What to Say to a Pastor Who Wants to Officiate a Gay Wedding
Chapters
0:0 Intro0:22 The Practical Question
8:0 Conclusion
00:00:00.000 | A pastor who listens to this podcast writes in to ask a tricky leadership question.
00:00:09.560 | Pastor John, what should a church council or board do if one of their pastors asks to
00:00:15.320 | officiate a same-sex wedding?
00:00:18.720 | Pastor John, what counsel would you have for this church?
00:00:21.640 | Tony, I don't feel like I can answer that question without dropping one level down,
00:00:28.880 | because this is so sensitive and explosive and politically agitating that I want to go
00:00:37.560 | down to the bottom again and then come back up to the practical questions.
00:00:42.040 | I think the practical question is relatively easy once you get the other things sorted
00:00:45.880 | out, which are not easy.
00:00:48.920 | The emotional and physical sensations that we call same-sex attraction are disordered
00:00:58.920 | emotions and disordered sensations.
00:01:03.640 | And that disordering of the soul's emotions and the body's sensations are rooted in the
00:01:12.480 | fall of humanity into sin.
00:01:15.800 | And more specifically, Paul says, they're rooted in the sin that's understood as exchanging
00:01:22.600 | God's glory for images, Romans 1:23.
00:01:26.280 | So the exchange of woman as the glory of man for another man is a parable of the exchange
00:01:35.880 | of God for images like ourselves.
00:01:39.840 | So a person who experiences this disordering of the emotions of the soul and the sensations
00:01:49.980 | of the body may or may not himself exchange God for images.
00:01:58.040 | He may be a Christian, but the disordering he's experiencing is rooted in that original
00:02:05.140 | sin and in that ongoing human bent of soul that we all have, all of us.
00:02:11.920 | So the issue becomes, what do we do with the disordering effects of sin in our lives?
00:02:19.960 | I say our lives, and you'll see why in a minute, John Piper's life.
00:02:25.760 | The Bible says that if we embrace the disordering as good and normal and live our lives in accord
00:02:35.120 | with the disordered inclinations, then we will be living and affirming a parable of
00:02:41.560 | rebellion against God.
00:02:43.840 | And the Bible says those who live out that kind of rebellion do not enter the kingdom
00:02:49.400 | of heaven.
00:02:50.400 | That's 1 Corinthians 6.9.
00:02:51.800 | Now that has nothing, get this, that has nothing to do with the peculiar nature of sexual disordering
00:03:00.680 | or same-sex desires.
00:03:02.960 | Nothing.
00:03:04.240 | This is true for all our disordering of all our lives rooted in sin.
00:03:10.520 | That's why 1 Corinthians 6.9 and 10 lists homosexual practices along with others.
00:03:19.240 | So here's the list.
00:03:20.280 | Do not be deceived, neither sexually immoral, that's fornication because it's distinguished
00:03:26.480 | from the next two, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves,
00:03:37.160 | nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
00:03:50.480 | In other words, if you embrace and live out as normal and good any of these, you perish
00:04:00.080 | because you're living a parable of rebellion.
00:04:04.120 | So we all experience temptation to sin on a spectrum of intensity.
00:04:10.840 | There are occasional thieves and there are kleptomaniacs.
00:04:14.580 | There are people who occasionally drink too much and there are alcoholics.
00:04:18.640 | There are those who commit adultery once and never again, and there are predators.
00:04:24.940 | There are those who experimented with same-sex for a season.
00:04:28.680 | Maybe they were in prison, maybe they were a teenager, and they don't anymore.
00:04:33.040 | And there are those who celebrate it and pursue it as normal.
00:04:39.640 | And Paul's point is that if you embrace adultery as good and normal, or if you embrace stealing
00:04:49.560 | as good and normal, or if you embrace greed as good and normal, or if you embrace drunkenness
00:04:58.300 | as good and normal, or if you embrace homosexual intercourse as good and normal, you will not
00:05:06.820 | enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:05:08.600 | This is not rooted in the nature of the sexual sin.
00:05:11.920 | This is rooted in sin and rebellion, regardless of what the issue is.
00:05:18.320 | Now we're getting to the question.
00:05:20.080 | Officiating at a so-called same-sex wedding is the same as putting your blessing on the
00:05:27.080 | choice of two people to commit eternal suicide.
00:05:32.080 | The pastor is solemnizing and making official and blessing their choice not to enter the
00:05:39.640 | kingdom of heaven.
00:05:41.480 | Now I would say that if a pastor asks his board if he can do that, he has given a signal
00:05:49.140 | he's disqualified from his role of leading the sheep into the kingdom of heaven, which
00:05:54.280 | is his job.
00:05:55.720 | And so he has put himself in a position of needing church discipline.
00:06:00.400 | And his board should follow the principles of Matthew 18 to seek his repentance as gently
00:06:07.600 | and patiently as they can.
00:06:10.240 | And then if he does not repent of his willingness to bless people's eternal suicide and thus
00:06:17.240 | lead them out of the kingdom of heaven and into destruction, he should be dismissed as
00:06:23.140 | a false shepherd from both the pastorate and the church.
00:06:29.400 | With regard to two men or two women who ask to be married, a pastor should ask to meet
00:06:36.560 | with them, I think, if they're willing, in order to explain to them as patiently and
00:06:43.680 | carefully, lovingly as he can, why he recommends to them that they not go forward with their
00:06:51.960 | plans for the sake of their own soul.
00:06:56.520 | And in that process, hopefully he will share the gospel and invite them to life in Christ
00:07:02.640 | and to his church.
00:07:07.200 | These days, Tony, are, as you know, things are in the news even as we record down in
00:07:12.120 | Indiana and so on, these are days when all Christians, especially pastors and church
00:07:19.840 | leaders need to stand rock solid on biblical teachings about God's good and beautiful plan
00:07:28.180 | for sexuality without any swagger and without any fear.
00:07:33.880 | American culture is in the midst of a passionate pursuit of self-destruction.
00:07:40.240 | So our demeanor should be a mixture of sorrow and compassion and anger and total confidence
00:07:49.160 | that our God is in control and will attain his Christ-exalting, church-purifying, mission-completing
00:07:57.000 | purposes.
00:07:58.000 | Boy, that is sobering.
00:08:00.760 | Thank you for the warning, Pastor John.
00:08:02.780 | There are many related episodes in the archives that are brought to my mind when we talk about
00:08:07.280 | this.
00:08:08.280 | Pastor John, you addressed the question, "Will you marry a heterosexual couple that is already
00:08:11.560 | living together?" back in episode number 365.
00:08:14.620 | We talked about, "Would you attend a gay wedding?" back in episode number 191.
00:08:19.160 | And of course, we have talked about the fight against same-sex desires, like back in episode
00:08:23.600 | number 454.
00:08:25.800 | All of these episodes can be found in the Ask Pastor John app for the Apple and Android
00:08:29.700 | devices or online.
00:08:31.860 | Go to DesiringGod.org, click on "More" and click on "Ask Pastor John."
00:08:36.560 | There you can search our collection of almost 600 episodes now to date.
00:08:41.800 | Well, should a couple who is expecting their fourth child pray for a certain gender for
00:08:47.160 | a boy or for a girl?
00:08:49.220 | And is such a preference wrong?
00:08:51.280 | A couple in India wants to know, and Pastor John will answer tomorrow.
00:08:55.360 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:56.600 | We'll see you then.
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