Actually, it would be a matter of debate if the handful of verses that are typically used to support not allowing full fellowship to our gay brothers and sisters are valid, but that’s off topic here. I was just praising Brent for trying to look for the whole counsel of God.

More power to him and to all of us as we do so.

You have argued that Ezekiel 16 is somehow the magic exhaustive key to interpreting why Sodom was destroyed saying that it amounts to rape, neglect of the poor, and lack of hospitality. Then you cite it:

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

Using your hermeneutic, we cannot conclude that a culture of rape contributed to divine wrath either because it’s not explicitly named.

You say, “Well, of course, forced rape is wrong…” Of course? Your logic does not allow for that leap from this text because like homosexuality, rape isn’t named in Ezekiel 16. You are inserting that into the text. Your a priori is that homosexual acts cannot be included in the “detestable things”. Rape? Absolutely! Homosexual acts? Never!

Why do you make this assumption, particularly when the Hebrew word your translation renders as “detestable things”, is the exact same word used earlier to describe homosexual acts in Leviticus 18:22? In most Bible versions this word is rendered as “abomination,” so the Law and Ezekiel 16 are speaking with the same voice.

The Bible is absolutely clear on God’s prohibition of homosexual acts in both the Old and New Testaments. Mirroring the account of Sodom is Romans 1 where it’s clear that failing to honor God and thank Him leads to a darkened heart that produces all kinds of depravity, homosexual behavior included.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

I suspect that you’ll likewise need to invent some scenario where the idolaters are given over to homosexual acts described as unnatural and degrading, yet they are not really sinning sexually. When you find yourself having to repeatedly insert special exemptions into these passages, shouldn’t it give you cause to ask yourself if you are the one neglecting the whole counsel of God?

Or maybe given that you were describing yourself as an “outsider”, you were making it clear that preaching the whole counsel of God is not something important to your own worldview, but you feel that pastors like Brent are not being consistent.

That’s my point. I’d been SO indoctrinated into believing that Sodom was about homosexuality that it was quite a shock to me that homosexuality never comes up in the context of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible.

That’s why preaching the “whole counsel of God” can be difficult, it seems to me - because we bring so much cultural baggage to our faith that it’s hard to read God’s Word with an humble and open heart. At least for me.

For instance, it took a great deal of prayer and contemplation for me to realize that the Sodom/Gomorrah story was not about homosexuality! I had been so thoroughly indoctrinated that Sodom was destroyed because of the gay people there, but in looking at this story, this is a description of an attempted rape.

ALL the men of Sodom were calling for the angels to come out so they could have their way with them.

Well, of course, forced rape is wrong, but that is not what I was taught this story was about.

As backup for the point, Ezekiel 16 tells us:

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

How surprising that was to me! How hard to realize it was different than what I had been taught.

So, please, preach the whole word of God and do not find yourself by the traditions of men.

Blessings.

The part about keeping your conscience tender because you get sucked in little by little and not all at once, is very true and exactly what I am trying to teach my children about when I tell them that a whole movie is ruined by one bad word, or one magic spell, etc. These are important things for us to hear.