Bonus Preview: Patreon Q & A

0:00Is it fair to consider gay affirming Christians outside the fold when pro-war Christians have an equally unbiblical view but are not treated as such? Could Jesus have been female and still died for the sins of the world? Why did Jesus have to cross and trust the care of Mary to John and not his little brothers? What are my thoughts on the recent series on biblical masculinity? Would I ever consider having a Christian polygamist on the show? These are just some other many questions I'll address in the special Q&A episode. If you would like to access the full linked Q&A episode then head over to patreon.com forward slash theologinraw and become a member of the theology in the raw community. Okay, let's dive into these questions. Okay, the first question that came in, it was the most voted up question. I will address these questions in order of the ones that the theology in the raw community voted on. So this was the one that most people want to meet their address. Isn't it unfair to consider gay affirming Christians

1:02quote outside the fold when pro-war Christians have an equally unbiblical view but are not treated as such? This is a great question. One that I've thought about and one that I've written on and spoken a lot on both war and the Christian faith and also Christian view of sexuality and marriage. I'll start by saying whenever we compare certain practices or beliefs with each other, we do have to first consider each one on its own terms. I mean, to use kind of maybe a more extreme example, you know, I mean, if we, you know, we could almost like you could almost create the same question around, you know, those who think adultery is perfectly fine with those who believe in the rapture. It's like, well, we do have to compare what the Bible says about adultery, biblical evidence for against it. I think there's a lot against it. And also biblical evidence for

2:03the rapture, you know, but to just kind of assume a one-to-one correlation, I think is unhelpful. We do need to consider each one on its own terms. So as most of you know, I'm not pro-war. I'm also not in support of same-sex marriages. Now, I do want to point out some differences between the two. First of all, same-sex marriage, a few observations. When marriage is discussed in the Bible, sex difference is either explicitly said to be a part of what marriage is or it's often assumed. When sex, when marriage is sort of unpacked more thoroughly like in Genesis 2, let's just go 18 to verses 18 to 24. And even more explicitly in Matthew 19, verses 3 to 5, where Jesus references the creation account, you know, he says, have you not heard that from the

3:08beginning, God created the male and female quoting Genesis 127, and then he sort of splices that verse together with Genesis 2, 24. Man shall leave his father and mother be joined as wife, and the two will become one flesh. The two who become one flesh are the male and female that Jesus has sort of gone out of his way to bring into his logic of marriage by going back to Genesis 127, and using that as a preface for this quote of Genesis 2, 24. So that's the first observation. Marriage is explicitly said to be a one flesh union between two sexually different persons. There is no hint that in the Bible, that marriage can be between two people the same sexes. Also, whenever same-sex relationships, same-sex sexual relationships are mentioned, they're always prohibited in the Bible. There's five six passages that explicitly say that. There is no passage that gives any kind of positive endorsement of same-sex sexual relationships.

4:16You also have the unanimous witness in church history. There is zero evidence of any writer throughout the 200, 2000 years of church history that endorses something like same-sex marriage or same-sex sexual relationships. Again, up until, you know, last few decades in pretty much the Western branch of the Christian Church. I would also add to this too, like the unanimous view of early Judaism. You know, you can look at Judaism 500 years on either side of Jesus and same thing. There was a unanimous view regarding same-sex sexual relationships. I think this is important because Christianity was part of early Judaism. Rose from Judaism was considered a Jewish sect in the first century. When Christianity departs from Jewish practices and beliefs, it usually, or maybe always explicitly, says so.

5:17But here we find agreement within Christianity and Judaism on marriage, specifically whether sex differences are part of what marriage is and whether same-sex sexual relationships could be considered blessed by God or be considered marriages. So, yeah, there's a lot of, I think, really strong, biblical, clear evidence against something that we now call same-sex marriage in the Bible. When it comes to the pro, somebody who's pro-war, and of course that can mean different things, right? Pro-war. What does that mean? Is it, are you referring to just people who believe in some kind of just-war theory that some wars are just? That, you know, war isn't good, killing people isn't good, but sometimes it's necessary. And you can Google and find all the criteria for what

6:22constitutes a just war. So, is that what we mean by pro-war that Christians who support some wars, maybe many wars, because they consider them to be just? Or are we talking about Christians who just love war? Is that what pro-war means? Like, killing people brings me great pleasure, and I think Christians should support and be involved in as many wars as we can. Yeah, I think if somebody holds the ladder, then I don't know. I don't think they've read the New Testament, or see, you know, are following the Jesus who's revealed in the New Testament. If that's what you mean by pro-war. But if somebody holds some more of a just war theory, then I think there is some biblical evidence they can use to support that view. You know, you have many passages in the Old Testament that endorses certain wars, God even commands that Israelites to kill certain people. The New Testament is a little trickier, but if you know my view, I would say four Bids, Christians from all forms of

7:27violence, but there are some tough passages admittedly, you know, have passages where Roman soldiers are getting saved and not being told to quit the army. You have Jesus using a whip to cleanse the temple in John 2. You have Jesus' talent as disciples, to carry two swords, which some people take as, some kind of self-defense, some kind of just use of violence and force. The passages in Luke 22 you have passages where God and Jesus uses violence to punish evil doers, second Thessalonians 1, certain interpretations of the Book of Revelation, you know, and someone could say, well, aren't Christians called to imitate Jesus and Jesus seems to use violence in some cases to punish people. Also, as far as tradition goes, you know, just worth theory was a widespread view in the church from Augustine onward. Now, again, I don't agree with just worth theory, so don't take this as me changing my view after all these years, but again, my whole point is we do need to consider each

8:27view on its own terms, and when we do, I don't, I do think it's apples and oranges here when we're comparing what the Bible says about same-sex marriage and what it says about just, let's just say just worth theory or some kind of support of certain wars. So, yeah, I think the biblical and historical evidence for same-sex marriage is pretty meager, one might even say non-existent, compared to just worth theory, which is a bit more complex. So, I don't think we can treat believers who hold to these positions in the exact same way. Next question comes from Micah, not the book, but the person who submitted the question, prophecy of male birth aside, could Jesus have been female and still died for the sins of the world? This is a great question, one that I have not

9:29studied very thoroughly or thought through very extensively, but as always, I do have some thoughts. I would say if we assume everything else to be true in the biblical story, then I would say, yes, Jesus had to be male. Of course, if we're asking, if we could rewrite the entire biblical story, then would we need this to be true? In that sense, it's kind of a, I don't know, I mean, if you rewrite the whole biblical story, there'd be all kinds of ways God could save people, apart from a savior being male. God could even just clap his hands three times and forgive us all if you wanted to, but I mean, that would require a large rewriting of the entire biblical story. So, if we assume everything else in the story would be true, then I do think Jesus had to be male. Let me give you five reasons. These aren't the only five. Some of these I think might be stronger

10:34than others, but these are five that came to mind. First of all, Jesus is called the last Adam, the one who undid what Adam did, Romans five, 1 Corinthians 15. And so, seems like because Adam was male to be the last Adam would make sense that Jesus was also, would also be male. Secondly, the marriage metaphor throughout the Old New Testament's God or Christ is the groom while his people are the bride. So, if Jesus was a female, it would require kind of a rewriting of all these metaphors that are pretty extensive in scripture. Number three, Jesus is called the high priest in the book of Hebrews and priests, including the high priest was male. Number four, Jesus is called the first born of all creation, Closhett's one. And this draws on ancient views about the first born male in this patriarchal society. And that kind of a,

11:35I guess a broader point. Yeah, I think we do have to consider the culture in which the Bible was written and the metaphors that the theology is using, which are sort of ingrained in and find meaning from the culture that it was written in. Number five, and this is kind of related number four, but number five, the sonship of Jesus, sonship in particular, not, not, I don't think this is just referring to offspring, but the idea of sonship, of male air, had a certain meaning in the ancient world. So, when we, you know, males and females are adopted as sons, Romans eight, this assumes a certain view of what sonship meant, which was connected to Jesus's sonship, who is our, our forerunner. So the shocking part here is that, you know, both men and women inherit the privileges ascribed to a male air in the wake of Jesus, who is that male air and

12:39opened up the benefits of sonship to all men and women alike. But this still necessitates Jesus being that first born son of son of God. So, yeah, those are five. I, that fifth one, I can see someone, you know, actually using that as an argument in the other direction. But I, but I do think it makes much more sense that Jesus is not just an offspring, but is, is a son, especially again, given the meaning of sonship in the ancient world. So those are my thoughts. Love to hear yours. Post your thoughts in the comments in Patreon, if you want. Next question from Zach, assuming a view of Jesus with literal brothers, sons of Mary, why do you think that Jesus at the cross entrusted the care of Mary to John and not to his literal brothers? There's a great question, but all these are great questions. And like some of these, I'm just going

13:40to lead by saying, I'm not totally sure. I don't think the text explicitly says this. I would be curious. I would want to go back and look at several commentaries on this passage in the book of John, see if there's some insights they have that I haven't thought about, but I have not done that. But yeah, two, two thoughts that might make sense of this. I think it's assumed, but I think it's a valid assumption that Jesus's literal brothers were probably not following him at this point when he was by the time he was on the cross. You know, they rejected him in Nazareth back in Mark 3 and other parallel passages. Jude and James would later become followed, you know, two of his literal brothers would become followers, but this pretty sure happened after the resurrection. I would need to go back and see if there's explicit biblical statements about that. Does Fritz Künthian's 15 mentioned that? Either way, we don't

14:45have any evidence within the gospels prior to the crucifixion that his literal brothers were following him. We do have some evidence that they rejected him early on, and we do have some evidence that they did follow him, but we don't see that until after the resurrection. So that might be one reason why Jesus entrusted Mary, sorry, entrusted. Yeah, the care of Mary to John and not his little brothers. Also, secondly, you know, you do have this pervasive teaching of the kinship of all believers in the gospels and obviously throughout the rest of the New Testament. Spiritually speaking, John and Mary were family very much as legit as blood relatives. They weren't biologically related, but they were spiritually related, and Jesus put spiritual kinship on par with biological kinship throughout his teaching. So those are two of my thoughts, but yeah, we'd love to, yeah, we'd recommend looking into this further. Next question from Davis. My mother-law is a hospice nurse and had a patient request to be present at their medically

15:51assisted suicide. My mother-in-law would not administer anything, but should she go? If you would like to access the full length Q&A episode, then head over to patreon.com for its last Theologian rock and become a member of the Theology in the Rock Committee.