Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

You said Paul wanted sin to be illegal as a state matter. The statement is your justification for denying that Paul meant government should not legislate morality when he said ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL in I Corinthians 6:12

You kept saying sin wouldn't ever be allowed to be legal in any secular way. This was you who said that separation of moral and state law was absurd. You told me that my suggestion that Paul felt fornication and gay marriage should be legal as a state matter was so foolish that you probably misunderstood my earlier questions specific to the suggested interpretation. You said this recently and it was a new revelation and it is duely noted now. Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

Also, you ignore that the Torah allows Israelites to sell sinful food. Jews were allowed to sell meat that wasn't slaughtered properly as long as it wasn't an intentional killing. Jew's can't shoot an animal and sell it (and sure can't eat it). Deuteronomy 14:21 is the scriptural basis but the few who care to understand the slaughter law development see good evidence of humane concerns. The Persian Empire issue seals the deal to me. There is undercover video of the suffering cows go through when not slaughtered properly (an Iowa kosher plant ironically ). They throw themselves all over the floor violently in terrible pain in their remaining minutes. That is even in the theocracy. Legal sin for gentiles.

Fracko quoted Lev 20:11 "If a man sleeps with his father's wife... [it is a sin that is illegal in Ancient Israel to be punished by the state ]" Now in light of I Corinthians 5-7 (chapter 5 has Paul discussing exact same activity ) should it be illegal? In Corinth? In the USA? You said Paul didn't comment on the state and secular legality issues. What do you think he felt about legislating morality in the port of Corinth? (I raised this question as far back as post 338).

I just said that you felt it to be foolish for Paul to be ok with the state to allow legal gay marriage and also to allow fornication without punishment or sanction. You just responded, "None of that makes any sense ... If you are getting anything right at all, that is, and that is questionable."

All I asked is if you think Paul thought the secular government of Corinth should outlaw the sexual conduct Paul objected to in chapter 5. Sex with a mother in law if I can remember. Leviticus 20:11 issue.

Paul used excommunication and you would consider that outside the government I assume? You would consider it a church issue right? You would want the son in law and mother in law to have the right to marry if it is monogamous? I won't ask about selling merchandise and commercial/business practical situations in a person's job life. I am just asking about church and state issues related to secular law. (i will leave the questions around the highly developed anti-discrimination modern secular laws out of my posts )

I asked about whether you felt the son-in-law and the mother-in-law should legally be allowed to marry(if she divorced his dad ). Do you think Paul would have a preference when it comes to secular laws of Corinth? Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

I asked about what you think Paul felt about the law - secular laws of Corinth. I am also asking what you think about American law allowing former in-laws to marry.

I said this in post 793

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You made it quite a point to have the Council of Nicea taken as some binding and legitimate Doctrine (capital D) that makes up inspired, settled, forever, eternal "Christianity " while you described the Acts 15 council of Jerusalem ( The Apostolic Council ) as a temporary and insignificant meeting just to quickly be rendered obsolete once those ( in your words) confused Jews were able to be ignored.

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Faith responded in 794 (in an evasive manner)

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It's true that I accept Nicaea as a legitimate council, and it's true that I believe the Jerusalem Council was an accommodation to the Jews in that time that isn't binding on us now, but none of that was on this thread and it goes back a very long way in the forum IRRC, so I really have no idea what it has to do with this topic -- I need some idea why you are bringing it up.
I'm also not exactly inclined to answer you when you keep accusing me of ignoring this or that or other perfidies. It's more likely you just aren't making sense and I stopped responding. If you just say I said this or that I may not recognize it so it's always a good idea to give a direct quote.

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I have no idea where "confused Jews" comes from.

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I HAVE to ignore such strange and irrelevant comments, there is nothing else to do with them.

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Here are your past words
(see post 544 for source and link)

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My understanding of the judgment in Acts 15 is that it was intended to require the Gentile believers to obey certain laws that would have greatly offended the Jewish believers if disobeyed. It's an application of the principle that we are not to act in a way that causes our brother to stumble, even if we have every right to ignore the law altogether because it has been fulfilled. It was important that Gentiles not be required to be circumcised so that was the first judgment; but then they did require obedience to some laws for the sake of the conscience of the Jews:
As one commentator says: "If the decision is that one does not have to be Jewish to be a Christian, it must also be declared that one does not need to forsake the Law of Moses to be a Christian."
So it's not a matter of whether the law was ceremonial or not, but a matter of respect for the conscience of other believers -- in this case the Jewish believers who had been brought up in strict observance of the Law of Moses. When the Jews were later no longer the leaders in the Church it was recognized that there was no longer a need to obey these laws -- because there is no requirement any more to obey any of the laws as the Jews understood it.

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You said that Jews had an incorrect understanding or were CONFUSED!You are the one confused Faith. James the Just was not confused and neither were his fellow Jewish Christians.Here is you in post 823 (responding to me, when I said you are "allergic to Acts 15")

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[LamarkNewAge said:]

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I see you are using the ceremonial argument.

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[Faith responds:]

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You keep using that term "ceremonial." It's one of the things that is confusing. There is no concept of ceremonial law in the New Testament; there is in the Old Testament though. But you are using it in relation to the New Testament Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and I do not get what your point is. I'm not aware of using any "ceremonial" argument at all, I don't know what you are talking about.

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Keep reading my quotes of you Faith because you then go on to use the ceremonial argument to discount the Post Easter Council decisions.

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[LamarkNewAge:]

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I can see why you keep ignoring Acts 15 since the kosher slaughter practices and fornication are present which complicates your ceremonial cleaness argument.

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[Faith]

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Huh?

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Keep ignoring the fact that the moral issue of fornication is in these supposedly "ceremonial" laws Faith.

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[LamarkNewAge]

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The lack of requirement for circumcision eliminates the claim that gentiles were required to follow the commands just for Temple sacrifice .

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[Faith]

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Huh? "Temple sacrifice?????"

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Wow!You don't know what got Paul arrested?Acts 21 was when Paul returned from his final missionary trip, and the Apostolic Council decisions were referenced there (the only other chapter in the Bible they are quoted fully aside from chapter 15) and the rest of Acts centers around his legal issues concerning gentiles and the Temple.Gentiles weren't given the Apostolic Council rules for the sake of not offending Jews. That is a fiction that isn't in the text.

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[LamarkNewAge]

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The uncircumcised could NOT enter the Temple. .

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[Faith responds]

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Huh? What ARE you talking about?

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Have you ever read a Christian commentary or do you just invent all this gobbledygook in your own head?

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Acts 15 is about the believing Jews being upset because the Gentiles were getting saved without having to obey any of the laws the Jews had been taught to obey. Paul was trying to teach the Jews that God doesn't requir4e obedience to those laws any more, -- the ceremonial ones anyway
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they had this council to determine which laws were most important to the Jews in this respect, in order to ask the Gentiles to obey those laws for the sake of the conscience of the Jews. Paul had already taught at great length against the need for circumcision so that one wasn't included. Instead they made a short list of laws for the Gentiles to obey in order to avoid offending the Jews. These included fornication and meats with the blood in them. When the Jews were no longer the leaders of the churches and Christianity had become more Gentile than Jewish, there was no longer a need for these laws because there weren't enough Jews brought up in the Law to be offended any more.

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Having said all that I guess you are saying something about the difference between the law of blood and the law of fornication? I guess the law of blood being a dietary law was a "ceremonial" law so I guess you are saying something about that, but I really am not sure what. Fornication of course is against God's Moral Law so we are to obey that in any case, council or no council. But the law of blood no longer applies to us.

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Now, if I've managed to sort all that out at least to some extent, can you explain what you keep trying to say about it all?

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I am saying you are a Roman Empire "Christian" and you ignore Apostolic Christianity.And back to the "ceremonial" argument I see. Contrary to your slick lie earlier.Even Wikipedia articles have a hard time attempt;ting to describe the Apostolic Council being ignored and disparaged by your ilk Faith

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Ancient church councils (pre-ecumenical)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jump to: navigation, search

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This article is about church councils held before the First Council of Nicaea. For church councils in general, see synod.

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Church councils are formal meetings of bishops and representatives of several churches who are brought together to regulate points of doctrine or discipline.[1][2] The meetings may be of a single ecclesiastical community or may involve an ecclesiastical province, a nation or other civil region, or the whole Church. Some of those convoked from the Church as a whole have been recognized as ecumenical councils and are considered particularly authoritative. The first ecumenical council is that of Nicaea, called by the Emperor Constantine in 325.[2][3][4][5]

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Pre-ecumenical councils, those earlier than AD 325, were mostly local or provincial. Some, held in the second half of the 3rd century, involved more than one province. The sui generis Council of Jerusalem was a meeting, described in the Bible in Acts 15 and possibly in Galatians 2, of the apostles and elders of the local Church in Jerusalem.

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In spite of lacking the authority of the decisions of ecumenical councils, the teachings and decrees of these pre-ecumenical councils are sometimes considered to be binding on the faithful in varying degrees, in particular certain councils held in Carthage and Elvira.[6] But even the Council of Jerusalem's decisions, known as the Apostolic Decree, in particular the obligation to abstain from eating blood or what has been strangled,[7] are not accepted by all Christian churches.

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Contents
1 Apostolic Council of Jerusalem
2 Normal pre-ecumenical councils 2.1 Examples of matters discussed
2.2 Participants

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3 See also
4 References
5 External links

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Apostolic Council of Jerusalem[edit]

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The Acts of the Apostles records, without using for it the term "council" or "synod", what has been called the Council of Jerusalem: to respond to a consultation by Paul of Tarsus, the apostles and elders of the Church in Jerusalem met to address the question of observance of biblical law in the early Christian community, which included Gentile converts.[8] This is the only such meeting recorded in the New Testament, and may be referred to also in the Epistle to the Galatians.[9] This meeting of the Church in Jerusalem was not a gathering of representatives coming from all areas, like an ecumenical council. It is called the Apostolic Council, because of the participation in it of the apostles.[10] This gives it a character different from the normal pre-ecumenical church councils.[11] It took place around the year 50.[12]
Ancient church councils - Wikipedia(pre-ecumenical)

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They don't mention how strange it is that people like you don't accept the council.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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So if you are trying to find a way in scripture to claim that Paul says it's OK to sin, in spite of that long list of sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, that's a lost cause.

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And again Paul says absolutely nothing about "legality at the secular level" and I haven't used scripture for anything remotely related to that concept at all. I'm struggling even to figure out what you think you are saying and why.

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ABE: Here's a thought. Perhaps you ARE confusing "lawful" in relation to the Moral Law of God, with laws as made by nations? Maybe that would explain why there is so much confusion on this point and why I'm not getting what you are saying?

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If this is what the confusion is about, then I'd ask, can you think of any human government or state that explicitly legalizes any of the sins Paul lists as keeping a person out of the kingdom of God? Don't nations tend to have laws against such things-- or just don't have any laws about them at all?

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So why do you oppose gay marriage being legal then?You care that a small percentage of men (or females) will "sin" so much that you want certain marriage unions made illegal.Would Paul want it that way?What do you think?You like to share your thoughts.

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[Faith said]
of the church

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I don't know what this is about but I always put "church" in quotation marks when a Roman Empire Christian like you invokes the name.You aren't of the Apostolic faith "Faith"Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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most Protestants say about that [Apostolic ] Council... [is that it's decision ] was [only ] asked of them not because it was necessary-- the Gentiles had every right not to obey any of it -- but to show respect for their Jewish brethren ...

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The passage shows that it ...is not wrong not to obey them at all. It's all easily findable in Protestant commentaries online.
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Again, I have no idea what you are complaining about. What I said is standard Protestant understanding of that Council.

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First of all, your appeal to authority - being offshoot Roman Empire Christian 'Church' types of sources - isn't going to satisfy me, and you should know better.Here is the King James text of Acts 15:28

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For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.

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In scripture, the Law of Christ, according to Galatians 6:2, is to bear burdens. See Romans 15:1 Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

The Jewish Christian Apostolic body said that the Jewish Christians would do all the compromising and not require circumcision - as that issue, despite being the first concern for Jews, was simply a nationalistic marker.But moral issues like killing animals humanely (assuming they would still have a need to sacrifice for a while longer and assuming that food from animal flesh was allowed to be eaten at all for the next few decades which might have been proscribed wholly or impart when one looks at what was practically possible due to other limits on "freedom ") and fornication were required commandments to follow.Necessary is the word.You said that these weren't necessary rules to follow.You know that contradicts the text.Just like you said the issues were ceremonial.You know that is false because even you know fornication isn't a temporary issue and has nothing to do with Jewish and Gentile issues - especially in an Apostolic Christian mileu.Just like you are wrong to say the text somehow made gentiles compromise when they didn't have any burden aside from fundamental moral laws like proper slaughter and no fornication. (chapter 21 shows us that your claim that gentiles had made these imaginary compromises 'most important to Jews' to be the pure bunk it should have been seen as from the start )

I am amazed you engaged in this Acts 15 issue to the extent that you did. I expected you would end it sooner.Glad to hear that you have recognized that 15:28 used the word necessary to do with the commands.I see you now have noticed that there is a strain of 'ceremonial fornication ' analysis among Christian scholars. I was trying very hard to bring that point up with regards to the I Corinthians situation.I'm not so sure gentiles had to make some radical adjustment on food. The fact is that most people were too poor to eat meat anyway back then. I read about a (forget exactly the year ) Fourth century Christian in Egypt who chopped wood all day and made enough from his employer to buy 2 small loafs of bread every day (and that was all his wages got him ). That was typical
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Gentiles were uncircumcised and that means they did not compromise and become Jewish Christians which would have torn down a massive barrier to enable unity.Paul circumcised Timothy in chapter 16 just to avoid trouble with Jewish Christians and Jews themselves.James still sent Peter and Barnabas to circumcise gentiles AFTER the Apostolic Council. See Galatians.The Apostolic Council was not about gentiles compromising and animal flesh slaughter issue is too complicated for the unobjective and crooked agenda of evangelical commentary . The truth is that Apostolic Christianity was making all sorts of changes on meat/animal flesh issues (and not all consistent for the next few decades at the time of the Apostolic Council ) and fundamentalist Christianity of today is not open minded towards the larger body of evidence(inside scripture and extra biblical data ) that can help enlighten us all.