What is Christianity About?

This post was inspired by some thoughts I had while reading the following article along with the comments from locals.
Local religious leaders affirm support for gay marriage

I had intended to post a few of my thoughts as comments directly to ProJo, but the media hand-picks which comments are approved, and obviously my comments did not help their agenda of making Bible-believing Christians look bad.

Rev. Eugene T. Dyszlewski is quoted as saying the following: “We wanted to make the point that there are religious folks who are in favor of same-gender marriage”, “We are opposed to the use of any sacred texts to support any kind of prejudice” and “There’s nothing pathological or wrong about homosexuality.”
Where does the Bible stand on homosexuality? It is a sin (1 Corinthians 6:9). And it’s not an outdated Jewish law code from Leviticus, but a topic addressed in both the New and Old Testament, within and without the Jewish Law. throughout the whole bible that is always presented as morally wrong and offensive to God. With that being said, we will now go a little deeper into the title of this post.

Christ -ianity. The word Christian means follower of Christ. Who was Christ? Christ is the English word translated from the greek word Χριστός (Christós), which can be translated literally as “The Anointed One”. The Hebrew render this same idea with the word מָשִׁיחַ (Mašíaḥ), or as we see it in English, “Messiah”. He rose again 3 days later, conquering death and paving the way for us as sheep to leave the sheepfold into the pastures of freedom of the new life regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ (despite what a minority of modern scholars will attempt to lead you to believe) can be historically verified, but the only true things we know about what he said and did are found in the Bible. As Christians, the only source of information about Yahweh, the Judaism that paved the way for Christ, Christ himself and the early church that he started after his resurrection, is found in the Bible. If you totally remove the Bible, as much as people don’t want to admit this, you remove any idealogical ideas about Christ.

Some people will try to say they believe in Jesus and all that, but that the Bible is outdated etc, and they believe Christ reveals himself to them? Now to those who believe that, where did you first hear about Jesus? It is impossible to say that it was not from the Bible. If you heard about him, or about Christianity from a preacher, or a book, or a friend, or whatever else, the information originally came from the Bible. You cannot separate the two. Now if the only true and original source of information about Jesus and about what he said is the Bible, why would you trust a modern day preacher over the Bible? Why would you trust a modern day pop-psychologist who wrote a book with a trendy title and a trendier book cover, over the Bible? Any idea about Jesus that they are presenting to you is a hybrid of the Jesus of the Bible, and their own ideals.

Look around this country. We have pastors selling out left and right to fill their pews, which in turn fills their pockets. We have red faced preachers slamming the pulpit on Sunday about how wicked America is and being found out on Monday to be living in that same failure. We have preachers claiming to be Jesus Christ himself, traveling around in armored luxury cars with body guards. (Does God need bodyguards?) We have preachers that tell you about how Jesus wants you to have victory in your finances and he wants you to be a millionaire and blah blah, and everyone who truly, deep down inside hates the real Jesus, loves these people. We need to face the facts. Man is unreliable. You might say “The Bible was written by a bunch of men, so whats the difference?”. Well I am not using this post to back up the validity of the Bible, (I will in the future), but logic itself should show you that if you really want to believe in “Jesus”, and the only original information we have about him is from the Bible, and everyone else indirectly gets their information from the Bible and then adds their own little twists on it, that there is only one true source to trust here.

So what exactly is it that biblically historical Jesus would say to the current situation at hand? Are we called to hate homosexuals? are we called to have prejudices and anyone who we deem a “sinner” we should ban from our churches and stay far far away from? No. What, have you done in your own strength, you make yourself worthy of separating yourself from anyone? Nothing. If you are a Christian, you are a Christian because God graced you with the ability to choose his son. So what is the appropriate response? In my opinion, the church as a missional tool should never have any conditions of who is allowed in the service, obviously unless it would cause physical harm or something to others (so if you have a gun on you, we would kindly ask you to leave it at the welcome station). If the church is open to all, for all to hear the gospel, then what you believe in, what your sexual orientation is, what drugs you do, what music you like, what stance you take on anything does not matter and should not matter for your entry to hear the gospel.

Now the part that everyone hates. Not everyone in the church is a Christian. I won’t even try to guess the percentage, but there is definitely a separation between visible church and an invisible church. Just because someone is in the building doesn’t mean they are in the body of Christ, their sins atoned for, their spirit regenerated, and their future decidedly in heaven. For those part of the invisible church, (as most churches try to have some sort of membership system) the Bible has given us clear moral guidelines to follow. Now why do we follow them if we are saved by grace? Truely regenerate people have been given a heart of flesh, upon which, God’s law has been written. They are daily being sanctified to bear more and more of the image of Christ. Works are not for salvation, but they are evidence of it. Now the spirit is willing but the flesh is indeed weak, so using the word we are called to reprove, rebuke and exhort each other with it in order to help each other out. If i see my brother in some grotesque sin, it’s my duty (provided I am not in that same grotesque sin) to point it out to him with the word, also expecting that he will be pointing out something in me. This is incredibly difficult in our society that says “love is accepting of everything.”, but it is biblically what we are called to do. So while it is not wrong for a homosexual to go to church and hear a sermon etc, inviting anyone to become a member who is consciensly unaffected by a sexual immorality (it would go across the board to someone living in fornication or adultery) is a dangerous and unbiblical thing. Does that mean if someone is homosexual and they want to be a Christian they have to change? Well, yes and no. The call to become a Christian is repent and believe. Repentance is turning from sin, changing one’s mind about sin, turning to Christ and taking on his moral standards. Will a Christian be perfect? No, but if we are confronted with a sin, we see biblically that it is wrong, and we blatantly choose to do it with that attitude that we don’t care what God says about the issue, we are treading dangerous waters.

Now the weight isn’t intended to be on the congregation but on the leaders. It is the leaders’ responsibilities to preach the word

How great is the call of preacher! How seriously must he take it! He has been granted a position of leadership over God’s children, and he is entrusted to guide them the best that he can! Mr. Dyszlewski, Mr. Barnes and Mrs. Christopherson I fear for you! You might have good intentions of being more loving, but what is more loving then telling someone about to get hit by a bus to get out of the way? Is love telling them you love them even though they stay in that road? Your love could have all the best intentions but they will still die! And how, all of a sudden, does that love look more and more like hatred! Loving people straight to hell!
We must keep eternity in our minds with every word we preach!