It is sad that we hear some presenting cavils and protests about our duties as office-bearers. In the CRCNA, we office-bearers must live up to our solemnly espoused assent to the creeds and confessions of the church or dispense with the hypocrisy and dissembling.
Our historic General Synod has spoken: homosexual acts are and always have been unchaste according to God's Word. In Acts the issue of the day was uniting Gentile and Jewish congregations in one church. The counsel of Jerusalem made the ruling that the Gentiles must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. These requirements were considered few and necessary for the common good. If the Gentile believers committed to doing them faithfully, "[they would] do well". Likewise, we need to agree with General Synod that people with homosexual inclinations would "do well" if they called on the Lord Jesus and on their brothers in Christ to help them not to act on their inclinations.
This article is part one of two. My wife and I are eagerly awaiting the second part in addition to the overture to Grandville Classis from Dorr CRC.
I have no disappointments with the Human Sexuality Report. Without this report and the statement that acting on homosexual instincts is sin*, the CRC would have ceased being the Church. We would not have been guided by God's Word.
Keith Beavon
* "In other words, there is no sin in being attracted to the same sex. We only sin if we act on our sexual attractions."
Posted in: Don’t Say No Yet (An Encouragement to Future Office-bearers in the CRC)
It is sad that we hear some presenting cavils and protests about our duties as office-bearers. In the CRCNA, we office-bearers must live up to our solemnly espoused assent to the creeds and confessions of the church or dispense with the hypocrisy and dissembling.
Our historic General Synod has spoken: homosexual acts are and always have been unchaste according to God's Word. In Acts the issue of the day was uniting Gentile and Jewish congregations in one church. The counsel of Jerusalem made the ruling that the Gentiles must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. These requirements were considered few and necessary for the common good. If the Gentile believers committed to doing them faithfully, "[they would] do well". Likewise, we need to agree with General Synod that people with homosexual inclinations would "do well" if they called on the Lord Jesus and on their brothers in Christ to help them not to act on their inclinations.
Posted in: Don’t Say No Yet (An Encouragement to Future Office-bearers in the CRC)
This article is part one of two. My wife and I are eagerly awaiting the second part in addition to the overture to Grandville Classis from Dorr CRC.
I have no disappointments with the Human Sexuality Report. Without this report and the statement that acting on homosexual instincts is sin*, the CRC would have ceased being the Church. We would not have been guided by God's Word.
Keith Beavon
* "In other words, there is no sin in being attracted to the same sex. We only sin if we act on our sexual attractions."