Passage of the Day - February 13, 2013

John 8:3-11

³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, ⁴ they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” ⁶ They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. ⁷ But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. ¹⁰ Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

I Corinthians 7:12

¹² But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.

Matthew 7:1-2

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. ² For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Passage of the Day yesterday may have many of you scratching your heads.  Today, well we’ll have to see.

I pointed out yesterday that the Church of England has just allowed priests in civil partnerships to become bishops.  Let us dissect this.

We all have a sin nature and our new nature is always at war with our old.  We all have certain sins that we struggle with.  Does mere temptation equate to being barred from the Church or ministry?  Does the sin being tempted with matter?

A civil partnership provides two people mutual protection and rights that a married couple enjoy including hospital visitation and property transfers.  In of itself, a civil partnership is not inherently wrong.  If a rich old man with greedy descendents had a right-hand-man employee who always had his best interests at heart may decide that this employee should be the one making the health decisions or being the sole inheritor of the estate.  A civil partnership would allow them to do this.  There is nothing wrong there.  Granted, this is not the standard use of civil partnerships.

A civil partnership is also a bond between two people.  It is a mutual commitment.

If a person who is in a civil partnership rejects their former life and embraces the new life, is that person allowed to dissolve the civil partnership?  If a new believer should not seek divorce from their unbelieving spouse, can we ask the same of a new believer currently in a civil partnership who is willing to stay in the partnership?  Oh, the trickiness that is thrust upon us these days!

If said person rejects their former ways and adheres to the teachings  of Christ and His Church, and does not break their commitment that was made in the civil partnership but does not perform the evil that once was a way of life in the partnership, is that person allowed to be a priest/pastor?  A bishop/elder?  But what if the priest or bishop is simply lying about the nature of his current relationship?  If we don’t have proof, are we allowed to judge?

This gets into the tricky area of being “above reproach”, though.  All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial, remember?  Although, technically and to the letter of the law, I believe it can be argued that it is allowable, I do not think it wise or beneficial as their character will always be under scrutiny and it can cause deception and abuse of the letter of the law, along with division.  The question is, “Will this bring glory to God?”  Division within the Church never brings God glory.  God can use people such as these in many grand ways, but there are still consequences of prior poor choices.  Being a priest or bishop is an enormous responsibility and having the distraction of being scrutinized over one’s sex life is not the way to bring glory to God.

How this will affect my decision is still yet to be determined.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
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