The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life) QUOTES

1 " It cannot be stressed how important it is to remember that the picture of marriage given at creation is a testament to marriage’s importance to all of creation. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

2 " When the state properly defines marriage, it helps ensure that its citizens enter life with every opportunity and relationship necessary for he or she to flourish "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

3 " Jesus said marriage was from the beginning (Matt. 19:4–6). So neither we nor LGBT “Christian” activists have the authority to redefine marriage, or the biblical bounds of sexual relationships, or anything else that hits a cultural pressure point, any more than pseudo-evangelicals have the authority to redefine what the Evangel—the gospel—really is, which is what this is about. The Evangel isn’t a message where people write their own script. The “Evangel” of evangelicalism offers new life, but also demands repentance. How is the Evangel good news if it doesn’t offer freedom from sexual sin but instead baptizes it? "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

4 " The point here is not only that so-called same-sex marriage shouldn’t exist, but that it doesn’t and it can’t. Those who believe that God has spoken to us truthfully in the Bible should not concede that the committed, lifelong partnership and sexual relations of two men or two women is marriage. It isn’t. God has created and defined marriage. And what He has joined together in that creation and that definition cannot be separated and still called marriage in God’s eyes. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

5 " The focus is not on same-sex desire, but on same-sex practice. And notice that homosexual practice is not singled out but included with other ways of sinning: idolatry, adultery, stealing, greed, drunkenness, reviling, etc. The point is not that one act of homosexual or heterosexual experimentation condemns you, but that returning to this lifestyle permanently and without repentance will condemn you. Men who practice—who give themselves over to this life, and do not repent—will not enter the kingdom of God. They will perish. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

6 " Therefore, it would contradict love and contradict the gospel of Jesus to approve homosexual practice, whether by silence, or by endorsing so-called same-sex marriage, or by affirming the Christian ordination of practicing homosexuals. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

7 " The good news of Jesus is that God saves heterosexual sinners and homosexual sinners who trust Jesus, by counting them righteous because of Christ, and by helping them through His Spirit to live lives pleasing to Him in their disordered brokenness. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

8 " And then they were “sanctified”—God set them apart for Himself and gave them His Spirit and was working in them a power for holiness that would swallow up their disordered desires in something greater and more beautiful and more desirable so that they could walk in a way pleasing to God, even in their brokenness. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

9 " Right living in this world of opposition begins by remembering the gospel. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

10 " OUR CULTURE PUTS FORWARD THE NARRATIVE THAT WE really only have two options in our relationship with the LGBT community—affirmation or alienation. Jesus shows us that a third response—a gospel response—is possible. He shows us how to respond with grace and truth, how to hold out God’s truth and God’s love, not having to choose between the two. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

11 " There are two ways that Jesus could have established what was right and wrong in regards to sexuality. He could have talked about every possible variation of the wrong, condemning each aberration one by one. Or He could put forward a vision for what is right. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

12 " But if the biblical view of sexuality is true, how can it be loving to not tell them? If the biblical view is true, it would actually be hateful—or at least severely delinquent cowardice—not to tell them. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

13 " If he was born with a proclivity toward same-sex behavior and I was born with a proclivity toward anger, pride, deceit, and unfaithfulness—well, we both need to be born again. After all, no one goes to hell for being homosexual. How do I know that? Because no one goes to heaven for being heterosexual. The only choice that puts a person outside of God’s grace is refusing to acknowledge their brokenness and submit to Jesus’ lordship. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

14 " In the same way, we preach the already-not-yet of the Kingdom in regards to sexuality. I know of people who have seen God work dramatically in the area of their sexual desires. But for others, God allows people to struggle so that they can be a testimony to God’s sustaining grace in struggle. It seems that the latter is actually God’s normal way. John Newton, the writer of “Amazing Grace,” came to this realization late in his life, after getting frustrated by seeing the same sins attack him in his eighties that had plagued him in his twenties. He came to see that God allows us to continue struggling with indwelling sin to convince us—until our dying breath—of our desperate need for grace. Christian growth this side of heaven is not getting to a point where you don’t feel like you need grace anymore (which is how most of us think of Christian growth). Christian growth is becoming more intimately aware of how desperately we need grace. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

15 " If supporters of same-sex marriage regard it as a matter of basic justice and fairness, and Christians regard it as a matter of sin and contrary to human flourishing, conflict is bound to occur. It’s important, then, to understand what the nature of the disagreement is; for the discussion pertaining to sexuality and marriage pertains to almost every area of life: education, entertainment, the media, and politics. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

16 " The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage is intended to be an introductory look at how Christians should engage this most controversial topic from every angle of the Christian’s life—their place in culture, their engagement as everyday Christians, and their role in the body of Christ, the church. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

17 " The Bible’s witness on marriage doesn’t allow for same-sex marriage, not because the Bible gives attention to same-sex marriage, but because the biblical narrative on marriage doesn’t conceive of same-sex marriage as within the realm of possibility. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

18 " The Bible is silent on offering any constructive case for same-sex marriage because the Bible’s definition of marriage prohibits the very concept of same-sex marriage. Looking at all that the Bible says on marriage, same-sex marriage simply isn’t fathomable without contorting and twisting the Bible beyond the bounds of reason. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

19 " Homophobia” is now the new mental illness and moral deficiency, while homosexuality is accepted as the new normal. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)

20 " Fidelity to Christ in this generation demands that we open our mouths and our lives to the world and bear witness to Christ as those committed to the authority of Scripture, the sanctity of marriage, and to the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Christians may find themselves in exile but the gospel they preach is never in retreat. "

― Russell D. Moore , The Gospel & Same-Sex Marriage (Gospel For Life)