Yesterday I enjoyed some fellowship with a friend of mine. I had been telling her that I don't think drinking alcohol in and of itself is a sin, but that when I tell other people that they give me looks of obvious disagreement.
Here is my take on it. There are 10 commandments that we are held to. At least that is my understanding. Gentiles are not held to Levitical laws. In the New Testament, Jesus turns water into wine. Now, I know some people think this was grape juice, but I remember being taught in synagogue that during Jewish festivities, there is wine, not grape juice. So if drinking alcohol is a sin then why would Jesus condemn an entire wedding party to hell, by providing them with alcohol? It doesn't compute for me. Drinking alcohol becomes a sin when we become gluttonous about it. Therefore it isn't the alcohol that is the sin, but the gluttony. I mean we don't look at pie and say "You're going to hell for eating pie" and yet people are gluttonous with that too. What is the difference? Excessive pie intake makes you unhealthy and so does excessive alcohol intake. That's why God doesn't want us to do it.
She then she asked me about homosexuality. We constantly hear about Levitical law, but what about the New Testament? There is a place in the New Testament, which of course I can't remember exactly where right now, that also says that homosexuality is a sin. Just as premarital sex and adultery are sins. So why then, do Christians balk at one sin more than another? They are all 3 the same type of sin. The bible says a sin is a sin. It doesn't say oh well you, a man, had an affair with a woman so your sin is this big and you, woman, slept with another woman so your sin is THIS BIG... To Him, I believe, they look more like this "This man had an affair, that falls under sexual immorality. This woman had sex with a woman, that falls under sexual immorality." It's equal! So if we can love a person who is a glutton with pie, because we "overlook" their sin, why is it so difficult to love someone for being a homosexual. We are not here to judge, but to love God and love others!
Now before I get the, "But Jesus didn't say that" remember why he came! Jesus didn't come to tell us what sin was. That had already been done! He came to show us who God was and what God was truly like, because so many people had a skewed view. Parents don't give us rules to confine us or ruin our lives. They give us rules to create guardrails to protect us, keep us safe, and to give us the best they can, because they *love* us. If God is our heavenly father, why is it so difficult for us to see why His rules are so important and the love that is behind them?
"So do all homosexuals go to hell?" she asked. I don't think they do. I think it works like this, if you are a glutton, but you choose to not act on it (i.e. over eat.) and you do it for the right reasons, not out of obligation or with resentment, then why would God punish you? So if you don't act on the urges you have but refrain from sin because of your love for God then He has no reason to punish you since you aren't doing anything wrong. It doesn't matter what that sin is.
Why do I use gluttony as a comparison/example? Because I have issues with gluttony and I am no less a sinner than anyone else. I'm sure this idea would make some laugh. I'm not a very big person. However, I'm not a very healthy person either and it is because of the things I over eat. I probably eat 4 servings of ice cream almost every time I serve it to myself. If we have cookies, they maybe last a day. Sometimes 2. Granted I have 4 cookie monsters in my house, but still, I'm not an innocent bystander. My point. I'm honestly less interested in telling someone else what a sinner they are, when I have sins of my own I need to clean up.
