Recently I read a post by Max Lucado on Fox News teaching moral tolerance: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/max-lucado-how-to-really-love-your-neighbor-who-is-nothing-like-you
Max says: You love your husband and she lives with her wife. …
How do we respond? Ignore them? Share a meal with them? Leave the room when they enter? Ask them to leave so we can stay? Discuss our differences? Dismiss our differences? Argue?
I wonder if the best answer might be found in this short admonition from the Bible: “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (Rom.15:7). This verb for “accept” means more than tolerate or coexist. It means to welcome into one’s fellowship and heart. The word implies the warmth and kindness of genuine love. …
Reserve judgment. Let every person you meet be a new person in your mind. None of this labeling or preconceived notions. Pigeonholes work for pigeons, not for people.
Is Max right to welcome homosexuals into his heart and fellowship with such warmth? The Bible verse that Max builds his doctrine of tolerance from is:
Romans 15:7 Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.
Those received by Christ are saved, believers, Followers of God. Look with me to see if God receives homosexual men, as Max seems to be encouraging us to:
1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
That doesn’t sound like Max’s stated warmth and kindness of Genuine love, that doesn’t sound like God accepts men who make an abomination out of God’s image, by buggering it.
(FYI: God is not female, and we are never told that women are in God’s image, so likewise we are not told that two women lying together is an abomination, but that lesbianism is an “unnatural” act. Lesbians defile each other, but can’t tarnish the image of God by their unnatural usage. )
So are we to accept the abominable and their bodily acts of desecrating sacrilege? Or do we assume God’s clear judgement against them, should be mirrored in our own judgement? I contend we should not be trying to warmly accept God’s enemies, but to condemn their abominable acts and call for their repentance, as Jesus so often called for His adversaries to repent.
Be discriminating.
An online dictionary sample usage of the word “discriminating” says: “ A discriminating person can pick up on the small differences between things and use those differences to make better choices.”
You don’t have the underpinning of the “seven pillars of wisdom”(Proverbs 9:1) if you don’t have any discernment or discrimination. We should come to any situation with as much solid prejudicial understanding and wisdom as we can, but then be open minded enough to continually reevaluate the situation as we learn more about the actual facts. Instead of approaching people and situations as an empty headed fool, we should pre-judge things for our own protection based upon our learned prejudices, while remaining willing to rapidly adapt our thinking if our prejudices prove to be unmerited in the particular circumstance or involving particular individuals.
We all constantly prejudge people and situations based upon past experiences and acquired knowledge, for our own benefit and protection. Would you wander alone at night on foot and unarmed in a high crime area of urban decay? Probably not, because you are wise enough to prejudge the danger of doing so. How do you know it is a high crime area, or an area of urban decay? Because of your prejudice, that is how you have prejudged that. What more solid of a foundation for a prejudice could we have, than God’s own eternal judgement?
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
If some man is a homosexual, and God says that is an abomination, can we not accept God’s judgement in the matter? I think a refusal to accept their sin, and a clear call for their repentance is a far more caring and Christ like response than the permissive welcome into one’s fellowship and heart and warm acceptance that Max Lucado is advocating.
Today’s unregenerate woman is a clamorous glory-hog that cannot imagine enduring a moment of only being seen and not heard. This busy body gads abroad on social media, by phone and in person, minding everything but what God has called her to. She’s quick to speak her mind always, rather than listening to other people’s perspectives and dare I say, perhaps even learning from them.
However, the thing that stirred up the opprobrium that you so graciously shielded us from is three fold: first, the original commenter acknowledged that her husband has a preference i.e. he would like to enjoy some silence when he gets home from work. Feminists do not allow men to have preferences. Only women can have preferences. If men are allowed preferences, soon they will start preferring debt free virgins who have no tattoos and who knows what else they will prefer next? A clean home, well behaved children, delicious and nutritious meals, a vibrant marriage bed??? God forbid!!! So NO PREFERENCES for men.
Secondly, the original commenter demonstrated that not only does she take zero issue with her husband’s preference, she endeavours to give him what he wants and all the feminists cry…booooo because their prideful hearts seethe at the thought of a wife looking to please her husband. Why, she’s letting team woman down. What about all the feminists of old who laid down their dignity, their fertility and their eternal life so that wives today can defy their husbands? She’s being ungrateful by obeying God and her husband.
Thirdly and most egregious is that the husband in question gently prompts his wife to be quiet when she talks more than he deems appropriate. How dare he tell her what to do? Feminists are a law unto themselves and they answer to no one, least of all a husband. That is abusive in their books because women know better than men from a feminist perspective. They prefer a cowering passive husband who prefers nothing, and puts up with their selfishness. They are quick to point out that husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church, but don’t let husbands wash their wives with the water of the Word, that is out of order!!! (See also 1 Peter 3:4-5 Your adornment must not be merely external–braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.)
Thank you Lori for always encouraging every woman to submit to her OWN husband. Naturally, whereas every wife’s heart attitude ought to be the same i.e. submissive, it’s obvious that the practical outworking of submission for every wife will be as diverse as there are husbands. Just because one woman’s husband requires something different from her compared to another, is not tantamount to abuse. For example I am not on Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media because my husband is of the view that my day is too busy. My husband also likes to know which blogs and books I read and often recommends books for me to read because he takes responsibility for my spiritual growth and likes to protect me from spiritual falsehoods. I am definitely a much better Christian for being married to my husband because he takes the time to point out areas in my life that need amendment and no I am not abused. Also, my husband grew up in a broken and unhappy home that was largely silent/quarrelsome with a distant unapproachable father so he longed for a cheerful home and a close relationship with his children. He purposed to marry a “happy” girl. I know how much this means to him so I don’t have mood swings, raise my voice at him or give him the silent treatment ever. I quell tantrums in the children and teach them Proverbs 15:1. I speak highly of my husband to our children and everyone else and make provision in the week for family bonding activities. My husband and children are very close which makes him so glad. We pray and sing together in our home and even in times of trial, I do my best to cheer everyone up because my husband prefers a happy atmosphere in the home. He calls me his MVP because I delight in doing what he wants which is my God given calling.
Let me urge all wives to be lifelong students of their husbands. Get to know what he wants and what his likes and dislikes are and don’t listen to detractors because you will give an account to God for your submission to your own husband.