I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
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. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges (or will judge) those outside.
"Purge the evil person from among you."
I Corinthians 5:13 (ESV)
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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
I Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV)
I read that the new Bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire said that he
was told
by God that he needed to be the Bishop of New Hampshire. The whole of the
Bible testifies to the contrary. The new Bishop says that he can help his
homosexual brethren more by being a good Bishop than by being a good
homosexual. As the times grow more evil and evil is called good in the
United States groups that represent degeneracy in society are clamoring for
their right to degrade society as a whole by making degeneracy the norm.
The new Bishop is an icon for degeneracy as the normative behavior for
society. He committed adultery with his male lover and then divorced his
wife. He has been living with his lover for the past 13 years. It is
difficult to find a precedent in so advanced a nation without looking back to
the Roman Empire. The Bishop is a member holding office in a church that
is called Christian. The election of him to any official capacity is in
violation of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments. He was already a
priest when he committed adultery and was living with his homosexual lover and
should have been purged from among the congregation immediately. However,
he was able to rise within the ranks of the church and win people to the cause
of the homosexual being legitimized in the church. He was able to exploit
the lax attitude of the Episcopal Church regarding adultery, sexual immorality,
and homosexuality to have survived to this point. If he prayed to a god
and got an answer affirming his conduct, it was not the God of the Bible.
Jesus said:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Matthew 5:27-32
The Bishop affirms rebellion against God and the Lord Jesus Christ by insisting that continuing in sin in a unrepentant fashion and not changing his behaviors should be acceptable to the Episcopal Church.
Homosexuality is a consequence of our rebellion against the lordship of God and is described in detail in Romans 1:18–32. In verses 26–28 Paul writes:
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.
In his letter to Timothy Paul puts homosexuality in with other sins that people are not to practice:
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
I Timothy 1:9–10.
Revelation 12 speaks of a future day when there will be a final cosmic conflict between the angels of God under Michael and the angels of Satan (Rev. 12:3f). Even if one does not hold to a futuristic view of Revelation, this passage still reveals several undeniable facts.
Because the activity of these wicked angels is identical with that of the evil spirits and demons found in Scripture, they must represent the same evil creatures.
Edward F. Murphy, Handbook for Spiritual Warfare [computer file], electronic ed. of the revised and updated edition, Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ©1996 by Edward F. Murphy.
The Bishop is a kind of benign worker for the kingdom of Satan as is described in Revelation. Anyone who is slightly aware of spiritual warfare realizes that the Bishop has opened a major portal into the Episcopal Church for the kingdom of Satan. How much legal territory is under the dominion of Satan is anyone's guess and the same is true for that gained in the Episcopal Church. Many of the Primates of the Anglican Church have notably censured the election of the Bishop. It would be better to cut any ties with the Episcopal Church in the United States immediately rather than suffer loss of the entire Anglican communion to Satan. The Bishop has authority, spiritual authority over those in New Hampshire and holds to the doctrines of Satan and the doctrines of men that are against God. It may be that his corrupting influence is only intended for the area of sexual sins to be legitimized in the church, although it is hard to believe people need any help with sexual sin as we are naturally adept at it. The rejection of the Bible as authoritative in the Episcopal Church is not homogeneously uniform in the Episcopal Church. Church authorities such as Bishop Spong have had tough sledding in trying to convince all lay members of the need of the universal rejection of scriptural authority of the Bible. So far a lot of the adulation for his advocacy of apostatizing doctrines that he lifts above the authority of the Bible has been mainly confined to a cult movement within the Episcopal Church. The believers in the Episcopal Church have not wholly adopted heresy and have rejected apostasy for the most part. The Methodists were established in the United States because John Wesley reacted to the corruption of the Church of England and rejected that corruption. It is interesting that now some of the Methodists are attempting to rewrite the Bible according to what they think is right.
Homosexuality was widespread in biblical times in both the Old and New Testament periods. Worst of all such activities were supported and encouraged by the nature-fertility cults and religions of the day. While the fertility cults in their more "idealistic" form featured heterosexual cultic prostitution, it also included homosexual activities, along with bestiality and other almost indescribable sexual evils.
John McClintock and James Strong write that the Hebrew word translated "sodomite" in the King James Version of the Old Testament
was employed . . . for those who practiced as a religious rite the abominable and unnatural vice from which the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah have defined their lasting infamy . . . This dreadful "consecration" [of the male prostitutes to the gods] or rather, desecration, was spread in different forms over Phoenicia (the land of Canaan), Syria, Phrygia, Assyria and Babylonia. Ashtaroth, the Greek Astarate, was its chief object. It appears also to have been established at Rome.
Some of the converts from the pagan religions of Paul’s day had been practicing homosexuals. Writing to the Corinthian church the apostle says:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. (I Corinthians 6:9–11)
In this passage Paul lists the sins common in the Gentile world of his day especially prevalent in Corinth and other centers of commerce and pagan religious shrines and temples. Ellicott writes that
The mention of gross sensual sins (fornication, adultery and two words for homosexuality, "effeminate and homosexuals") in connection with idolaters point to the fact that they were particularly associated in the ritual of the heathen, which, of course, intensified the danger against which the Apostle warns the Corinthians. (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:19–20; I Timothy 1:9–10; Titus 1:12)
The Greek word malakos translated "effeminate" has troubled commentators. All effeminate men are not homosexuals, just as all masculine women are not lesbians. Its contextual use here, however, would imply some gross form of sexual sin, probably involving non-heterosexual sexual sin.
Vine says it is used here "not simply of a male who practices forms of lewdness, but persons in general, who are guilty of addiction to sins of the flesh, voluptuous." G. G. Findlay agrees, saying it signifies "general addiction to sins of the flesh."
F. W. Grosheide takes a stronger stand, however. He says the words "effeminate men and abusers of themselves with men designate passive and active homosexuals respectively."
The idea of fixed passive and active roles in homosexuality is a stereotype not compatible with the facts, John White says. Homosexuals can and do change roles at will. However, although one cannot be certain that both malakos (effeminate) and arsenokoitai (abusers of themselves with mankind) refer to passive and active roles in homosexuality, the evidence would point in that direction.
Gordon D. Fee, writing in his commentary on I Corinthians, says that the evidence supports Grosheide’s position. "Effeminate" probably refers to young men who sold themselves to older men as their mistresses, and to young cult prostitutes who took the more passive role. He supports the niv which translates the words "neither male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders."
No matter how we view some of these words, the widespread practice of homosexuality is probably referred to here twice (I Corinthians 6:9). This, with I Corinthians 5:9–11, would form the apostle’s list of the sinful conduct the Corinthians were guilty of before coming to Christ.
William Barclay says the following about the word pornoi, translated "fornicators" in I Corinthians 6:9, "The word that is used for fornicators is an especially unpleasant word, it means male prostitute. It must have been hard to be a Christian in the tainted atmosphere of Corinth."
Barclay records some interesting suggestions on the word malakos translated "effeminate" in the KJV and NAS. He translates it "sensualists" and has some insightful comments on "abusers of themselves with mankind" (KJV) and arsenokoitai, translated homosexuals (NAS):
We have left the most unnatural sin to the end—there were those who were homosexuals. This was the sin which had swept like a cancer through Greek life and which, from Greece, invaded Rome. We can scarcely realize how riddled the ancient world was with it.
Even so great a man as Socrates practiced it; Plato’s dialogue The Symposium is always said to be one of the greatest works on love in the world, but its subject is not natural but unnatural love. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors practiced unnatural vice.
At this very time Nero* was emperor. He had taken a boy called Sporus and had had him castrated. He had then married him with a full ceremony and took him home in procession to his palace and lived with him as wife . . .
In this particular vice in the time of the Early Church the world was lost to shame; and there can be little doubt that that was one of the main causes of its degeneracy and the final collapse of its civilization.
Edward F. Murphy, Handbook for Spiritual Warfare [computer file], electronic ed. of the revised and updated edition, Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ©1996 by Edward F. Murphy.
*Nero (A. D. 37-68), fifth emperor of Rome and the last of the Julio-Claudian line. Born in 37 at Antium, Nero was the son of Agrippina the Younger, great-granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. In 49 the widowed Agrippina married her uncle, Emperor Claudius I, and persuaded him to adopt her son. Claudius married Nero to his daughter Octavia. On Claudius's death in 54, Nero became emperor at the age of 17. The initial five years of Nero's reign were marked by moderation and clemency, but in 59 he had his mother put to death and in 62 he divorced (and later executed) Octavia and married his mistress.
In 64 much of Rome burned. Nero rebuilt the city, but the building programs, like the spectacles and free grain he provided for the populace, were financed by plundering Italy and the provinces. Meanwhile, the empire was in turmoil. Revolts broke out in Britain (60-61) and in Judea (66-70). In 68 the Praetorian Guards and several legions rose against Nero. He fled Rome and committed suicide on June 9.
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