Greetings from a Curious Religious Man

Introduction
101

Okay, so addressing Lev 18:19 - so… Depending on where you look or what you read, modern Christianity has more of a general, practical soft taboo because it’s messy and “she’s tired”, and depending on what you’re reading from where, some people think she should still service her husband manually or orally while others are like, “umm… No.” But nobody really brings up Leviticus 18:19 as a hard prohibition. There’s a reason as to why.

So, I’m going to start by saying some pockets of Christianity do follow more of the levitical law than others, and there is wiggle room on certain things for interpretation. However - the general rule of thumb is, if an Old Testament/Mosaic Law is repeated or upheld in the New Testament, then it stands as a hard and fast rule. If it is directly repealed (like the dietary restrictions and various sacrifices) then it’s obviously void. If it isn’t directly repeated or voided in some way then it’s up for debate and individual conviction.

So, for example, a lot of, if not most, of Christian opinion is that the laundry list of random things that make you unclean are voided with the resurrection of Jesus because once you’re saved, you’re “clean” before God permanently. Because period sex isn’t brought up again in the New Testament directly, it’s kinda fallen into the “you probably shouldn’t because it’s messy and icky, but none of the Apostles say it’s a sin, so… As the Holy Spirit convicts.” And I have heard some people say it’s wrong, but I’ve also heard others say it’s okay. It’s up for interpretation.

Homosexuality, beastiality, and various forms of incest and adultery are addressed or mentioned specifically in various Epistles as a no-no, therefore cementing the prohibition going forward.

Does that make any sense? :sweat_smile: Certain aspects of theological study border on legal interpretation and others on metaphysics and orders on philosophy. If a person wants to make a study of it, it’ll certainly exercise the mind!

102

Now, for the Centurion - admittedly, I’m not a Greek scholar, and poking around, I didn’t directly see anything that supported the assertion this was definitely the gay lover servant. I’m definitely not going to say that wasn’t a usage, at all in first century Rome. It may have been. However, when we see it used in other places, it’s used: servant (10x), child (7x), son (Christ) (2x), son (1x), manservant (1x), maid (1x), maiden (1x), young man (1x) (in the King James Version, according to Strong’s).

Rereading the passage, there’s nothing really indicating anything one way or the other about the nature of the relationship besides master and servant, but I’ll freely grant, anything is possible and exactly how you described. However, the point of the chapter isn’t who or what the servant was, but rather the impressive faith of the Centurion in Jesus.

In all reality, it honestly doesn’t matter if the Centurion was just casually banging his servant for giggles or if they were having a torrid, passionate love affair, the point here is the faith of the Centurion, and if they were just usual Roman master - servant relations or seriously, passionately gay, it’s the faith that matters in the narrative and now. Jesus came to save sinners of all varieties, including Roman centurions and their servants. The focus at that point in time was getting people to believe in Him and performing miracles to prove He was who He said He was and sorta preview what was to come and show He was there to undo the curse of sin and bring a new covenant and healing, and more to come. Whatever sins the Centurion was committing was not the point at the moment. Dealing with that and right living and all would come later with the Holy Spirit and the Apostles. But that’s sanctification work for after salvation. Jesus was largely focused on salvation work, especially when dealing with Gentiles who didn’t have the Law and the Prophets. With the Jews who should know something and know better, He handles things a little differently because they’ve already got a baseline idea of what pleases God.

What that article is doing is majoring on a minor…a minor bordering on a miniscule. Because it may very well be that the servant and the Centurion were gay as the day is long… And it changes absolutely nothing about the text, the point of the text, or anything else. Because I can guarantee you, that centurion had probably broken a fair number of the Ten Commandments, most of the Mosaic Law, and committed a few of the seven deadly sins, but Jesus doesn’t bring up any of it. Because that centurion had faith in a man he only knew from rumor and reputation and believed. That’s what counts. Everything else could get sorted out later. So yeah, Jesus might have healed a gay man’s lover. He also healed prostitutes, cast out demons, ate with hated tax collectors, welcomed children to listen to his teaching, spoke with women and used them to spread his message, chose a fisherman to build His church… He did all sorts of amazing things with every unlikely faction of society. The only point that could possibly prove is that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might be saved.

103

It does make sense, yes, though I find the whole sub lege / sub gratia idea strange. Sure, it works internally to say “first we had to follow the laws, then Jesus came and changed how the rules work”, but it seems a very post-hoc explanation. And like you said, it’s all very legalistic.

There’s a joke about that, actually, on someone asking God why he made so many seemingly contradictory and complicated rules, with so many needlessly ambiguous clauses and subclauses to get into heaven. The Lord Allmighty replies “Well, I’m trying to assamble a legal team up here. I really need it!”

104

I was bringing up the Centurion because ProblemTalk brought up the argument that homosexuality of characters in the bible was no argument for the validity of alternative sexualities unless sanctioned by God’s own word. If we accept that the Centurion begged Christ to save his lover, not his servant, we’d have a roundabout confirmation from on high that “yes, you can be into dudes and still be a true believer”.

You, Firefly, are right of course, in that the Centurion can be seen as yet another sinner Christ doesn’t turn away. To this, I would refer back to your other post and ask: Isn’t that, though, the core idea of Christianity? To love thy neighbour, and specifically not use a laundry list of “how not to sin” to judge them, apply value to them?

Because this is the part of the sub gratia idea I like, I just don’t like the whole idea of different phases of “that’s how the timeless creator wants us to be behave right now, based on human or civilisatory development”, when love is just as timeless as them.

105

Well, if you want an explanation/commentary on Old vs New covenants, Paul pretty much gives one in Romans.

Hehe… That’s funny! I need a legal team… :laughing:

So, I say this carefully, but yes. A core belief is love thy neighbor and no, you’re really not supposed to run around with a checklist and marking off who is holier than whom. Everyone does have value and that’s why Christ came to die for everyone.

Now that said, we are supposed to judge (though discern may be a better word in many cases) other Christians by their “fruit”. So they’re talking the talk, but are they walking the walk? Is what we’re seeing come out of their life and /or ministry look Christ like or not? And we’re also supposed to uphold what is right, good, just, loving, etc. in whatever setting we’re in.

106

I’m all for that, seeing what the way a person lives produces in the world. Are people happier as a result of another person’s actions or worse off?

I don’t want to keep riffing on the lgbtq+ thing, that one just seems like a big no brainer to me. Be good to other people and whether or not you produce kids should be of no concern to your neighbour and brothers and sisters in faith.

Be an asshole to people who have done nothing to hurt you? Well, that’s hardly like Christ would have wanted (unless those people lent money in the temple, or are a fruit tree out of season, of course :wink: ).

107

Having written the part about kids, it just now ocurred to me that that’s totally besides the point. Anyone could be infertile, had an accident, etc… and still deserve respect and love.

So yeah, it’s really just … how and who someone loves should be of no concern to you as long as they don’t hurt anyone.

108

I am going to disagree with your disagreement, haha.

I have not been able to find any verses in the Bible that state we inherently deserve respect and dignity, just worth and value, which you seem to conflate with dignity and respect. If you are aware of any please do share them.

As for the Great Commission, it is not because people deserve the dignity of being saved, it is because God loves them and wants to be merciful for his own good pleasure.

Jesus tells us why we are to love others, it is so we will not be hypocrites:
Matthew 18:23-35

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[b] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

I agree our loves have value, however that value is given to us by God, rather than something we deserve. I also do not believe it means we deserve dignity or respect until after those two are given to us by God. Jesus died for us with out dignity or respect, in fact he died a death designed to be the most humiliating possible. If Jesus took our place, then that is what we must have deserved before we were saved.

109

Anal forum turned into philosophy forum. No wonder less and less people engage here :sweat_smile:

110

Too right! Thank you for spelling this out for me as I was thinking about the same thing.

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111

I don’t think one topic will cause this.

People don’t engage anymore. Period. On the old forum registering was not neseccary to use the forum. So it was loaded with so called “dead accounts”. People who registered, read around, send messages, never engaged and than died silently.

Most were active on reddit subforums. To engage here there need to be topics people want to read and answer in.

This topic is clearly hot if I look at the engagement

112

People stop engaging because this:
“anal sure is great”
“it sure is!”
is basically the whole conversation if we stay on topic.
Don’t take this the wrong way, this isn’t a dig at anyone, but there’s only so much praise of anal one can sing before it gets repetitive.

1 Like