No. Place the admonitions in their context. Life was demanding in the Ancient Near East. Knuckleheads, who tried mating cows and goats, tried growing wheat and barley together or tried interweaving cotton and wool, wasted resources, wasted time and wasted lives. Goats are goats. Cows are cows. Figure it out. Your life depends on it. Tell the difference.

This part of the Bible is called the Holiness Code, and there are a lot of "tell the difference" admonitions. Dishonest scales weigh merchandise falsely and cheat customers. Tell the difference. The Sabbath is not a work day. Tell the difference. Give fruit trees time to mature. Don't eat early fruit. Tell the difference. Don't try to marry both a woman and her mother! Gee whiz! Tell the difference will ya, fella!

Holiness might seem a strange category under which to gather all these "tell the difference" commands, but funny as it may seem, this is what "holiness" means. We think "holiness" means "goodness." It does not. "Holiness" means to be "set apart," to be "special, different, distinct," to be "this and not that." Something "holy" is specific, objective, itself, other.

When we say that Yahweh is "holy," we mean that Yahweh is Himself, special, one of a kind. Yahweh is not Ba'al nor Jupiter nor Dagon nor Allah. Although the ancient pagans were quite inclusive and broadminded about their gods, the Jews were obstreperously finicky. They insisted that there is only one God, His Name is Yahweh, and He doesn't like being confused with the opposition, which are no gods at all. There is none like Yahweh. He is God. He lives in "unapproachable light" (I Tim. 6.16). None can see His face and live. Better tell the difference. Your life depends on it.

Yahweh is so holy that everything He does is a demonstration of His holiness. He calls a people for His holiness. He expects His people to "be holy because I am holy" (Leviticus 19.2). He acts for the holiness of His reputation, His Name (Ezekiel 36 among many). He creates to display His holiness. Creation is not monotony, but infinite, purposeful variety.

In the six days of creation Yahweh creates a universe that is progressively more "distinct, different, separate." The verb "separate" is used five times to describe Yahweh's acts of creation. Then the word "separate" is succeeded by the noun "kinds." God creates a world more varied and more distinct by inventing myriad species which differ according to their "kinds." The word "kinds" is used nine times to express this variegation, the specific variety which expresses God's holiness.

Then Yahweh creates His masterpiece, the object of His love, the bearer of His image, humanity. It is quite emphatic! Four times in Genesis God states that humanity is created in "our image, our likeness." Then from the previous repetition one would expect that this creation of humanity would express God's holiness within humans "according to their kinds." Doesn't happen. For the first time gender is introduced into the narrative. Humans are not created "according to their kinds." Instead humans express God's holiness and image by being created "male and female." Women and men created to be in a covenant relationship together uniquely display the holiness of God. More important than the difference between night and day, land and sea, or flamingoes, fish and buffaloes, the contradistinction between men and women in complementary partnership exhibits the holiness of God. Rightly understanding what is "male and female" comes from knowing the holiness of God. And rightly understanding "male and female" shows the holiness of God. The Apostle Paul said that in Romans 1! But Paul did not invent it! He took it directly from Genesis 1 because that's what Genesis 1 says.

The Bible makes much of God's holiness, not because God is likely to forget, but we are. We habitually neglect to tell the difference. We continually overlook that "it is He that hath made us, not we ourselves" (Psalm 100.3). Even the seraphim dare not forget because they keep reminding one another in Isaiah 6.3, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty: the whole earth is full of his glory." How does anyone keep missing a fact this big? "God is God." He is the LORD. To miss this one humans must be geniuses at self-deception. And such we are.

In the Presbytery of Philadelphia I once heard a famous, tall steeple, progressive pastor argue for the ordination of practicing gays and lesbians by misapplying Matthew 7.1, "Judge not, lest you be judged." Yet, "judge not" does not mean "think not." Inadvertently, this leader was telling the presbytery to stop "telling the difference." Stop telling the difference between men and women, boys and girls. Stop telling the difference about the progression of creation in Genesis 1. Stop telling the difference about the appropriate distinctions that God had made in creation. Stop telling the difference about the holiness of God.

What he should have quoted was Jesus' command in John 7.24, "Judge righteous judgment," because holiness depends upon believers making appropriate distinctions, "telling the right difference." Yahweh is God. I am not. Jesus is Savior. I am not. The complimentary distinction between women and men is creation's ultimate display of the holiness of God. The complimentary distinction between women and men is God's authorization of marriage (Gen. 1.31; 2.24; Mark 10.6-9).

However, make no mistake about it. The ordination of practicing gays and lesbians will redefine marriage. Ordination bestows God's approval upon the lifestyle and faithfulness of the ordinand. Ordination recognizes faithfulness. It does not confer perfection. If a woman or man is an elder in the PC(USA), her or his life is exemplary by definition. There could be no objection to a request for marriage from an elder. There would be no grounds for the denial of marriage but compatibility. How can you prevent an elder from marriage, for crying out loud! How can a session not authorize the marriage of an elder who is doing nothing wrong?

Furthermore, this resulting same sex marriage would be an implicit rejection of God's ordinance of marriage, God's ordinance of creation and the holiness of God. For both Christians and Jews, marriage is ordained because of what the Bible says. The Bible ordains marriage explicitly. The sexual play of the most provocative book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, is confined by vows, exclusivity and single partners, a man and a woman. Hebrews 13.4 says, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." What else could Hebrews have meant than that Christians encourage and support only and exclusively heterosexual marriage within the contemporary, pansexual Roman culture? Yet without a whisper of biblical authorization the practice of same sex marriage would inaugurate a contradiction. As such, same sex marriage would oppose, thwart and repudiate the exclusive biblical ordinance of marriage, the Scripture's order of creation and the concomitant holiness of God. The Bible says, "This is the way humans are created." Same sex marriage retorts, "No, its not!"

Consequently, if Amendment 10-A is passed, the PC(USA) will attempt to embrace not diversity but divergence. This is not the "big tent." This is the "big breach." The implications are foundational. This amendment will authorize ways of living that are not biblical and ways of reading the Bible that are not reading. The results of this amendment will fail to tell the difference between boys and girls and fail to tell the difference between what is holy and what is harmful. The changes will be cataclysmic. At stake are the definition of marriage, the authority of the Bible and the holiness of God. These are not "truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ" (G-1.0305).

"The great touchstone of truth [is] its tendency to promote holiness." (G-1.0304)