Arguing Scripture

Andrew Jenson

Interpret bible as a whole in marriage debate

Well, same-sex marriage is now legal in Idaho. No surprise there, it was bound to eventually happen.

Already, couples have been married and the fight against legalizing gay marriage is considered a lost cause by many. Again, no surprise, but I still intend to fight it because it works against God and what is taught in Scripture — just like any other sin.

Andrew_JensonThis is the point where some would say, “Well, if you’re going to use Scripture or the Old Testament to condemn homosexuality, then you should follow the passages on stoning people, slavery, circumcision and the food and clothing prohibitions.” This is a legitimate counterpoint — if one is unfamiliar with the Bible — and one that is raised in countless variations, whether on religious columns or a YouTube debate over Bill Maher’s recent comments characterizing all Muslims as radical extremists.

The problem with that counterpoint is that it presumes Christians pick and choose what they want to believe. If this were the case, Christians would put as much distance between them and the idea of the Bible being the inerrant and infallible Word of God as they could.

Christians, in fact, do not pick and choose what to believe. If you follow the Bible, from the Old to New Testament, you can see that everything comprising Christian doctrine is the result of keeping true to Scripture.

An easy example to point to is homosexuality. Many dissenters love to point to Leviticus as the basis for the Christian argument against same-sex relations.

Those dissenters then point out that Christians choose to keep laws forbidding same-sex relations, but not other Levitical laws.

In response, a Christian could point to the New Testament and Paul condemning homosexuality in Romans and 1 Corinthians. But there is so much more to point to in demonstrating why Christians hold to Leviticus and only support traditional marriage.

For example,  Christ in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 talk about how a man shall leave his parents and become one with his wife (defining marriage), Paul in Ephesians 5 explaining marriage as symbolic of Christ and the church (husbands and wives, not homosexual couples, submitting to one another) and above all, the order of creation in Genesis showing that God instituted marriage as a sacred union between a man and a woman before the fall into sin.

Christians fight homosexuality, not because they feel like being bigots, but because it is consistently rejected in the Bible.

Now, let’s take something like circumcision. Christians do not circumcise their children. Doesn’t this go against what God commanded? All the Israelites had to circumcise their children in the Old Testament. Even Christ was circumcised.

Well, Christians received another commandment from Christ: baptism. As Paul says in Romans, outward circumcision profits us nothing. Circumcision must come from within, not without. Baptism is the circumcision of the heart.

The point is, you must look at all of Scripture — if you’re to understand anything from it. Both the Old and New Testaments need to be examined for correct understanding, as the Old Testament points to the New Testament and the New Testament wouldn’t exist without the Old Testament.

If you want to criticize the Bible and Christian belief, OK. But rather than spout out random verses in the hopes of achieving a glorious “Gotcha!” moment, realize you have to put those verses in context with the rest of the Bible. Scripture does, after all, interpret Scripture.

Andrew Jenson can be reached at [email protected]

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