September 19th

Sodom and Gomorrah

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

(Genesis 19:24-25) KJV

We were asked the question: Can someone be redeemed and gay? We’re going to use deduction to pick our way through this and see what we come up with.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a rain of fire and brimstone in between Abraham’s and Isaac’s famines. One one hand we could be very clinical and discuss the source of the brimstone. Immanuel Velikovsky would suggest that a close pass of the comet Venus, before it became a planet, was where the brimstone came from.

On the other hand there’s a bigger issue here. We can’t, or shouldn’t, ignore what this event tells us about how God regards sexual sin. However, societal attitudes towards it are completely different now than they were throughout history so perhaps more importantly we need to figure out how should a Christian navigate this environment and do two things:

1. Maintain our testimony,
2. have an effective outreach to the LGBTQIA+ community.

We need to get a handle on this issue because there’s a genuine need to show compassion and love to a community which is being been pulled in two directions:

1. Their lifestyle choices are legal and they’re a protected class so, technically, they should be free from discrimination but,
2. they’re ostracized and marginalized.

No wonder people are confused. Into this mix come Christians who are trying to be faithful to Biblical teaching on the matter, but who frequently come across as, or are portrayed as, mean hateful people. In this setting we were recently asked a question on Instagram.

Can I be redeemed and be gay?

– Troubled Instagrammer

We had to ponder the answer. There are two obvious ones:

1. Yes you can,
2. No you can’t.

We’re going to do our best to pick our way through it.

Sodom and Gomorrah – Navigation

Section	Title	Scripture
1	Sodom and Gomorrah	Genesis 19:24-25
2	Yes You Can	1 Peter 2:13-14
	How to Qualify a YES Answer	John 3:16
3	No You Can’t	1 Peter 2:15-17
	How to Qualify a NO Answer	Hebrews 13:8
4	So Which is It?	1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
	Salvation	Romans 10:9-10

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