WN: Arizona bill letting businesses deny service for religious reason

[Guest Butero]

A homosexual couple living together in a house is not immoral??

Biblically it is.  You can hold any opinion you want as an individual, but Biblically, you don't have a leg to stand on. 

 

As for making a wedding cake as opposed to fixing a sink, I suppose it depends on the conscience of the plumber.  I wouldn't make the cake because I would be accepting the notion of two men or two women getting married, plus putting a plastic gay couple on the top of the cake.  If I was a plumber, I personally have no problem with fixing anyone's sink, but if I felt like doing so was helping a homosexual couple continue in their sinful lifestyle, I should be able to deny them service.  It should be my decision.  I would probably fix the sink, because it is not endorsing anything except the free flow of water through a drain.  I can live with that. 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

 

Baking a cake no more supports the lifestyle than fixing a pipe in a house or selling a gay couple a car.

 

Hey Eve, if you eat the fruit of that tree you won't die.....

 

 

Jesus died to put sin to death, not so that we can cater to it to try to make Jesus look appealing.

 

 

exactly, why then are so many Christians ok with supporting a sinful lifestyle by allowing Christian plumbers work on the pipes at the homes of these people?  Or allowing a taxi driver to let them into their taxi?   All of these things are supporting their lifestyle.  None should be allowed. 

 

That is factually incorrect.   Fixing somone's sink is not  supporting someone's lifestyle.   Letting them eat in your restauraunt is not supporting their lifestyle.  That is a desperate and laughable and rather pathetic argument.   But I guess that is what you are left to resort to.  

 

If someone is a satanist and he has to go into the hospital for surgery, the surgeon isn't supporting satanism by performing the surgery.  He is simply doing what doctors do.   To suggest that performing surgery would be a stamp of approval in support of satanism is a ridiculous claim and one that the surgeon would deny.

 

So to say that a plumber who goes into the fix sink of a client who just happens to be gay is a support of the gay lifestyle is to resort to a lame line of reasoning.

[nebula]

 

 

Baking a cake no more supports the lifestyle than fixing a pipe in a house or selling a gay couple a car.

 

Hey Eve, if you eat the fruit of that tree you won't die.....

 

 

Jesus died to put sin to death, not so that we can cater to it to try to make Jesus look appealing.

 

exactly, why then are so many Christians ok with supporting a sinful lifestyle by allowing Christian plumbers work on the pipes at the homes of these people?  Or allowing a taxi driver to let them into their taxi?   All of these things are supporting their lifestyle.  None should be allowed. 

 

When I think of a Christian, I think of someone who behind it all seeks after the heart of God in a matter, and is more concerned with how God sees things than how human reasoning sees things.

 

Of course, that's just my opinion.

[LookingForAnswers]

Shiloh, to the person baking the cake the cake stands for nothing but a business transaction. It represents an exchange of the ingredients and time in return for monetary compensation.

Nebula, I could not agree more. I think God is shaking His head and saying...do these people really think I care about a stinking cake.

[nebula]

Nebula, I could not agree more. I think God is shaking His head and saying...do these people really think I care about a stinking cake.

 

Do you think God cares about His people eating meat sacrificed to idols?

 

What is just once teensy bite? What is just one little giving sin a pass? What is just one degree rise when cooking a frog?

 

...I think God is shaking His head and saying...do these people really think I care about a stinking cake.

By what Scripture do you stand by your belief that God doesn't care?

[Guest shiloh357]

Shiloh, to the person baking the cake the cake stands for nothing but a business transaction. It represents an exchange of the ingredients and time in return for monetary compensation.

 

 

 

 

To Christian bakery shop owner, that wasn't the case.   He saw the cake he was being asked to make as a point of contact with the celebration of a sinful lifestyle and he correctly decided that he did not want to dedicate any of his resources to aiding in that celebration.   So him, it meant much more than just a bunch of ingredients with respect to that particular situation.  

 

Christians look at every aspect of their lives, even their business as an extension of their participation in God's Kingdom.  Everything they have is dedicated to the Lord and to His service.  That means that even the flour, sugar, shortening and cocoa powder is holy and should only be used for purposes that glorify God.  Everything is holy and nothing is outside of that.

 

So from that perspective, it is not just making a cake.  It is making a statement.   The Bible says that whatever we do in word or deed, we are do it all to the glory of God.  There is no way a Christian bakery owner seeking to be a consistent and faithful follower of Jesus could make a cake that celebrates a sinful lifestyle and do so to God's glory.  

[LookingForAnswers]

Does God care about meat sacrificed to idols. According to Paul the answer is no. The only ones that cared seems to be the legalist....somethings never change.

[Guest shiloh357]

Does God care about meat sacrificed to idols. According to Paul the answer is no. The only ones that cared seems to be the legalist....somethings never change.

That is not what Paul said.   Paul didn't say God didn't care.   Paul asked that those who did eat it, not judge those who didn't and vice versa.  More recent Christians who had not been fully weaned from their pagan background were not to be judged by those who didn't eat the meat and those who were more mature were not to judge those who were less mature and chose to continue that pagan practice.  The idea is that different people are at different places and we are allow for immature believers to grow in grace.

 

Jesus addressed that issue in the book of Revelation.   Notice what He said to the Churches  at Pergamum and Thyatira:

 

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. (Rev 2:14)

 

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.(Rev. 2:20) 

 

So Jesus has a real problem with eating meat sacrificed to idols.

 

One of these days, you might actually find it helpful to read a Bible

 

 

 

[LookingForAnswers]

Oh, I have read it. I just have not achieved your level of gymnastics.

Eating meat sacrificed to idols clearly bad, no cultural views needed.

Divorce on the other hand, well that is totally different, you have to look at the cultural perspective.

It is funny how things that are accepted by today's church all have a cultural aspect to them and those that are easy to reject do not.

Enjoy the buffet

[EnochBethany]

Oh, I have read it. I just have not achieved your level of gymnastics.

Eating meat sacrificed to idols clearly bad, no cultural views needed.

Divorce on the other hand, well that is totally different, you have to look at the cultural perspective.

It is funny how things that are accepted by today's church all have a cultural aspect to them and those that are easy to reject do not.

Enjoy the buffet

Ye Olde Cultural Aspect.

 

Actually there is an ethical hierarchy in the Bible. Some commandments are more important than others.  At the top of the hierarchy is love God & love neighbor.  David ate show bread, which was against the law -- only priests could eat.  But it was a matter of loving neighbor not to let David famish. 

 

Methinks many ethical questions are solved by asking how a commandment fits under the general rule of loving neighbor as self.  Perhaps we could settle all the questions with that perspective instead of mere culture.  I, being a man in the USA, would not kiss a man in church becs it would be repulsive in our culture (at least for the moment!)  It would not be agape love. (Neither do I want to do such a thing becs it is repulsive to me!)  In Russia, it would probably be different for a kiss on the cheek.