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PREACHER REACTS TO NEWSWEEK COVER STORY ON GAY LOVE: Joseph L. Green calls article, ‘Our Mutual Joy,’ a grave misconstruction.
It has been said of Ms. Miller’s article that, “The Newsweek Cover story ‘Our Mutual Joy’ is flawed on so many levels that it is hard to begin to correct it, yet a correction is warranted.” And so, I herewith take on this task and offer a true Biblical perspective on the sacred institution of marriage, based upon the Holy Scriptures, and will address some of Lisa’s unsound misconceptions and misconstructions:
The correct form of marriage is the purest expression of human love between a man and a woman. God loves marriage and has ordained it. Soon after the creation of mankind, it was God, Himself, who set this institution in place.
In addition, Jesus was clear that not all people have the gift of celibacy, wherein He describes them as eunuchs from the womb (Matthew 19:12). He reveals that because most people are not created to remain alone, they are to marry. Paul was also very practical to inform the reader that it is better to be married then to burn in lust, and therefore ultimately fall into sin. What Godly wisdom.
Furthermore, when marriage is enacted the correct way, it is the purest expression of human love between a man and a woman. God loves marriage and has ordained it. It was God, himself, who set this institution in place. Therefore only God has the right to define marriage.
I want to address ten of the Newsweek article’s misleading misconstructions regarding what the Bible says about marriage:
1) “Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile?”
Abraham fathered a child with one of his servants at the request of his wife Sarah. His wife was in her later years and wanted to give her husband a child. Abraham’s servant acted as a surrogate in order to give Abraham a child. God did not approve of this relationship. Abraham suffered the consequences of strife in his household due to this union. In point of fact, the war between Ishmael and Isaac’s descendants still rages on some 5,000 to 6,000 years later. It is also important to point out the fact that Abraham and Sarah remained married until she died at the ripe old age of 120 years old.
2) “Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)?”
Jacob was a liar and a thief before he had a relationship with God. His name literally meant “supplanter” because he tricked his father and stole his brother’s birthright. After Jacob made a covenant with God, his name was changed to Israel. At that point, Jacob became an honorable man and turned from his sinful ways. All of his multiple wives happened before he made a covenant with God. Again, the Bible did not approve of multiple wives.
3) “The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust.”
It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered.”
The Apostle Paul offers a different point of view concerning marriage. He gives Godly council on marriage pertaining to how a man and a woman should interact.
Paul was a man who was singularly minded in his service to Jesus. He was a teacher of the law and therefore was a perfect candidate to bring the new covenant, gentile believers into the family of God. He was also very clear that there was no other way that a person could be saved aside from receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior. Paul wrote that he was able to focus fully on the calling that God had given him because he was single.
A married man has an obligation to care for, respect and love his wife. There may be times in which his ministry would have to take a back seat to the care and devotion of his wife. Paul did not have that concern because he was not married.
4) “Jesus, himself, was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family.”
Jesus remained a single man because He came to perform a specific mission. He came to offer Himself as a sinless sacrifice, to pay the price of our sins, once and for all. The Bible clearly states that the only acceptable sacrifice was a perfect, sinless man. This is why Jesus was born of Immaculate Conception, and not by typical means. The Bible states that it is because of Adam that we are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). Not that marital sex is a sin, but both participants are sinners. This is true in every case except one, the life of Jesus Christ! In God’s eyes, a man and a woman become one, once they are married. If Jesus had consummated a marriage, He would no longer have been sinless because this act would have disqualified Him in the role of redeemer. Actually Jesus was married, the church that Jesus died for is His bride in which He loved so much that He gave His life as a dowry for His wife.
Lisa repeatedly made points that took the statements of Jesus out of the context, according to scripture. Jesus never stated that marriage is wrong. He never discounted the importance of marriage. His ministry made a point of revealing the need for true obedience to God and His Word. Jesus dealt with the issues of the heart. He was a living example of a commitment to God and His Word. He revealed a mindset in which a relationship to God was more important than any other worldly thing.
When Jesus addressed the issue of divorce, He was/is clear that God does not like divorce. He says that Moses granted divorce only through the pressure that he received from the men wanting to put their wives away. Because their hearts were hardened against their wives, Moses reluctantly allowed them to divorce. Jesus explains why it happened; He never said that God was pleased with it.
When asked about the Law of God He states in Matthew 5 that He did not come to abolish the law but to make it more complete. He also states that if you love Him you will keep His commands, a fact that somehow gets overlooked by people that want to live a life contrary to the Biblical Word of God.
5) “...While the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.”
The Scripture states : Matthew 19:4-6 “And He (Jesus) answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
6) “No sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else's —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes.”
The Scripture says: Ephesians 5:33 “Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”
Ephesians 5:28 “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.” Ephesians 5:29 “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.”
Proverbs 18:22 22 “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.”
It is clear from a true reading of the Bible that God’s plan for marriage is a beautiful thing! It is about love, respect and admiration for a person that you will devote your life to and possibly create and nurture new life with.
7) “In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.”
Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, all demonstrate that the Bible clearly speaks to homosexuality as being unnatural and unacceptable to God. (1Corinthians 6:9-10, The Amplified Bible) reads “Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality, nor cheats (swindlers and thieves), nor greedy graspers, nor drunkards, nor foulmouthed revilers and slanderers, nor extortioners and robbers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God.”
8) “...The Anchor Bible Dictionary notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women…”
Romans 1:26 reads “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.”
This clearly speaks to the issue of lesbianism.
9) “The Torah discouraged the ancient Hebrews from marrying outside the tribe, yet Moses himself is married to a foreigner, Zipporah.”
When the Torah told the Jewish people not to mix with other tribes, the reason was not because of their race. The reason was because the tribes they came in contact with were pagans and worshipped many other gods. God allowed Moses to marry Zipporah because she accepted the God that Moses served.
I have heard so many people try to use these concepts to discredit the Bible and to say that it justifies racism. The first commandment is, “you shall have no other gods before me.” God didn’t want His people to marry into other tribes because He knew they would be tempted to worship their gods. King Solomon was a prime example of this.
God loves His people and is jealous for them. He did not want His people to turn their affection towards false gods. This is why we were created, to have an eternal loving relationship with God. This is why Jesus came to die for us, and this is why the greatest marriage in history is the marriage between Jesus and His bride, the church.
10) “Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well— no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ's all-encompassing love.”
Yes Jesus came to embrace everyone, but that comes with a price. When talking to the woman at the well he chastised her for living in sin! He first dealt with her sin and then he entered her heart. He accepts the person but the gift of salvation comes as a result of repenting and turning away from practices forbidden by God, not by continuing in it. This is why the Bible repeatedly tells us to repent so that you can receive the Kingdom of God.
This is why the mission of John the Baptist was so important. He prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry by preaching repentance from sin. Of course, just like Jesus they killed John for telling the world that they could not openly live contrary to God’s Word and possess a relationship with God. But no one likes to hear that part.
I want to be clear, homosexuality is no worse of a sin than fornication and/or adultery. However, I have an issue when anyone tries to rewrite the Bible and change the mind of God by saying that God is not opposed to same sex marriages.
The Bible states that there will be a great falling away, an apostasy that will take place in the church. This is a time in which people will turn away from sound Biblical teaching. They will accept and recognize the things that God called wrong as right. This is what we are seeing now in the church. Homosexuality is a sin. God despises all sin, whether it is adultery, lying, stealing or homosexuality. We need to acknowledge these things as wrong and not force others to accept or embrace these sins.
As I stated earlier, marriage between a man and a woman is God’s most complete way of demonstrating a loving relationship between two people. Soon after mankind was created, He implemented marriage. He created us with an innate need to connect with a spouse and he intended it to be life-long. When marriage is honored and carried out God’s way, it makes us stronger and better as individuals.
In August 2006, a news article reported the medical statistic that married people live longer. See the link: (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Depression/story?id=2298049).
When we have strong marriages, then we have strong families. Strong families make a healthy and productive society. There are overwhelming statistics proving that homes that lack the presence of both the father and mother result in many of the problems that plague society.
On August 20, 1998, Reuters News reported the results of a study by Cynthia Harper, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sara S. McLanahan, of Princeton University:
The study stated, young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families...those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated -- even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant.
* 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
* 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
* 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, vol. 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
* 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
* 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
* 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992).
When we operate outside of God’s perfect will, there are consequences that result. We see the effects of the breakdown of the family structure. It is no coincidence that these social ills have come as a result of not following God’s instructions for Biblical marriage.
As a follower of Jesus, we are obligated to not only live by the Word of God, but to teach others what the Bible truly says about how we should live. It doesn’t make us stupid, intolerant or even out of date to follow the Bible. The Bible is not hate speech. Preaching life, as it is revealed in the Bible, demonstrates a greater love.
Loving someone does not mean that you don’t tell them the truth. Actually the opposite is true. Loving someone does not mean that you ignore what you believe to be wrong. When you love someone, you tell him, or her, the truth and you do it in a manner to help them and not harm them
When my parents taught me right from wrong, they did not correct my wrongdoing because they hated me and wanted harm to come to me. They corrected me because they loved me and they wanted the best for me. This is the same purpose behind following the Bible.
Because of Jesus we now can live a life of freedom; freedom from the burden and the curse of sin. Sin separates us from God but repentance brings us closer to Him. Jesus came to redeem anyone that would accept salvation through repentance and faith. We can now spend eternity with the most fulfilling and permanent marriage you will ever be a part of….the marriage of the sinless church with Jesus Christ.
Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.”
Minister Joe L. Green (jgministries@gmail.com) is a husband and a father of four. He is a published author and a radio station owner. He travels the world as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joe shares his story of how he went from being homeless, a drug dealer, and a heavy drug and alcohol abuser to being the first African American owner of a Christian broadcast radio station in Central Pa.
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