Ten Commitments

Ten Commitments
Posted on May 14, 2015  in Blog, Homosexuality

Last week I (Sean) ordered a copy of Kevin DeYoung’s book What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? and it came on Monday.  I always flick through the contents, the bibliography, and appendices of a new book to get a bit of a snapshot of where the author is going.  I look forward to reading this one, especially if the following ten commitments in the appendix “The Church and Homosexuality” are anything to go by.
1. We will encourage our leaders to preach through the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter that they might teach the whole counsel of God (even the unpopular parts) and avoid riding hobby horses (even popular ones).
2. We will tell the truth about all sins, including homosexuality, but especially the sins most prevalent in our communities.
3. We will guard the truth of God’s Word, protect God’s people from error, and confront the world when it tries to press us into its mould.
4. We will call all people to faith in Christ as the only way to the Father and the only way to have eternal life.
5. We will speak to all people about the good news that Jesus died in our place and rose again so that we might be set free from the curse of the law, saved from the wrath of God, and welcomed into the holy city at the restoration of all things.
6. We will treat all Christians as new creations in Christ, reminding each other that our true identity is not based on sexuality or self-expression but on our union with Christ.
7. We will extend God’s forgiveness to all those who come in brokenhearted repentance, everyone from homosexual sinners to heterosexual sinners, from the proud to the greedy, from the people pleaser to the self righteous.
8. We will ask for forgiveness when we are rude or thoughtless or joke about those who experience same-sex attraction.
9. We will strive to be a community that welcomes all those who hate their sin and struggle against it, even when that struggle involves failures and setbacks.
10. We will seek to love all in our midst, regardless of their particular vices or virtues, by preaching the Bible, recognizing evidences of God’s grace, pointing out behaviours that dishonour the Lord, taking church membership seriously, exercising church discipline, announcing the free offer of the gospel, striving for holiness together, practicing the “one anothers” of Christian discipleship, and exulting in Christ above all things.