When I was studying the Bible in seminary, I was taught a very important lesson: when you come across a passage you don’t like or want to gloss over, that’s exactly the time to start paying attention. Your own personal canon-within-a-canon will all too easily drown out the other voices of Scripture otherwise.

Here are some passages (cited from the ESV) I have run across lately that I would personally like to gloss over—and I expect there is a fair number of other people in our church who would like to gloss over them too.

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.” (I Corinthians 6:9-11)

“For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Ephesians 5:5)

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:14)

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Revelation 22:15)

I read these kind of warnings against sin and its consequences and find myself wondering with the disciples, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus gives the only possible answer: “With humans it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This of course is the good news, the possibility of God overcoming the impossible problem of our sin.

But this typically Lutheran rebuttal, valid as it is, ignores the context of these severe scriptural warnings. They are warnings to and for believers, those already assured of their salvation in Christ. This is not the first or second use of the law, to use our usual parlance. This is addressed to those already in the community of faith, instructing us that our behavior still has consequences, and dire ones, at that.

In fact, in I Corinthians Paul even implies that on some level sins committed by unbelievers are of little concern to us—for these people are not claiming to be a part of the community of those redeemed by Christ. He says:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” (I Corinthians 5:9-13)

Even further, in Colossians, it is precisely the holy conduct of the believers that enable them to overcome all the infamous earthly divisions of race, ethnicity, class, etc.:

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:5-11)

Common among these warnings and exhortations is the commandment to avoid sexual immorality. This encompasses a fairly broad spectrum of vices, though it’s not the only kind of sin to avoid—by no means! In our American consumerist culture in particular, the comparison of covetousness to idolatry is a timely and much-needed rebuke.

Nevertheless, the issue our church is facing in just a month’s time is judging that a matter previously considered to fall under the category of “sexual immorality” is no longer that at all. I have nothing new to contribute to the discussion, which now seems to be at an impasse, as to whether the kind of monogamous, lifelong, same-sex partnerships being proposed fall under these condemnations.

All I would like to say is this. I have yet to hear any acknowledgement of the potential danger involved in saying something formerly considered to be a sin is no longer a sin. The danger is in misleading persons as to the extreme severity of the Scriptures’ warnings against sexual immorality. I don’t know if this is a basic denial of the possibility of real judgment by God, a shallow universalism, a convenient neglect of these awkward texts, or something else entirely. But I have never seen anywhere near the kind of gravity in the face of potential divine judgment that would lead me to take the arguments for same-sex partnerships as serious interpretations of the Scriptures. And this in turn makes me think of another kind of severe warning in James 3:1:

"Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."