May 9, 2014

The following excerpts are from the blog “Assessing Matthew Vines’ God and the Gay Christian Part III – Jesus and Homosexuality” on Joe Dallas’s website: “Did Jesus Say Anything About It? If So, What? I was glad, when reading Vine’s remarks about the Gospels, to see he declined the standard revisionist arguments we’re accustomed to hearing when it comes to Jesus and homosexuality. …. But he offers instead a curious argument for a pro-homosexual view of scripture, in which he confidently states: ‘Jesus test is simple. If something bears bad fruit, it cannot be a good tree. And if something bears good fruit, then it cannot be a bad tree.’ (p. 14)” …

“So good fruit can and does come from people who are wrong in critical areas, and bad fruit can likewise come from people whose lives are generally in line with sound doctrine. I’ll be the first to agree with Vines that many homosexuals bear good fruit in their lives, sometimes more than I’ve seen in many heterosexuals. I could say the same of people involved in other equally serious moral or doctrinal errors. But bad fruit – sin, for example, of any kind – cannot be justified by the fruit-bearer’s other good qualities. It’s got to be judged on its own, weighed against a higher and holier standard.” …