Truth Unites - Has God "Changed His Mind" on Sexuality?

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Gavin Ortlund and Rebecca McLaughlin discuss a new book on sexuality in the Bible by Christopher and Richard Hays, entitled The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story. Rebecca's review: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/widening-gods-mercy/ Rebecca's book, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships: https://www.amazon.com/Relationships-Examining-Scripture-Sexuality-homosexuality/dp/1784989711 Rebecca's book, Confronting Christianity: https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Christianity-Questions-Largest-Religion/dp/1433564238 Gavin's video on slavery in the Bible: https://youtu.be/ZImmDmr8pxk?si=pgareHjgt20j-OMk Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

And at the end of the day, I actually think it's quite dehumanizing to say to somebody like me who might have a long-term experience of same-sex attraction that it is impossible for me to say no to my romantic or sexual desires. If we are going to go against what the entire global historic Church of Christ taught about what is marriage, then we need to deal with the passages upon which that universal consensus view is built. Well, Rebecca, I'm grateful to be talking with you today, grateful for your ministry and your friendship. I remember reading your book, Confronting Christianity when it first came out and being so grateful for it,

and then have followed your different books and other things you've done over the years, and just so grateful for the chance to talk with you now about the biblical view of sexuality. And let me just say right at the beginning. So this discussion we're going to have will be kind of like a book review about a book that's just come out. We'll explain that book in just a moment. But let's just say where we're coming from right out of the gate because we're going to have criticisms of this book and we're going to raise some concerns Where are we coming from with that? I will say that it's not from a place of anger or trying to lash out or Stir up controversy or something like that

I would say for me It's coming from first of all a concern for the truth the truth of these topics really matters it touches real lives And second of all we want to shepherd the sheep there are people who are are confused about these topics and they need our help and our, we all need to work together to see what does the scripture say? What does God want from us on these topics? So do you want to say anything about just sort of where you're coming from on these topics and why they're important for us to think about? Yeah, absolutely. I think any questions concerning sexuality are going to have kind of personal angles for each of us, regardless of what our own experiences have been or the

experiences of those we love. For me, as somebody who I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember I've also, for as long as I ever had sort of romantic or sexual feelings, I was always attracted to other girls and women rather than to guys. So I think I come to a book like the one that we're going to be discussing today as someone who, honestly, if I could have found a way to read the Bible that would have affirmed same-sex marriage for Christians, I think I would have done so. At one point in my life, you know, at least I would have, I didn't come to the Bible of sort of hoping that it said no to same-sex marriage for Christians. I think I would have done so. I didn't come to the Bible, hoping that it said no to same-sex marriage for Christians.

I have for a number of years been sort of thinking quite deeply about these questions. And one of the things that keeps coming back for me and came back for me multiple times as I read through this book is that actually when we look closely at what the Bible is saying about male-female marriage, what it's doing is it's pointing us to the gospel. And as soon as we start to sort of pull that out, the thread that we're pulling on ends up with us actually losing sight of the gospel in these conversations. So I think I share all of your thoughts and care kind of coming into this

conversation and maybe just to sort of add in that extra strain of like, these are personal issues for me particularly and I do think there are issues that end up sort of dividing people who are following and trusting in Jesus from people who aren't. There's, these are very high stakes issues and questions. Yeah. And hopefully for people who are watching this video, where we will try to shepherd things is we'll try to be clear about what the scripture teaches, but ultimately we want them to experience something of the love of Jesus, the compassion of Christ, so that they leave

watching this video, if they watch all the way through to the end, especially with a sense of, wow, Jesus is even better than I thought. Yeah. And so that's where we'll try to steer things through. But let's just describe the book a little bit. I'll read the title, and then maybe we can each just say a brief snapshot. of kind of what's the argument before we evaluate anything. We'll try to be fair to describe what it's actually arguing. So it's just recently out from our recording this, the widening of God's

mercy, sexuality within the biblical story by Christopher and Richard Hayes, a father and son. What's the basic argument of the book? Yes, it's fascinating because the background for this book is that Richard Hayes, the father of the father-son duo, is well-known for a number of things that he's written, including a work called the Moral Vision of the New Testament, came out, I think, 20 or years ago at this point. And within that, he had a chapter on homosexuality in particular and what the Bible says about same-sex, sort of sexual relationships. And the argument that he's making, he and his son are making this book,

is that whereas he actually stands by what he originally concluded in that earlier work, which is that any time the Bible references same-sex sexual relationships, relationships of any kind, it does so with sort of clear disapprobation. He's not saying he's changed his mind about those texts. What he's saying is he thinks he and a son think that we should actually set those texts aside and that if we read through the Bible, we will see that we're encountering a God who is actually frequently changing his mind and that as per the title of the book, the widening of God's mercy, that God is always sort of changing his mind. in the direction of more inclusivity and more mercy and more,

a sort of generous love and mercy beyond the original boundaries that had been set. And so one of the examples they use is the trajectory from the old to the New Testament of God's particular inclusion or sort of radical inclusion of the Gentiles, the non-Jews in the New Testament versus the Old Testament. But what they're arguing is that we should see today a radical inclusion of people who identify as LGBT or T as being sort of part and parcel of that, of that widening. I think that's sort of the high-level argument they're making

and that whereas the Bible does at times evidently condemns certain sort of sexual choices and behaviours that actually since giving those commandments that God has actually changed, sort of revised his view, changed his mind. Right, right, right, right. Okay, so we'll come back to this concern of God changing his mind. in just a moment. That'll be the first item we hit here. But yeah, for people wondering who maybe haven't read the book, there's three sections, Old Testament, New Testament, the Church today,

and exactly, this is my effort to describe the big picture. They're trying to go through a series of examples and show where God's mercy is wider than human expectation, sort of overflows boundaries and breaks through prejudice and so forth. And so, and then this is leveraged to say, there needs to be a full inclusion of LGBTQ people today. That's their framing their language. So we'll put up on the screen right now for viewers 10 topics that we're going to work through. Well, if we can get to all 10,

we'll see how far we get. We may get camped out on one of them, which is also fine. But people can see where we're going and they can check around in the timestamps to get to each of these. The first two have to do with just who is God. And I think to start off here,

it'd be fair to say that this book isn't mainly or just about ethics. It's about who God is. And you've already alluded to this language, but I think it's fair to the book to say they are arguing God changes his mind. There's even language at one point of God learning on the job to describe at least how biblical narratives are depicting God. And even the framing of the book, right out of the gate, page one, 1 Samuel 15, they quote Samuel's statement that the glory of Israel does not change his mind, and they call that a lie. And they're appealing to other scriptures and so forth. And I would say, you know, let me let both of us just reflect upon this to start with. I would say this is a radical proposal,

both in, it seems to depart from historic Christian understandings of the character and attributes of God. This idea of God changing his mind, learning on the job. This does not have precedent in classical Christian orthodox views of God. And that's a huge concern. But also the pastoral implications of this. As I was just thinking we were talking a moment ago about this, it goes down to the roots of our relationship with God. We'll talk about God's character in a moment and the implications for that.

But another thing is, I mean, our basic trust in the Lord, now there's a question, if this vision of God is true, of what if God changes his mind again? So this is important to highlight right out of the gate. What are the concerns that come up for you with this idea of God changing his mind? Yeah, I think the way that they sort of nail their argument down in the first chapter in particular

when they're looking at the Hebrew word Nakham, which has a range of meanings, including to change your mind or to feel sorry about something. And even in that chapter in 1st, Samuel 15, sort of famously, that word is used a couple of other times to describe the Lord's changed relationship with King Saul, and it's a change that has happened on the basis of Saul's sin. So one of the points that the authors make in this book is that we see this word used and applying to God multiple times in the Old Testament, and we see, you know, one example they give

is when the prophet Jonah is sent to tell the people of Nineveh that God's going to bring judgment and then God doesn't bring judgment because actually the people repent. And so Jonah's sort of unhappy because God has changed his mind about this judgment that he was going to bring. I think we need to recognize there that it's not that God just sort of woke up one day and said, oh, I think differently than I did yesterday. It's the Lord is sort of relenting from his judgment because of the repentance that he's seeing. And we absolutely see instances in the Old Testament of the Lord, you know, relenting on bringing judgment. But that's not the Lord changing his mind like you and I would of like, oh, I've just thought better at this, you know,

I was having a bad day or whatever it is. But some of the ways that the Lord is described in the framework that they're offering are very much of the nature of the Lord sort of making mistakes. And I think one of the other problems that we see even within the logic of what they're proposing is their sort of the hypothesis is that the Lord is always. changing his mind, in averted commas, in the direction of greater mercy. And actually, even in some of the examples they give, that's not necessarily the case. So, you know, famously in the flood narrative in Genesis 6, we see the Lord saying, you know, using that Hebrew word is used to describe the Lord sort of feeling sorry that he's made humans

in the first place and deciding to send this great flood which wipes out all of the humans bar Noah and his family. And so there we have a situation of the the Lord actually, you know, if we're using the language of changing his mind, it's one toward judgment. Now they say, well, by the end of that story, we see the Lord then kind of having quite another change of mind where he says he's not going to send the same kind of judgment again, even though it doesn't use that Hebrew word, Nakam again. But I feel like even with the examples that they can cite, we end up with it, if we're taking this view of God sort of changing his mind hithering his mind hithering and thither and other. We actually don't end up with only a sort of

one-directional trajectory in all cases where God is sort of always extending greater mercy. We actually sometimes see the Lord bringing devastating judgment in connection with this word. Yeah, that's a great point. And for people, viewers who want to get a little bit more on this specific topic, you have a book review of this book at the Gospel Coalition website, and that's going to be linked in the video description. So people can look at that to get a little bit more on how to interpret this biblical language. We certainly see biblical language where God is responding to people in different ways, as you point out, but it's really theologically aberrant to say God is learning on the job or that it's portraying him

in this way. That's the first thing I think we need to highlight. But I want to say pressing it even deeper in terms of our doctrine of God, it's not just his attributes. So historically Christians have spoken about God's immutability, which is just a fancy word that means God doesn't fundamentally change. So that's one issue. But then there's also concerns about God's character. Yeah. Because if God changes his mind, that implies something was deficient with his first original opinion about something. And I think one of the ways we see this is with the issue of child sacrifice. I mean, this is so poignant and so brutal to think about.

And this is chapter four of the book, and the authors are arguing that God changes his mind about child sacrifice. So they're arguing from Exodus 22 and Ezekiel 20, if I've got those chapters right. And I think, you know, let's talk through our concerns about that position. But I just want to highlight at the beginning, think about what this means for our view of God's character. I don't think it's correct that God originally commanded, not just allowed, but commanded child sacrifice. And we can talk about why. But if they are correct about that, think of this, what this means for our doctrine of God, that we have a God who actually commanded child sacrifice, changed his mind, and then said, no,

no more. That goes to the roots of what kind of God we worship. And so we're highlighting the significance of this first. But let's just walk through this a little bit and just express why we would say this is not a good reading of the biblical text, this idea. Yeah, for sure. So this is chapter four, as you mentioned, and the title of that chapter is, I gave them statutes that were not good.

So they're quoting there from Ezekiel chapter 20 versus 25 to 26. And it's part of a longer chapter where the Lord is talking to his people and describing some of their history and some of the ways that they rebelled against him. And so in verses 25 to 26, they quote the Lord saying, I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up of their firstborn in order that I might hold. horrify them so that they might know that I am the Lord. And the authors then link this back to Exodus 22, where among a sort of a series of laws that are being given to God's people at that point, the Lord says that the firstborns should be offered up to him. And he gives examples of sort of animals within this sort of framework, but also the firstborn sons. Now,

At first, you see those two verses together and you think, oh, my goodness, like, yeah, that was the Lord originally saying that the Israelites should sacrifice their firstborn sons. And if you're someone who's read a fair amount of the Old Testament, you might know there are multiple verses which specifically condemned child sacrifice. So you're thinking, oh, this is disturbing, that maybe this is what was originally claimed and then, or the command was originally given and then revised. But if you look more into this, then you'll find Exodus 22 is preceded by Exodus 13, where it's made very clear that actually the firstborn human child is to be redeemed rather

than to be sacrificed. It's clarified again in Exodus 34 when the same sort of statement is made that the human child is to be redeemed rather than actually sacrificed. Now, the authors of this book say, well, but scholars think that Exodus 22 came before Exodus 13 in terms of when it was written. And so their whole argument sort of hangs on that. And I would want to say, okay, let's grant that for a minute. And we don't need to sort of get into whether that's actually the consensus or not.

But let's assume for a minute that Exodus 22 came before Exodus 13 was written down. If we just look even at the narrative of the book of Exodus, we need to remember that God has just rescued his people out of Egypt and at the Passover, you know, famously God has protected the firstborns from the angel of death that's passed through the land of Egypt as a sort of final plague. God has, you know, just specifically protected the firstborns. And then he brings them out of Egypt and says, oh, now I want you to sacrifice your firstborns to me.

I mean, it doesn't make any sense within the narrative of the sort of big picture narrative of the Exodus story, even aside from the other verses within Exodus that specifically clarify what is and isn't being asked for. It also doesn't actually make sense in the context of Ezekiel 20, because if you read through that whole chapter for it to work with the logic that they're applying to it of God originally commanded child sacrifice and then changed his mind and realize that was a bad commandment, is what they're saying. Then you would expect the narrative in Exodus 20 to say, to state this first, I gave them statutes that were not good and laws by which they couldn't live

and then subsequently, oh, I revised this, I gave them good statutes sort of after that. But actually, no, if you read through Ezekiel 20, what you'll see is that God is at this point talking about the period after the law has originally been given and after the people have started disobeying and they're actually worshipping other gods. And so here it's not that the Lord originally gave a bad,

law and is now subsequently going to revise it, what he's talking about is the way that they are acting, like they're making sacrifices to other gods of their firstborns, and that he's sort of giving them over to this. I mean, ironically, actually, it's a similar kind of description that we see in Romans chapter one, which is one of the sort of New Testament verses that speaks specifically against same-sex sexual relationships, either between two men or two women of God giving them over. over to their evil desires, I think we see a similar sort of picture here. So even within the, even within the logic of the argument, it actually doesn't hold up.

Right. It's interesting. I mean, so if that's so, so then we have so in Exodus, excuse me, in the Ezekiel passage, they're sort of reversing the order of which commandment came first and which commandment was then the subsequent one. In the Exodus passage, I'm not an Old Testament scholar, but from what I look at, into it, this is a minority view. I mean, I looked at all the commentaries on Exodus on my shelf this morning. I couldn't find any of them advocating that this particular act of giving over, it means a sacrifice in the sense of death. Typically, it's taken in all the ones I was reading as a kind of consecration unto the Lord, but not an actual killing.

And because there's so many reasons for that, one of them is, as you pointed out, you have to try to say, well, this passage came before all the other numerous. as condemnations of child sacrifice throughout the rest of the Old Testament. So I have to say that, you know, to express the concern here strongly enough, it kind of feels like throwing God under the bus for the sake of the argument. Because, you know, without textual warrant, they're needing to say, God commanded child sacrifice, and then he changed his mind about it. Yeah, yeah.

And to double down on that, later in the chapter they quote from Jeremiah 32, verse 35, where we read, they built the high places to bail in the valley of the son of Hinnon, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molek, though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination causing Judah to sin. Now their framing of this is that when God says that it never, he never commanded them, and it never even entered his mind to tell them to sacrifice their children, that God is basically covering his tracks because he did say that previously and how he's sort of pretending that he didn't.

Right. Which is a, I'm sad to say, kind of an extra dose of a really extraordinary and horrific blasphemy against God, to be brutally honest. Yeah. Yeah, as I was reading, the same feelings of indignation came into my heart. We want to honor and adore even the character of our God. And that is not happening in some of these depictions. So we're camping out on this issue of child sacrifice as one example of that.

There's other things throughout the book. But let's pivot to a new topic here because here's what I would say in my summary of the book, is that even if we granted their doctrine of God, their ethics would not follow. So even if we said, okay, God changes his mind. I would argue that the argument of this book does not prove that sexuality would be one of those areas in which he has changed his mind. And just to unpack that a little bit, I'll lay out my concern, and then I want to hear your thoughts on this too. But I would say it seems like, and you alluded to this earlier, they're making kind of a trajectory argument. So they're working through the Old Testament and they're talking about the flood and creation.

They go through prophetical books. They go through laws. then through the New Testament and Jesus' healing on the Sabbath, the inclusion of the Gentiles, which we'll talk about a little bit later as well. And they're pointing to this pattern of human expectation being reversed by a surprising expanse of God's mercy. And much of that, so far, just putting it like that, is wonderful and good. But if you want to build a trajectory argument, you need to have

the trajectory. So you can't just point to all these other changes and then say, well, here's another change, even though this one hasn't been identified in the text. So all these other changes have to do, you know, dietary restrictions, the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles into the people of God. We'll come back to that one in a moment. But they don't actually document any trajectory with respect to sexuality. So it seems to be the whole thing. The whole argument of the book is this massive leap from establishing A and then arguing for B, but B doesn't actually follow from A because this trajectory is not in view. And I want to actually read a quote from your review here, which we'll put up on the screen

because you make the great point talking about divorce and sexual sin that actually the New Testament seems to make these laws more strict. And I think that's worth following up on and just talking about for a moment is, do you think It's fair to say that with regard to sexuality, to the extent that we see a trajectory, the trajectory is actually in the other direction and it becomes more restrictive. Yes. So one of the remarkable things about this book is that it claims to situate sexuality within the biblical story and then quite literally does not even reference almost anything

the Bible says about sexuality. To your point, to build a trajectory, you need to have a sort of starting point. but you need to have a direction to be following. And we don't, we're not grabbing onto that material. And I think it's unsurprising given how awkward for their conclusions everything the Bible says about sexuality turn out to be. But the reason I would say that if anything in the New Testament we see a sort of tightening of God's original picture that we see, you know, from Genesis 2 of one man and one woman

being brought together in a one flesh union for life, you know, the famous quote at the end of Genesis 2 where the text says, therefore a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two should become one flesh. We see that sort of one man, one woman, one flesh picture at the beginning. We then see, for the Old Testament, so many examples of sexual sin of various kinds.

You know, we see some depictions of faithfulness in marriage, but we see all sorts of other stuff going on, some of which is going to very directly and explicitly condemned in the text, including the laws around. same-sex sexual relationships, but also a whole range of other laws of people you shouldn't be having sexual relationships with at all.

But we don't see as much clarity as we see that in the New Testament around the one-man, one-woman-for-life kind of model that was given to us at the very beginning. But what we do see, and this is where I think any conversation about sexuality within the biblical story, we need to have this framework in place, is we see this overarching picture that starts in the Old Testament, builds through to the New Testament,

where actually our understanding of male-female marriage has major theological implications. So in the Old Testament we see God time and again compared to a loving, faithful husband, and Israel who is often unfaithful wife as she's sort of cheating on God with other so-called gods, you know, sort of idols of the time. And it's like this marriage is in crisis. because God's people keep being unfaithful. And then Jesus comes. And one of the strange things Jesus says about himself

is that he's the bridegroom. Odd comment for a man to make who never married in his life on earth unless we recognize that Jesus is tapping into this whole Old Testament narrative of God as the husband to his people. He's saying, I'm the bridegroom. I've come to claim God's people for myself. And then we see as the New Testament progresses

in Paul's, description in Ephesians chapter 5 of Christian marriage being like a little scale model of Jesus' love for his people. We see him then pointing back to that verse in Genesis 2 and saying that actually it was always about Christ in the church. So when it says in Genesis 2, therefore a man will leave his father and his mother be united to his wife and the two should become one flesh. Paul says that's talking about Christ in the church. So we're like, oh, I had that meaning from the very beginning. And we see Jesus himself in Matthew 19 when he's asked a question about divorce, he defines marriage by going back to that verse in Genesis 2 and talking about the one flesh union.

And also strikingly by pulling from Genesis 1 when God creates humans male and female, he sort of doubles down actually on the male-female nature of marriage. And Jesus says that anything outside of that is sinful. So he goes as far as to call, and he says, you've heard that it was said, do not commit adultery, but I say to you anyone who's looked at a woman with lustful, intense,

already committed adultery. Like, he's actually making that Old Testament commandment more intense, driving it right into our hearts. Yeah. And we see, you know, just to finish up the real trajectory, I think, we see in the Book of Revelation, a great shout going out, the wedding of the lamb has come, and Jesus is marriage to his church bringing heaven and earth back together.

That's actually the overarching love story that a biblical understanding of sexuality belongs within. And in this bit we actually see none of that. We see no reference to Jesus' teaching a marriage, which is extraordinary in a book that's putting sexuality in the biblical story. I'm really glad you brought that up because that was a concern that I noticed as well. So in my mind, the way I'm thinking of it is we have an appeal to a kind of trajectory, but the trajectory really isn't there.

Because as you point out, when it comes to sexuality, sexual sin, the nature of marriage, polygamy being more practiced in the Old Testament, divorce regulations, the trajectory seems to be not where they are placing it. But then also, there is, it does feel like the book doesn't really deal with the passages that would need to get worked through for their case. And we'll put up on the screen some of these quotes from them. At the very beginning of the book, they reference six passages that disapprove of same-sex relations, but they say that they find the arguments about them superficial and boring.

And at the very end, as they're sort of concluding the argument, they basically say they acknowledge these half dozen passages and they say we have not revisited them so they're acknowledging that they haven't really dealt with those passages so in other words so there's no discussion of like Romans 1 for example or 1st Corinthians 5 for example but then I noticed as I step back and thought about this and read other reviews and I'm thinking about I realized you're exactly right it's not just so they're acknowledging we're omitting these like six passages but it's not just that they're omitting the entire

biblical definition of marriage. By my lights, there's not a definition of marriage in the book. There's not a discussion of marriage in Genesis 2 in the book, and there's not even a discussion of Jesus and his definition of marriage in Matthew 19. It's just completely skipped over. And so I'm looking at this, and I'm saying, and I'm not trying to bash on this, I'm just trying, I think there's a concern here. If people are going to be persuaded by the argument of this book, they need to think this through. If we are going to go against what they're going to, the entire global historic Church of Christ taught about what is marriage, then we need to deal with the passages upon which that universal consensus view is built. You can't skip over

a Genesis 2 and a Matthew 19 and so forth. And so this was probably my deepest concern with the book in terms of just where I don't feel like it really engaged. And I'll put up another quote, even though you've already sort of talked about this. I'll put up another a quote from your review where you're talking about the male-female marriage relationship as a metaphor for Jesus' love for his bride, and that's the concern here is marriage is so important for so many reasons, but in addition to its role in society and so forth, it is a portrait of the very gospel itself. And as you said, we see that in Ephesians 5. Now, not to pile on too much here, but let me raise another concern and see what you think about this. Another concern that comes up

here is ethnocentrism, which is basically evaluating other cultures from the standpoint of our own culture. And at the start of the book, they quote from John 16, where Jesus is saying the Spirit will lead you into all truth. And they're sort of trying to build this model where the Holy Spirit's continuously teaching us, and so we're learning new things, and there's progress and dynamism in our relationship with the Lord, in our understanding of the Lord's ways, and so forth. And they're trying to connect that, of course, to these conversations happening about sexuality today. But one of the things that comes up here is the idea that sex difference is definitional

to marriage is universal in the pre-modern church, to my awareness, and it's overwhelmingly the predominating view in the non-Western church to my awareness. And so it seems like if they're saying, well, the spirit is now leading us to sort of a new understanding of this, it seems to imply that the Holy Spirit is speaking more clearly to modern Western people, perhaps more liberal people, than to pre-modern people or non-Western people. Is that a fair concern, do you think? Yes, I think it absolutely is. And one of the, and they make at one point in the book, the argument that's been being made for the last at least 20 years of people saying,

look, if you want to, if you want churches to survive in the modern world, you've got to change your views on this. There's no way that a church can thrive today, you know, in the year of our Lord 2024, while maintaining that marriage is only one man and one woman. But actually, kind of curiously, and this doesn't prove anything sort of theologically, but it's just interesting with regard to that argument, if you look back over the last couple of decades, churches and denominations that have changed their views when it comes to same-sex marriage have actually declined relative to churches that haven't. And that's true, like even in the Western world and sort of the U.S. that we see that it's actually not true that when you let go of what the

scriptures say on this question, that you are sort of by definition becoming completely irrelevant and unloving toward those around you. So yeah, it was just striking that they were raising that argument as well. Right. Well, let's pivot a little bit in the overall direction we're pushing here because we're laying out our concerns very candidly about this book and as people who hold to a traditional view of marriage and sexuality, marriage is one woman and one man. But we also need to be careful and saying how are we holding that view in a way that reflects the full compassion of Christ for every single person? And this is where a concern arises for me from the book of where I think they mis-frame

where the difference is, because their framing is we need to be welcoming. Yeah. But you and I would 100% agree that we need to be welcoming to every single person. At one point in the book, I remember there's a framing of it as everybody is made in God's image and God loves everybody. But again, we would say, absolutely. That is not where we differ. Every single human being is made in God's image.

God loves everybody. Amen to that. But I think that misframes where we differ because the, The question is, what are we welcoming people into? Yeah. And the old distinction between, come as you are and stay as you are, helps me think about this, because we would say to all people, come as you are, to Christ. But it's compassionate to be clear about what Jesus asks from us and what are the standards

he sets out for now, okay, someone says, I want to follow Jesus, I want to repent of my sin, what does that look like? To hold out for people a clear picture of what repentance looks like is a compassion. and good thing to do. But for those of us who defend a traditional view of marriage, I think we can recognize many people have done so in a way that isn't welcoming to all people, in a way that isn't loving to all people. And so we would be remiss if we didn't speak to this concern.

I know this is something that you're passionate about as well. How can we, without compromise, reflect the compassion and welcome of Christ to all of you? people. In your observations, what does that look like for the church to do? Yeah, and I think what we need to answer this question is the resources of the scriptures. For instance, if we look at Jesus' own ministry, we're just talking a few minutes ago about how Jesus is actually exceedingly strict in his understanding of sexual sin to where all of us actually are coming as sexual sinners to the table with Jesus. There's none of us who can say, oh, you know, I haven't committed adultery or like he's not, we've all already

sinned before we've even kind of got there from Jesus' perspective. At the same time, Jesus was known for his radical welcoming of sinners in general, sort of notorious sinners in general, and evidently sexual sinners in particular. And we see this in sort of story after story and kind of allegation against Jesus after allegation. And people often kind of wonder, well, how could this be? You know, if we see Jesus welcoming sinners, then surely that he cannot be therefore serious about sin and especially about sexual sin, but that just points us back to the gospel. Now, how do we reconcile Jesus' radical love and welcoming of sinners with his extreme seriousness when he talks about sin and God's judgment on sin? Well, it's his own death on the cross for us.

And so one of the things that really concerns me about how a book like this frames things is it, you know, it says we need to be inclusive of LGBT people. We need to see the that God's mercy is sort of wide enough for LGBT people. And I'm thinking, well, by one definition, that's me. You know, I'm somebody who experiences attraction towards other women. And were I not a Christian, I'm sure I would have pursued that path. God's wideness, the wideness of God's mercy is revealed in Scripture has been absolutely enough for me.

And for many of my friends who either have come to Christ from a history of same-sex sexual relationships or who like me who grew up in the church, always struggling with same-sex attraction, but not living into that. And I think one of the things it's vital for us if we're followers of Jesus and wanting to be faithful to the scriptures to do

is to cultivate church culture where all of us come to the table, recognizing them with sinners, where your sin and my sin, we know we're both sinners. And so the fact that your sin might have a different kind of flavor to it, the mine is sort of beside the point, actually. The Lord has given us to each other to bear one another's burdens,

to go shoulder and shoulder together, to love one another, to rebuke and correct one another. And we need to make sure that our brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction for whom that is an area of sort of temptation or sin for them have just as much of the resources of the brothers and sisters around them as somebody who maybe is struggling with a pornography, addiction toward folks of the opposite sex or somebody who's struggling with alcoholism or somebody who's struggling with pride or materialism, that we all are actually coming together

and able to talk about our struggles with sin to receive prayer and support and love from one another. But the prayer and support and love that I need and that you need when it comes to our sin is not to say, oh, Gavin, you know, I see your sin and I affirm you in it. It's to say, brother, I see your sin. And like, let me help you dig out of that. Like, I'll be the person you can text when you're feeling tempted. Or come over to my house tonight.

Come and have dinner. I know you're feeling lonely and that always makes you more tempted towards sin in this particular area or whatever it is. We need to have a genuine love for one another, regardless of what our patterns of temptation might be. Yeah. So helpful. Focusing upon the character of Christ, as you just did,

I think it's so helpful for, and for people watching this video, what we can say to them to encourage them is because all of us are brought to the same position of having to humble ourselves before the cross. And so for those of us where there has been self-righteousness in the church, we need to receive this that every single one of us is called to repent of our sin. That's universal. But every single one of us can be forgiven.

And I just find it so helpful to frame it. like that. So for people watching this video, we want them to know no matter who they are, no matter what their background is, no matter where they're coming from, Jesus loves them. And they can be forgiven of all sin. And at the very same time, no matter who any of us are, whatever our particular temptations, we are all called to take up our cross and follow Jesus. And that means the battle of a lifetime of putting our sin to death by the power of the Holy Spirit. And over the decades, never giving up that fight. And so there's the forgiveness for all and there's the calling of repentance for all.

And it's so simple, but it helps me to think of it like this. And the other beautiful truth that we find in the scriptures that we were talking about a few minutes ago is that Christian marriage at its best is a signpost to something so much better. And that all our longings for deep intimacy with another human being are actually ultimately fulfilled. not in any sexual or romantic relationship, but ultimately fulfilled in Christ, when he comes again and those who've trusted in him will be together his bride.

It's actually incredibly relieving and life-giving to recognize, oh no, you and I aren't meant to feel, you know, completely fulfilled in every way in our life on earth here. And actually, even the ways in which are broken, sort of sinful natures might steer us in direct, when it comes to sexual attraction in particular that are explicitly sinful, whether it's a sort of desire toward adultery or whether it's a desire toward a same-sex

sexual relationship, it can take a variety of forms. But even as we're facing those temptations, we can remind ourselves, oh, no, Satan is trying to sell me on a lie that if I grab onto this thing, that'll be the thing that will actually fulfill me. Jesus has something so much better for me. The absolute best possible human marriage could only ever be a tiny echo of Jesus's love for us. And so it just reframes the whole experience of being a sexual sinner as I am and as you are and as anyone listening to us is because it's not just that we have the knowledge that Jesus loves us

and will help us fight that temptation. We also have the promise that at the end of time, the way, of the Lamb is coming, and that's the one love relationship that none of us can live without. And it's the one love relationship that all of us are invited into, if only will repent and believe, and put our trust in him. Amen. Well said, and I'll just insert a pastoral comment, because I'm just imagining people listening to this, and just to echo what you're saying, just to encourage everybody, following Jesus is very hard, following Jesus is totally worth it. But let's address a few more arguments here to finish off with, that we'd be remissive.

if we didn't cover. And this might help be helpful for viewers who are wrestling with these. They'll hear these arguments. We wanna try to equip them to think well about these. One of the arguments that comes up in the book is the inclusion of Gentiles in the church with Cornelius and that whole episode in Acts 10 and 11,

then the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. And there's an attempt to draw kind of a parallel here with more inclusive attitudes about sexuality today. Now, I think what we can observe in response to this is something you bring up in your review. And I'll put up this quote on the screen here that this is not a reversal or God changing his mind when the Gentiles come into the church. But rather, as you say, this was God's plan from the beginning. And so we could just reflect upon this for a moment.

I'll just share. I remember working through the Old Testament and the different, each major aspect of the Old Testament seems to reflect God's heart for the Gentile nations. Abram has chosen in Genesis 12 and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in the world. blessed in him. So even the choice of Israel to begin with has this greater interest. You think of Solomon's prayer in the temple in 1 Kings 8 about how Gentiles can know the true God by coming there. The suffering servant of Isaiah 49 will come and it's too small a thing for him to save the Jewish people. He'll save the Gentiles as well. Oh, there's another one that's, oh, the law given to Israel in Deuteronomy 4. So the surrounding nations will see who the true God is. It all throughout there's this concern, and at Acts 15, the apostles quote from Amos,

and they say this is the fulfillment of this passage, the inclusion of the Gentiles. And so I think we can say that from the apostles' perspective, this is not God changing his mind. This is God executing his mind. This is the whole plan from the beginning. And so this would be disanalogous what's going on here. Now, the other thing I'll say about it, I don't want to talk too long here. But I'll throw on one other concern as well, and that is, this is the Acts 15 and the inclusion of the Gentiles. This is the apostles responding to new revelation while Scripture is still being written.

This is not us today who don't have the authority of apostles responding to cultural changes 2,000 years after the closure of the canon of Scripture. So these are fundamentally disanalogous scenarios that we're in in that sense as well. So those are two concerns I would articulate about this parallel that is drawn between Gentile inclusion and a more inclusive attitude toward issues of sexuality. Anything you want to add on here or extend further in this? Yeah, no, I agree with all of that, and I agree that, you know, we could only, in this conversation, say, like, 5% of what could be said on the way that the inclusion of the Gentiles sort of woven in from the beginning, even with specific Gentiles being included all along

the way throughout the Old Testament. and it's very striking that Paul, who was the apostle to the Gentiles, was exceedingly clear with the Gentiles he was writing to, that one of the ways in which they absolutely needed to be different from those around them was in the area of sexual immorality. And people sometimes raise the point, well, Jesus doesn't directly address same-sex sexual relationships in his recorded ministry,

and so how can this be of real concern to the Lord, like if Jesus doesn't directly address these. You know, it's only Paul who's sort of talking about same-sex sexual relationships and we can kind of put Paul to the side. Well, no, the reason is that Jesus is predominantly speaking to fellow Jews. I mean, his ministry on earth is not exclusively, but certainly the vast majority of his ministry time is spent with fellow Jews. And then he sends his disciples out to go and make disciples of all nations

and specifically commissions Paul to evangelize Gentiles. Now, the Jews of Jesus' day weren't debating whether same-sex sexual relationships were permissible. It was clear from the Old Testament they weren't. But the Gentiles, it was actually very normal within Brecker Rim and culture for men to have sexual relationships with, you know, if they held slaves with either their male or female slaves and also with prostitutes,

and there are various other kind of configurations of potential, same-sex sexual relationships for Gentile men. And so this is why Paul needed to talk about this. So I think that's a new part of this picture as we think about, okay, if this is running in parallel with the inclusion of the Gentiles,

isn't it strange that the Apostle to the Gentiles seems particularly concerned that Gentiles not engage in any forms of sexual immorality that were common around them, including this particular area? And I think we also have the problem that when it comes to

a sort of comparing Gentiles to sort of LGBT people as this book uses those terms. We really need to be careful to differentiate between the things that you and I are kind of born with and have no agency over and the choices that we can make in our lives. And at the end of the day, I actually think it's quite dehumanizing to say to somebody like me who might have a long-term experience of same-sex attraction, that it is impossible for me to say no to my romantic or sexual desires. And there's a moment in this book where it talks about people not being able to rid themselves of their same-sex desire or coupling or partnering.

And I'm thinking, well, it's certainly true experientially, that some of my brothers and sisters have, you know, been Christians for a really long time and their same-sex attraction hasn't departed from them. That's certainly true. But that's not the same as saying we have no agency over whether we choose to say yes or no to those attractions. And to say, we can't equate attractions to actions. And so somebody who might identify as gay or lesbian and kind of live, into same-sex sexual relationships might have the same sort of starting point as I do,

but maybe making a very different decision with those starting points. And as I was saying earlier in our conversation, the whiteness of God's mercy as revealed in the scriptures is absolutely wide enough to include a sexual sinner like me or a sexual sinner like the friend who gave me this jacket who was engaged her college girlfriend before she, repented and turned back to the Lord, or, you know, multiple of my other friends who've come to Christ with a history of same-sex sexual relationships, or as I said, like me, have always said no to same-sex sexual relationships because of wanting to follow Jesus. So which you already have,

in the historic understanding of what the Bible is teaching, more than enough grace and mercy and love extended toward people who come from whatever background in terms of their patterns of sin. But we also have Jesus saying, enter through the narrow gate, and saying that it's the wide path that's leading to

destruction. So I think we need to be very careful that we don't try to kind of concoct a gospel that is wider than Jesus' understanding. Let's bring up another issue that comes up in the book, and I'll share my concerns about this and then want to hear your thoughts as well, because I know

thought about this, and that's a parallelism with slavery. So on page 211, they're sort of making this appeal, sort of saying in effect, here's another issue where we've kind of had to change our minds on. And I would see two fundamental differences that I would like to articulate between the issue of slavery and issues of sexuality and the definition of marriage. One comes from church history, where I would say, looking back throughout church history, we can see tremendous sin and evil among professing Christians on a topic like slavery. But we do have precedent for opposition to slavery. And I've done a lot of work on Gregory of Nisa,

the church father from the fourth century. Oh man, I'll resist the temptation to start going off talking about him too much. But simply to say the beauty and wonder of his sermon in 379 AD, where he's saying, people are made in God's image, therefore slavery as such is wrong. And he's basically saying, how dare you think you can own someone made in God's image?

It's beautiful. It's thrilling. And by contrast, we have no precedent for the idea that sex difference is not essential for the definition of marriage. So this analogy there in church history, I would also say biblically there is, those issues are not the same. In Genesis 2, we find before the fall of sin, God directly institutes the institution of marriage, and it's one man and one woman.

is not something God directly builds into a pre-fallen world. It's something that becomes, after the fall, we would say it's pretty much everywhere in the ancient world, and it is regulated, but it's not the same as saying God institutes it directly prior to sin. Also, that's an area I think you can make a better case for a trajectory argument, tracing out passages like 1st Corinthians 7 and the book of Philemon and 1st Timothy 1 and elsewhere. That's too big for this video. I've done that elsewhere. You've done a lot of work on this too.

So those are two relevant differences. What would you like to say about this parallel that they try to draw with slavery? Yeah, no, great question. And I actually was surprised they didn't spend more time on it in this book because to my mind, the strongest argument,

if I wanted to make an argument for same-sex marriage, I think it would be an argument based on an analogy with slavery. Because it takes the, I think it takes the most amount of work, the sort of longest time, to explain why that analogy doesn't actually work.

And it's just kind of like a throwaway comment, almost, in this book, which I was slightly surprised by. If you look at what the New Testament says about slavery, you will actually find that rather than upholding the institution of slavery, it is radically undermining it. And we see that through Jesus' own ministry and the ways that he speaks, and we see it through the rest of the New Testament. To give one example, when Jesus is explaining to his disciples how power in his kingdom doesn't work like power in the rest of the world.

And he says, anyone who wants to be first must be last and who wants to be great must be slave of all. And then he explains why, because even Jesus himself, the son of man, didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give us life as a ransom for many. We see Jesus there, the great king sent by the God of all the universe, presenting himself as a slave. We see him, you know, the night that he's betrayed, stripping down to his towel, washing his disciples' feet, taking on a role that would have been recognized as a slave's role and telling his disciples to do as he does. And we see Jesus even on the cross dying as slave's death. The crucifixion was very commonly used for slaves, and particularly, kind of associated with slaves.

And so we see this massive kind of reversal of the master slave hierarchy in the life of Jesus himself as he's saying, I'm the actual master of all the universe. And I've come not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. And we then see in the letters written to the New Testament churches, we see this of this radical overturning of the distinction between slave and free, where Paul, famously says that here in the church there is neither slave nor free. We see him in that letter to Philemon that you mentioned one of my, I think one of the most underrated New Testament letters actually.

They're very short, seldom preached on, seldom studied. And if you just looked at the headline use of that letter, you might say, well, it's Paul is sending a runaway slave back to his master, therefore Paul affirms and condones slavery. until you read the letter. And you find that actually what Paul is doing in that letter is he's sending an Isamus who has become a Christian after leaving Philema's house and sort of spending time with Paul, he's sending him back and telling Philemon to receive anisimus not as a slave but as a beloved brother.

So instead of changing that dynamic, he calls Anisimus his very heart, uses the most affectionate language he uses of any individual in the New Testament to this runaway slave essentially and he tells Filemon that he needs to receive an isthmus back as he would receive Paul himself so receive back

the person who in cultural terms was a slave who'd run away from your household who could have expected to be severely punished receive him back like he's your most respected mentor you know roll out the red carpet for this beloved brother this is putting absolute gunpowder under the edifice of slavery and lighting a match. So I think we need to recognize actually all the resources are there in the New Testament

for the abolition of slavery. And so, yes, if we're looking in sort of trajectory terms, we see in the Old Testament protections and provisions for slaves in the New Testament, I think we see this radical undermining of the master slave paradigm as all Christians are called to serve and to, you know, Paul himself, presents themselves as slave of Christ. Yeah. And I'm talking too much here. No, no.

But I just think we need to read the New Testament on its own terms when it comes to slavery and actually see all the things that it's saying. Yeah. And we need to then, like, do a real comparison with what the New Testament says when it comes to sexual relationships and marriage. And this book isn't doing that. It's not giving us those, that opportunity, actually. As you just unfolded all of that, I, it.

In my mind, I was seeing more clearly than I had before just how the very character of the gospel itself undermines the assumptions and prejudices that makes slavery even imaginable. And I've argued for that before, but I sort of revisiting that as you were describing that and appreciating your comments there. Now, that's such a big issue that we can't canvas that fully here.

For viewers, I'll put a link in the video description as well for a video I've done on that. And I'll also put a link to confronting Christianity, because I remember you have a treatment of that in that book that's really helpful as well. In fact, I remember you, an illustration you used from Shakespeare that I've stolen and used in sermons on that topic that was really good. But amazingly, I think we're going to finish all ten topics here because we're almost done. I've got only two more, and these two are maybe not quite as tough in terms of time

that will take. But here's another second to last issue, and that is, could the argument of this book? So we'll sort of give a parody argument or almost a reductio argument, kind of showing how the same reasoning of this book could lead to all kinds of other conclusions. And, you know, one of the issues I thought about, if we were to identify the issue of polyamory, which is romantic and typically sexual relationships between more than two people consenting, and, you know, we cannot assume that there will be opposition to that even within the church anymore, because this is in our culture right now.

But the authors, to their credit, to be fair to them, they do raise this and they say from Acts 15 and the prohibition against sexual immorality, they say, I think they use the word suggestion for this. So they're pretty soft even here. But they say a suggestion from this would be that same-sex relationships need to be monogamous, meaning between two people. So they're saying that. But it seems to me someone could come along right on their heels and make the exact same argument that they are making in this book. to just push it one step further and say, well, why not get rid of monogamy too? So the framing of the book as a matter of extension of mercy, they could make the same kind of appeal. This is, again, God is surprising us with his mercy extending even more broadly to different kinds of relationships.

Seems that someone could make this appeal, and then the appeal to love. Someone could say, look, if three people really love each other, why isn't love enough? And a lot of the same appeals could seem to work to other issues like that, and we could even give other examples. Do you think that's fair?

And, I mean, would it be fair to say that the way of reasoning in this book pretty much opens up the door to sort of any sort of social issue? Because if God can change his mind, you know, what's to stop? What are the guardrails to stop this kind of argument from being deployed to all kinds of social agendas that we might not even be able to anticipate right now? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that it could be. and once we say God changes his mind, we need to look at the current consensus between us, whoever we deem us to be. And in this instance, as you say, it's sort of essentially Western liberal Christians is the kind of group that's being deemed us discerning the Holy Spirit's will on this.

And we can set aside anything that the Bible says specifically on the topic under consideration that, yeah, it would open the door to almost any conclusion that we could, we could draw. I think almost, perhaps even more importantly in these conversations, though, we need to recognize, and this I think is particularly relevant to the sort of questions of polyamory, we need to recognize the New Testament doesn't just tell us we shouldn't have same-sex sexual relationships. It also tells us we must have brotherly and cessally love for one another. And actually the intensity of the call to brotherly and sisterly love that we see in the New Testament is one that we often neglect. If we're Christians and especially Christians who are sort of steeped in scripture and trying to live faithfully, we often do a good job, I think, of recognizing the beauty and goodness of marriage.

I think we tend to do a pretty poor job of recognizing the beauty and goodness of singleness, which you do famously, apostle Paul, the same person who gives this beautiful vision of Christian marriage as being a picture of Jesus' love for his people says, I wish you all as I am, I, are you single. So we need to hold that up as well. And exceedingly relatedly, we need to start actually taking seriously the New Testament calls to love, which we see again and again and again and again. They famously Jesus on the night that he was betrayed, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you, greater Lapa's known on the list that he laid down his life for his friends. And I think so much of what we're seeing happening in the kind of culture around the church and even within churches is buying into this idea the only real love worth having is a sort of sexually romantic bond.

When actually as Christians, we should have the most love in town. Our mutual friend Sam Wilbury often puts it this way that if somebody leaves a same-sex sexual relationship to become a Christian, They should find more love here, not less. And that needs to be something that's increasingly real in our churches that we get very serious about brotherly and sisterly love within the family of God, within the body of Christ. I mean, the New Testament talks in those intense terms of us as being one body together. Paul says he was among the Thessalonians like a nursing mother with her children.

I've nursed three children. It's a very intense and intimate experience. And that's an analogy that Paul uses to describe his, relationship with his brothers and sisters in Thessalon, Ica, we really mentioned him calling Anasimus' very heart. We need to lean into the love that the New Testament calls us to, and I think that will actually be like an oasis in a desert to those around us who were desperate for deep love relationships, and he were trying to construct them in various configurations, including sort of polyamorous groups, when actually, no, there is a...

there is something so much better on offer for us. Yes. Yeah. So we're here helpfully emphasizing the role of the church and the love that we need to have for one another. Let's finish by going straight back to where we started, and that's by focusing upon Christ himself and upon the gospel. Because one of the concerns that will come up is if we hold to a traditional view, are we

harming people? Are we excluding people? We're failing to love people. And we've offered a different perspective that actually compassion requires us to be clear about who Jesus is, what he calls us to. But I think we want to really submit that home in people's hearts and in our own hearts as we're talking about it to remind ourselves and others of just how good Jesus is and that it is worth it to follow him. So what can we say here at the end to encourage someone who's watching this video maybe for personal reasons or maybe because of relationships in their life? they find this whole topic. Maybe it's been painful for them to watch through this interview and discussion that we're having.

Maybe this topic brings up deep emotions for them. We want to direct them to Christ. What can we say about the love of Jesus and that it is better than life itself that can encourage someone for whom this whole area is a source of shame or pain for whatever reason? Let's finish by just reflecting upon how wonderful Jesus is. It's an open-ended question, but I'll let you go as the Holy Spirit leads you, and then I'll say something too. One of the things that I notice as I read through the gospel accounts

is that the one person who knows the absolute worst of me, who knows my sinful thoughts, never mind my sinful words and actions, who if there were a kind of a real above my head that was sort of splashing out all my thoughts things that are going on in my mind to the world. I'd be terrified by that prospect. It would ruin all my relationships if my thoughts were sort of broadcast to the world up here. But the one person

who sees the sin that comes out of my heart is the same person who thought I was worth dying for. All of us deeply long to be fully known and unconditionally loved. And we spend a lot of our lives kind of trying to negotiate between those two things because if I present to you the exact right angle on me, that might make you

actually love me, but I need to be really careful to kind of keep this part of me in the shadows, because if you saw that, then you'd know that I'm not worth the love that you might otherwise have. We sort of spend our time kind of doing this careful dance of what can I disclose, what can I not afford to disclose because I don't want to lose this person's love. And actually in the absolutely best context for sexual relationships, what's so exhilarating is actually the sense of being really intimately known and deeply connect it. So we're sort of one flesh with somebody.

All of those things are ultimately found in Christ because he's the one person we don't have to hide from. He's the one person who knows us, he knows every hair on our heads and every thought in our hearts. and he thought that we were worth coming to earth and dying for so that we could live an everlasting, flesh-uniting life with him. That's a vision so much greater and more beautiful than anything I'm going to find in a romantic relationship with another woman.

Wonderful. What you just said is so perfect as a closing note that I don't really want to say too much because I think that's a great note to end on and it was so beautiful what you just said. Just to, yeah, I'll just share how your comments affected me to conclude here, to think that, and this can be something we can say to encourage and try to bless our viewers, to think that the way, what caused the love in the heart of Jesus Christ that caused him to go to the cross

has not diminished one tiny bit from that time that he took that action to right now even in amidst our deepest struggles. And I will say to someone, and that is how the intensity with which Jesus loves us. And I will say to anybody who's wondering about this, if we ever have this thought, can he really be that good? The answer is yes, and you're starting to get it. That's the gospel.

He really loves us with that infinite, perfect love. And I think once we get that, we can relax and we can say, okay, he's worth following. He's worth giving everything too. So hopefully this discussion, having will encourage people in those ways and just so thankful for you and the chance to talk this through with you. I've benefited from it myself. Final thing to just say is what resources can we recommend for folks? I will put a link in the video description. There's going to be a lot of links in there.

The last one at the bottom will be a link to your book. Does the Bible affirm same-sex relationships? So people who are interested in your writing on this topic can see a link to that. Are there any other resources you think are helpful for people to know about? Yeah, two of my dear friends have written very helpful books, which I would recommend as somebody who was struggling kind of pastoral in this area themselves. So one is born again this way, coming out, coming to faith in what comes next by Rachel Gilson, who shares her own story of coming to Christ, having previously been not a taller Christian, identified as an atheist in having had a series of romantic relationships with other young women and how she, how God basically kind of grabbed her. She's now reflecting on scripture and what it says about marriage and friendship and singleness and family and all these things. The other, so our mutual friend Sam Aubrey, has written a number of really helpful books. One is called Is God Anti-Gay, which is a sort of helpful short analysis of some of things that the Bible says about these questions.

But I think my favorite of Sam's books, which is relevant to this conversation, is seven minutes. about singleness. Because I, whereas I don't think it's true, as people sometimes say, that if you, like me, experience same-sex attraction, you need to, you know, commit yourself to never getting married to somebody with the opposite sex. I think that's perfectly a possible option for at least many. But I think it's very important that we recognize the validity, the dignity and the value of our single brothers and sisters and Sam's book, Seven Brothers.

about singleness is a brilliant job on that. Wonderful. Rebecca, thanks for the conversation. Thanks for having me.