Tag: Paul
1 Are We Saved By Our Faith In Christ Or By The Faith Of Christ?
Sometimes a preposition can make all the difference.
I remember my first theology course as a freshman undergraduate, Elements of Christian Thought, with Gene Rogers. I’d just become a Christian as a Junior in High School and was only beginning to become acquainted with the actual content of our faith. The topic one week was Justification & Salvation, and I remember another student asking the TA:
‘If Christians believe we’re justified by faith in Christ, then what about people like me who don’t have faith, who’d maybe like to have faith but can’t seem to find it? Is it our fault then if we’re not saved? Why faith is essential why is it so hard? That seems like a pretty limited God.’
It hit me then and still does as a very good question. Not only does it make essential something that is sincerely elusive for many people, it also turns faith into a kind of work- the very opposite of Paul’s point- in that we’re saved by our ability to believe.
This week we continue our sermon series on ‘Christianity’s Most Dangerous Ideas’ with the theme of Faith vs. Works.
The irony of this historic debate among Christians, however, is that the very idea of justification coming through faith in Christ is premised on a bad translation of scripture.
Almost everywhere that is written in English is a wrong translation. It is properly translated by the King James. Take a look at this passage from Romans:
“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:20-23
In Greek, the actual wording is “even the righteousness of God, through the faith OF Jesus Christ.”
Grammar Lesson:
It is a possessive or genitive phrase. Now a genitive means that this phrase can be interpreted as either subjective or objective. In other words, it is like the phrase, the Love of God. That is either our love for God, or the love that God has. In one case it is objective (love for God), in the other subjective (God is the subject) and it describes the love that belongs to God, or God’s love.
In Greek, the faith of Jesus Christ is also a subjective genitive, but has been interpreted as an objective in almost every translation.
Why is this important?
Because it is not our faith in Jesus which justifies us, but the faith of Jesus Christ in us which justifies us. Faith isn’t a work. Isn’t our work at least. The faith that saves us and justifies us is the obedience of Christ.
In other words, it is his faith at work in us and in our hearts which produces righteousness and the God kind of life.
This explains why faith is a gift and why we are saved through faith by grace and not as a work of our own. It is not our faith which justifies, but the faith of Jesus given to us, which resides in us.
The good news is, it isn’t my faith that matters. It is the faith OF Jesus Christ given to me, that when God regards you or me God isn’t measuring our feeble attempts at faithfulness. In other words, when God looks upon us God chooses not to see us but to see Jesus.
0 Some Jesus Thoughts on Yom Kippur
Today at sundown Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins. It’s been my experience that Christians know very much about Passover, since the links to the Passion story are explicit in the Gospels, but know very little about Yom Kippur (or the other Jewish Holy Days) and how they interact with and inform what the Gospel writers were attempting to convey.
Another reason why Christians don’t know much about Yom Kippur is that it’s outlined in the Book of Leviticus, probably the most neglected book of the Old Testament by Christians. Recovering the connection is key, though, because many Christians believe Jesus suffered God’s wrath towards us on the Cross in his body. But Yom Kippur isn’t about suffering wrath, it’s about removing sin.
The ancient church fathers believed the Book of Hebrews was originally one long sermon on Leviticus 16, which would make it longer even than one of Dennis’ sermons.
Leviticus 16 details God’s instructions to Moses for the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur revolves around the high priest. The person who represents all of God’s people, the only person who can ever venture beyond the temple veil and into the Holy of Holies, where the ark and the presence of God reside, and ask God to remove his people’s sins.
Remember, in the Hebrew Bible God is a consuming, refining fire.
And as much as God loves us and as much as we love God, in the Hebrew Bible no one can come near God’s presence.
And live.
So when the high priest enters the Holy of Holies, he risks his life.
And because of that, every detail of every ritual matters.
The high priest must bath the right way.
The high priest must dress the proper way.
The high priest must make prescribed sacrifices for his sin and his family sin.
When he’s done with the preparation, the high priest is brought two goats.
Lots are cast so that God’s will would be done.
One goat is sacrificed to cleanse the temple of sin. The second goat is brought to him alive. The high priest lays both his hands on the head of the goat and then confesses onto it all the iniquities of the people of Israel. The priest removes all the people’s sins and places them on the goat. And after the priest’s work was finished, the goat would bear the people’s sin away in to the wilderness.
The wilderness symbolized exile and forsakenness and death.
The high priest transfers the sins of the people onto the goat and then the goat is sent away to where the wild things are. You see, Yom Kippur isn’t about God wanting to punish you for your sin.
Yom Kippur’s about God wanting to remove your sin.
The Day of Atonement is not about appeasing an angry, petty God. It’s about God removing that which separates us from God and from each other and sending it away so that it’s not here anymore.
While the high priest prayed over the goat, the king of the Jews would undergo a ritual humiliation to repent of his people’s sins: he’d be struck, his clothes would be torn, the king would ask God to forgive his people for they know not what they do.
When the high priest’s work is done, the goat’s loaded with all the sins of the people. Chances are, you wouldn’t want to volunteer to lead that goat out into the wilderness. So the man appointed for the task would be a Gentile. Someone with no connection to the people of Israel. Someone who might not even realize that what they’re doing is a dirty job. That Gentile would lead the goat away with a red cord wrapped around its head- red that symbolized sin.
The name for the goat is ahzahzel. It’s where we get the word ‘scapegoat.’
Ahzahzel means ‘taking away.’
The Gentile would lead the scapegoat into exile while the people shouted ‘ahzahzel.’
Take it away. Take our sin away.
So that it’s not here anymore.
The Gospels all say Jesus dies during the Passover Feast not Yom Kippur.
But I’m not sure it’s as simple as that.
Because the Gospels tell you the calendar says Passover, but what they show you looks an awful lot like the Day of Atonement.
The Gospels show you Jesus being arrested and brought to whom?
The high priest.
The Gospels show you the high priests accusing Jesus of blasphemy, placing what they say is guilt and sin upon him when in reality all they’re doing is transferring their own guilt onto him.
The Gospels show you Pilate’s men ritually humiliating this ‘King of the Jews.’ Mocking him. Casting lots before him. Tearing his clothes off him.
And then wrapping a branch of thorns around his head until a cord of red blood circles it.
The Gospels tell you that the calendar says Passover, but what they show you is Pilate holding Jesus out to the crowd and Pilate asks the crowd what to do with Jesus.
And what do the crowds shout? Not ‘Crucify him!’ Not at first.
First, the crowds shout ‘Take him away!’
Then they shout ‘Crucify him!’ (John 19.15)
The Gospels tell you that the calendar says Passover, but what they show then is Jesus being led away, like an animal, with a red ring around his head, with shouts of ‘ahzahzel’ ringing in the air- led away from the city by Gentiles to Golgotha.
A garbage dump.
A barren place where some of his last words will be ‘My God why have you forsaken me?’
The Gospels tell you its Passover, but what they show you isn’t a Passover Lamb but a Scapegoat.
This is what the Gospels show you when Jesus breathes his last and the veil of the temple- the entrance to the Holy of Holies- is torn in two, from top to bottom.
This is what the Gospels show you when they quote the prophet Isaiah:
‘He has born our grief.’
‘He has carried our sorrow.’
‘Laid on him is the iniquity of us all.’ Those are all references to Leviticus.
This is what the Gospel shows you at the very beginning right after the Christmas story when John the Baptist points to Jesus and says he’s the one who ‘ahzahzels the sins of the world.’
This is what St Paul alludes to when he says that because of Jesus Christ ‘nothing can now separate us from God.’
The Gospels tell you the calendar says Passover, but what they show you is a Day of Atonement.
Unlike any other.
0 My Grocery Store Freakout
The Way Up is the Way Down- Philippians 2.1-11
It might surprise some of you to hear that, as gentle and considerate as I appear to be, I have a tendency to be contrary.
And while I wouldn’t say that I have a short fuse exactly, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I can be cranky, maybe even a little confrontational.
For example-
There was the recent ‘episode’ that has since come to be known in my house as ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout.’
And before I tell you about ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ I should say first that, as a responsible preacher, I try hard, whenever sharing personal stories, never to present myself in a heroic light.
I try hard to avoid stories in which I appear to be the wise or faithful one. I usually avoid any anecdotes where I’m the good example or where I do the right thing.
You can take that as my disclaimer that ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ is an exception to that rule. In this instance, it’s the other guy who’s the idiot.
A couple of Sundays ago I fell asleep on the sofa watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince with the boys. I woke up from my nap to Gabriel staring at me, nose-tip to nose-tip, and saying ‘Daddy, it’s almost time for dinner.’
With just a yawn and a stretch, I headed to the grocery store. As I pushed my shopping cart through the entrance I caught my reflection in the glass.
My bed-head hair was mussed every which way.
My undershirt was covered with tomato sauce stains from lunch that looked a little like blood. My eyes were heavy and bloodshot.
And I had what looked like a scar across my face from the zipper of the pillow I’d been sleeping against.
In sum: I looked like a crazy person.
After picking up a few odds and ends, I stood in the produce section staring aimlessly at the bare Sunday shelves and wondering what on earth I could make with just japanese eggplant, jalepenos, and Italian parsley.
And I swear- it’s because I was trying to think of a recipe NOT because I was eavesdropping that I overheard him.
One of the store employees was sitting against the refrigerator, where the cabbage normally goes. Three other, younger, employees were huddled around him.
To protect the identities of the innocent and the idiotic, I won’t go into names or descriptions. I’ll just tell you what I heard.
“My best advice is for you guys to stay completely away from her’ the one leaning against the cabbage section said to the three.
And he nodded with his chin in the direction of ‘her.’
And again, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but I couldn’t help it. When he nodded in ‘her’ direction, like gravity was pulling me, I looked over my shoulder to see who the ‘her’ was he had in mind.
‘She’ was near the other side of the store, working a cash register.
‘She’ was a teenager it looked like. She couldn’t have been more than 18.
And ‘she,’ I could tell from the scarf wrapped around her head, was a Muslim.
That’s when I decided to eavesdrop.
‘How do we stay away from her?‘ one of Produce Guy’s three disciples asked.
‘Don’t talk to her. Period.‘ He said without equivocation. ‘Pretend she’s not there. If she says something to you, act like you didn’t hear her. If she needs help with something, tell her you’re busy with something else. If a manager tells you to work with her, say you’re in the middle of something.‘
His three disciples all nodded like receivers watching a quarterback draw up a play.
What I heard shocked me, but I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything until I heard him say: ‘Remember, she worships a false god. That’s a sin, and God doesn’t want you associating with sinners. God hates sinners.‘
Thus began what’s come to be known as ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout.‘
I left my cart and stepped over to their huddle and said, in love: ‘Excuse me, it sounds to me like you don’t know what the blank you’re talking about and maybe you should just shut your mouth.‘
It was his turn to be shocked.
He stood up from the cabbage section and held up his hands as if to say ‘no harm, no foul‘ and said: ‘There must be a misunderstanding; we were just having a religious conversation.‘
And that’s when I lost it:
‘Misunderstanding? I’ll say. You’re telling these poor idiots that God doesn’t want them helping someone else?
That God wants them to deliberately ignore someone else?
That God wants them to treat someone like they’re not even a person?
You’re telling them that God hates sinners?
And you call yourself a Christian?
You’ve completely lost the plot.
If you really believed in Jesus Christ none of those words would ever come out of your mouth.‘
And that’s when I realized I’d been poking him in the chest with my Japanese eggplant.
He gave me a patronizing smile, like I was the one who didn’t get it.
‘Do you go to church?‘ he asked. ‘Maybe if you went to church you’d understand…‘
‘Yeah, I go to church‘ I said. ‘In fact, I go every Sunday. I’m there all the time. Aldersgate United Methodist Church. We’d love to have you visit us sometime.‘
And that’s when I realized that all the other customers in the produce section were motionless, as though suspended in time, staring in shock at me.
And for a brief, sobering moment I was able to see myself as they must’ve seen me: a man with red, bloodshot eyes, wild hair, and what looked like a scar across his face and blood splatter on his shirt, screaming about God near the cabbages, with an eggplant in his hand.
Don’t let the pretty poetry and lofty language fool you.
This song, which Paul cuts and pastes into his letter here in Philippians chapter 2, it’s meant to shock you.
Because those last few lines of the song:
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend…
11 and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Those last few lines aren’t original- not to Paul, not to any other Christian, not to anyone in Philippi.
They’re lifted straight from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 45- which, in case you don’t know it, is one of the Bible’s fiercest statements against idolatry, against worshipping any other god but the one with a capital G.
And what does Paul do with this song from Isaiah?
Paul, a lifelong Jew, who for his entire life at least twice a day would’ve recited in prayer: ‘The Lord our God the Lord is One.’
Paul, a Pharisee, an expert in the Law who you can bet knew that the very first law, the law of all laws, was ‘You shall have no other gods besides me.’
What does Paul do with Isaiah’s song?
He sticks Jesus in the middle of it.
He says that:
Because Jesus knew power and might aren’t things to be grasped at but given up.
Because Jesus emptied himself of heaven.
Because Jesus made himself poor even though he was rich.
Because he exchanged his royal robes for a servant’s towel.
Because Jesus stooped down from eternity and humbled himself.
Because he forgave 70 times 7.
Because he blessed those who cursed him.
Because he went the extra mile for those who cared not for him.
Because he put away the sword and turned the other cheek and loved his enemies.
Because Jesus remained faithful no matter it cost him, no matter where it led him, no matter how it ended.
Because he did that,
God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.
And that’s the shock.
Because the name that is above every name…is Yahweh.
The name that is above every name is ‘I am who I am.’
The name that is above every name is the name that was revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush, the name that was too holy to be spoken aloud or written down.
That’s why, in its place, the ancient manuscripts always used the word ‘Kyrios’ instead: ‘Lord.’
The same word Paul attaches to Jesus here in the middle of Isaiah’s song.
It’s meant to shock you- that this God who appeared in a burning bush and spoke in a still, small voice, this God- the one and only God- comes to us fully and in the flesh as Jesus Christ.
It’s intended to shock you- that Mary’s son is as much of God the Father as we could ever hope to see.
I was in the middle of ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ when I realized all the eyes of the produce section were on me, looking like they were waiting for someone- anyone- to taser me and put me back in my straight jacket.
So I looked up and smiled and it must’ve seemed more creepy than conciliatory because just like that all the shoppers scurried away to safety. So did Produce Guy’s three disciples, who went back to work.
But Produce Guy wasn’t ready to let me leave without proving how I was wrong and he wasn’t.
‘You must be one of those Christians who think we all just worship the same god’ he said dismissively.
‘No’ I said, and just like that I was shouting again.
‘You don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. I
believe our God couldn’t be moredifferent.
I believe our God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That means you can’t say anything about God that you can’t also say about Jesus Christ.
So unless it makes sense to you to say ‘Jesus hates sinners; Jesus doesn’t want you to serve that person; Jesus wants you to treat that person like they’re not a person; unless it makes sense to you to say that about Jesus, then you should just shut your mouth.’
I said, in love.
But he didn’t follow.
He just squinted at me and said: ‘Maybe you should talk this over with your pastor. Maybe he could help you understand.’
‘Yeah, maybe. I’ll ask him about it.’
I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that when it comes to the Trinity, our belief that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, most of you think it’s a hustle.
You think it’s some philosophical shell game that couldn’t have less to do with your everyday life.
But pay attention-
That’s not how Paul speaks of the Trinity here.
Paul’s not interested in philosophy or abstraction.
Paul’s concerned with your mindset. With your attitude. With your love.
The Philippians weren’t locked in any doctrinal disputes or theological debates.
They were just at every day odds with each other.
And so Paul sends them these words about the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For Paul, the Trinity isn’t about intellectual games.
For Paul, the Trinity’s more like grammar that governs our God-talk.
Trinity keeps us from saying whatever we like about God, doing whatever we want in the name of God, believing whatever we wish under the umbrella of a generic god.
Trinity is Paul’s way of making sure that we can’t say ‘God’ without also saying ‘Jesus’
I mean, think about it-
Think about how many people you’ve heard, after a natural disaster or a tragic death or the diagnosis of disease, say something like: ‘It’s God’s will.’
Trinity means that for that to be a true statement you have to be able to remove ‘God’ and replace it with ‘Jesus.’
Trinity means that it’s not a true statement unless you’re able to say:
‘My mom’s cancer was Jesus’ will.’
‘Hurricane Katrina was Jesus’ will.’
‘9/11 was Jesus’ will.’
For Paul, Trinity functions not as a philosophical concept but as a grammatical rule. Trinity binds us to the character and story of Jesus.
We can’t say or think or act like God hates ‘sinners’ because we know Jesus didn’t.
We can’t say or think or act like God doesn’t care about the poor because we know Jesus did.
We can’t say or think or act as if God is against our enemies because we know Jesus loved them.
We can’t scratch our heads and wonder if we need to forgive that person in our lives because know what Jesus said about it.
And the doctrine of the Trinity refuses to let you forget that his words aren’t the words of any ordinary human teacher.
Teachers can be dismissed.
But his words are 100%, 3-in-1, the Word of God.
When Jesus says to the woman about to be stoned for adultery ‘I don’t condemn you’ that’s God speaking.
And when Jesus offers living water to the woman at the well, who has about 5 too many men in her life, that’s God’s grace.
And when Jesus says to Zaccheus, a villain and a traitor and a sinner, ‘Tonight I’m eating at your house’ Trinity makes sure we remember that that’s an invitation stamped with the seal of heaven.
For Paul, the fact that this God couldn’t be more different- it couldn’t be more practical.
I don’t freak out on people all that often.
But that’s not to say that I don’t run into people every day whose behavior doesn’t square with their beliefs, whose opinions are dearer to them than the mind of Christ, who are so set in their ways they refuse to conform to the Way.
And so if you want to make me less cranky.
If you want to make your pastor happy.
If you want to make my joy complete.
Give don’t grasp.
Serve don’t single out.
Don’t puff yourselves up with conceit.
Don’t fill yourselves up with ambition.
Don’t act out of selfishness.
Empty yourselves of the need to be right.
Regard anyone as better than yourself.
Pour yourselves out overtime for others.
Stay faithful to the Son’s words because that Son’s the fullness of the Father, and his name is inseparable from the name that is above every name.
And if that’s true then the way up in this world is by stooping down.
5 Does Being ‘Biblical’= Being Pauline?
Does Being ‘Biblical’= Being Pauline?
I’ve started reading NT Wright’s book, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. In some ways it’s a continuation of his work in Simply Jesus.
Wright’s overarching premise is how Christianity in the West has largely forgotten what the Gospels are about. Christians of all traditions and across the theological spectrum tend to read the Gospels episodically or we read them to buttress theological perspectives we bring to the texts. We do not- and haven’t since the ancient church, Wright contends- read the Gospels, asking the question: ‘What overall story does this Gospel think its telling?’
Wright argues that Christians, especially since the Reformation, have construed the ‘gospel’ in terms of atonement and justification; meanwhile, the story the Gospels attempt to tell is how God in Christ is King of the Earth as in Heaven. The extent to which Jesus’ ascension has become a neglected text and holy day supports Wright’s assertions, and just on a literary level it’s a good charge to level. There are no other narratives we could read where how the authors constructed the beginning, middle and end are incidental to the authorial ‘point.’ It’s not a trivial detail that the Gospels conclude with Jesus’ enthronement nor is it of little consequence that Luke ends the Gospel with Jesus’ ascension and then Luke’s Acts picks up with the disciples living in the form of this new Kingdom, on earth as in heaven.
Whatever one’s theology, Wright thinks it problematic that most Christians can articulate a definition of the gospel that need not make any reference to the actual Gospels. Our definitions of the Gospel center on terms like atonement and justification, terms that feature prominently in Paul but are not in the Gospels themselves and are certainly not their main theme. In the same way, Wright notes a commonly observed problem with the creeds; namely, that they skip from Jesus’ birth to his death and resurrection and leave out the bulk of the Gospel story.
Instead of shaping our definition of ‘gospel’ by asking what story the Gospels are attempting to tell, we use the Gospels, Wright says, to illustrate arguments derived from Paul. By doing so, Christians have lost the plot…of the Gospels. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Wright doesn’t ask the question but it’s there in his argument: Shouldn’t our reading of Paul be in submission to and in service of the Gospels rather than vice versa?
Is it the case, Wright wonders, that when we claim to be biblical we’re really being Pauline instead? And by neglecting the narrative arc of the Gospels are we actually being something profoundly less than biblical?
0 A Better Conversation about Homosexuality- 4
Some of you- fairly, I’ll admit- suggested to me that my previous post on this subject needed to provide a closer look at specific scriptural passages and show how two Christians might apply them to their viewpoints.
Here you go:
Viewpoint #1
Using Paul as a Model for Ethical Re-Evaluation:
In his essay, Reading and Understanding the New Testament on Homosexuality, biblical scholar Brian Blount advocates the position that certain biblical ethical prescriptions may be modified by the contemporary church, and, in their modified form, they may more faithfully reflect Paul’s own theological perspective. Blount cites Paul himself as the precedent for such ethical re-evaluation.
Blount points out that the Gospel writers are all unanimous in their presentation of Jesus’ views on divorce. Jesus, according to the Gospels, is unambiguously against divorce. Only in Matthew’s Gospel does Jesus allow the stipulation of divorce in cases of sexual infidelity (5.31-32). In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul acknowledges Jesus’ teaching on this matter (1 Corinthians 7.10-11). Nonetheless, in that same passage, Paul claims his own apostolic authority and allows for a reevaluation of Jesus’ teaching based on the context of the Corinthian congregation.
The church at Corinth was struggling to apply their faith in a thoroughly pagan culture. Aware of the destructive effects pagan culture potentially posed to an individual’s and a church’s faith, Paul changes Jesus’ tradition and allows for divorce in the case of Christians who are married to unsupportive pagan partners.
In light of the Corinthian’s cultural context, and even though it stands in contrast to Jesus’ own teaching in the Gospels, Paul believes this ethical modification to be consistent with his larger understanding of God’s present work in and through Jesus Christ. Such ethical deliberation and re-evaluation is not dissimilar to the process of discernment that the Christian Church later undertook with respect to scripture’s understanding of slavery. Just as the Holy Spirit guided Paul to re-evaluate Jesus’ tradition in light of a different present-day context, Brian Blount posits that the Holy Spirit can and does lead Christians to such discernment today.
When it comes to the matter of homosexuality, Blount argues that Romans 1 understands homosexuality as one symptom among many of the fallen world’s idolatry. Our contemporary situation is different, according to Blount. If it is possible for contemporary Christians to concede that a homosexual person need not be an idolater, then Paul’s chief complaint may be removed, opening the way for Christians to re-evaluate Paul’s ethical prescriptions in a faithful manner. It becomes possible then, Blount says, for Christians to conclude that faithful, monogamous, homosexual relationships can be consistent with God’s present-day redemptive activity.
Viewpoint 2
Experience as a Lens for Scripture Not as a Counter-Balancing Authority:
In his book, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Richard Hays acknowledges that the New Testament provides no definitive, applicable “rule” on homosexuality. The New Testament, as in the case of Romans 1, offers only theological principles against homosexuality, yet Hays stresses that scripture’s negative prohibitions regarding homosexuality be read against the larger backdrop of the male-female union, which scripture presents as the normative location for love and intimacy.
However marginal or unclear are the bible’s teachings on homosexuality, the scriptural canon clearly and repeatedly affirms that God made man and woman for one another. Any contemporary discernment over homosexuality must struggle with this positive norm that is the overwhelming witness of the scriptural narrative.
For example, Hays turns to Acts 10 and 11, Luke’s story documenting the entrance of Gentiles into the fledgling (Jewish) Christian Church. In the story, God directs the apostle Peter in a dream to understand that God desired the inclusion of the Roman, Cornelius, into the community of Jesus. Cornelius’ inclusion represents God’s invitation to all Gentiles, an invitation that shatters all of Peter’s preconceptions about sin, purity and righteousness. Advocates for the acceptance of homosexuals frequently point to this story from Acts as evidence that God desires the church’s fellowship to extend to those previously judged sinful, impure and unrighteous.
Richard Hays, however, argues that such a reading of Acts 10 and 11 misses the mark, for the early church did not conclude from Cornelius’ story that the biblical witness had, up until then, been wrong on the issue of the Gentiles. Instead Cornelius’ inclusion prompted the church reread their scripture and discover that the welcome to the Gentiles had been consistent throughout scripture. Homosexuality is not an analogous issue, Hays would argue, because no where in scripture does the narrative advocate the inclusion or acceptance of homosexuals.
Because scripture consistently adopts a negative view of homosexuality and affirms the heterosexual norm, Hays, unlike Blount, argues that any change to the church’s traditional teaching must come only “after sustained and agonizing scrutiny by a consensus of the faithful.”
The Catholic biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson echoes Hays’ urging of consensus-building caution and discernment, writing that:
“The burden of proof required to overturn scriptural precedents is heavy, but it is a burden that has been born before. The Church cannot, should not, define itself in response to political pressure or popularity polls. But it is called to discern the work of God in human lives and adapt its self-understanding in response to the work of God.”