Being gay is not wrong!
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Frankly Answered Questions - FAQs

Being gay is not wrong!

Q: you guys have a lotta nerve to tell people that homosexuality is wrong...You are not God...therefore you DO NOT EVER tell people that being gay or a "queer" is bad. i don't care what is in the bible becuz it also says in there that GOD will love us no matter what we are or who we choose to become and you can not argue against that. I believe that if you feel you are good enough to judge other people u obviously need to step off your stool and take a look around you becuz you are no different than anybody else in this world. you are God's child as are the rest of us and you need to realize that. Oh and about saying that homos are more likely to get std's....ummm....sorry but your just about wrong. any body who has sex knows that there is a chance that they could get an std. sorry but your article..pissed me off and i think you need to take a hard look at yourself...being gay is not wrong. Some guys are born to have a natural attraction to woman...others are born having a natural attraction to guys...vice-versa. You can not control that or change that. Again-- you are not God!!! I think people like you need to die and stop breathing my precious oxygen. You, like a virus, tend to breed and this is why you must be stopped because otherwise you will go around creating other self-righteous weirdos who have nothing better to do than attempt to tell everyone else how wrong they are...HATER!!!!!

A: Thanks for your letter. Even when people don't agree with us, we are thankful to hear from them.

Perhaps you would prefer me not to respond. If that's the case, please just ignore the rest of this reply.

God Loves Me No Matter What?

If you are willing I would like to explore this idea of God loving us. I believe that most people don't think very deeply about this issue and end up spouting clichés about what the Bible and Jesus say, rather than what the Bible and Jesus actually say.

Now it is certainly true that God provides for everyone. The Bible tells us that He sends the rain, causes growth, holds our atoms together, etc. As Jesus said, "God causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). In this sense, God mercifully cares and gives to everybody. We might call this God's general love for all beings. The theologians call it common grace.

It is also true that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). In other words, God provided His most precious possession (His Son) to give us a way to not perish, but to experience abundant everlasting love. The theologians call this God's compassionate love.

So I would agree that God loves every person through common grace and compassionate love. In this way He in shows mercy and goodness to everybody.

People are often surprised to find that there aren't more verses about God's love for everybody in the Bible. I think they have the idea that God (or Jesus) is like some grandfather figure that has warm feelings toward everybody and will eternally feel this way.

But the Bible says that we all fall short of God's expectations (Romans 3:23) and therefore are living under God's anger (Romans 1:18-32). God is angry with us because we don't honor Him as God and attempt to live life without Him. This idea of God's anger is something that runs throughout the Bible from the book of Genesis through Revelation. We are all traitors and rebels at heart. That includes me. In that sense, what you said in your email is right: I'm "no different than anybody else in the world."

BUT God provides a way of change and holiness through His Son Jesus the Messiah. I know that it is often said that Jesus loved everyone unconditionally - no matter what they did. Jesus' actions in reaching out to all kinds of people and parables such as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son are said to show this.

I certainly agree that Jesus will love anybody. I'm certainly an example of that. I just don't believe that the Bible teaches that Jesus loves everybody unconditionally. Jesus did reach out to everyone. In fact, Jesus seemed to cure the diseases of anyone that came to Him and asked. But Jesus said there were two essential conditions for receiving continued relationship with Him: repentance and faith. This was the message He proclaimed: "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the good news!" (Mark 1:15 ). Faith means putting complete trust of your life in Jesus' control. Repentance is a genuine admittance that we were wrong to go our own way and a desire to go God's way no matter what the cost.

Jesus And Repentance

This condition of repentance is a repeated theme with Jesus. Jesus said that the reason He came was "to call sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:32). Jesus said that unless we repent we will "perish" (Luke 13:3,5). In fact, the parable of the Prodigal Son includes the prodigal saying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you" (Luke 15:18). For other times that Jesus talked about repentance see Matthew 3:2,8; 4:17; 11:20; 21:32; Mark 6:12; Luke 5:32; 15:7,10; 16:30; 17:3-4; 18:10-14; 24:47. This is only a partial list.

So if Jesus is any example (and He is usually the one that people appeal to in the Bible as being the most loving) then I really don't believe it's correct to say, "GOD will love us no matter what we are or who we choose to become." Certainly God mercifully provides for all His creatures (God's common grace) and God gave His Son so there would be an opportunity for anyone who believes to avoid perishing (God's compassionate love). So it would be accurate to say that God reaches out to all of us with the offer of His love. But God will only move into an eternal loving relationship (God's redemptive love) with us if we will repent and trust Him. You certainly don't have to like those conditions, but I think we need to be honest about what the Bible really says and not make it say what we want it to.

This means in order to have relationship with God and to no longer live under His anger, I had to repent of my sins of wanting to run my own life, hatred toward other people, premarital sex, a bad temper, bragging, impatience, lying, viewing pornography, and envy of others. That's the short list and God is still working in me to overcome what I am repenting of. In order for you to have relationship with God, you will have to repent of some things too.

Homosexuality and Hating

You may be surprised to learn that I really would prefer to believe the way you do about homosexuality. It would be so much easier to get along with all the other people who believe that homosexuality is no different than heterosexuality. I wouldn't have to receive emails from people wishing I was dead.

But the things I wrote in the article which you refer to are scientific facts (most of which originally appeared in medical or scientific journals reporting on studies of the gay population). And what the Bible says... well that's what the Bible says and since I believe the Bible is God's communication to people, then it really isn't about what I say, but what God is saying about homosexuality.

I'm sorry we disagree about homosexuality. But your issue really isn't with me. It's with the God who reveals Himself in the Bible.

Finally, I want you to know that I don't wish you harm in any way. I'm sorry that you view me as a "virus"  when all I'm attempting to do is talk about what the Bible says and what the Christian church has unanimously believed for 1,950 years (that is, prior to some contemporary churches teaching that monogamous, committed homosexual marriages are acceptable).

I'm sorry that you want me to "die and stop breathing." I certainly don't want you to do that. So here's my dilemma: How does that make me the "HATER"? Aren't you the one who wants me to die?

Wishing you the best in Christ,

Dennis Rupert, pastor

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