Any time that there is an argument about homosexuality, and someone quotes Leviticus, as sure as the sun comes up every morning someone else will say that nowhere in the New Testament is homosexuality mentioned. The Bible consists of TWO parts.....the Old Testament, and the New Testament. I'm sure that everyone has their opinion on this, but I believe that in the OT we are being given the history of mankind, the laws that God expects us to live by, and being set up for the coming of Jesus Christ. The NT is about Jesus, his life and death, the promise fulfilled by God, and the works of those who followed Jesus. This is just my brief summary......but nowhere in the NT does Jesus, or anyone else for that matter, say that we are to forget about what was written in the OT, as those words no longer matter. Consequently, I think that the two go hand in hand, and one cannot stand alone without the other.
Now, even if I did not believe in what was written in the Bible, and believed that man was not created by a higher being, but came from a monkey, I still could not accept homosexuality or transgender. Why......it's simple.....we all live by the laws of nature one way or another, and being the animals we are, we live under that set of rules. There are NO homosexual or transgender animals.......period. They don't exist, because they can't exist. In order to insure the survival of the species, there are males and there are females, and they MUST mate with a member f the opposite sex, not a member of the same sex, in order to reproduce.......a process that is so simple that anyone should be able to understand it.
I am sure that God loves everyone that He has created, the drunkards, the thieves, the harlots, and even the queers and the trannies......but He is also very specific about what He says about certain behavior. His word is the final word as to who gets into his kingdom, not some council of churches, and He has spoken about homosexuality and transgender people. Their behavior excludes them from His kingdom.
That's probably the view of most Christians but it is completely wrong. It's wrong because you think God gave you laws by which to live. God gave you laws to illustrate what it would take to live perfectly,so you would know you were a law breaker. The problem is that Christians pick and choose which ones are really bad,like homosexuality,and murder,but excuse the ones they commonly practice like lying,cheating,having sex outside marriage,etc. The law however says that if you even break the smallest one,you are guilty of all. God put that one in there so you wouldn't think your 85% was a passing grade.
None of that is normally preached though because religion is set up to control people. Go to church and pay your tithes and you are assured heaven.In the early Catholic days they would even sell indulgences.Yes,you could pay extra just to commit a really bad sin and it would be OK. Religion has always been screwed up like that. Most churches are only slightly better today. They will tell you how sinful you are and that you should pray for forgiveness and just double your efforts not to sin again. People really try not to sin and they are under constant condemnation because they always fail,but mostly they feel like they are doing their best so surly God will think they did good enough. All the while they are in a terribly situation of trusting in themselves.
Now back to the beginning.God only gave all those laws so you could see how sinful you are,and so know that you needed to rely on a sacrifice to pay the price for your sin. That's why he set up animal sacrifices,so his people would get use to the idea of relying on the blood of the sacrifice. Then God had himself born a human man. He wasn't born the normal way, so that he wouldn't inherit the sin nature of Adam's offspring. Being a man but completely without any sin,he offered himself to pay the price of sin for all mankind. Now through faith,by accepting that his sacrifice is for you,he accepts your sin debt as paid in full by his own sacrifice.
Our right standing with God is not based for one second on how we act. It is only based on what we believe. We are only forgiven by our faith in his sacrifice. Now here's the real good part. When we really accept that this wonderful God did this awesome thing for us,we don't want to sin. We don't want to be the same way we were before we believed.The catch though is that you can never change the way you act and stop your sinful ways as long as you are trying with all your might in your own power. It can only be done when you surrender your whole life to the Holy Spirit and really understand that you are in the good and right standing with God only because of him.
Even so,you are still going to mess up in some way every day. That's OK because you are forgiven,you are still a child of God.You just have to keep hanging out with God until you start thinking more like he does. If you keep reading his word and listening to what he tells you,it will change your desires. That sin that you couldn't stop before won't have any power over you any more. That is what it means to be born again,and that is what the bible means when it talks about putting on the new man and renewing your mind. Just keep on,but you are never relying on how well you can keep a bunch of laws. If you ever do that,you have stopped having faith in God and started having faith in yourself,and that is the most dangerous place to be.
