The Other Side of the Wall - redux

Oh my, look at what happens when I open my mouth or pick up my "pen", to express an opinion, my opinion.  First, two phone calls from folks who are not approving the fact I walked away from one church to join another and never thought to ask if I had made the move before offering my thoughts to the first.  The fact is, I did!

But much more importantly, my dear friend not only sent me copies of opinions from two of my friends, one from a close friend - a Pastor and the other, an important figure when it comes to interpreting the  Bible.  She also included a long discourse from an unknown author who had to have spent hours assembling his facts.  None of these knew of my premise, that the questions about the subject of sex belong at home and of course, open to interpretation by outsiders.  So, I headed for my Bible to consider the Biblical themes after first noting in the Topical Guide that accompanies the Bible I use for me own guidance, I discovered it does not have a section on sex, per se, but sections discussing seducers, seduction and sexual immorality.

I suspect that this fact is as important as all of the assembled material I have laying on my desk.  Sex is and asought to be, a personal matter.  We could spend hours discussing what the Bible says and does not say, but I still believe my premise is much more informative than all of the other material I read before starting this response.  The basic thought - perversion has now revealed a new side to the endless conversations about the lives of the those society have described as transgenders.  In my opinion, we will be "learning" much more than God ever meant us to know and those who are ignorant of the will of God for His creation, will become even more confused than they already are.

Yes, confused.  Let's be honest with one another, what most of us understand about what the Bible actually says - and what it does not say, comes from the opinions of others like my friends and since the others will probably never study the Bible for themselves, confusion will continue to reign.  I love the Bible, I try to live by the Bible as the knowledge to be contained therein has been far greater than what I have learned from other so-called "practical"sources in my 85+ years.  

I am also a father and I can look into the lives of my own children and discover how inadequate I was in their formative years.  Then, I examine the lives of parents I meet coming in and out of church and other gatherings and see what diligence they demonstrate in carrying out their Godly responsibilities is creating in the lives of their offspring.  It confirms my suspicions, the first step in defining the sexual proclivities of the child starts in his or her relationship with the parent or hopefully, the parents.

We can talk Bible until we have exhausted all of our energies and it avails nothing, if those who hear are not tuned to the same wave length or not listening at all and then, not caring out the responsibility of live by what they have actually learned.  Children are always eager to learn - from someone about something, and do not necessarily learn from what we have to say, but how it is we live in the midst of our daily responsibilities. That is my premise.  And whereas most of what I have observed over the years about sexual behavior indicates that most of us get involved in sex as naiveties (persons with naive approach to life).  Excuse me, I think I have just coined a word.

In my youth, we were all naive.  Now, most of our offspring are misinformed.

The basis of our understanding helps if we understand the Bible, but a couple of facts - not disclosed in the Bible, are well known.  That is, our brains are hot wired to our DNA.  That is, we differ from one another.  That creates the premise that we learn from one another and the first test of our knowledge starts with the fact that children need to be fed and thus, their first school masters are their mothers.  Then, the comedians might say, they need to be changed and thus, their second school master is the father.  Take either out of the equation (2 + 1 = family) and trouble rears its ugly head. 

Well, we know that half of our marriages fail, so is it any wonder that our children our raised in a vacuum.  Having grandparents help, but seldom are they in the home and thus many of our children grow up, "street" smart or totally ignorant of the human agenda that God meant in the beginning.

The church's emphasis on getting adults "saved" ignores the fact that religion has created classrooms filled with children who are in the perfect place to teach - right from wrong.  They do not have to teach about sex, they do need to teach about the rewards or perils of living a chaste life.

In my interest in learning more abut homosexuality, I have often visited what some term the "gay" church - as if they are teaching how to become "gay" or extending the "gay" reach.  What a shame.  I used to cringe when I heard the inevitable whispers that we had "those" people in our church, so it is no wonder "they" left "us" for a God that forbids an exercise of the desires.

Please don't tell me otherwise.  Read Leviticus 18:6.  My Bible states:  "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female, it is an abomination."

And so, people do what is an abomination to God.  You cannot revoke this commandment.

Deal with it.  Some among us are "wired" that way.  Remember, the DNA.  Can I explain it?  No, I cannot.

What we can do is invite them into our churches, love them and do the best we can to serve along side of them.  By and large, they are nice people.  Like all of us, they have needs and some of them may be foreign to others, but we are not called to necessarily understand.  We are on the other hand, called by God to love them as members of His creation.

Also, rebuke the temptation to call them names that come out of the darkness found in some old man's souls.  Stop referring to them as deficient in ways you do not understand.  Jesus expressed the "bottom line" in living in this 21st century.  In the gospel of John (17:20-21)  "I do not ask in behalf f these alone (His disciples), but for those who believe in me through their word that they all might be one even as Thou, Father, are in Me, and I in Thee, that they might be in Us, that the world may believe that Thou did's send Me." 

To me, that is the "bottom line" in this discussion.  God's word says it is their word.  Stop dragging out the older testaments writings as they were trying to create a society in which people loved one another.  Yes, it may have taken strange turns to us, five thousand years later, but I had a grandfather who told me that the Star car would outlast the Fords and the Chevrolets most of our neighbors drove. He didn't buy one.  Good thing.  They went out of business a couple of years after the expression of my grandfather's wisdom.

My point remains.  The "world" as we know it - today, is being over run with perversions and the troubles that perversion creates.  But rather than rave and rant, or stay tuned to the channels that promote them, let;s go back to the basics.

God is our Father in heaven, the Creator of all that has taken shape and He loves us.  Spread the word, go tell it on the mountains, over the hills and everywhere.