this sin or that sin etc etc” whereby we strike out those particular sins which we cannot envisage Jesus ever being tempted by until we have a list of sins that Jesus was tempted by that we find palatable.

I shall now retire to await the firing squad!

Joanie D.

That saying was not from Augustine.

It was from one of the Lutheran fathers of 17th century…

Peter Meiderlin

http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/unitas/essrev.html

Also going back on the idea of presenting the Gospel, I can only go back to one of the principles of the First Protestants (the Lutherans) on their distinction of Law and Gospel. If you look at the text of Paul in Athens, you can see that Paul was dumping on them the Law - in Act 17:24. This verse is a summary of the first Table of the Law. So after stating this, he gives them The Gospel, see Acts 17:31.

Paul was rather looking for ways to apply the Law/Gospel story to them. I would not consider this as representing the Gospel as if the story needs to be modified for certain cultures.

The Law is already written in all people’s hearts, it is the Gospel that is not and always has to come from the outside of us coming in.

As for the homosexual who is already terrified by his sin, what he needs is not the Law because it is doing its job already, bringing us to despair, what he needs is the Gospel, that for Christ’s sake God punished his sin in Christ and now propels him to find his all in all in Christ.

LPC

Thanks.

Joanie D.