I would urge everyone to look into Volume 10 of the " New Interpreter's Bible, A Commentary in Twelve Volumes." Pages 430 through 434 speak directly to our current crisis. To sum up Tom Wright's comment in my own words: Paul is teaching that ALL society is thankless. Therefore God's wrath is against us, resulting in a toxic and fractured world. NT Wright points out that "the tide has turned" against that "older liberal theology" which "struggled rightly enough to avid any suggestion of God as a malevolent despot." He continues, "the great wickednesses of the twentieth century have reminded us that unless God remains implacably opposed to evil that distorts and defaces creation, not least humanity, God is not a good God." (p.431)
Chief among the enemies to whom God has betrayed us (paradoken--can also be translated "handed over") is the sin of women no longer loving or even liking men and men no longer loving, liking or even being interested in women. The created order, Adam and Eve is shattered by the wrath of God. In the opinion of one theologican whose name I cannot recall offhand (he was a dear friend of Markus Barth) the sin into which all society has been betrayed is not only men bedding men, women with women etc., it is the indifference of women to men and vice versa, it is the "war between the sexes," it is our stony hearts when it comes to the opposite sex.
The good news, however, is that just as God raised up a savior to fight the Philistines ( also the result of God's wrath at the people's thanklessness) so God has raised up a savior today, namely, Jesus Christ, Jesus the Anointed One to save us from even more terrible enemies.
Look at Paul's famous catalogue of vices in Romans 1:26-31. Every one of us has been handed over into the grasp of one of these evils. I myself am arrogant and self-destructive. I am this way and I cannot change, I will inevitably fall into these sins; there is no hope for me today or tomorrow, EXCEPT in Jesus. The good that I do, my escape from my damnable pride and destructiveness is only because of my savior.
When a man who is attracted to men says that he cannot change; it's true. He can't. Neither can you, neither can I. Only in Jesus have we and are we being delivered from the powers and principalities that fracture us, our communities and all of creation.
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