The posts below are from a facebook discussion- i am only including the responses by bible teacher and bible radio host Steve Gregg. I thought his points were excellent and highly instructive:
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"I know some celibate gay people in the church. They are true Christians, but they resist the temptation to fornicate””just as the rest of us had to when we were single. Since reaching puberty, I have been single about half my adult life. I had to remain celibate. It wasn't easy, but those looking for the easy route need to look elsewhere than Christianity. Jesus said the way is difficult (Matt.7:14)””but also easy (Matt.11:28-30). There is grace to help in time of need, but battles to fight. I have compassion for every man and woman in the battle, but still expect them to own up to the responsibilities of following Jesus.
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Hi John,
You wrote:
// Something to consider in your view above. In the example of "you".. celibacy was a "temporary" state.. You have the ability to "choose" when you cannot endure celibacy anymore and can get married to satisfy that "sexual desire" that God created in all.//
It isn't that simple. A man who chooses to marry as soon as his sexual desire becomes troublesome is a man likely to marry unwisely””resulting in far more misery than abstinence has ever caused anyone.
My celibacy was only temporary because I eventually chose to marry. In my celibate years, I had no assurance that it was a temporary condition. In addition to my teenaged years, I was single from age 21 to age 28, and again from age 48 to age 58. It is true that, all those years, I hoped to marry, but I am actually very hard to match, and I could not predict that I would find a partner suitable for marriage. It often seemed that I would not.
In any case, abstinence is a day-by-day thing. I spent a stint of ten years managing my celibacy day-by-day, without any assurance that I would ever be married again. What had to be done for ten years, could have been done, by the grace of God, for fifty. No man faces a lifetime of temptation at any one time. He faces one moment of temptation at a time, and it is in the moment that he must seek the grace of God for assistance and fight the good fight.
Just as I could choose marriage only if I found a female partner that I wished to be married to (which many straight men do not), so can a gay man choose marriage only if he finds a female partner that he wishes to be married to (which most gay men do not). Those who do not, whether straight or gay, must opt for abstinence.
Even married men””whether straight or gay””often experience sexual frustration in their marriages. When you see a man married to a debutante, it is not safe to assume that he is sexually satisfied (nor even sexually active!). He may be the most sexually-frustrated of all men.
The simple truth is, no human being is guaranteed a life that includes sexual fulfillment””and a Christian must be one who does not follow the decadence of a culture that idolizes sexual fulfillment, but must delight in the will of God. This can be done, but not without true conversion.
Fortunately, the battle against temptation is a temporary one in every man's case. We all will die””some sooner and some later””at which time the temptations cease. A straight man (like C.S. Lewis) who waits to marry at age 60, and a gay man who dies at age 60, both have the same "temporary” period of abstinence to endure. A straight man who lives to be 90 and never marries (like John R.W. Stott) has to resist temptation longer still. However, the grace of God is adequate for all cases.
You wrote:
//In that view then, God created a "class" of men who have choice to satisfy sexual desire, and a class of people who do not have choice to satisfy sexual desire (God given) without sin.//
Yes, God actually did create two classes of people who can find no sexual fulfillment””namely, all perpetually-unmarried people, as well as married people whose spouses cannot, or will not, grant them sexual fulfillment. Then again, we might say that, in creating albinos, God created a class of people who will never enjoy a good sun tan.
Christians are supposed to be a class of people who realize that, however wonderful sex and a good tan may be, there are other sources of meaning, fulfillment and enjoyment in life, that do not involve sex and/or gorgeous skin.
There are also diabetics, who cannot eat Twinkies, and children who never know a father, and paralytics, who may never fly a helicopter. These are sad realities, due to the fall, but Christians are not allowed to give up on life because of certain denials of providence.
I am not being insensitive here. I am one who thinks that we do better by facing reality than by denying it. Some people are not given the opportunity to have sex. This is difficult, but not the greatest of imaginable difficulties. Those who do not worship sex will know this.
You wrote:
//So now we've got to reconcile that God created different classes of people.. Those who can satisfy the sexual desires God installed in them and those who can't. This is a significant weakness to the view.//
We might as easily argue, since Joe has a happy marriage with healthy children, while Rob has a shrewish wife and sickly children, that this is a significant weakness in the view that Rob is expected to be as good a Christian as is Joe. It does not follow.
You wrote:
//What else I saw significant in your view, was statement that God would never give approval for a "Sin" which in this case God specifically designed the person to commit. This view has to be reconciled as well... unless we have a non consistent God. //
God did not design any person "to commit” any particular sin. God created people who are tested by various temptations, but are not permitted to sin (even as Jesus was tempted in every way, but did not sin).
To argue that we can expect sinless perfection in this life is to argue a point I am not making. In many things we all stumble, and I am sure this may be true for homosexual brethren as well as for the rest of us.
But failure does not redefine duty. The problem with the present trend is that we are being asked to celebrate dysfunction. The fact that I might covet what another man has does not translate into a reason to celebrate covetousness. If I am tempted by my neighbor’s wife (after all, who is to hate me for who I choose to love?), this does not give cause to normalize adultery as a lifestyle. If, in a weak moment, I bend the truth a bit, that is no reason to remove "lying” from the official list of sinful behavior.
You wrote:
//This leads back to "my post" about definition of Sin and that which I bring up in that post. I do think that what Paul and other apostles write as sins can contextually be interpreted/defined/clarified a little differently than what is currently generally accepted.//
Perhaps, but this should be done through fair and honest exegesis, rather than through agenda-driven cultural preference. I do not believe that the topic under discussion here lends itself to alteration on these grounds.