Sinfully Ignorant, Perfectly Loved

After my last post "Gay Thoughts" I was asked if I thought homosexuality is a sin. I answered that I don't know because I'm not God. People say "How can you say you don't know? It is right there in the Word!!"

How easy it is for us to have our black and white Christianity, and our righteous judgments. But from where I'm sitting things aren't so cut and dried. Oh, but we fear falling into "situational ethics" don't we? We prefer to stay within the boundaries of the law.

One of the commandments is "Thou shalt not kill." It doesn't get more basic than that. We find little confusion in it, and we don't spend much time arguing about it. I know many Christians who own guns for "protection" and who fight adamantly for the right to do so. How does that compute?

Someone breaks into your house to steal your TV. You hear him downstairs, and grab your gun from the drawer by your bed. You sneak down, gun drawn, and confront the robber. He turns around, and he has a gun too. You feel  threatened, so you pull the trigger and shoot. You get lucky, and hit him right in the heart...he hits the floor. In an instant, you have taken a life. You have broken the basic command, "Thou shalt not kill." You have sinned. Even worse, you have chosen to sin.

I know, you say, "But it was self-defense."  I don't see that addendum to the commandment. "Thou shalt not kill...unless it is self-defense." Yet, that is how we have come to interpret it. Wait, isn't that situational ethics?
And is it really even self-defense when it was pre-meditated? After all, you bought the gun for this purpose. You chose to take it out and use it. Jesus taught that even if a man thinks it in his heart he has already committed the sin. Hmmm. Clearly sin.

The dead man's family feels he was murdered. "Thou shalt not steal" is pretty clear. He is a sinner. But wait. He had a very sick child at home who needed life-saving surgery. He had no insurance, and no money. Sort of changes our perspective, doesn't it?

You say you were protecting your family. He was trying to protect his. God knows both hearts. I don't. I can only judge on appearances. If I were to judge based on the law, both have broken it. Both have sinned.

God is a righteous judge, and only He knows our hearts. He knows every situation and every circumstance. He knows why we do what we do. He knows our fears. He knows our struggles. He knows our past, our future, our pain and sorrows. He knows our weaknesses and our strengths. He knows why we think like we think, and do what we do. God has chosen to forgive us in Jesus. In spite of it all, He loves us! And that's what makes His grace so scandalous!!

So, to the question "Is homosexuality a sin?"  I'm choosing to remain sinfully ignorant...and perfectly loved.