Love Always Trusts

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… 

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

Love "always trusts"... In some versions, it says that love "believes all things".

I was once grappling with the meaning of the verse which says that love "always trusts". How can we possibly trust the untrustworthy?  

Believing the Best About Others

I found a number of commentaries online which helped to shed light on the meaning of the verse that love "always trusts". 

The Pulplit Commentary explains that love:

Takes the best and kindest views of all men and all circumstances, as long as it is possible to do so. It is the opposite to the common spirit, which drags everything in deteriorem partem, paints it in the darkest colours, and makes the worst of it. Love is entirely alien from the spirit of the cynic, the pessimist, the ecclesiastical rival, the anonymous slanderer, the secret detractor.

The point is to believe the best intentions about others or their actions, and to refrain from attributing the worst intentions to them or their actions.

One particular incident in my working life brought this to the fore. I was away from office on National Service for the afternoon that day, and had asked a colleague to cover for me in relation to a particular simple court hearing. She did so and, with my approval of the draft email, sent out an email updating the client about the hearing. It was quite a regularly, routine update. 

The next day, my director took me to task over the email that my colleague had sent out on my behalf while I was out of office. He began to accuse me, saying that I was telling the client that I did not care about my work and that the particular case meant nothing to me. He attributed the worst possible intentions and motivations to me over that one act of my colleague on my behalf. 

I felt deeply aggrieved and maligned over what was a very regular and usual practice of having colleagues cover for each other when absent.

Someone once said: You tend to interpret your own actions through your intentions, while other people tend to interpret your actions through their effect. 

Again, in an opinion piece published in the Straits Times on 3 October 2017, "Some more heaven-worthy than others?", Gary Hayden made a similar point:

When we judge other people's actions, we tend to attribute them to character rather than circumstances. But when we judge our own actions, we place much more emphasis on circumstances.

He added that "if we wish to judge people fairly, we should try to take both factors into account."

The Dangerous Tendency 

In debates over contentious issues, especially in the political sphere, it is very tempting to regard everyone who opposes one's political or ideological position as a mean-spirited or evil person with malicious intentions, while seeing everyone on one's political or ideological side as a good person. 

Mistakes and wrongdoing on the part of one's allies become excusable or justifiable, because they are seen as good people who simply made an occasional lapse, while similar mistakes or wrongdoing on the part of one's opponents are immediately pounced upon and used as weapons against them, since they are wicked people who can do nothing good.

Conversely, any good done by one's political opponents are either ignored or seen through coloured lenses as cynical or opportunistic steps taken to advance one's position, while any good done by one's allies are cheered and celebrated.

While deeply tempting, none of these tendencies are consistent with the principle of love that Paul has taught us in his letter to the Corinthians. 

Good and evil remain good and evil regardless of who does those deeds. Indeed, Paul tells us earlier in the passage, "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth."

What About Falsehoods? 

Does this mean that we should naively believe even the lies that people tell us?

Certainly not. As noted above, Paul has taught in the very same passage that love is not blind as between good and evil, or truth and falsehood. 

When there is evidence of evil or proof that a matter is false, we not called to naively fall prey to evil or to believe lies. In such circumstances, it may often be necessary to confront and address the wrongdoing in love, and to rectify it so that the person may be edified.

Yet, in the absence of such evidence or proof, it behoves us as believers to refrain from assuming or jumping to conclusions that the motivations and intentions of others are evil or wicked.

A God Who Trusts

Earlier on in this post, I asked: How can we possibly trust the untrustworthy?

But there is another question we must ask: How can God possibly trust the untrustworthy?

All our motivations and our actions are laid bare before an omniscient God. We lie, cheat and steal; yet God still trusts us despite our untrustworthiness. He entrusts us, no less, with His Gospel message, and calls us to proclaim it to the ends of the earth.

Why?

It certainly has to be because of His Son Jesus Christ who has died in our place and imparted His righteousness to us, and the power of the Holy Spirit that ministers through us. In addition to that, I believe that it has to do with the fact that God sees not just who we are (or were), but who we can be. 

Therefore, the same God who spoke creation into being with His Word (i.e. the Word that became flesh) is also transforming us into the likeness of His Son, so that, in the day when He appears, "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)

And thus, in that same way, just as our Lord has first loved us, we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Q&A on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues

Some time ago, I gave a number of answers to a friend who had questions from a Christian youth regarding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues. 

Here are the questions and my responses. Some slight grammatical and typographical changes have been made.

Question 1: Why should Christianity dictate national laws that govern non-Christians? Why should we impose this upon others who do not believe in this?

Singapore has a secular state and a multi-religious society. No one religion or religious group should “dictate” national laws. However, as a democratic society, every single citizen has the right to participate in the democratic process and engage with issues of public policy.

As Christians, we believe that the role of the State is to uphold what is good and punish what is evil (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-14). Thus, we advocate for laws which are consistent with what is good, and we advocate against unjust laws which are not. 

It is the role of the State (not the Church) to enforce the law, and all laws impose morality on someone. For example, tough laws against drug abuse and trafficking impose on drug abusers and traffickers the seriousness of drugs.

Question 2: People often quote 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, or John 8:7 - We ourselves are not sinless. How can we judge others? How do we reconcile these Bible passages? 

The Bible does not create a blanket rule “do not judge”. This is based on a common misreading of Matthew 7:1. Once we read Matthew 7:1-5 holistically, what we see is Jesus emphasising the importance of applying consistent standards across the board, and to begin with self-examination before judging others. The important principle is to “judge rightly” (John 7:24).

This ties in very closely to 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, where Paul was exercising church discipline against an immoral man within the church who was sleeping with his father’s wife. Paul is telling the church to judge those within it, and to expel the man because he was openly living in sin while purporting to be Christian. On the flip side, it would not be the place for the church or church leaders to exercise such judgment of people outside the church.

Finally, in John 8, even as Jesus told the people “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone”, Jesus also told the woman, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” This is a beautiful picture of God’s grace. Grace does not deny the existence of sin or refrain from judgment. In fact, grace recognises that a person has sinned, but chooses not to hold that sin against the person. As Paul said, God’s kindness leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

It would be hypocritical of any human being to judge another human being by his or her own standards because, as this youth has rightly acknowledged, we are all sinners. It would be quite presumptuous of any human being to say to another, “I’m good, you’re bad.” How many of us even live up to our own (human) standards of behaviour, let alone God’s standards?

The message of the Bible is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). That is why we all need Jesus, who clothes us with a new identity and His righteousness, once we put our faith in Him. Our message is really, “We have all messed up, but we know Someone who makes things right.”

Question 3: He feels being picky and choosy on what we impose is pretty hypocritical. Do we still follow the laws of the Old Testament? He hates that we downplay the importance of the Bible by following whatever is convenient for us. How do we reconcile this?

I would like to affirm this youth on his desire to be consistent in our application of God’s Word, and his strong dislike of the downplaying of the importance of parts of the Bible whenever inconvenient. Indeed, Truth exists and it is not our place to play pick-and-choose with it, or to apply and disapply parts of the Bible according to our preferences.

The answer to this was put very nicely by William Lane Craig. We are Christians because we follow Jesus Christ. We do not follow the Law of Moses per se, but follow the Law of Moses only to the extent that Jesus tells us to follow it.

So, for example, we are not obliged to follow the food laws (kosher) of the Old Testament. (We can if we want to, but we need not.) This is because Jesus said that “nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’” (Mark 7:18).

On Biblical sexual ethics, our basis for understanding marriage and sexuality is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and elaborated upon by the Apostles. Thus, we are not following the laws in Leviticus. Rather, we follow the teaching of Christ that marriage is a union between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:4-6) and that “porneia” (referring to all kinds of sexual behaviour outside of marriage) is immoral (Mark 7:20-23).

4. If the Bible is so clear-cut on its stance in LGBT, why do so many churches still support it?

There are many reasons why churches support LGBT ideas, and it is difficult to cover all the possible reasons why. However, I will speak from my experience engaging with people who profess to be Christians who also support LGBT, same-sex marriage, etc. as a matter of their church doctrine, and what I have read so far. 

At its very core, I believe that people on both sides want to do the right thing. We all want to do what is fair, just, and loving. 

Churches that support LGBT come from that motivation. They want to love their neighbours who identify as LGBT, and they believe that supporting same-sex marriage, ordaining clergy who identify as LGBT, etc. are the best way to do so. They also believe that the Biblical teaching on homosexual practice, whether in the Old or New Testament, are either confined to a certain cultural context or based on a misinterpretation of the Bible.

Most, if not all, of such churches also believe that God made people LGBT. It is a religious version of the “born this way” idea, where people argue that LGBT is biological and immutable.

Where I would point out as the main problem with their beliefs is the belief that God made people LGBT, which defines and identifies people according to their sexual desires or feelings.

From a Biblical perspective, we are made male and female in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4-6). Therefore, we do not derive our identities from our sexual desires or feelings, but from God and His design of human beings as male and female. Furthermore, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, your identity is as a child of God (Galatians 4:6-7), rather than any label you might give yourself or others might give you. 

Another mistake which they have made is what I would call their rather selective interpretation of the Bible. As we have discussed in the context of question 3, we should not be playing pick-and-choose with the Bible. For example, many of these churches want to affirm Jesus’s teachings on loving one’s neighbour (Mark 12:29-31), while at the same time ignoring His teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:4-6). 

In a sinful and broken world, our desires are corrupted by sin, including our sexual desires (which manifest in inappropriate desires for the same or opposite sex), and there may be some people who are born with indeterminate sex (i.e. intersex). 

But the promise of Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He demonstrated His love through His sacrifice for us on the cross. For those who put their trust in Him, He promises to clothe us with a new identity as children of God, and to give us a new life in Him. That is the message we proclaim.

Sacrifice as the Answer to the Fall

Psychology professor Dr Jordan Peterson ran a lecture series on the psychological significance of the Biblical stories. To be clear, Dr Peterson is not a Christian. According to him, he went to the United Church till he was about 13 years of age, but otherwise had "rather limited religious education". His approach to the Bible is influenced to a large extent by Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche, and would be unorthodox by theological standards. 

However, in his lecture on Cain and Abel, he provided an interesting insight into the significance of sacrifice, as a means of delayed gratification and a bargain with the future (at 19:03 of the video): 

People watched the successful succeed and the unsuccessful fail for thousands and thousands of years. And we thought it over and we drew a conclusion: The successful among us sacrifice. The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.

Reflecting further on the sacrifices of Cain and Abel later in the lecture, he said (at 1:06:56 of the video): 

You think "Oh how primitive! You know, how primitive these people were sacrificing to their God!" It's like you know those people weren't stupid and this is not primitive. Whatever it is, it's not primitive. It's sophisticated beyond belief because the idea, as I already pointed out, is that you could sacrifice something of value and that that would have transcendent utility. And that is by no means an unsophisticated idea. In fact it might be the greatest idea that human beings ever came up with. It's an answer to the problem that's put forward in the story of Adam and Eve... [Emphasis added]

Dr Peterson had his own extensive reflection on the matter and interpretation of the story, which carry much insight in their own right and are deserving of a careful understanding. However, there is a deep truth to the idea that sacrifice is the answer to the Fall. 

Part of the story of how humanity fell into sin was the desire for immediate gratification. Genesis 3:6 writes that, "the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom", and took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband. This is the classic lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life (1 John 2:16) that has plagued humanity ever since. Humanity traded the eternal bliss of Eden for that one moment of immediate gratification.

Sacrifice is the exact opposite of that. As Dr Peterson put it, it is delayed gratification, and a bargain with the future, where "you look into the future and you decide that by making today a little less impulsively pleasurable, shall we say, you'll make tomorrow a little bit more secure and productive" (at 10:44 of the video).

Thus, the answer to the Fall of Man is the ultimate Sacrifice of God. To borrow Dr Peterson's language, Jesus Christ looked far into the future and went through immense suffering, making a bargain with the future to make all our tomorrows completely secure and productive. "Christ was sacrificed one to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him." (Hebrews 10:28)

Dr Russell Moore and the Profanity-spouting Elderly Woman with Dementia

If you were a pastor and there is an elderly woman with dementia in your congregation who is spouting profanities during your sermon, what would you do?

Most pastors and church leaders, I would suspect, would kindly request the family of such a woman to relocate her to one of the isolated or overflow rooms (if any such rooms are available on the premises), so that she would not disrupt or "stumble" anyone with her profanities. Some might even request the family to keep the woman at home. In the minds of many, this would be seen to be quite justifiable and intuitive.

However, Dr Russell Moore had a very different experience. He shares about his encounter, early on in his ministry, with an elderly woman with dementia who was spouting profanities, and how her church responded, in a message at The Village Church titled "Restoring Holiness"(at 22:15 of the video):

I was in a church I served really early on in my ministry. We had an elderly woman in the congregation who was going through dementia.

Fairly… a serious form of dementia but she could still live at home and she came to church every single Sunday.

And I would be preaching and she would just randomly yell out in the middle of the service, but the problem was she would yell out strings of profanities. Now, this was a really, really sweet, proper, in-church-every-single-week lady, which is why those profanities were in her mind because she was shocked by them. Things that she would she would hear, she would take notice of them that’s bad, that’s shocking and that sort of embedded into her mind and came out.

And she would yell out, “Well you blankety-blank-blank-blank, blankety-blank-blank-blank!”

I found something happening in my heart while she is yelling this out. I’m looking around and I’m saying: Who do we have visiting with us today that’s gonna be totally freaked out by this taking place?

What Mom has just brought her four-year-old kid in here who says, “Hey Mom, what does blankety-blank-blank mean?” Not what they’re intending to learn at church today.

I’m trying to filter through; I look at this other group of ladies over here and thinking: How upset are they about this and how upset are they going to be with me about this?

Until one day a group of those ladies came up and said, “Brother Russ, when Miss So-and-So starts cussing, it seems like you’re embarrassed.”

And I said, “Yeah, I guess I am.”

She said, “Well, we’re here to rebuke you for that.”

“Because she can’t help this and when she’s screaming out this stream of profanities here, well that’s just her way of saying ‘Amen’. And if we’re going to be the Body of Christ to her, then we need to stop worrying about what everybody else is going to think that that takes place, and instead say to the outside world around us if you want to know the kind of church we want to be, we want to be the kind of church where our sister who is suffering and who is screaming out things that would humiliate her in any other period of her life doesn’t embarrass us. We love her and we receive her and she’s welcome here, because every single one of us are bringing to the table all kinds of other things that need to be borne up by everybody else that maybe aren’t quite as visible as what she’s grappling with right now. And that’s what the church does.”

I was convicted to the heart, because I realised I’m up here teaching about the worship of God, leading people in the worship of God, but the worship of God had become more important to me than her, which means that the worship of God had become a tool for me for something other than the worship of God; that is easy to do.

This is a remarkable and beautiful story, and the congregation listening to Dr Moore erupted in applause when he shared about the women's statements.

The tenderness and attitude of the women from that church who rallied around the elderly woman with dementia brings to mind the passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul describes the Church as the Body of Christ. As Paul said, "those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment." (1 Corinthians 12:22-24a)

Further on in the passage, Paul wrote, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it." (1 Corinthians 12:26) Those women cared much less about what other people thought about them, but were willing to bear any possible reproach in order to come alongside that elderly woman. 

Are we prepared to do that as a Church for our fellow brothers- and sisters-in-Christ, whatever condition they may be in or whatever they may be going through?

Jordan Peterson's Dream of Christ and the Kings

On 26 January 2018, the University of Toronto hosted a dialogue on the meaning of life featuring philosopher William Lane Craig, psychology professor Dr Jordan Peterson, and philosopher and author Dr Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Canadian journalist, author and editor Karen Stiller moderated the dialogue.

During the dialogue, Stiller posed a "Why do so many people then tussle with the question of ‘do I matter’? Why do so many of us struggle with the meaning of life then?"

Dr Jordan Peterson, in the context of his response to Stiller's question, shared and reflected on a very fascinating dream that he once had (at 1:33:28 of the video):

I had a dream once – and I’m speaking psychologically here, not theologically – I had a dream once.

I was in the cemetery of an old church, an old cathedral surrounded by the graves, and there were indentations in the grounds where all the graves were. And all of a sudden, the graves started to open and it was a graveyard where great people, great men of the past, had been buried.

And so [a] grave opened and an armed king stood up, and then another grave opened and another armed king stood up and just happened all around me.

And these were very formidable figures; they were the great heroes of the past. And after a number of them appeared on the scene, they looked around and saw each other and, being warrior-types, they immediately started to fight and the question is: What stops the great kings of the past from fighting?

And I had a revelation after the dream, I can’t remember if it was part of it… but, yes, it was part of the dream. They all bowed down to the figure of Christ and then I woke up and I thought, what in the world does that dream mean? What in the world could that possibly mean?

And then I understood it. I understood that, if you have twenty kings, let’s say, and you took the thing that was most king-like about each of them and then you combined it into a single figure, then you’d get a single figure of transcendent heroism, of transcendent Good and it’s a tenet of the Union School of Psychology.

Let’s say that that figure of transcendent Good is symbolised by the image of Christ and the purpose of that image is so that even the tyrannical king has someone to bend his knee to, and that’s absolutely vital.

I mean it does. You don’t have to approach it from a religious perspective, although you inevitably do, because when you speak of things at this level that’s what happens. But you need an image of the transcendent embodied Good to serve as something that unites the great tyrants of the past.

It’s something like that. It’s an emergent vision of embodied unity and it’s a psychological necessity, it’s a sociological necessity, and I think it bears very strongly on your question about why is it that people matter. It’s the classic Western answer to that. The Judaeo-Christian answer to that is because you have a spark of divinity within you and that divinity is a reflection of this transcendent Good and it’s obligatory for me to recognise that in you and vice versa if we’re going to inhabit the same territory without mayhem, peacefully, and with the ability to cooperate.

Now, you might say, “Well, the mere fact that a transcendent image is necessary as a uniting figure doesn’t prove the reality of that image.”

But I would say, well yes, but it doesn’t disprove it and it strongly hints at something more profound especially when you also ally it with the observation that the encounter with something truly admirable produces the instinct of awe. And that’s not a rational instinct, it’s an irrational instinct, but it’s a marker that you’re in the presence of something greater than yourself and it’s not something that you have voluntary control over. It’s something that overtakes you and it could easily be a reflection of the truth.

Now, you can make a biologically reductionistic argument about that, but it starts to become extraordinarily difficult because you enter into the realm where these transcendent experiences of religious significance and awe are phenomenological and psychological reality and it’s not easy to explain why that’s the case.

Although Dr Peterson was clear that he was speaking psychologically, there is a great deal of truth to Dr Peterson's dream (or vision) of the image of Jesus Christ, from a Biblical perspective. 

Paul tells us that Christ is the "image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Colossians 1:15), and:

For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. 

(Colossians 1:19-20) 

Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 20:16), and "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Philippians 2:10).

More than an image (or statue) upon whom all the greatest king-like qualities are ascribed, Jesus Christ truly came as the Word made Flesh, died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and made various appearances to His disciples (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

God Calls Us to Holiness, Not "Heterosexuality"

There exists a page on Facebook known as "Heterosexual Awareness Month Singapore" (HAM SG), which appears to have been created on 26 June 2018. As of the time of this post, there are only 2 'likes' and 2 'followers' of the page. 

In a post published at 3.06pm on 28 June 2018, the page purported to describe "some benefits of being hetero", including being "STD Free", "Healthy" and "Make Babies". The post added that "Heterosexuality is the Way, the Truth and it creates Life."

It is not clear who the creator of the page is, or whether there is any organisation behind this, religious or otherwise. Further, it is unclear what the motivations behind the creation of the page are, whether this is a "troll" page meant to mock and ridicule Christianity or conservative sexual perspectives, or a genuine page seeking to advocate for "heterosexuality".

In any event, the direction and message of the page is quite misguided, and completely misses the mark in its discourse on sexuality or faith.

The idea that "Heterosexuality is the Way, the Truth and it creates Life" is clear and utter heresy. The language of the post draws from, or at least parallels, John 14:6 where Jesus Christ said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, not "heterosexuality".

Further evidence of the page's error in idolising "heterosexuality" can be seen from the caption of its post at 3.25pm on 27 June 2018 'sharing' the video of Tamae Iwasaki where she spoke about her sexual abuse as a child, and her subsequent struggles with sexual attraction to both sexes, even during her marriage, and how God saved her. Rather than acknowledging God, HAM SG's caption was instead, "Heterosexuality heals."

The concept of "sexual orientation", including "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality", are recent inventions originating from the 1800s. In a thoughtful article aptly titled "Against Heterosexuality" (March 2014), Michael W. Hannon argues against adopting such categories:

They are recent inventions that are utterly foreign to our faith, inadequate for justifying sexual norms, and antithetical to true philosophical anthropology. The time has come for us to eradicate sexual orientation from our worldview as systemically as we can manage—with all due prudence as to complicated particular cases, of course.

Neither is it true that simply being "heterosexual" would make a person "STD Free" or "Healthy" or would "Make Babies". Sexual immorality, whether with the same or opposite sex, is a problem. For instance, according to the Ministry of Health statistics, out of 434 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in 2017, 417 cases acquired the infection through sexual intercourse, where heterosexual transmission accounted for 36% of all cases. Furthermore, many Singapore couples are not having children, or having fewer children. Singapore's fertility rate was also at a 7-year low at 1.16 in 2017.

Ultimately, God does not call us to "heterosexuality". Instead, the call of God to every single believer in Jesus Christ, and to all of humanity, is a call to holiness through faith in Jesus Christ, who clothes us with a new identity as children of God. As Christopher Yuan said:

God says, “Be holy, for I am holy”. I had always thought that the opposite of homosexuality was heterosexuality. But actually, the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. God never told me, “Be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual”. He said, “Be holy, for I am holy”.  

And God told me, “Don't focus upon your sexuality, don't focus upon your feelings but focus upon living a life of holiness and living a life of purity.”

Addressing Biblical Teaching on Sexuality the Master's Way

During a dialogue on race and religion earlier this year, there was a question the Christian stance on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. The Straits Times reports in "Tough questions posed at dialogue" (28 January 2018):

Why do Taoists have a practice of burning joss paper? What is the Christian stance on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues? Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? 

Such questions were posed during a one-hour dialogue at the first National Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circle Convention at the Suntec Convention Centre yesterday, titled "Inconvenient Questions on Race and Religion". 

Asked about the Christian stance on LGBT issues, Reverend Malcolm Tan of Covenant Community Methodist Church explained that traditional biblical sexual morality teaches faithfulness in marriage and celibacy outside of marriage, and defines marriage as something that should always be between a man and a woman. 

"However, this does not mean that we become adversarial with people who are different or disagree with us," he said...

I do not know whether Reverend Malcolm Tan said more than had been reported in the article or if the article merely summarised his comments. Thus, I would refrain from addressing his specific comments at the dialogue, but focus on the more general issue of the Christian response on Biblical teaching regarding LGBT issues or any other issue of sexual brokenness.

While it is not wrong to address LGBT or other sexual brokenness issues by talking about the proper context of sex within marriage of a man and a woman (and this certainly reaffirms Biblical teaching), I would like to suggest that there is a better way to address Biblical teaching in sexuality. And who better to learn from than the Master Himself?

In the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus's response to the Pharisee's question on divorce:

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'  and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

(Matthew 19:3-6)

To be sure, there were many passages in the Old Testament on divorce, and Jesus could have given a straightforward answer on the question by pointing to passages such as Malachi 2:16 where God declares "I hate divorce." However, He did not do so.

Instead, He began by referring to God ("the Creator"), human nature ("made them male and female"), the beauty of marriage ("a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"), followed by how marriage has gone wrong in the context of divorce ("what God has joined together, let man not separate").

This order seems to reflect Jesus's priorities in how Biblical teaching on sexuality ought to be addressed.

Rather than sexual conduct per se, the core issue is that of God and human nature, of Dei and Imago Dei.

And some of the leading advocates on LGBT issues have likewise pointed out the centrality of one's understanding of human nature in debates over such issues.

Ryan T. Anderson wrote in "Same-sex Marriage and Heresy: The Importance of Anthropology" (16 July 2015), that the most pressing heresies today "center on the nature of man". He explains that "the sexual ideology that has battered the family and redefined marriage" springs from "a faulty humanism", "faulty anthropology [and] a misunderstanding of the nature of man".

Ever since the Fall, all of humanity has been attempting to define human nature apart from God, removing the Dei from Imago Dei.

The very notion of "LGBT" assumes that a person is and can be defined by one's "sexual orientation" or "gender identity", such that a person is defined by one's sexual desires or feelings about oneself. A person can be a "man trapped in a woman's body" or a "woman trapped in a man's body", presenting the idea that one's body is like a prison, rather than part of oneself, and can be altered and changed at will.

Modern society, shaped by the Sexual Revolution, has made sex into an idol. It has defined sex as such an integral part of human identity and fulfilment that - to quote Sam Allberry's paraphrase of the modern idea - "life without sex is no life at all".

Professor Robert P. George identifies in this the resurgence (or persistence) of the old Gnostic heresy, which sees the body as inferior and sees the human person or "self" as a spiritual or mental substance. As a result, according to post-Sexual Revolution sexual ethics, all forms of sexual conduct (with anyone or anything) are permissible as long as they are consensual, since what ultimately matters is connection on the emotional, mental or "spiritual" level.

It goes without saying that all of this is contrary to the vision of human nature (and thus human sexuality) presented in Scripture.

Human beings are made in the image of God, male and female, and are thus not "accidentally" placed in the wrong bodies. (However, in a sinful world, we must be aware that there are disabilities and abnormalities which may affect the development of one's sexual organs.) Our identities are accordingly defined by God's design, rather than according to our sexual desires or feelings.

As Sam Allberry said in his address to the Church of England General Synod in 2017, "I am same-sex attracted and have been my entire life. By that, I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions to people of the same sex. I choose to describe myself this way because sexuality is not a matter of identity for me. And that has become Good News."

Since our bodies are important and part of who we are, what we do with our bodies in sexual behaviour affects us on a personal level, and are not merely emotional, intellectual or "spiritual" connections. Marriage is thus a comprehensive union, uniting a man and a woman in heart (emotional), soul (spiritual), mind (intellectual) and strength (physical).

Yet, in a world marred by sin, we should recognise that we are not only sinners, but also victims of sin (whether sins of others or our own sins), whom Jesus Christ came to seek and to save. And even as sexual brokenness affects us all in different ways, Jesus came as a Bridegroom for His beloved Bride, the Church, giving Himself up for her "to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" (Ephesians 5:27).

Through His sacrifice on the cross, He frees us from the shackles of our pasts, such that we are no longer defined by our sexual desires, sexual history, or any sin that once held us. Christopher Yuan, who is same-sex attracted and left his former lifestyle, said it well:

My identity should never be defined by my feelings; my feelings should not dictate who I am. My identity is not gay or homosexual or even heterosexual for that matter, but my identity as a child of the Living God must be in Jesus Christ alone. 

You see, God says, “Be holy, for I am holy”. I had always thought that the opposite of homosexuality was heterosexuality. But actually, the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. God never told me, “Be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual”. He said, “Be holy, for I am holy”.  

And God told me, “Don't focus upon your sexuality, don't focus upon your feelings but focus upon living a life of holiness and living a life of purity.”

Jesus clothes us with a new identity as children of the Most High, and we look forward to the great wedding between Jesus and His Bride at the end of days (Revelation 21).

So, how do we address Biblical teaching on sexuality the Master's way?

A better way of engaging on Biblical teaching on LGBT issues or any other issue of sexual brokenness should, in order of priority, address the following:

1. Begin with God, the Creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them, including humanity ("the Creator"), 
2. Explore the wonders of human nature, as male and female made in the image of God ("made them male and female"), 
3. Present the beauty of marriage according to God's original design as a "one flesh" union between a man and a woman ("a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"), 
4. Recognise how marriage and sexuality have gone wrong in a sinful world, and that there are forms of sexual conduct which are contrary to God's laws ("what God has joined together, let man not separate"),
5. Finally, present the Gospel of how Jesus Christ redeems and makes us holy and blameless through His sacrifice on the cross, and He will return one day for His beloved Bride.

Seeing God's Back

In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses asks to see God's glory. God grants Moses's request in part, permitting Moses to see His back but not His face: 

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” He said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

In a podcast on 15 June 2018, Ben Shapiro cites his father's exposition (D'var Torah) to provide an interesting commentary on the passage, in response to a question from one of his listeners:

David says, “Dear Ben, from your perspective, how well do you think human intellect can understand God? The ancient Greeks seemed to believe human intellect was the key to understanding God. If God is beyond understanding [through] intellectual tools, what other tools can be used to understand God and God’s will?”

So, I’m writing an entire book about this right now, David. And my view of this, is that it is our job to use reason to try and understand the universe that God built in order to understand God’s logic. Right, I believe in this sort of Greek teleology that the universe was designed with certain purposes in mind and that it’s our job to try and find those purposes. That said, God operates from a different plane, so trying to understand the mind of God completely is never going to happen.

I think the most beautiful exposition of this happens in the Book of Exodus when Moses asks to see God’s face. And what the commentators explain is that when Moses asks to see God’s face, what he’s really asking is, “Can I understand the universe?”

And God says, “You can’t look at my face. If you look at my face, then you’ll die. But I will let you see my back.”

And He puts Moses in a cleft in the rock, and then He goes by Moses. All of this is anthropomorphic, just because human beings can’t understand completely spiritual imagery. And my Dad has a very nice, kind of, what we call D’var Torah on this. He has a very nice, sort of, exposition on what this means.

He says that, people that you know – right, people that you love and you know – you can recognise them from behind. Right, if I saw my wife I could recognise her from behind. If I saw my kids I could recognise them from behind. But I can’t tell what’s on their faces. I don’t know what they’re thinking, because I can’t see what’s on their face. But I certainly can tell that they are there.

And that’s I think what the intellect can comprehend. The intellect can comprehend that God is there. We can see sort of shadows of what God wants from us. Through revelation I think we can see more than shadows. But just through pure intellect, through pure reason, I think we can gather a couple of things. I think that we can gather, you know, the idea that there is a God; I think there are good arguments for a God. The idea that there is a God who is the Creator of heaven and earth. I think that we can pick up on certain interactions between man and man that don’t even require belief in God necessarily to logic yourself out to.

As far as understanding what God wants from us, I think that that’s only going to take you so far. You can get to the Aristotelian logic of: God wants us to use reason. God wants us to act in accordance with right reason, which amounts to virtue. But that is relatively vague.

Aristotle did as well as anybody. Even Aristotle’s philosophy has some flaws in how he brings out virtue.