We constantly hear phrases that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. We know of churches trying desperately to repeat and act on that mantra. God, indeed, may be able to make the distinction between the sinner and the sin, but the rest of us find that more difficult. That seems to be especially true when it comes to the topic of homosexuality. Its easy to understand why people would think God is a homophobe, since there are both Old and New Testament references to homosexuality as some form of abomination before the Lord. [e.g., Lev. 18:22, 20:13; I Cor. 6:9.]
To read and digest the Bible we must understand several things: the mind and situation of the writer; the mind and situation of the audience; and the message the writer was trying to communicate. Having understood that, we can begin to strip away the external trappings of the writer (e.g., those elements of the Old Testament text that clearly belong in the late Bronze Age or of the New Testament text that clearly belong to the early first century Christian Era) and concentrate on the true underlying message.
In short, the writers of biblical literature were people of their times and it shows.
In...
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