Help on love & limits...

[rodyshusband]

I need your help & my time is short... I'm teaching an adult Sunday school class and we are on same sex marriage, specifically "what is love". I remember a lecture from Ravi Zacharias on THE LIMITS OF LOVE, but I don't have time to check the reference. Any references on the Christian perspective on this subject? Thanks for your time...

[Ivellious]

Well same-sex marriage and the definition of love seem slightly different topics. I mean, I've never actually met a person, pro gay marriage or anti-gay marriage, who actually believed homosexual couples were not capable of true love. Usually the Christian response is something like "Sure, you can be in love, but God just says that it's wrong." So...I'm not sure what exactly you want to talk about on that topic.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Well same-sex marriage and the definition of love seem slightly different topics. I mean, I've never actually met a person, pro gay marriage or anti-gay marriage, who actually believed homosexual couples were not capable of true love. Usually the Christian response is something like "Sure, you can be in love, but God just says that it's wrong." So...I'm not sure what exactly you want to talk about on that topic.

God doesn't say that love is wrong, your confusing love with having sex, homosexual intercourse is deemed immoral.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

God being love:

1 Jn 4:7-8
1 Jn 4:16

God the Father and His Son Loving Each Other:

Jn 3:35
Jn 5:20
Jn 10:10-17
Jn 14:23-31
Jn 15:1-9
Jn 17:1-26

The Father and The Son Loving People

Dt 7:8
Jn 3:16
Jn 13:1
Jn 13:31-34
Jn 15:1-13
Jn 16:27
Jn 17:1-23
Gal2:20
Eph2:4-5
1Pe5:6-7
1Jn3:1
1Jn4:9-11
1Jn4:16-19
Rev1:4-5

How To Love

1Jn3:18

Keeping Yourself in the Love of God

Jude 20-21

Loving Others

Le 19:18
Mt 19:19
Mt 22:36-40
Mk 12:28-33
Lk 10:25-28
Jn 13:34-35
Jn 15:12-13
Jn 15:17
Ro 12:10
Ro 13:8-10
Gal 5:13-14
Eph 4:1-2
Eph 5:25
Eph 5:28
Eph 5:33
Col 3:19
1 Th 4:9-10
1 Pe 1:22-23
1 Pe 2:17
1Jn3:11-12
1Jn3:23
1Jn4:7
1Jn 4:11
1Jn 4:21
2Jn 4:6

Loving the Lord

Dt 6:5
Dt 10:12
Dt 11:1
Dt 30:15-16
Dt 30:19-20
Joshua 22:5
Joshua 22:11
Ps 31:23
Mt 22:36-40
Mk 12:28-33
Lk 10:25-28

All the above are from the book What does the Bible say about..., editor Brian Ridolfi, published by AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN, USA.

FL

PS if you need more biblical references on Love, there are also headings under: Not Faking Love, Perfect Love, Secret Love, The Lord Excercising Lovingkindness, The Love of God, The Place Where Love Is, The Reward for Loving the Lord, The Source of Love, Those That Do Not Love Jesus Christ, Those That Do Not Love Others, Those That Dwell In Love, Those That Love Others, Those That Love Others More Than Jesus Christ, Those That Love The Lord, Those That Love The World, Those That Love Wisdom, Those Whom The Lord Loves, Walking In Love, What Love Does, What Love Is, What Not To Love, What The Lord Loves, What To Love, Who Loves Jesus Christ?, Who Loves God's Children, Who Seeks Love, Who Shall Abide in Christ's Love, Who The Lord Loves, Who The Love of God is Perfected In, Who The Love of The Father is Not In, Who to Love, Why Love Waxes Cold...if any of these headings interest you, let me know.

[rodyshusband]

Thanks everyone for trying to help. I should have made my point clearer on where I'm going with this in the class...Most defenders of gay marriage say it's not a matter of sex, it's a matter of "love" between two same-sex adults. Nothing else "matters" as long as two people (same sex) love each other. This often leads to "love is limitless". However, God's love for us is endless but not limitless...God's "limit" with mankind reaches a point when we reject Him. I believe it was Zacharias who gave an excellent presentation on this subject (it may have been Oz Guiness)...Anyway, I am scrambling to find some references on this. I hope I made the point clearer. Thanks, again!

[B. W.]

Thanks everyone for trying to help. I should have made my point clearer on where I'm going with this in the class...Most defenders of gay marriage say it's not a matter of sex, it's a matter of "love" between two same-sex adults. Nothing else "matters" as long as two people (same sex) love each other. This often leads to "love is limitless". However, God's love for us is endless but not limitless...God's "limit" with mankind reaches a point when we reject Him. I believe it was Zacharias who gave an excellent presentation on this subject (it may have been Oz Guiness)...Anyway, I am scrambling to find some references on this. I hope I made the point clearer. Thanks, again!

Here are some stuff from Todd Freil that may help...

http://blogs.christianpost.com/wretched ... 4448/#more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfhvpgS4Wa8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7z_OKBPz9I
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[Ivellious]

Not to be rude or anything, but this Todd Friel guy is so condescending it's hard to watch. His personality and tone seem better suited for an off-beat, politically incorrect comedian than for a spreader of love. I appreciate that he runs a talk radio show and that you have to have some kind of a flashy personality to pull that off well, but I don't see it fitting well with this topic.

Also, some quotes I have to comment on, courtesy of Mr. Friel:

- You can’t deny two men the joy of marriage if it makes them happy.

I would re-word this to say "You can't deny two men who love each other the government-given benefits of marriage if those benefits are available to heterosexual couples." The distinction being that, while simply getting married is a matter of symbolic partnership, the fact that the government gives huge bonuses to married couples means that is is discrimination for a government to follow a religious ideology in deciding who is allowed to get those benefits. You can thank separation of church and state for that fact.

"Tell two men that gay sex is bad for them and you are intolerant."

Indeed, you are. When you go out of your way to personally attack someone whose way of life does not and never will have any impact on your own, and is doing no damage to anyone else either, you are intolerant of them. It's not the same as me not being able to tolerate wife-beaters or child molesters...these are people inflicting legitimate harm to others and to society at large. A gay couple does no such thing.

"Tell women that combat is a man’s job and you are labeled a Neanderthal."

I would say that you may as well be a neanderthal if you have to resort to ancient arguments of "this is a man's job, silly woman." Heck, neanderthal women were probably held in higher regard than today from people like Mr. Friel. If we are going to revert back to medieval gender roles we may as well just stop letting women vote or own property or do anything outside of cleaning and child-raising. You don't have to be a woman or a feminist to understand that this statement above is asinine.

And, if you want to argue that the Bible says that women should not be allowed to do certain things, than you should also argue that, well, women should be allowed to do nothing at all. Because the Bible is fairly clear on all the ridiculous limitations that women are bound by.

Ultimately, all of this boils down to this in my opinion: Christians who try to use their "infinite" love of other people to force everyone to follow their religious beliefs are hypocrites. Disagree all you want, but eliminating the choice by forcing your religious beliefs on everyone else is, by definition, violating God's gift of free will.

[B. W.]

Not to be rude or anything, but this Todd Friel guy is so condescending it's hard to watch. His personality and tone seem better suited for an off-beat, politically incorrect comedian than for a spreader of love. I appreciate that he runs a talk radio show and that you have to have some kind of a flashy personality to pull that off well, but I don't see it fitting well with this topic.

Also, some quotes I have to comment on, courtesy of Mr. Friel:

- You can’t deny two men the joy of marriage if it makes them happy.

I would re-word this to say "You can't deny two men who love each other the government-given benefits of marriage if those benefits are available to heterosexual couples." The distinction being that, while simply getting married is a matter of symbolic partnership, the fact that the government gives huge bonuses to married couples means that is is discrimination for a government to follow a religious ideology in deciding who is allowed to get those benefits. You can thank separation of church and state for that fact.

"Tell two men that gay sex is bad for them and you are intolerant."

Indeed, you are. When you go out of your way to personally attack someone whose way of life does not and never will have any impact on your own, and is doing no damage to anyone else either, you are intolerant of them. It's not the same as me not being able to tolerate wife-beaters or child molesters...these are people inflicting legitimate harm to others and to society at large. A gay couple does no such thing.

"Tell women that combat is a man’s job and you are labeled a Neanderthal."

I would say that you may as well be a neanderthal if you have to resort to ancient arguments of "this is a man's job, silly woman." Heck, neanderthal women were probably held in higher regard than today from people like Mr. Friel. If we are going to revert back to medieval gender roles we may as well just stop letting women vote or own property or do anything outside of cleaning and child-raising. You don't have to be a woman or a feminist to understand that this statement above is asinine.

And, if you want to argue that the Bible says that women should not be allowed to do certain things, than you should also argue that, well, women should be allowed to do nothing at all. Because the Bible is fairly clear on all the ridiculous limitations that women are bound by.

Ultimately, all of this boils down to this in my opinion: Christians who try to use their "infinite" love of other people to force everyone to follow their religious beliefs are hypocrites. Disagree all you want, but eliminating the choice by forcing your religious beliefs on everyone else is, by definition, violating God's gift of free will.

Not so fast, as it is written:

Romans 1:24, "Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them."

Romans 1:26, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural..."

God does not violate any free moral agency; he first warns, demonstrates the attitude of sin, and what it leads too, then gives such over to what they love most. How is that unfair?

The argument for the superiority of homosexual love is based upon pure sentimentality. You cannot define love that way. If you do, you desire to make heaven into a hell. We have that evidence here that proves that unbridled human nature turns any paradise into hell and during the process ostentatiously blames God for not being loving if he does stop our personal corrupting paradise.

Love sets boundaries, in order to protect. You do not leave a child to him or herself, to do as they please – do you? Why should God?

See also - 1Co 6:9, 9, 10
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[Jac3510]

RH,

I'm not familiar with the presentation you are referring to, but you are right that proponents of gay marriage reduce marriage generally to commitment two people "in love," and following that, pretty much anything goes. Of course, they insist on the necessity of consent, and so marriage to children (pedophilia) and arguably to animals (beastiality) are non-factors. It isn't clear why polygamy isn't acceptable in such a discussion.

Anyway, two lines of thought from your observation are worth making:

1. Directly to your point, defining love--first, what love is NOT--it is NOT this abstract, deep attraction for another human being. That's just a combination of liking someone and lusting for them. It is what Voddie Baucham calls the Greaco-Roman myth of love. In a Christian sense, to love someone is to put their interests ahead of your own. That's why Jesus can command us to love. Love, then, is not an emotion. It's a disposition. God loved the world by sending His Son for us (in fact, interesting side note, John 3:16 is translated VERY well by the KJV and really poorly by modern translations: "For God so loved the world," in KJ English, "so loved" meant "loved in this way." A better modern translation would be, "For this is how God loved the world:" Cf the NET Bible). Now, if homosexual intercourse is intrinsically disordered, as we argue it is, then homosexual intercourse is NOT putting the other person's interest ahead of your own. Therefore, homosexuals are NOT loving each other. And more, if homosexual intercourse is SINFUL (which, while necessarily following the idea of intrinsic disorder, we also know because the Bible just states it plainly), then again, homosexual "marriage" is not based on love, since to engage in that act is NOT loving as it is causing the other person to sin. By way of analogy, when a young man seduces a woman, and she "falls in love" with him, and then he sleeps with her--with her full consent, mind you--he is not loving her, because he has caused her to commit the sin of fornication. And if the word "cause" is too strong for you, you can point out that he led her to the sin of fornication. The point in all of this is that just because sex is consensual it is not therefore non-sinful. To take what should be a completely non-controversial example, in an affair, the sex is almost always consensual, and yet still sinful. It doesn't matter WHY it is sinful. It only matters that the consent does not make it okay. The same with homosexual sex.

2. If it isn't bad enough that homosexual marriage turns out not to be based on love, it is worse yet that marriage is not simply a commitment of love. Even, then, if you could successfully defend the notion that homosexual marriage is based on love--and you can't--it doesn't follow that homosexual marriage is legit, since that isn't what marriage is ANYWAY. Marriage is the PUBLIC institution (not private, as people tend to argue or at least think about it today) designed to create and rear children. Now, that is incredibly controversial today, but it has been the historical definition and, in fact, is the only plausible defense for seeing it as public. Since homosexual couples are in principle incapable of producing children, what they have is not a marriage. Let me elaborate on this a bit.

Let's start by looking at heterosexual sex. It is rather clear that, all things being equal, penile-vaginal intercourse produces children. That is it's function. It may do lots of other things--it may help you feel emotionally closer to your partner, it may help you have a good time, it may relieve stress, etc. But all of those things just work to make us want sex more, and the more we want sex (again, all things being equal), the more kids we have. And the more kids we have, the more our species survives. In other words, sex is GOOD for mankind. Now, it is a matter of fact that this capacity is unique to sex and sex only. There is no other way to produce children. Even medical means just take the end-product of each and unite them. So procreation only happens between male and female. That's just basic biology. Now, since procreation is ONLY possible through male/female contact, and since society REQUIRES procreation not only to survive, but to thrive and be successful, then it behooves society to promote procreation.

Society should not, however, promote procreation indiscriminately. It is well known that children need a stable environment in which to be raised, and the most stable environment, indeed, the most natural and obvious one, is that the parents of the children commit to taking care of them. In fact, society has recognized this so strongly that it says that even if I create a child with a woman and abandon them, refusing to take responsibility--EVEN IF I TOOK STEPS TO PREVENT THE PREGNANCY--then I am STILL obligated to provide security for the child (child support payments). So given all this, it is natural and right and good for society to encourage people to create and raise their own children. And since we know the dissolution of this environment is bad for those children, and thus by extension for society, then it is natural and right and good for society to discourage that dissolution.

From there, it is natural to institute marriage as a public good. Men and women should be encouraged to marry--that is, form permanent, stable families in which they can create and raise children. They should be discouraged from divorcing. To argue that men should be permitted to marry men and women should be permitted to marry women undermines the very basis on which we have marriage at all. Marriage is not just something society recognizes because it likes love. It is something we recognize because producing and raising stable children is good for society.

None of that is an argument against something like civil unions. If society just WANTS to recognize the relationahip between people who love each other regardless of sex, then fine, that's another argument. But you cannot call it marriage, because THAT'S NOT WHAT IT IS. You can, of course, ask questions about heterosexual couples who can't reproduce for one reason or another. That, again, is another argument, because whatever else it says, it still stands that society has a right and responsibility to create a special category to recognize, reward, and encourage the heterosexual, permanent, stable relationship. That relationship is foundational to society as a whole. To redefine that to allow homosexuals "in" is not to redefine it, but to deny what it really is in the first place.

[rodyshusband]

Thanks to everyone for your help!!! You all provided excellent resources and insights...!