A Question of Grace
Does a “lifestyle of sin” automatically exclude one from grace? Can a practicing homosexual be a Christ follower? What about a practicing adulterer? Why does the church say “Yes” to one and “No” to the other? Let me explain.
I think everyone knows how the church generally feels about the idea of homosexuality. With passages from the Old and New Testaments saying that it’s an abomination against God, it’s generally not an accepted practice within Christian circles. No one can be a true Christ-follower if they consciously choose to sin against Him from the very depths of their soul and even go as far as to say it’s “okay with God”, right?
Well in Matthew 19 Christ tells us that someone who remarries after a divorce caused by anything but sexual immorality (not functionality, not personal satisfaction, not even physical abuse) is committing adultery. Think of all the people in the church that had disfunctional marriages and have since remarried, had kids and are now happy families. The church may think of them as wonderful stories of God’s grace, redemption and blessing but in the scripture Jesus clearly calls them adulterers.
So the question is, do we as believers now extend that same grace to homosexuals or do we retract it from people that have remarried after a divorce that didn’t involve sexual immorality — even someone who marries a divorced person where the divorce didn’t involve sexual immorality?
August 3rd, 2005 at 8:13 pm
That’s an interesting question, but I’m not sure they are an apples-to-apples comparison. With divorce and remarriage, the primary wrong is committed when the married person breaks his vow to the original spouse. Whether that person remarries or not, the harm is done. It seems to me that Jesus is speaking against divorce more than remarriage.
If a person who has divorced in the past, but is truly repentant now, but cannot reconcile with his spouse, I’m not sure that remarriage furthers the crime. It would be no different than someone who originally enters marriage without their virginity. By your standard, these marriages would be equally wrong, since one enters into a defacto marriage with his first sexual partner.
Wouldn‚Äôt a better comparison between adultery and open homosexuality go more like this?… You have a married person openly flaunting his mistress, justifying the adulterous lifestyle because God made him this way.
August 3rd, 2005 at 9:28 pm
I’ve always been under the impression that all sin was the same to God.
Therefore breaking the speed limit daily is the same as Joe banging John nightly. So who is up for casting the first stone?
August 3rd, 2005 at 9:34 pm
I was reading from the ESV and it adds this:
I’m not sure how the whole “some manuscripts add” thing works but Jesus plainly states it previously in Matt. 5:31. (Need to do more study of how it fits in context to the entire sermon.) In these scenarios two “innocent” parties are considered guilty of adultery, the women who probably didn’t initialize the divorce and then the guy that comes along and marries her afterwards. (Mark has language that seems to imply that it’s only the one that initiates the divorce and the one that remarries them ‚Äî usually the man and bimbo.)
It also only seems to be not so much about divorce itself, but when divorce turns into adultery once remarriage enters the scene. Why even mention remarriage if just divorce is the sin? Paul reinforces this idea, even verbally giving the authority of the commandment as coming from God in 1 Cor. 7:10, 11.
I don’t think premarital sex is equivalent to the marriage covenant. Though it’s related, two people fornicating because they can isn’t the same as committing yourself to each other before God and His Church.
August 4th, 2005 at 2:48 am
Putting Matt. 5:31,32 in context to what Jesus is saying in the Mountainous Sermon (more specifically about lust in verses 27-30), it seems like He is saying something to the effect of, “You may think that you are righteous because you follow the law that Moses gave regarding divorce but in God’s eyes there is no such thing as ‘calling it quits’ unless sexual immorality is involved. As soon as you find a new partner, you and that person are guilty of adultery.”
I think it’s safe to say that many people in the church deal with lust on a daily basis. But they acknowledge it’s sin and repent ‚Äî until the next hottie walks by.
Here Jesus puts remarriage after divorce on that same level of adultery of the heart but it is not considered by the church to be something that is to be preached against and repented of. To any practical person the idea of remarriage after divorce being a sin just doesn’t seem right ‚Äî just as to the homosexual, the idea of loving the person that you love being a sin just doesn’t seem right either.
Still processing, more to come after I get some sleep … and I we haven’t even mentioned a lifestyle of gluttony yet … Zzzzzzzzz.
August 4th, 2005 at 8:47 am
It sounds like you’re opening a moral equivalency debate - that is, it sounds like you are asserting that adultery and homosexuality are sort of “on par” with one another. Is that what you’re suggesting, and if so, how do you make that case?
Here’s the problem, though, with (as you put it) “retracting grace” from post-adulterous marriages: “retracting grace” in such a fashion must have repentance as its goal. What kind of repentance does God require in such a situation? Should such a couple divorce and seek to restore their original family? Is there a spouse who was victimized by the adultery that deserves restitution? What kind of restitution?
It’s highly context-dependent what the specific acts of repentance ought to be - there are often manifold violations of God’s law that attend adultery and divorce, and the particular mix of sins involved makes it hard to formulate a propositional, one-size-fits-all approach to answering the question.
As for homosexuality, on the other hand, I can’t think of any contextual considerations that would change the Biblical instruction on the matter: flee! So “retracting grace” (again, your words) from a homosexual is unambiguous in its goal of calling a sinner to repentance.
Both adultery and homosexuality fall on the wrong side of God’s judgment. Our response as a church should not be to say “we’ll let this one slide, but that one is gross!” Rather, we should seek to honor, obey, and follow the Lord, and that means we proceed according to what he has told us about himself and what he requires of us: we must share in his grace, mercy, and yes, anger - all the while being careful never to take the place of God for ourselves.
August 4th, 2005 at 9:58 am
I’m putting them on par in the way you describe as, “Both … fall on the wrong side of God’s judgement” to address the question if one can still be a Christian and knowingly disobey Him every day in a “lifestyle of sin”. To me it seems clear that God clearly tells us not to remarry after divorce (when sexual immorality isn’t involved), just as He clearly tells us not to engage in homosexuality. Yet everyday “adulterers” are considered faithful believers and allowed to serve in the church while those “evil homos” that claim to be believers are not. I’m just pointing out something that seems to be a double standard in the church.
Example: Though the Bible says God is clearly against it, I would guess all divorced believers think that God brought them their new spouse and consider them as a gift. I would also venture to guess that all Christ professing homosexuals feel the same about their partner ‚Äî making the issue a bit more complicated than just “flee”.
I completely agree with your last paragraph and you are correct in that there are no easy answers in divorce situations* but that doesn’t change what Jesus calls it. Just as the remarried “adulterous” believer wakes up every day and continues on in their faith ‚Äî covered in the grace provided by the blood of Christ ‚Äî is it possible that “Joe and John” could wake up and continue on in theirs?
* Could the solution be abstinence, just as the church offers for fornication and homosexuality?
August 4th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
I Corinthians 6:9-10 gives us a list of people that will not enter God’s Kingdom. The list includes the sexually immoral, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, theives, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. I’m not a homosexual but I do find myself guilty of at least 3 of these sins: adultery (given Jesus’ clarification that lust equals adultery), greed, and slander. I’m pretty sure that I could find the same guilt in a lot of the people yelling about homosexuals going to hell. People are not condemned to hell just because the sin but because they are sinners.
In verse 11, we find hope. Paul says, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” I think that issue comes down to our identity. When we are “in Adam,” we are identified by our sin: homosexual, adulterer, liar, glutton, etc. There is moral equivalency in the sense that it all separates us from God and sends us to hell.
When we trust Christ, we are no longer identified by our sin but by Jesus. We are in him and he is in us. We are saints, sanctified, justified, pure, holy, clean, temple of the Holy Spirit, children of God, royal priesthood, holy nation, etc. We are no longer identified by our behavior but by our relationship to Jesus. So when I lusted before I came to Christ, I was an adulterer who commited adultery. Now when I lust and am in Christ, I am a child of God who has behaved in contradiction to my identity but my identity has not changed. Likewise, a Christian who struggles with homosexuality is not a homosexual but a child of God who is behaving in contradiction to his new nature in Christ.
The Corinthian church was guilty of all of the behaviors listed in chapter 6. But Paul begins his letter by saying that they are “sanctified in Christ” and calls them brothers.
August 4th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
After having lunch with my friend John (not the John mentioned in the scenarios above) we were left with the question, “Is the second marriage recognized as a marriage by God?” John brought up the idea that the one time “remarriage” is the new sin that needs to be repented of, allowing you to continue in the faith. As “not cool” as it sounds, I am entertaining the question of if the second marriage is even valid. In our celebrity culture the idea is cheapened but marriage is not just a relationship, it’s a covenant ‚Äî much like our own salvation.
What we both take away is that remarriage after divorce is much more serious than the church is currently treating it — never discouraged and often encouraged.
We also agree that excluding sexual immorality, the Christian should never initiate divorce. But if your spouse initiates it then once they get remarried or “commits” adultery it is okay with God for you to remarry. But if your spouse goes into a coma and fifteen years later you begin to develop a relationship with someone else and desire to be married then you’re out of luck ‚Äî unless of course you can get the feeding tube removed.
August 4th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Agreed Jimmy, and thanks for chiming in, but the scenario you describe is when we acknowledge the items in that list as sinning against God. There are many brothers and sisters in Christ who acknowledge this as they deal with homosexual tendencies. I apply the same thinking as heterosexuality here. What you think in your head is between you and God. What you do determines what authority you can be given in the local church. I’m using two issues to point out inconsistency and ask what is required to be consistent.
The question can also be defined as, “Can a person be a believer when they willingly continue to sin so that grace may abound?” Paul says, “God forbid” but what happens when we do? I wonder how many Christians that have “retracted grace” from Christ professing homosexuals (judged them as non-christians) willingly and deliberately speed while driving or eat in excess (gluttony).
We justify ourselves by saying, “I just don’t feel like driving 50 mph on backroads to The Golden Corral is a big deal” but in reality it is still sin. Why do we assume God’s grace covers our lifestyle of sin and not the Christ professing homosexual’s?
Sidenote: Wow, I did not know that a new Golden Corral opens every 14 days.
August 4th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
What’s complicated about that? If God has condemned homosexuality, how could God bring them their partner? It’s self-deception. If you’re saying it’s difficult to simply flee the sin, well, sure. But I’ve got to ask: so what?
That almost sounds like you’re mistaking grace for license.
I see two differences. The first is that the so-called “Christ-professing homosexual” apparently hasn’t repented of his sin, so while he may profess Christ, there is nothing in evidence that Christ possesses him. If you were called to account for speeding, wouldn’t you say, “yeah, I was wrong?”
The second will need to wait ’til after work to really give it the attention it deserves: all sins are not equal. God didn’t wipe cities off the face of the earth on account of speeding or adultery. My thesis is only half-baked at this point, but I’ll throw it out there for now and return to it later on:
I propose that God is more offended when we pervert the “obvious” order of things, and less offended when we cross lines that are just a matter of taking permissible things beyond their proper boundaries.
Have at it, boys…
August 4th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
I was trying to offer some sense of perspective for my fellow heterosexuals. Imagine your good Christian friend was divorced from a verbally abusive person and then after a few years of singleness they meet the person of their dreams and are engaged to be married. Do you share those verses with them? If you do, then how will they react? In real life, I imagine it won’t be as much of a no brainer as the “black and white” makes it out to be.
August 4th, 2005 at 9:37 pm
Sorry, I’m not following you, David… I was trying to make the point that divorce situations are not “no-brainers.” There is a lot of context that has to be reckoned with. The example you gave about the verbally abused divorcee doesn’t offer any mitigating context that I can tell, though…
But this is why there’s no moral equivalency with homosexuality: there’s no possible contextual grounds for justifying homosexuality, but divorce offers some opportunity for justification.
I’m getting foggy about now so I’m not going to put forward a scriptural argument in support of my earlier proposition about “God is more offended” thing - not tonight anyway. But here’s a thought… since you mentioned the speed limit…
Consider two drivers: one is speeding, but one is obeying the speed limit. The one obeying the speed limit incurs God’s wrath, but the speeder gets God’s approval. How could this be?
It’s in the context. The one speeding is driving his injured child to the hospital. The one obeying the speed limit is driving east in the westbound lane of I-285.
Why does that make a difference? Obviously, nothing justifies a wrong-way driver: it’s a perversion of the obvious order of things. On the other hand, nobody would condemn you for “flooring it” to get your child to a doctor: they might even condemn you for failing to do so, because that would be neglecting an obvious duty.
See Romans 1-2 for Paul’s treatment of the “obvious” as sufficient grounds for condemning gross errors.
August 5th, 2005 at 10:27 am
Okay okay … let me step back and clarify, I’m not trying to say homosexuality isn’t a sin against God.
All I was saying was it’s easy for people that don’t identify with homosexuality to say, “Just stop it. God says it’s wrong so don’t do it any more. Leave the person you’ve developed a relationship with, maybe even a committment, over the years and just stop feeling the way you do. What so hard about that?” Well, I imagine when you are actually in the situation it’s not that easy. One begins to make up reasons to justify themselves and how something that seems so much like a blessing surely couldn’t be a sin against God. (I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that when you’re in the middle of it, it doesn’t seem that simple.)
As for the divorced person scenario, the same thing happens in that situation. Sorry, but for that person to remarry ‚Äî according to the Scripture ‚Äî is a sin against God. Does the church expel these people from the body? Do they question their salvation? No, the church encourages it with “Single Again” groups that seem to have the mission statement, “To glorify God and find me a new spouse”. This just seems to be an over looked issue these days.
I think you are on to something when you bring up the idea of self deception. If you believe the essentials of the faith, how much “self deception” regarding behavior is allowed?
If a Christian self-deceives himself into thinking:
1. Driving 50 mph on the backroads to work
2. Remarriage after divorce that doesn’t involve sexual immorality
3. Premarital sex (”We’ve already married in my heart.”)
4. Black people are animals (Entire generations of believers on this one)
…is okay then is their salvation nullified? Self deception happens everyday. We even self deceive ourselves the other way:
1. All consumption of alchohol is sin
2. Suicide is an unforgivable sin
3. Baptism is required for salvation
How much self deception is required to cancel out salvation and why do we think of homosexuality as an automatic “out”?
August 5th, 2005 at 10:48 am
How does one “nullify” or “cancel out” salvation?
If you make anything other than the Cross the sole factor in salvation, you’re talking about something other than Christianity.
August 5th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
So you agree that it is possible to be a practicing homosexual and a believer at the same time. Many people would disagree and that is the view point I am exploring — along with learning about what the Bible says about divorce. Thank you for your participation.
August 5th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
I never said that. I apologize if I was unclear or if I in any way led you to believe that I agreed on that point. Let me try again.
You asked how much self-deception it might take to cancel out salvation. I questioned whether salvation could be canceled out, because it is Christ’s death that secures salvation. To say that self-deception (or anything else) could nullify the work of Christ is to claim a corrupting power that Christ’s death cannot overcome.
That is not an agreement that you can practice homosexuality and follow Christ at the same time.
So your proposition is: “It is possible to be a practicing homosexual and a believer at the same time.”
How do you account for repentance? Without some manifestation of repentance, I don’t see how one can claim to be following Christ.
The word “practicing,” as I understand it, includes the notion of “unrepentant.” Please correct me if that’s not what you meant. But assuming that’s the case, the argument goes like this:
1. A follower of Christ is repentant.
2. A practicing homosexual is not repentant.
3. Therefore, a practicing homosexual is not a follower of Christ.
But you claim something different. How do you make that case?
August 5th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
1. A follower of Christ is repentant.
2. A practicing racist is not repentant.
3. Therefore, a practicing racist is not a follower of Christ.
True or false?
1. A follower of Christ is repentant.
2. A practicing glutton is not repentant.
3. Therefore, a practicing glutton is not a follower of Christ.
True or false?
The church is full of practicing gluttons and used to be full of practicing racists that I believe are Christians but self deceived on certain things. If you say false, on what basis do you distinguish between the sins?
August 5th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Okay here’s another example. The following is from Pat Dirrim on Eric’s blog discussing the issue of abortion.
These people clearly believe that abortion is okay and may have even had a few themselves. They MAY even use it as a primary method of birth control. Are they unrepentent, false believers?
1. A follower of Christ is repentant.
2. A practicing prochoicer is not repentant.
3. Therefore, a practicing prochoicer is not a follower of Christ.
True or false? If false, how do you differenciate the sins?
August 5th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Hugh said:
Wouldn’t it be appropriate to clarify whether we’re talking about before or after salvation? Self-deception can technically “cancel out” salvation before one is saved, since the person is kept from a saving knowledge by his deceptive knowledge. That’s, I think, what David’s talking about. After salvation, which is what I think Hugh is talking about, of course any self-deceptions that develop cannot “disqualify” that saved person. It’s a matter of before-or-after, I think.
It’s another matter entirely, though, when we get to the practicing homosexual who professes Christianity. This has been talked over pretty well above, but what about this: the Holy Spirit has a ministry of conviction to the unbeliever and a ministry of guidance to the believer, so what about the lack of conviction of sin and knowledge of the truth in the practicing sinner’s life? Can he truly be saved without having the Holy Spirit work in his life in those capacities? Look at what that latter passage says:
Well, I’m sure that “all that belongs to the Father” includes Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, and many others. Why, then, would this sinning believer not be guided into these truths? Well, maybe he’s not a believer, after all, if he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. Now, the crux of that line of thinking is whether or not the person was actively pursuing this sin before or after salvation, and how that affects his salvation. What sins are “too big” to not be convicted of at salvation, if, indeed, there are any that would disqualify one from salvation? I mean, nobody’s ever aware of all his sin, saved or not. Am I right?
August 5th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
Here’s what I found on one website:
religioustolerance.org
August 5th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Again just to clarify, I’m not trying to justify homosexuality.
One would think that the Holy Spirit would convict generations of people that believed in the same foundations of the faith as you and I but some how justified considering their fellow man as nothing more than an animal to be bought and sold as personal property. Do I consider them damned? No. The Holy Spirit may well be working in other areas of their life — but self deception is strong.
August 5th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
One more…
1. A follower of Christ is repentant.
2. A practicing witch-burner is not repentant.
3. Therefore, a practicing witch-burner is not a follower of Christ.
True or false?
August 5th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
These are all great points. It might be interesting to compare and contrast practicing racists, gluttons, “pro-choicers,” and witch-burners…
Gluttons are the tamest of the examples. Could someone objectively be a practicing glutton, but be unrepentant, and still be a follower of Christ? I’d say, probably, yes. Gluttony is a sin of excess, not of perversion. Intuitively, it seems to me there is a valid distinction in terms of the severity of the error there.
Pro-choicers come next in my mind. Abortion is a matter which comes down to being objectively wrong about something of vital importance. There’s nothing wrong with abortion if it isn’t taking a human life, and there’s plenty to muddy the waters on that question. Now, the person who says, yes, it’s taking a human life, but I don’t care - that kind of unrepentant attitude seems to me a sure sign of the absence of Christ in that person’s life.
Witch burners are kind of hard to assess because they are so far removed from us culturally. You could make a case that they were deceived as to what God really required of them; John Calvin even had somebody burned at the stake. I wouldn’t go so far as to stick my neck out on this one though.
Finally, racists. It’s basically saying “hatred is fine, even noble.” But again, deception can take place on a grand scale; entire cultures have been built around racism. The thing is, once the racism is called out as a sin, what is a person’s response? Do they persist in their sin, or humble themselves and repent?
Returning to homosexuals. Is there a homosexual who can bow before Christ in thoughtful repentance, and proceed to engage in that kind of activity and not know it’s a sin? Is it possible to be so deceived that you just don’t see the perversion? In humility I have to grant it’s possible, but hardly probable; Romans 1 & 2 seem to make a pretty strong statement here.
In retrospect, maybe “practicing” isn’t the best qualifier for these examples. You can “practice” something in ignorance or deception, but that’s not the same as “practicing” something in blatant disregard for the commandment you have fully understood. I would contend that homosexuality doesn’t require a commandment to bring its perversion to light.
August 5th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
Jeffrey, that’s a nice synthesis of the debate in your first post - I’m inclined to say I agree with your assessment on the role of the Holy Spirit here. It takes the debate to the question of evidence of salvation in an individual, not excusing leftover sins from the “old man.”
Part of the second post you brought in strikes me as naive, though. I don’t think it’s fair to say that God normatively removes homosexual desires or other such features from repentant homosexuals, leaving them instantly changed and breathing the clean air of freedom as soon as they repent and trust in Christ.
David was making the point that it’s hard for these folks to shake loose from this particular kind of sin. I regard that as a huge understatement! Consider how hard it is for the teenage girl who comes to trust in Christ and realizes she needs to break up with her boyfriend; the alcoholic who realizes he needs to dry out; the drug addicts who realize the huge mountain they have to climb. But the genuine followers of Christ will certainly do the hard things - because that’s where Christ leads his followers.
August 6th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
You guys are intense!
Can we all agree that all sin is the same from God’s perspective when it comes to the issue of our justification before Him?
I suppose we’d all agree on that fact. Just wondering - because it seems like step one of the entire discussion and, though I skimmed the entire thread, I might have missed it.
August 6th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I brought that up earlier John :-p don’t think anyone replied to it though…
Sin = Sin
So if you start trying to tear it apart by a practicing homosexual is not repentant etc… etc… and from the perspective that all sin is equal to God….
Then the practicing speeder is going to hell…. so I’m going to hell in a handbasket for speeding everywhere I go.
August 6th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
esh - I read that - thanks….
The point I make is that sin is sin from the perspective of justification. However, can we honestly say - that in regards to our sanctification - there is not a difference between speeding and engaging in homosexual sex?
August 6th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
I heard just the other day on Bible Answer Man the other day about how God views and treats different sins differently. While there is no difference in regards to our justification and the result of sin all sin is the same (separation from God), different sins carry different levels of punishment in Hell — and as John (not the John mentioned in the scenarious above or the John I ate lunch with) is asking about, in our earthly purification process as well. Sorry, I was brain-dead while driving home from work so I have no scripture to reference. I think his reasoning was if there are various levels, rewards and responsibilites in Heaven then we can only assume the same in Hell.
Anybody else got any input on this?
August 6th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
Look at Jesus’ reaction to different sins. To some he is gentle (like the woman caught in adultery and the woman at the well), while to others (like religious hypocrites) he gets totally ripped and calls them names or overturns tables. Since Jesus is God in the flesh, I’d say that God is able and willing to make moral distinctions.
Levitical law had an elaborate system of sacrifices that varied based on the sin involved. That wouldn’t be necessary if God saw one sin as equal to another.
How about the punishment that God instated for varying violations? See the eye-for-an-eye principal in Leviticus 24:17-23. Clearly one sin is not the same as another.
To support David’s point about varying degrees of punishment, we have Jesus saying “But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.” in Matthew 11:22.
I think this idea (that God doesn’t make moral distinctions regarding sin) is a misunderstanding of the biblical teaching that a violation of any aspect of the law is a violation of the whole law (James 2:10). This simply means that there are only two categories: law keepers and law breakers. But this does not mean that everyone in the law-breaker category is equal in God’s eyes.
August 7th, 2005 at 7:10 am
More references on varing degrees of punishment…
Matthew 5:22
22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be 1guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘2You good-for-nothing,’ shall be 1guilty before 3bthe supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be 1guilty enough to go into the 4cfiery hell.
Matthew 16:27
27 “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then 1repay every man according to his deeds.
Matthew 23:14
14 [“1Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]
Luke 20:47
47 who devour widows’ houses, and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.”
Luke 12:47
47 “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
Luke 12:48
48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of 1a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
August 7th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Hugh said:
To defend the people making this statement, they didn’t say “instantly changed,” but rather a process of removal and reparation–similar to the way we’d deal with any other addictive or ensnaring sin. To defend me, I wasn’t agreeing with them; I just thought the viewpoint relevant.