The following is an edited email conversation with a college student asking for help in sharing biblical truth with a friend who has embraced our culture’s view on the LBGT lifestyle. My hope in sharing this is to give you some logical principles and arguments against popular culture’s false assumptions. My hope is that this will prompt more thought and dialog in your sphere of influence about how you might be more winsome yet courageous to speak the truth into the darkness of this enslaving philosophy.
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Hi Mr. Kloter, quick question. I’m talking with someone about God. They are a massive supporter of LGBT.
How can a perfect God can call the LGBT lifestyle sinful when it’s something they can’t change about themselves?
I know we’re supposed to love them and point them to Christ and all, but how can they be Christians while ignoring/participating in sin they can’t really change?
Can an LGBT person be a Christian since repentance means the need to turn from and avoid LGBT behaviors?
I know I can be forgiven for my own sins and with God’s help and with encouragement from others, I can fight and begin to conquer that sin, but a LGBT person can’t really just not be gay anymore can they?
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Dear __________,
First, consider the presuppositions of the person/people you're engaging.
1. He/she is making judgements about God's standards. Consider asking, "What standard are you using to determine right/wrong or good/bad?" You need to learn the source of their truths/beliefs. Help them understand that your truth-source is from the God who made you/them.
2. The label "gay" is not helpful. A wiser way to think of people is whether they’re lost or saved, believer or unbeliever, child of God, lover of God or enemy of God. This helps us think of the LGBT person as “on the same bench” as any other individual. Their struggles and temptations are not unique from others at the root level (Rom. 3:23; 1 Cor. 10:13).
3. Therefore, I would argue that “gay” or LGBT is not an identity. These labels simply describe attitudes and desires of the heart that manifest themselves in predominant ways. When a sinner is saved, he/she is radically transformed, they are a “new creature,” they are no longer defined by the beliefs, habits and behaviors of their past (1 Cor. 6:9-16; 2 Cor. 5:17). The transforming grace of the Gospel makes people new and different with new insights, wisdom, desires, and power to change to become more like their Lord (Phil. 2:12-13).
4. Consider discussing the fact that if he/she is able to make judgement claims, they must also allow for the fact that God is not only free to make his own judgements, but has the authority to do so as Creator.
5. He/she described God as perfect, so you have common ground. A perfect God’s Word is also perfect, without blemish, flaw or error. Furthermore, God's perfect word does not lack anything that you would need to know in order to deal with this issue, or any other, for that matter.
6. Since God’s Word is perfect, then God's perspective on homosexuality is perfect when He calls it sin (Lev. 18:22, 20:13; Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10).
7. Note that he/she assumes that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition. On what basis is he/she making this claim? How does he/she know this? What is their truth source? Even if science may discover a gene that is more common in those with this predisposition, it doesn’t change God’s “predisposition on homosexuality. He calls it sin. He calls the sinner to confess, repent and turn from sin and turn towards righteousness. He offered His son in love to enable the homosexual to be free from this and to enjoy fellowship with Him.
8. He/she assumes that homosexual behaviors cannot be changed. This is true. Their only hope is to repent and believe the Gospel. God does not command a change without giving them the power to do so. That power is given as a gift of grace through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of His Son, so that the LGBT might live in a harmonious relationship with this perfect God. That's not unloving, that's amazing.
9. He/she claims God is unfair. This is correct; God IS unfair. He offered his sinless son to die for people who hate and reject him. He offered his sinless son to die for people who are sinners and deserve Hell. That is the greatest act of unfairness recorded in human history.
10. He/she asks for fairness. Fair treatment of sinners by a perfect God would mean their eternal punishment. Every human deserves Hell, nothing more, nothing less (Rom. 3:23, 6:23).
11. All sinners, including the LGBT (they are not unique 1 Cor. 10:13), can become a Christian by repenting of sin (turning from their sin and rejecting their own self-righteousness) and trusting fully in the righteous life of Christ for their own righteousness, and trusting fully that Jesus' blood paid their eternal debt.
12. Any person who truly has been "born from above" (Jn. 3:3) will grow in hatred towards sin (Pr.13:5), including LGBT thinking and behaviors (Eph. 4:17-24), and they will grow in their desire to grow in holiness (Ps. 40:8).
Kent Kloter
Kent Kloter
