How to Preach to Homosexuals

We were preaching in downtown Portland, OR during the Red Bull Flugtag event. We preached from 11 a.m. till 7 p.m. Portland is a very liberal city. The next weekend, we were downtown again and there was a gay pride festival. We had a lot of fun that weekend, too.

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[ToHoldNothing]

When you boil your worth to God to God's judgment of your merit, it seems to counter the idea that righteousness in Jesus is supposedly what makes you justified before God, not any good actions explicitly. Technically, the idea that works result from faith is there, but this seems to boil salvation to merit, which is just muddying the waters. Not even a Christian, but this becomes ridiculous on its face in any kind of general theology that actually makes sense in context

[billkyllonen]

@ToHoldNothing You're missing the point, buddy. It is precisely because we dont have any merit of our own that we need the merits of Jesus Christ. The commandments are meant to show us ourselves in truth. By the law, men are taught their inability to yield complete obedience to God, that thereby we may become convinced of our need of the Savior. Simple. Even a child can understand it. I broke God's law, and Jesus stepped in and paid the penalty.

[MrJohnj5530]

Christians don’t repent, they escape goat their sins on Jesus.

[ToHoldNothing]

@billkyllonen It's easy to ignore that not all those commandments have anything to do with being moral, but instead with being pious (first 4). Plus the final commandment against covetousness neglects that we strive for better things commonly because we envy others, though not to excess. If we don't have any merit of our own, commonly established by depravity, then why even have the law if it's purely for deterrents' sake? And the legal comparison fails due to God's perfect mercy and justice

[RandomUTuber819]

@davitodude (ctd...) If I was God I wouldn't test people because I would know every single thing about them, I wouldn't need to determine their willingness to obey.

This brings up another point. The idea of having to compare myself to your god shows that your god clearly is human in nature, and not perfect. I thought humans were the evil ones, and here we have a deity bound by emotions who's done what every other human dictator has done, demand obedience and worship under penalty of death.

[RandomUTuber819]

@davitodude If I was God I would know exactly who would worship me and who wouldn't before I even started creating them. If I did follow through with creating disobeyers knowing full well they would inevitably disobey, logically I'm not really in a place to get angry at them over it as opposed to myself, anymore than I should blame the dog if I knowingly let the vicious dog free and it mauls someone to death.

[davitodude]

@RandomUTuber819

You first must play with the idea that a God does exist. If you can do that then imagine yourself as God and what you would believe is justice for those who disobey you directly. Here you are a being who gave life to everything. And yet someone out there resents you because they are stuck on things you created around them. You did this to test them so you could separate those who disobey from those who obey. It is just to grant eternal life or death for those who obey/disobey.

[RandomUTuber819]

@davitodude

(ctd)

It would sound crazy to any rational person, and it is rational to say that a tyrant who decides who lives or dies based on who strokes his ego, and then calls such a system justice, has a very warped view on what justice is. I guess God does "reveal" himself when you walk with him, but the statement really means nothing. You simply see life through "god lenses" and attribute anything that can be rationally explained as your God's work.

[RandomUTuber819]

@davitodude Your god is just? Who said that? Himself? Sounds like a classic conflict of interest. Stalin and other dictators probably declared themselves just as well. God sent his son to have him brutally murdered to satisfy his wrath towards man, and to save them from the eternal torture pit he created (and because if he didn't, there'd be no reason to worship him). How is this beautiful? If a human being did the same on a finite scale we would appropriately deem him as a psychopath.

(ctd...)