STATEMENT ON HOMOSEXUALITY
Released: Tuesday, 7th March 2006
Jesus Christ
embraces and accepts everyone whatever their nationality, colour, creed or
gender. He died for all of us and loves us equally. He gave every human being
dignity and honour and so should we. However, the Bible makes it clear that
certain behaviour is unacceptable to God and harmful to us. This is true for
all of us, whatever our personal preferences, social norms or cultural
practices.
For instance, the Bible teaches that the only
place for sexual expression is within the context of a marriage between a man
and a woman who are not closely related. Any sexual activity outside this
Biblical model of marriage is considered to be immoral (1 Cor 6:12-20) (1 Thess
4:1-8).
The homosexual lifestyle therefore is contrary to
the Biblical teaching on marriage and the practice of homosexuality is
described as immoral in both the Old and the New Testaments (Lev 18:22) (Lev
20:13) (Rom 1:24-27) (1 Cor 6:9-11) (1 Tim
1:10).
However, we need to distinguish between a person's
identity and activity. There is a great deal of difference between a homosexual
preference and homosexual practice. It is the latter that is the issue here.
People may argue about how easy it is to choose or change our sexual preference
but we can definitely choose our sexual behaviour.
We are each responsible for our own actions and
have to live with the consequences of our choices. However, whatever our
current inclination or previous conduct, there is always the hope and
possibility of change through Jesus Christ (1 Cor
6:11).
Labels: Assemblies of God, bible and homosexuality