“When Christ claimed me for His own, I was not converted out of homosexuality, I was converted out of unbelief” wrote former lesbian, Rosaria Butterfield, as she explained why she signed The Nashville Statement on gender and sexuality. The statement was released by a broad coalition of Christian leaders, including J. I. Packer and Francis Chan, articulating God’s design for human identity as male and female. “I signed The Nashville Statement because my conscience compels me so, because the promises of liberty on the world’s terms are false and deceptive, and because many who currently claim to have Christ’s forgiveness and salvation must be called to account for leading good people astray with false promises and filthy lies,” she continued.
Rosaria Butterfield, a former professor at Syracuse University and Geneva College, stated: “Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the 21st century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly postChristian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. The issue is not primarily homosexuality; it’s Scripture.
The issue is not primarily gay marriage it’s whether the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” she said. Butterfield recalls her life as a lesbian until her conversion in 1999. “Conversion to Christ did not initially change my sexual attraction for women,” she explained. “What conversion did change immediately was my heart and mind. My mind was on fire for the Bible and I could not read enough of it or enough about it. The Gospel gave me a light that was ruinous. It ruined me for the life I had loved. The Lord’s light illumined my sin through the law and illumined my hope through Jesus and the Gospel. Our real identity is not in the sin we battle but in the Saviour we embrace,” she said.
Source: The Christian Post
Bible Study: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
JANUARY PRAISE God that Rosaria has understood and articulated that the issue is not a LGBT lifestyle as such, but an attitude to the Bible.
PRAY that, somehow, God will show the relevance of His Word to today’s world.
