ATLANTA—Christians who want to hear God’s voice—particularly when it comes to difficult issues regarding sexuality—need to approach the Scriptures with humility and a desire to know the heart and mind of Christ, speakers told participants at a [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant.
Mercer University’s Center for Theology and Public Life and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship sponsored the April 19-21 event at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga.
Faithful reading of the Bible should form and transform Christians’ lives more than they give detailed answers to complex ethical and moral issues, said Guy Sayles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C.
Rather than focusing on isolated proof texts, Christians should consider the broad themes of Scripture—particularly as seen in the life and ministry of Jesus, he said.
“The Scriptures point beyond themselves to Jesus. It is his voice we listen to hear from the Scripture’s chorus of witnesses. The Scriptures’ voices are central because they put us in touch with his heart. Their purpose is to enable us to encounter and know him,” Sayles said.
He stressed the importance of keeping in mind the sweeping themes of the Bible and the perfect revelation of God in Christ.
“Too often, Christians read the Bible in ways that overemphasize isolated texts and use them to push aside the just, gracious and merciful God whom the grand overarching themes reveal,” Sayles said. “The result can be that followers of Jesus think, feel and act in ways that aren’t Jesus-like but seem to be required by their reading of the Bible.”
Citing the words of Jesus recorded in John 16:12-15 about how the Holy Spirit will guide Christ’s followers into truth, he warned against any effort to mute, rather than amplify, the contemporary voice of Jesus in the church.
“How tragic it would be for us to interpret the written words of Scripture in a way that silenced or made it more difficult to hear, Jesus’ voice in the here and now,” Sayles said.
Christians should look to Jesus in order to understand the character of God, he insisted.
“Our faith is not so much that ‘Jesus is God-like’ but that ‘God is Christ-like,’” he said.
“The affirmation of God’s Christlikeness means that any concept of God, any conviction or feeling about God, and any claim or statement on God’s behalf which does not reflect the character and spirit of Jesus Christ is, at best, inadequate or incomplete—and at worst, distorting and deadly—even blasphemous.”
Sayles pointed to the story in the New Testament book of Acts describing the encounter between Philip the evangelist and the Ethiopian eunuch—a man who sought God even though he never would be welcome in the Jewish temple.
The eunuch’s reading of the Old Testament left him confused about whether a person rendered physically incapable of sexual intimacy could be welcomed by God. Philip responded by telling the Ethiopian the story of Jesus.
“It’s the story which makes it clear who God is and what God is like. Jesus showed the world that God loves us fully and completely,” Sayles said.
He went on to ask what characteristics of people—race, gender, class, failed marriage or sexual orientation—tempt some churches to “become ecclesiastical border patrol officers and refuse them permanent belonging.”
Christ’s mercy has made a place for everyone in God’s household and embraced all who have felt excluded, he insisted.
“Therefore, it is a denial of God’s unconditional love and of salvation by grace if the conditions of someone’s life seem to us to justify our excluding him or her from the community,” Sayles said.
“Based on the passionate and compassionate love of God disclosed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, I believe that the risen Jesus is, right now, actively working to bring down the barriers inside us and to open wide our hearts to welcome all whom God has already welcomed.”
Discerning God’s voice means distinguishing it from all the other voices competing for attention, and that is difficult work, said Sharyn Dowd, associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. It demands love, humility, transparency and a willingness to set aside preconceived ideas.
“To participate in discernment within Christian community requires a dialogue with Scripture, not a monologue made up of a collage of Scriptures,” Dowd said.
Discernment within Christian community raises questions of ecclesiology, she continued.
Baptist Christians need to ask: “What kind of church best encourages covenant faithfulness with respect to sexuality?”
Typically, churches either emphasize the need to be set-apart communities of baptized believers seeking to live holy lives or as welcoming communities occupied both by saints and unrepentant sinners, Dowd noted. Each model may have its proper place in the universal church, she added.
The problem with the model that emphasizes purity is that it exercises discipline regarding known sexual sin but ignores a host of other sins, she observed.
“We might do well to consider developing a way to hold each other accountable in community for growth in all areas of our lives,” Dowd said.
“Instead of putting people out of the church for certain sexual behaviors, what if we put everybody in the church into small groups with strict confidentiality requirements? When people know each other and care for each other over time, they tend to have more courage to confront each other about the gaps in their lives between what they profess and how they behave.”
People today have a hunger to belong, she observed.
“If we exclude people who do not behave as we prefer, what chance do we have of influencing their behavior or, more importantly, of introducing them to Christ who is the only one who can change hearts and behaviors?” she asked. “If we fear that others will interpret our welcoming as condoning sinful behavior, as least we will find ourselves in the company of Jesus, of whom it was said, ‘He welcomes sinners and even eats with them.’”
Christian maturity demands that believers acknowledge nobody’s relationships are perfect, and everyone needs to be changed by God, she said.
“We could begin with the recognition that people who have a legal license to engage in sexual intimacy need transformation and sanctification just a much as the rest of us do,” she said.
“If we believe that the difference between covenant faithfulness and unfaithful behavior is a piece of paper, we are sorely deceived. Unless we recognize our depravity at every level of life and relationships, we can never even begin a journey toward wholeness.”
Furthermore, Christians should practice humility in acknowledging their ignorance about what the Holy Spirit’s priorities may be in terms of transformation.
“If I don’t even know what God wants to do in me, it is very unlikely that I know what God wants to do in someone else,” she said.
Ken Camp is managing editor of the Dallas-based Baptist Standard.