Response to response

Andrew - thanks you for your various comments and corrections.

You say ‘the kingdom’ is:

‘the freedom given to the church to serve him openly, acknowledge him as Lord, no longer subject to oppression.the freedom given to the church to serve him openly, acknowledge him as Lord, no longer subject to oppression.’

Are you saying that since the destruction of Jerusalem/Rome, the church has never been persecuted or oppressed?

‘koimÄ“thÄ“i meta arsenos koitÄ“n = ‘sleeps with a male the marriage bed’. You virtually have Paul’s word there: arsenokoitÄ“s.’

Thanks - this is what I was looking for.

‘I am looking for a way to understand homosexuality that recognizes: … iii) that it is not ‘wickedness’, it is not intrinsically harmful to others.’

Is this really another way of saying that we can do what we like, provided it doesn’t harm others? Download internet pornography? What are you saying?

‘But would it not be possible, in principle, whenever the need arises, for gay people to acknowledge that God originally created us to be one flesh as male and female?’

Better ask Paul! It seems reasonable to me.

‘With regard to James Allison’s argument about Romans 1-2, surely Paul’s quarrel with the Jew, if that is who he is addressing in 2:1-11, is not that they are wrong for being judgmental but that they are wrong for doing such things’

Yes - but the underlying attitude was judgementalism. The argument I think goes further - that Paul is springing a ‘trap’ on the Jew (or whoever it was, but it seems most likely that it was a Jewish perspective, in view of the way it goes later on). The argument continues that this wasn’t Paul’s position at all (and I don’t necessarily agree with that), but I think we tend to miss the point that Paul is speaking rhetorically, with an audience in view, not just summarising Christian doctrine. Also, I tend to think that Jesus had some interesting table fellowship with all kinds of people, and I doubt if Paul would have contradicted that. I mention this not as a thought-through position - I’m just intrigued by possibilities.