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Here’s a story we all should know…
“How do I tell you about my conversion to Christianty without making it sound like an alien abduction or a train wreck?”
So begins The Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Butterfield’s new memoir about her conversion to Christianity. Without telling too much of the story, Dr. Butterfield was an English Professor at Syracuse University, whose specialty was Queer Theory. She was an active organizer for the Lesbian and Gay community, and then, through the hospitality of a Christian couple in her neighborhood who seemed good for her research on the religious right, she came to acknowledge Christ as her savior.
I want to recommend this book for everyone I know to read. The discussions of what it’s like to be part of the LGBT community and approach Christians, the meditations on repentance, the examples of godly and less-than-godly interactions she had as Christ was saving her, are excellent peices of thought-food for us all to chew on in America in 2013. It’s a quick read, and you’ll only slow down to stop and chew on one of her many memorable one-liners.
Here’s a very worthwhile interview with Dr. Butterfield for you to get a sense of her thought. For a fascinating look into how the Bible figured into her salvation, start watching at 20:40. (If you’re getting this by RSS feed, click here to go to the You Tube page.)
And here’s some of her many thought-provoking quotes:
I wondered about this God who died for the sins of his people. It sounded too good to be true.
[Of the Christians she met.] I observed that they fed and housed and counseled countless people from all walks of life. I saw how wide the door to their heart opened. I remember feeling like could talk to them about anything.
I learned the first rule of repentance: that repentance requires greater intimacy with God than with our sin.
When Christ gave me the strength to follow him, I didn’t stop feeling like a lesbian. I’ve discovered that the Lord doesn’t change my feelings until I obey him.
Sometimes in crisis, we don’t really learn lessons. Sometimes the result is simpler and more profound: sometimes our character is simply transformed.
When you die to yourself, you have nothing from your past to use as clay out of which to shape your future.
[On the difference between sin and “making a mistake.”] A mistake is a logical misstep. Sin lurks in our heart and grabs us by the throat to do its bidding.
We will confront times when we have to choose between the old ideas that give us comfort in their familiarity or the safe paradigms that encourage endless questioning for the bold quest of capacious truth.
The integrity of our relationships matters more than the boldness of our words.
The only way to effectively ward off the old patterns of selfishness was to put into place intentional Christian ministry.
Here I was in a public setting and I didn’t have a game face to put on. These people with their complete marriages, their kind children, their well-spent lives cast a reflection on the legacy of my choice-making.
There is no finer resolution to a faith test than genuine Christian ministry.
Faith is not a feeling. Faith rides the waves of the treachery of life on the Christian worldview that you own. Faith and worldview are intimately intertwined.
Tim Tebow, This Massive Wave, and What Someone Needs to Say
If you haven’t heard about last weeks News Media/Twitter/Political Correctness dust-up over Tim Tebow’s cancellation of a speaking engagement at a Dallas church, you really should read this article by Al Mohler, which describes how Tebow accepted an invitation to speak and then felt forced to cancel the speaking engagement. The issue has to do with Christian views on Homosexuality and the need to trust Christ as the only way to salvation. Mohler gives a good breakdown, but you should also read the highly critical and very passionate articles by Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports. (A sample of Doyel’s writing: “I’m ashamed to like Tim Tebow now. More specifically, I don’t like Tim Tebow now. I can’t…Be gone, Tim Tebow. I’m done with you.”)
Think…Dan Cathy, Louie Giglio, Tim Tebow, The President of the United States…Guys, there is a massive wave of changing public sentiment which is engulfing us all. We must be ready to swim.
As a follow up, Kevin DeYoung had a great post yesterday which included this excellent thought:
So someone needs to refuse to be broken. Maybe some famous Christian athlete or actor needs to do it. Maybe a famous academic. Maybe a well known musician or humanitarian. Maybe you will be called upon this week to give account for your faith. Give it time and most of us will need to say something. What we must not do is allow the world to dictate what is and what is not a socially acceptable view on sexuality. The world may do that anyway, but we can at least play a little defense by refusing to play the game on their terms.
The next time—and there will be a next time—some famous Christian is pilloried in the press for maybe, possibly, at some point now or in the past holding to the traditional view of marriage, I hope he (or she) will come up to the microphone and say something like this:
Thanks for coming out today. I’ll try to make this brief and get right to the point.
Some people are really upset because they think I believe God does not approve of homosexual behavior. Well, I’d like to clarify: that is what I believe. Like everyone I believe some actions are good and some are not. We all have some form of morality. Thankfully, on a lot of topics most everyone agrees. Almost everybody agrees that murder is wrong and stealing is wrong and telling a bold-faced lie is wrong. But on other topics, we don’t all agree. That’s part of life. That’s part of being human. We have different views on raising children, on religion, on sex before marriage, on marriage itself, and on a hundred other issues.
I’m a Christian. That doesn’t mean I think I’m better than anyone. In fact, I’m a Christian because I know how bad I am and that I need a Savior. But as a Christian I believe the Bible. I believe God is smarter than I am. I believe God tells us about himself, tells us how to be saved, and tells us how to live in this book. That’s actually what most Americans have believed about the Bible throughout our history. I understand that some people in this country don’t believe in God or the Bible. I understand that some people interpret the Bible differently. But I think the Bible is pretty clear that sex is a gift to be experienced in the context of marriage between a man and a woman. I’m challenged by this teaching too. I am tempted to sin in a thousand different ways, including ways that involve my sexuality. But if God tells me what’s right and wrong in the Bible, I have to trust him. If Jesus is really Lord, then he gets to the call the shots.
I don’t expect everyone in a free country to agree that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord or that the Bible is the inspired word of God. But in a free country I expect that we can hold to different views without automatically resorting to shame and ridicule. I hope that my fans will understand that we can still root for the same team or watch the same movies even if we believe in some different things. I also hope my critics will try to understand why billions of people all around the world believe what I do about God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, faith, and marriage.
So the short answer to your question is: Yes I do still believe God designed sex for marriage between a man and a woman. And yes, I’m still accepting the invitation to speak. I don’t fault you for you doing your job. And I don’t deny your right to disagree with me in the strongest terms. But I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not going to let you dictate the terms of this conversation. I’m not going to be intimidated by bad press. And I’m not going to live my whole life trying to prove that I’m something I’m not. It ain’t gonna happen.
I’m a Bible-believing Christian. There, I said it. I’m out of the closet. I’m not bitter. I’m not on a crusade. I just think it’s time to stand up and say enough is enough. I don’t like making people angry. But I can’t live my life to make you happy.
I don’t think I have anything else to say about the subject. If you want to know what I believe and what Christians are like, I’d be happy to take you with me to church anytime. I hope you all have a great day, because that’s what I plan on having now that this is over.
I don’t know exactly what Louie Giglio or Tim Tebow should have said or done. I’m not privy to all the information or behind-the-scenes conversation. This post isn’t about the past. It’s about what is coming in our future. At some point (and many points actually), Christians need to simply take it on the chin, not back down, affirm the truth, put in a good word for Jesus, and keep on smiling.
The Trinity in History: Notes from Last Night
Last night we continued our study of how God has revealed Himself as the Trinity by looking at the way God progressively revealed this truth about Himself over time. Here are the notes:
Intro:
We tend to start with our own ideas about God – which means, for us, we tend to start with a mono-God. In other words, we start with the idea that “there is one God,” and then we assume we know everything that means.
- …then, we struggle with the “three-ness” of God. Christians: We need to fight this tendency all the time, and always let the Bible tell us who God is. Non-Believers: where do you get your information about God? How do you know what He’s like?
- Instead, we should start with scripture, to see what God has told us about Himself. When we stick to how God has revealed Himself, we can start to form a picture of who He actually is.
1. The Old Testament Witness: Yahweh is the only true God. There is only one real God, not many, and it is the Lord God of Israel, Jehovah. See Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:35; Isaiah 44:6, 8; Jeremiah 10:10-11. So yes, we see that The Lord is the only true God…
2. But, there were hints at the plurality in God in OT times. There are many things in the Old Testament that don’t make sense if God is not a Trinity, but is instead a single, unitary (or “monadic”) being. Some example are:
- Multiple Appearances of Yahweh: Exodus 23:20-23; Joshua 5:13-15; Judges 2:1-5; also Genesis 18-19.
- The Coming Divine Messiah: Psalm 45:6-7; Is 9:6; Isaiah 48:12-16
- Other hints/Plural language: Genesis 1:26-28; Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (connected to Genesis 2:24)
3. Then, Jesus came and further defined and expanded our understanding of God. So, in the Old Testament we have this key to understanding God we can’t forget: God is Personal. (Unlike a “force,” or “disembodied being itself,” or something like a big ocean of “over-soul.”) But in the New Testament, we have the answer to this question: How is God personal? What is the personhood of God like?
See Luke 1:29-35; Matt 1:22-23; Mark 4:41; Luke 20:41-44; John 20:28-29; 1:1. In these verses we have the revelation that Jesus is God. In other words, we know the Lord of Israel is the only true God, and that there’s only one of Him, but as the first Christians interacted with Jesus, they realized they (like Thomas in John 20) had to include Jesus in their concept of God. God included Son and Father. (And of course, Spirit, as we see Jesus explaining in passages like John 14:15-18, 26.)
So, after we’ve met Jesus, what does it mean for us to say God is personal? Well, we have to say something like, “He is Tri-personal.” He is Father, Son, and Spirit in relationship to each other. This relationship is how God has always been. In other words, it is an eternal relationship or three eternal persons, who have always, all, been one God.
4. The Point: If you want to know God, look at Jesus. God is Father, Son, Spirit. See John 1:18; John 14:9-10; John 10:14-15; Luke 10:22 – Jesus is God…The Son. Or you could say something like, God is Father sending Son who is anointed by the Spirit. A key to remember: This is who God really is. If Jesus isn’t really revealing God to us, than we have no way of knowing who God is for real. God is Father sending Son who is anointed by the Spirit.
Application
God may be beyond what we could have figured out, but He is not distant or unknowable. He is a God who is able to be known, because of who He is. And because of who He is, He wants to bring us in to this eternal relationship. He wants you in the family. If you don’t already know Him, are you willing to come to God through Jesus Christ?
China’s plan to wipe out the house churches
Here’s an excerpt from an important article in Christianity Today:
In 2012, a new three-phase approach was adopted to wipe out unregistered house churches, which the government saw as a hostile group of dissenters, and force them to join the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) church system. In the first phase, from January 2012 to June, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) secretly investigated house churches across the country and created files on them, the report says. This was followed by a wave of crackdowns on house churches, which has continued into 2013, as part of the second phase. The second phase will also entail strongly encouraging unregistered churches to become part of the TSPM—at which point they would become known as “house gatherings,” with the government banning the term “house churches.”
Some house churches have registered with authorities to avoid arrests and harassment, but most do not as they object to the beliefs and controls of some TPSM leaders. Barriers to evangelical churches registering with the TSPM include theological differences, adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members, and government control of sermon content.
The number of Protestant house-church Christians has been estimated at between 45 million and 60 million.
The third phase is expected to begin from 2015 through to 2025, when the government would shut down house churches that do not comply with the requirement to join the TSPM, according to a joint-memo issued in September 2011 by SARA and the ministries of public security and civil affairs, the report says.
With this objective in mind, authorities in 2012 stepped up long-time tactics of banning and sealing churches, pressuring churches to join the official Three-Self structure, detaining church leaders and sending them to labor camps on the pretext of “suspicion of organizing and using a cult to undermine law enforcement,” and strictly restricting the spread of the Christian faith among students, the report points out.
“Landlords were pressured to terminate lease agreements with church members, church members who had purchased real estate were unable to take possession of them, church leaders were placed under house arrest and church members were evicted – all of which was done to make it impossible for the house church to operate normally so that it would eventually disband,” the report notes.
You can read the whole thing here.
You Already know the Trinity: Notes from Monday Night
Last Monday night we began our study of the how God has revealed Himself to be three in one, and what that means for us. Here are the notes:
Intro: Why we’re doing this:
- Not to get smart,
- To know God better—it’s really who God is.
- It’s an essential piece of your Christian understanding.
1. The Trinity saved you when you were born again (Galatians 3:1-2, 8-14; 4:3-7)
1. You heard the message of Jesus (3:1, 13; 4:3-5)
2. You believed (3:2)
3. You received the Spirit (3:2; 14; 4:6). That is, the Spirit of the God’s Son who makes us cry, “Father.”
See also Titus 3:1-7 – The Love of God appeared in the Son, who saved us by the Spirit.
2. The Trinity is how you know God now. (John 14:8-11; 15-18) This way God is, is how you can “have a relationship” with God. We know the Father by knowing Jesus (14:9) We know Jesus by having the Spirit (14:18 + 23; 15:26). See also John 14:26 and 1 John 4:10-15. The Helper comes to us from the Father in Jesus’ name. And see John 16:5-7. This is a better way to live and know God than having Jesus in bodily form with us.
3. The Trinity saved you in the death and resurrection of Christ
Heb 9:11-14 – Jesus was on the cross offering Himself to God through the Spirit
1 Peter 3:18; Rom 8:11 – Jesus was made alive by the Spirit
Summing it up:
- This is the God you know. They way you can know Him is because He is this way. (if He wasn’t…)
- Do you know Him? Do you have the Spirit in you? (Rom 8:9)
- You can…He wants you to know Him. God is a communicator…He is a friend-maker. He has revealed Himself, and if you trust Him, He will fill you with His Spirit and make you alive.
Why is God sometimes hard to understand?
Why does God seem hard to understand sometimes?
Here’s an interesting perspective on the answer to that question from Gregory Nazianzen, the 4th-century Christian leader from Asia Minor who was so influential in helping the church describe scripture’s teaching regarding the Trinity:
As far, however, as we have attained, who measure with our little measure things hard to be understood, perhaps one reason is to prevent us from too readily throwing away the possession because it was so easily come by.
For people cling tightly to that which they acquire with labour; but that which they acquire easily they quickly throw away, because it can be easily recovered.
And so it is turned into a blessing, at least to all men who are sensible, that this blessing is not too easy.
How to See the Trinity in Scripture in Three Steps
As we study the Trinity, I’ll try to post helpful things which we might not get to cover during the weekly studies. For instance, here’s some great, practical help from Fred Sanders on how to see the Trinity in the most important place: The Bible.
A lot of Bible-believing Christians have trouble seeing the doctrine of the Trinity in Scripture. They see a verse here and a verse there that help prove the different parts of the doctrine (the deity of Christ, the unity of God, etc), but they don’t see the whole package put together in any one place.
Granting that the doctrine is not compactly gathered into any one verse (not even Matthew 28:19 or 2 Corinthians 13:14 are quite as complete or detailed as we’d like), we can take some steps toward thinking about the doctrine in a bigger-than-one-verse way.
Follow the whole argument of Galatians 4, for example, or 1 Corinthians 2, or of Ephesians 1, or of the Gospel of John, and you’ll see the Trinitarian profile of God’s self-revelation emerge clearly. You have to learn to think in bigger sections of Scripture than just a verse; the bigger the better.
This is the key to seeing what’s really there in Scripture: To get to the doctrine of the Trinity, you have to take three very large mental steps.
1. Read the whole Bible. Okay, maybe you can put off Habakkuk and Jude for a while. But you have to achieve some initial mastery of the long, main lines of the one story that is the Christian Bible. You have to be able to think back and forth along the canon of scripture, with figures like Abraham and Moses and David and Cyrus standing in their proper places, and with categories like temple and sonship and holiness lighting up the various books as appropriate. Get comfortable with the whole volume.
2. Understand the shape of God’s economy. [By “economy,” Fred means something like “the way God has governed and worked in the world”] The next step is to comprehend the entire Bible as the official, inspired report of the one central thing that God is doing for the world. He has ordered all of these words and events that are recorded in Scripture toward one end. It’s not good enough just to know the content of the whole Bible, if you misinterpret it as a haphazard assemblage of divine stops and starts. These are not disparate Bible stories, but the written form of the one grand movement in which God disposes all his works and words toward making himself known and present.
3. Recognize the economy as a revelation of who God is. There is still a third step, and it’s the biggest one of all. When you know the entire Bible, and understand that it presents to us God’s well-ordered economy, you still have to come to see that God is making himself known to us in that economy. After all, it is theoretically possible for God to do great things in world history without really giving away his character or disclosing his identity in doing so. This final step on the way to the doctrine of the Trinity is the recognition that God behaved as Father, Son, and Spirit in the economy because he was revealing to us who he eternally is, in himself. He wasn’t messing around with that Son and Spirit stuff. He put himself into the gospel.
That is the right way to interpret the Bible. It’s also the traditional way, recognized by the church fathers and the reformers. It’s also the Christian way. It yields the doctrine of the Trinity, not in scattered verses here and there that tell us a weird doctrine at the margins of the faith, but as the main point.
Studying the Trinity on Monday Nights
This Monday, I plan on beginning a series of studies looking at the way God has revealed Himself in scripture. Specifically, I want to look at how God has revealed Himself to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–One God. We use the word “Trinity” to refer to this…this way God is God. Not only is it one of those topics that Christians regularly find confusing, but it is also essentially practical; a maturing understanding of who God is as a Trinity will help us relate to God (and people) in a more fruitful way.
I have a basic outline of where I think the studies will go–Four looking at exactly how God has shown us that He is Triune, and five or so looking at the practical implications (for us) of this revelation. The order may change (for example, study 2 may be about the Son before we focus on the Father) and the practical studies in particular may morph as i actually get into them, but here’s a general idea of how we might tackle this subject:
Our God Has Made Himself Known: Getting to Know The Trinity
1. Why this is So Exciting: The Only Real God Wants Us to Know Him
2. God is The Father Who Sends His Son in the Power of His Spirit
3. God is The Son Who Reveals His Father Through His Spirit
4. God is The Spirit Who Lives in the Son to Glorify the Father
5. The Only Real World: The Universe made by the Trinity
6. What We Are: People in the Image of the Trinity
7. What We’re For: Worshiping the Trinity
8. How to Stop the Hate: The Trinity and how we treat each other
9. Getting Over Our Past: The Trinity and how we heal
I’ve already posted some written thoughts, and links to four awesome messages on the Trinity that I highly recommend. Check them out. Can’t wait to get into it all with you.
God’s Wisdom and Singleness: Notes from Last Night
Last night we concluded our study of God’s Wisdom in our relationships by looking at the New Testament teaching on singleness. Here are the notes:
Paul’s concerns in 1 Corinthians 7
7:1 Should people abstain from marriage and all sexual activity in order to be truly spiritual?
7:2-7 Abstaining from sexual activity is good for the unmarried, but not the married.
7:8-9 …or if people aren’t controlling themselves. Marriage is no sin, but fornication is.
7:10-16 We don’t dissolve marriages in order to be spiritual, even a marriage to a non-believer.
The Point: Marriage or Singleness doesn’t affect your ability to be spiritual. (See v.7: there is a gift of singleness and a gift of marriage.)
7:17-24 You can serve Christ in any state.
17 as God has “distributed” to us our situation, but our “call” is to Christ (1:9, 24). Live out life in that situation = you don’t have to seek a change…
21-22 Don’t “worry” about the status of slave: you are freed in Christ. [The Roman empire had a system of slavery that was based on economics (if you fell in to debt) or politics (if you were conquered in war). Many of the early Christians were slaves who had believed in Christ.] So if the opportunity presents itself, get physically “free,” and remember you’re Christ’s slave
The Point: If a change in status presents itself, there are times when it’s good to take, but we don’t need to let it concern us, because the most important thing is that we’re called by Christ. Our relationship to Christ redefines and transforms all other relationships, situations, and statuses.
7:25-31 The same goes for marital status
25-28 we don’ need to “seek” a change in our status. i.e. – expend our energy or drive to get married. (he may be speaking to the “betrothed” or not betrothed when he says “bound” or “loosed”) (Matt 6:31-33)
29-31 Everyone, married or not, needs to let eternity, and their calling in Christ, dictate how they live. But notice: if the opportunity presents itself…
7:32-35 But there are some advantages to singleness
- You are freed up from concern with some physical matters to serve the Lord (32-34) “distraction.”
- You don’t have another person to attend to.
- This can be a profit, it’s not a leash (35).
- See 9:5+15; Paul gave up marriage.
See also: Matt 19:10-12, Is 56:4-5, Luke 18:28-30
Summing It Up:
- Singleness may be chosen, but you don’t have to feel forced into it.
- While you are single, the point of it is for you to use the time for Christ.
- It’s not for a prolonged adolescence.
- It is a particular kind of freedom: time, money, emotional attachment; only one mind to make up, only one heart to guard, no one to let down or leave behind.
- Singleness is a gift.
- If we really believe God, we’ll believe what He says about blessing and reward.
- If you can’t change your circumstance immediately, God is giving you a gift of sometime before you get married. It is time for you to use for Him. You shouldn’t worry about your circumstances or spend your energy trying to change them. Seek the kingdom of God, and wait for Him to add a husband or wife to you. And when that person become obvious, you don’t have to worry that you’re sinning or demoting yourself spiritually. Let your calling in Christ define your marriage, and get married!
Four quick applications:
- Don’t stress your singleness. Seek Christ and His kingdom and serve Him where you are.
- Use your singles while you have it. Redeem this time!
- Believe God—that you will never truly sacrifice anything.
- Let your calling in Christ define all your circumstances.
Avoiding the easy paths of toleration and isolation
Follwing up on yesterday’s post, here’s another block from Robert Gagnon’s book The Bible and Homosexual Practice. Lots of mature reflection on what Jesus was doing as he was hanging out with “tax collectors and sinners” here, and a good dose of application for all of us:
The stories about Jesus’ encounters with women who were considered sexual sinners [as in John 8] do not support the conclusion that Jesus was soft on sexual sin. He did allow these women to come into close contact with him. He did not fear the stigma attached to associating with such people. He advocated mercy as a means of stimulating repentance and devotion to God rather than support the death penalty. He understood that those who were forgiven the most would stand a good chance of loving the Forgiver the most. Such people made excellent candidates for receiving Jesus’ message about the coming kingdom and for obeying his teaching. Jesus forgave sexual sins, like all other sins, in the expectation of transformed behavior. They were to go and sin no more.
Further, Jesus’ treatment of sexual sinners was not any different from his treatment of other types of sinners. This becomes clear in the case of a second group of texts: those having to do with tax collectors. The story about the wealthy tax collector named Zacchaeus is the most revealing text as regards how Jesus interacted with tax collectors (Luke 19:1-10). Where the women cited above were marginalized by their sexual misconduct, Zacchaeus was marginalized perhaps because of his collaboration with an oppressive foreign power, but certainly because of the well-founded suspicion that he himself was profiting through extortion. He is a much less sympathetic character than the aforementioned women. Although it is common today to view Jesus as primarily concerned with helping the poor, the offensiveness of Jesus’ fraternization with tax collectors is often missed. Few today who would argue that sexual purity was a low-priority issue for Jesus based on Jesus’ free association with sexual sinners, would also argue that Jesus was soft on issues of economic exploitation based on his free association with economic sinners.
The parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector (“publican”) also loses its offensive and scandalous quality whenever the connection between tax collectors and economic exploitation of the poor is lost (Luke 18:9-14). At the end of the parable the tax collector goes home “justified” in God’s eyes, while the Pharisee does not. A typical reaction might be: “Good! The Pharisee is a pompous and judgmental religious prude. It is about time that he gets his comeuppance.” Such a reaction, however, would overlook the fact that, as bad as the Pharisee might seem in modern cultural context (not his own), at least he was not exploiting the poor for his own personal economic gain. When Jesus extols the virtue of the tax collector’s humility (“all who humble themselves will be exalted,” 18:14), he is obviously not condoning or excusing the severity of the tax collector’s offensive behavior. Presumably, the tax collector does not resume his old practice of defrauding the poor after beating his chest in the temple and pleading with God to “be merciful to me, a sinner” (18:13). His penitent spirit is a sign of true repentance. Conversely, the problem with the Pharisee is not his righteous conduct, but rather his self-righteous attitude. Jesus is lifting up the one of the two who has the best chance of leaving the temple with a heart open to God’s demands for human compassion.
It is not surprising that when Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’s home, “all who saw it began to grumble…, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner’” (19:7). What is crucial for our purposes is that Jesus’ fraternization with Zacchaeus clearly does not convey Jesus’ acceptance of Zacchaeus’s behavior. Jesus exclaimed that “Today salvation has come to this house” only after Zacchaeus had announced his intention to give half of his possessions to the poor and to pay back four times as much of whatever he had defrauded others (19:8-9; cf. 3:12-13).
The concluding words to the story about Zacchaeus, “the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (19:10), apply equally well to the stories about women sinners. We can apply these same words to our ministries to homosexual persons.
In the true spirit of Jesus, to seek and to save practicing homosexuals does not mean confirming their homosexual fantasies or conduct.
It means actively seeking out and sharing a meal with them, taking the message of the kingdom to them, and demonstrating through our own interest in them that God values them.
It also means remembering our differences from Jesus, knowing that we too are sinners, numbered among those whom Jesus has sought out, recipients of his forgiveness.
This is the difficult work of reconciliation, which avoids the two easy paths of toleration and isolation.
–Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, p.217-219