Some days before Christmas, Amy Grant, well-known gospel and contemporary singer, announced that she and her husband would be hosting the same-sex wedding of her niece at their home. Anticipating backlash, she supported her choice by arguing, “Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things: love God and love each other.” She referred to an incident reported by Matthew in the Bible in which a lawyer, hoping to trip Jesus up, had asked him which of the commandments was the greatest. Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets,” (Matthew 22:37-40). Grant argued that she was, as a Christian, showing love to her niece by accepting her choice of life and supporting her in it.
Franklin Graham responded to the announcement by pointing out how badly Grant was misunderstanding Scripture. “Yes, we are to love God & love each other. But if we love God, we will seek to obey His Word. Jesus told us, ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments’ (John 14:15). God defines what is sin, not us; & His Word is clear that homosexuality is sin.” Graham is absolutely correct, but many modern-day Christians would side with Grant. Even the Baptist News posted an article supporting Grant and highly criticizing Graham. Why? Because the Devil has done a super job of using the very Word of God to dupe Christians into watering down their faith, leaving, like the Church at Ephesus, their first Love!
Grant is by far not the only individual to use “love your neighbor as yourself” as an excuse for unscriptural behavior or as a cudgel for beating into submission those pesky Christians who persist in believing in sin, morality, and absolute Right and Wrong. Sadly, all too often, Christians are not well enough versed in Scripture (which they seldom read and study on their own these days) to argue against the “love” attack. And that is slowly but surely eating away at the power of the Church in today’s world.
So, what did Jesus mean when he laid down those two great commandments, and how exactly does that impact our lives in 2023 America? Indeed, He meant what He said. If we were all to obey those two commandments, there would be no need for any others. As Graham pointed out, if each of us truly loved God, we would keep His commandments— all of them. We would avoid sin in all of its forms from lying and cheating to adultery and homosexuality. The Bible clearly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Again in Matthew we read, “And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who [a]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’?” (Matthew 19:4-5). Paul repeats these words later in his letter to the Ephesians. Thus, marriage between a same-sex couple is clearly against the Word of God which underlines again and again that marriage is between a man and a woman.
In addition, throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New, scriptures repeatedly define homosexuality as sin. One of the most definitive appears in Romans when Paul writes:
“Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;” (Romans 1:24-28).
Not fitting, shameful, unnatural—sin. The Scripture cannot be much clearer than this. And to ignore these verses because they do not say what you want them to say is dangerous for someone who claims to be a Christian. “He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him,” (1 John 2:4) You cannot know and love God and be LGBTQ+, because if you are part of that group or support that group, you are deliberately sinning and NOT keeping His commandments. You say you are a Christian, perhaps you manage to convince yourself that you are. But you are lying.
Thus, to love God, the first and greatest commandment, precludes our practicing homosexuality just as it precludes our being adulterers, liars, murderers, and thieves. And the second commandment ensures that we treat others with love and compassion. What it does not do is force us to overlook, countenance, and support sinful behavior in others. If we love individuals, we should be so concerned for their souls that we would never help them do something that would imperil their souls. Does loving someone mean you must help that person commit murder? Does loving someone mean that you help someone steal? Of course not! Because those acts are not only harmful to their souls, but would put them in jeopardy with the law. If we really loved them, we would not want to help them do something that would cause them to end up in prison. Why then, would we logically wish to help someone do something that would cause them to end up in Hell for all of eternity?
But this is what non-Christians and even many Christians today cannot seem to grasp. We love the sinner, but can still hate the sin. The mother who turns in her son for stealing has not stopped loving her son. She hates what he is doing and wants to see him stop and turn his life around exactly because she loves him! And this is the true attitude that Christ intends us to have: to love even those who sin, but not to condone the sin. Jesus ate with tax collectors who regularly cheated the Jews because it was they who needed to hear His truths. He told those who complained of the company He kept that “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:12-13). Sinners have need of the love of Christians to gently lead them to Christ. But if we feel we cannot love them without accepting their sin, how will they be saved? How will they know that what they are doing is damning their very souls if we don’t tell them?
The argument of many so-called Christians that all Christians should accept any lifestyle, even if it is contrary to Scripture, in order to show Christian love is specious at best. Yet it has pulled Christian after Christian, church after church into an acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex marriages, and even transgenderism. Those who remain stalwart in their support of Scripture, like Graham, are scoffed at as old fashioned. LGBTQ+ advocates argue that Biblical writers didn’t have a true grasp of sexuality and that is why they wrote as they did. I would counter instead, that as early as Lot and the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah homosexuality was a perversion that God’s people were well aware of. There is no misunderstanding of sexuality in the Bible. It is God’s Word. God created humans and sexuality. If anyone understands sex and its perversions, it is He!
Christians, do not let yourselves be drawn away from the truth of Scripture by those who would pull out a verse or two and base their doctrine upon those verses without a true understanding of what they really mean. We are living in the end times, and God knew we would face the trials we are facing now. Paul warned Timothy:
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Don’t be fooled. The Word of God does not change. What was sin in Biblical times is sin yet today. We Christians need to wake up to the machinations of Satan as he tries to weaken our impact in the world by convincing us that to be loving Christians we must accept and tolerate sin. We must instead stand up for the truth of God’s Word. Sin and evil exist and we must continue to fight them, even if some would accuse us of not being good Christians for doing so. God’s Word teaches us how to live, teaches us what is sin, teaches us how to respond to evil. The Bible is not old fashioned. It is as pertinent to us today as it was when the Holy Spirit-inspired writers penned the words. Remember, “The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever,” (Hebrews 4:8).
Amen!