Gay Marriage To Be Overturned, Suit Filed, SCOTUS Will Overturn Obergefell. #MRGA
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I'm anything but an atheist. And I really appreciate your attempts to answer these questions. I don't think you're being as consistent as you'd like to believe, but I certainly appreciate the way you write.
You bring up Jesus. We have no proof in the collection of books that we currently call the Bible that Jesus was married. What should we think of that? I think that if he was a real person, he likely WAS married, why wouldn't he have gotten married? And other scripture not accepted as such by the Catholic Church, the collection you put so much stock in today, suggest Jesus was married.
But I'm sitting here listening to you say that the Bible can be an authoritative judge of what is and isn't right, and yet there are many churches that consider themselves Christian that exist specifically because they interpret the same set of words differently.
You point to a verse that says a man should love his wife, and you point out that it's singular in nature. Cool. Does that actually mean that having a second is considered a sin before God? If it is, then how come the widely considered fathers of God's covenant people practiced it without God, with whom they seemed to converse quite regularly speaking against it?
That seems to be a case of you deriving a commandment of sorts not from the word of God, but from...if I understood you correctly, the squabbles those men experienced in their myriad marriages. So now the difficulties a man experiences within the scripture is how we determine God's will or not?
What does that say about Job? He seemed to do everything right, only appeared to have one wife, and yet his life was fraught with disaster. So is it the direct commands given by God and recorded in Scripture that we are to follow, or are we to read between the lines by looking at the struggles the men experienced by how they lived their lives?
As I would think you would see, that's hardly an objective standard. The problem with using the Bible to determine how the state should deal with us, and what form of what institutions it should protect, is precisely that. It's not objective. None of it is.
Now personally, I agree with you on polygamy. I think history itself has proven that it's not sustainable. But it's very easy to see how one could read the Old Testament and if you're looking at the behavior of so-called prophets as a standard, rather than the outcomes they experienced as a result of their behavior, you might think polygamy is God's way, but then there's the problem of Job.
I just think there are too many ways that your argument that the Bible is an objective standard falls apart, and what we're really looking at is the standard of whoever happens to be interpreting it, attempting to give his argument more weight.
I'll be honest, I don't know how I feel about this subject. I thought we got along just fine without gay marriage, and since it came about, we certainly appear to have fallen down that slippery slope so many warned about, and I'm not sure I would mind if it was done away with.
Likewise I don't feel comfortable with polygamy, but to what degree to we take these beliefs? They used to stone adultresses in the Bible, but men could have as many wives as they wanted--it certainly gives them to right to take on a second wife if their brother passes away and leaves a widow. I know many on this board believe adultery should be a criminal offense. What does the bible say about that perspective?
But the thing is this, even in your own argument you couldn't seem to make it with just the Bible alone. You had to cite history. You had to cite what happens when societies of the past have allowed polygamy to make your point.
But why do that if the bible is an objective standard? And that's why, while I'm really not sure I disagree with what you hope happens in all of this (getting rid of gay marriage--I'm not sure I care either way), the argument you're using, while very well written, just doesn't sit right with me.
It seems you're trying to bully others into accepting your interpretation of the Bible, almost pretending as if no other interpretation exists, and this you call objective. It just doesn't sit right with me.
All right, let’s sweep aside some of the brush first. You’re calling the Bible’s authority into question here, but as a Christian you already confess that it is God’s Word. That means we’re not starting with the idea that Scripture is one voice among many; we’re starting with the fact that it is the voice that defines what marriage is. The question isn’t whether the Bible is objective—it is—but whether we’re willing to bow to its definitions instead of trying to retrofit them to cultural comfort.
On the “Jesus was married” idea: the authoritative record we have—the Gospels—never even hints at this. If something that significant were true, it wouldn’t have been left out any more than the resurrection would have been left out. Later apocryphal writings that suggest otherwise aren’t just outside the canon, they’re outside the apostolic witness. And biblically, Jesus’ marriage is real—but His bride is the Church (Ephesians 5:25-27), and His covenant with her is the fulfillment of every marriage covenant in redemptive history.
The “different interpretations” among churches don’t make the Bible subjective any more than bad math answers make math subjective. The standard is there in black and white. People can twist it, ignore it, or misapply it, but that’s on them, not on God’s Word.
As for polygamy: Scripture records it, but never commands it. Every time it shows up, it creates division, envy, and rebellion. That’s not me “reading between the lines”; it’s how the Bible itself frames those accounts. The design was laid down in Genesis 2—one man, one woman, one flesh—and Jesus reaffirms that in Matthew 19. That’s the fixed pattern, and anything else is a deviation, however tolerated in times past.
Job’s trials are in a different category altogether. His suffering was the result of a divine test, not a violation of God’s order. You can’t compare his disasters to the messes created by polygamy any more than you can compare a surgeon’s incision to a mugger’s knife wound. Context determines meaning.
On adultery as a crime: under Israel’s covenant law, it was indeed punishable by death. Under the New Covenant, the church’s primary role is ecclesiastical discipline, not wielding the state’s sword, but the moral weight hasn’t changed. God still hates it, and societies that wink at it eventually reap what they sow.
Finally, this isn’t about my private interpretation—it’s about God’s stated design. Our job as Christians isn’t to negotiate the edges of that design but to conform to it. If Scripture says “one man, one woman, covenant for life,” then our standard is fixed, whether the surrounding culture applauds or not. The moment we start treating God’s Word as a menu where we can skip the parts that make us uncomfortable, we stop being hearers and doers of the Word and start being our own final authority. And as Christians, we both know that’s a role we’re not qualified to fill.
Yeah I'm sorry but now you're just resorting to platitudes. I get it. You think the Bible is super duper clear. I just don't. And ultimately any attempt to use it as a so-called objective standard is really just a test of wills between who thinks it means this and who thinks it means that. Hell, I think Neville Goddard makes an extremely compelling claim that we're not looking at a book of rules and literal history at all, but a psychological drama meant to teach us about the metaphysical reality of ourselves as children of God, "For is it not written in your own law, I have said ye are gods, children of the most high?"
There's simply no way around this. Perhaps those with the loudest voices and strongest wills can convince others that their interpretation of the book is in fact authoritative, but there will always be those of us who sit here and think "Yeah, you're just louder and care more, but your argument isn't flying with me."
Anyway, I also didn't say I was a Christian. You assumed that when I said I wasn't an atheist and I apparently know my way around a Bible. I consider myself a Christian, but I guarantee if I explained how you would defy that with everything in your being.
Anyway, it was a nice chat regardless. I thought you defended your position really well. I wasn't convinced, but I enjoyed every word your wrote. You're an excellent communicator.
I asked you plainly if you were a Christian. You could have answered clearly but you decided to be vague and deceptive to continue the conversation.
Of course you're not convinced.... YOU'RE NOT A CHRISTIAN! You don't see the Bible with the same eyes as someone with the holy spirit and you can't even wrap your head around that concept.... Just like I couldn't before I came to Christ. This is why I don't have Bible studies with non-christians.
Lots of people that are not in Christ call themselves Christians. The Bible defines it however. The same standard you reject.
Have a good day fren. Repent and believe the gospel which is God breathed, not a drama script.
"Lots of people that are not in Christ call themselves Christians."
I have to say, I really couldn't agree with you more.
Have a good night.
I'm sorry you see it that way. I do see myself as a Christian. But I knew you would not see me as a Christian. But if you'd like to show me the definition of a Christian in the Bible I would be happy to consider the possibility that I do not qualify.
Regardless, your need to resort to ad hominems, your frustration under the weight of not being able to convince someone and needing them to be the reason and absolve yourself, is not an attractive quality. I've been very polite with you. And my questions have been sincere. You're not going to be able to convince everyone and if you need to tell yourself that's because you're so full of the holy spirit and they are not, well...that's up to you.