Cheryl Schatz

Ken,
I didn’t see your response to Lin while I was writing my response to you. You said:

Homosexual marriage & women teaching/in leadership and authority over men ARE related (although, perhaps not in severity) in the fact that they are both clear examples of people’s unwillingness to follow the clearly stated directives given in God’s Word.

This is simply not true. God’s laws of sin are clearly stated, they are repeated and they are set up to warn us of sin because God loves us so much that He wants to keep us clean before Him. There is no issue with the sin of homosexuality. But where is godly preaching ever listed as a sin? Please show me the “clearly stated directives” that list preaching as a sin? If you cannot do so, then why would you link godly preaching to a sin that is so abhorrent to God that those who practice these things will not inherit eternal life? If we were to link men teaching the bible to children as equal to the sin of adultery, would that offend you? It would certainly offend me. It would be far better to connect this to the differences between those who regard one day above another.

Romans 14:5 One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

The Bible says about these kinds of issues that “each person” must be fully convinced in his own mind. These are not issues of sin but of personal conscience and freedom in Christ to serve the body.