At 15 years old, Emily Thomes began dating a girl for the first time. Word began to spread, and she started getting questions from friends.”Are you and her gay together?” they would ask.
Emily knew that she could either cower away or own her homosexual lifestyle — so she decided she was going to own it.
Emily's testimony:
"I was 15 and I started dating a girl that lived down the street from me. It was my first time ever dating someone and being official. I was pretty pumped. I got a hickey. My dad saw it and was livid. I love her. It's a girl and I'm going to be with her. And this is how it is. It went terribly wrong."
"I said yes what about it. Love is not necessarily between a man and a woman. The problem was backwards thinking that":
Like many people in today’s culture, Emily clung to a watered-down version of the Gospel that said, “God being love meant God was nice and God was chill with what you were cool with.”
Emily said “If you were truly a Christian, you were on my side. If not, you were legalistic and needed to reread what God was really about. Judge not. God being love meant God was nice and and God was chill with what you were cool with. By 18, 19, 20 I was super wild and in serial relationships with women,” Emily explained of her past views."
"When I got to nursing school I met the girl that I ended up being engaged to. I kind of slowed down a little bit for her because she had two kids. And then at 22 I got invited to a Bible study."
Eventually, Emily became engaged to one of the women she dated. And then, at 22, was invited to a Bible study. “I expected them to bring up my lifestyle really early, and then (I) would use that as justification for not coming back, so I agreed to go.” As women shared their own testimonies, she started realizing she had nothing like that and it “bugged” her. “I could not stop thinking, ‘what if all of it is true?'” she said.
Emily Googled verses on homosexuality and was directed towards a passage that would strike her to the core. It was 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10, which reads:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Emily's testimony continued:
"It scared me really really bad. And then I read verse eleven"
Amazed by the fact that there were people who’d been equally as reckless as her in the past, but Jesus still washed them clean, Emily had a revelation.
“I knew that God could do that for me too, and that I needed that. I could hold onto my sin and reject God, or I could turn to him. All the debt that I’d racked up living like I lived, didn’t have to be mine, if I could trust Him. So that was it. I knew what I wasn’t going to do, because it was right there it was black and white. I’d twisted those Scriptures before, I’d argued them down. I said judge not to them like that mattered. And then, that day, it was like my eyes were really opened. I was amazed at the grace He showed me.”
A very powerful testimony, and one that clearly articulates how we can witness to those who find themselves in the same lifestyle Emily was in. Watch & share below:
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Thanks, but that’s exactly what I said. It’s v.26 that mentions women, but it’s not clear enough. You could define ‘unnatural’ as polygamous or orgiastic so it doesn’t make a distinct prohibition of lesbian couples. I USED to use it as a goto, but if that’s all we have from the WHOLE Bible, it’s not enough. Once you understand what pederasty was, in the time that Paul was writing, in the Greek half of the Roman Empire, then v.27 fits into that, and the context for v.26 becomes too vague to be able to create a clear unequivocal ban on two cohabiting lesbians.
It’s a problem alright!
Read Romans’ 1:27- it specifically mentions women
Reading the text (I notice it’s the ESV): “nor MEN who practice homosexuality†[emphasis mine]. This is one of the things I have wrestled with. Once you understand the original text, you discover that all the condemnations are against MALE homosexuals, not female! No, actually, even the word ‘homosexual(ity)’ is probably a bad translation. This is a FAR more complex issue than so many wish to make it out to be. We cannot just say things like “it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!†if we don’t engage DEEPLY with our scripture, and get to grasp what it’s about. I cannot find anything that condemns lesbianism. Only one verse in Romans (1:26) even mentions women, and it can be obscure if you want it to be. In fact, many parts of scripture can be as obscure or as ‘clear’ as you decide they are.
There is something bigger going on in scripture, and there is certainly something far bigger going on in our modern society that is tied up with politics and power MORE than simply understanding our Bible.
Beautifully transparent. Jesus rescues us from whatever sin we are entangled in. Be blessed Precious Sister in Christ.
There’s no such as jesus you mugs. Hail the mighty zeus and thor and allah and dagon and kami and the rest of 3000 or so gods. Grow up you clowns.
Praise the Lord.
“sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers.”
Homosexuality is just one of the things in this list. God wants us free of all these sins. Which one do you (and I) need to forsake?
When we are believers in Christ the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirit that we belong to God. The last thing we want to argue about is our sexuality. As believers it is clear that same sex relations are abominable and we have no business engaging in abominations. We cannot claim to have a relation with Christ and be in such hideous relationships. There is no bigotry about it. The will of God is that there should be a relation between a man and a woman not same sex relationships. It is just pointless debating sexual orientation.