Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, wrote a commentary published today in the Columbus Dispatch. Formerly, Senator Portman opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Now today he has switched his view on this and claims he changed his view in part because of his faith and because of what he reads in the Bible.

As you can imagine, this is causing quite a stir online. Pastor John, what are your thoughts on Senator Portman's editorial today? Rob Portman has said that for conservative reasons, like the Prime Minister David Cameron, now he's going to switch his view from supporting traditional man-woman marriage to supporting so-called same-sex marriage.

It's a very sad article and I just want to flag two things that he said which I think are very serious for us to think about, watch for, be aware of, that are swaying people in that direction. His son came out as having same-sex attraction and he says that, this is a quote, "I'm a dad who wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with people they love, a blessing Jane and I have shared for 26 years." He infers from that that for his son to be happy, he must be given the right to marry so-called another man.

So he's elevating happiness, as he understands it, above biblical guidelines of what makes you happy. The first observation I have is the absolutizing of self-defined long-term happiness as opposed to God's definition of long-term happiness is right at the heart of how people are changing their minds here. They're simply abstracting the term happiness out of its biblical context and definition, giving it a meaning that they want and then using it as a warrant to justify a certain kind of relationship that the Bible proscribes.

That's observation number one, absolutizing self-defined long-term happiness as you see it over against God's definition. Here's the second observation. He then goes on to say, "For me, it came down to the Bible's overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God." What's happening there is that a hermeneutical strategy, a way of interpreting the Bible, is being used.

I would call it the absolutizing of self-defined biblical themes in such a way that they nullify biblical particulars or biblical commands. So he takes compassion and he takes love, he defines them his own way, then he brings that definition to 1 Corinthians 6 where it says that those who act out their homosexual desires will not go to heaven, and he says, "We won't live by that.

It can't mean that, or I won't accept that." But he's nullifying biblical commands and biblical particulars by absolutizing his definition of broader biblical themes. So those two things are what is at work over and over again in this whole debate, and have been at work, of course, for generations.

I just want to alert the folks who listen to this to watch for that. Where is there a self-defined view of happiness that is then used to justify making a person happy without regard to biblical guidelines? And secondly, where is there a way of interpreting the Bible so that self-defined big biblical themes are used to cancel out particular biblical commands?

So I think if we Christians are alert to the kind of illegitimate uses that are being made of the Bible in this way, we might be more cautious, more careful, and not be swept away quite as easily into unbiblical ways of life. And what's so tragic about this is that if the Bible is really true, according to 1 Corinthians 6, for example, 9 and 10, that those who do such things, that is, those who go ahead and practice same-sex sexual relations, will not enter the kingdom.

This is not love, it's not compassion, and it's not going to lead to happiness, and that's tragic. Thank you, Pastor John. Senator Portman's editorial was published today under the title "Gay Couples Also Deserve Chance to Get Married," and it was published at Dispatch.com. Thank you for listening to this podcast.

You can find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening.