C Michael Patton
C. Michael Patton is the primary contributor to the Parchment and Pen/Credo Blog. He has been in ministry for nearly twenty years as a pastor, author, speaker, and blogger.
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Th.M. Dallas Theological Seminary (2001), president of Credo House Ministries and Credo Courses, author of Now that I'm a Christian (Crossway, 2014) Increase My Faith (Credo House, 2011), and The Theology Program (Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, 2001-2006), host of Theology Unplugged, and primary blogger here at Parchment and Pen. But, most importantly, husband to a beautiful wife and father to four awesome children. Michael is available for speaking engagements.
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2 replies to "Can Gays Be Saved?"
Have you considered 1Co 6:9-11 in light of this:
“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:4-10)
CMP: “For twelve years after the resurrection of Christ, Peter continued in his belief that Jews were better than Gentiles. He lived twelve years after becoming a Christian believing that he, by virtue of being a Jew, was so much better than Gentiles that he would not even set foot in their house. Speaking to the Gentile Cornelius and his family, he said, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean” (Acts 10:28). What if Peter had died in year eleven? He would have died living his entire Christian life as a prideful racist.”
Hi Michael, the above excerpt was not the major part of your essay, but I’d like to interact with it (actually critique it) in a mutually beneficial way.
You painted Apostle Peter as being a racist and as thinking that Jews were superior to Gentiles with a firm brush and firm convictions. I’m much more charitable towards Peter, and would prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt in the following way. We’d both agree that Peter was not a Jewish Pharisee. And yet we’d both agree (I think) that Peter and the apostles regarded holiness (both God’s and ours, those who confess to be disciples) as very important.
After all, Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:16: “Because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy.”
Therefore, it is much more reasonable to charitably infer that when Peter was practicing separation from the Gentiles, it was because he was concerned with being obedient to God’s commands about holiness. NOT that he was a racist, nor that he thought the the Jews were superior to Gentiles.
Michael, for that powerful reason I am not willing to paint Peter as being the prideful racist as you are.