Here’s the follow up to my post about homosexuality in the context of Christianity:
There are five passages of Scripture that present the Biblical teaching on homosexual acts in no uncertain terms. Those passages are: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:16-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:8-11. There are other passages that deal with homosexuality, but these are the most clear, in my own estimation.
My goal is to quote these passages in their immediate context, dig into the Greek and Hebrew of the key terms in each passage, and demonstrate that there’s no misunderstanding about their meanings. There’s no room at all for misunderstanding if you deal honestly with the text, and consider the wider context of the whole of Scripture.
(All quoted Scripture will be from the ESV, and all Greek and Hebrew transliterations will be from the Strong’s concordance.)
To begin, I want to say that the Bible presupposes heterosexuality. Theologian Dr. Michael L. Brown, Jewish Christian, Bible scholar, and expert with Biblical Hebrew had this to say:
“…the Bible doesn’t talk a lot about homosexual practice because it presupposes heterosexuality throughout.
“For example, if you go to an astronomy class and you say, “Man, the professor only talked about UFOs once,” that’s because he’s presupposing there are no UFOs. He made one comment, “There are no UFOs; we won’t talk about it in this class,” and then he taught astronomy the rest of the time.
"God establishes He creates human beings male and female. Then He establishes that the man and woman come together for life, are joined together as one. Then every single example of human relationships that he blesses is male-female through the Bible, even the analogy of Christ and the church being like the husband and the wife. All the teaching about parenting is male-female; children are told to honor their father and mother. Husbands are told to love their wives. Wives [are told] to honor their husbands, etc. So it presupposes heterosexuality throughout.
"The Bible absolutely never countenanced homosexual relations. To the contrary, it only countenanced, described, blessed, and legislated heterosexual relations from Genesis to Revelation. That’s from the beginning of the Bible to the end.”
With this understanding as the groundwork, let’s examine the specific texts.
“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
The Book of Leviticus presents the Law given by God to Moses on Mt Sinai (Ex. 19-40) in greater detail. In chapters 18 and 20, we’re given a number of prohibitions of various sexual practices, and one prohibition of idol-related child sacrifice. One of the sexual prohibitions is male homosexual sex (18:22, 20:13).
Verse 18:22 in Hebrew reads, “shakab zakar mishkab ‘ishshah tow'ebah." Shakab means to lie down, zakar refers to men, mishkab literally means ‘a bed,’ and was euphemistically a refrence to sex, and 'ishshah refers to women.
Now, the interesting word at end, "tow'ebah,” is translated as “abomination” in English. It’s very common to see someone brush off the word abomination in v. 22 because of the use of abomination by some English translations in other verses describing actions that Christians today freely partake in (such as Lev 11:11 which calls eating certain kinds if sea food an “abomination” in some translations). Here’s the thing, though: there are multiple Hebrew words here being translated as “abomination." The Hebrew word in Lev 11:11 is not "tow'ebah," it’s "sheqets,” from the root “shaqats,” which literally means “filthy." It carries the idea of eating something gross. For this reason, some translations use other English words that more clearly express the idea (the ESV uses "detestable”). That’s not what “tow'ebah” means.
“Tow'ebah” means abomination in a moral sense, something morally corrupt or abhorrent.
20:13 in Hebrew reads, “ 'iysh shakab zakar mishkab 'ishshah shenayim 'asah tow'ebah muwth dam." All the same key words are the same as 18:22. "shenayim” is plural, refers to the two participants, “'asah” broadly means to do, or to make, here meaning “to commit," "muwth” literally “to die,” and used causatively “to kill," and "dam” refers to the participants’ blood. This verse means the same as 18:22, and adds the punishment for the morally corrupt action.
These texts unmistakably describe homosexual activity as morally abhorrent. Some try to create a distinction between different kinds of homosexual activity by saying that the verses refers to homosexual sex in the context of idol worship. The “queen james bible” actually adds “in the Temple of Molech” to some verses to try to make that point. The thing is, 18:22 says nothing about idolatry, and neither does 20:13. The only verse in Lev 18 that says anything about idolatry is v. 21, which forbids child sacrifice. In Lev 20, v. 1-5 pertain to idolatry; 20:13 has no connection to it.
The attempt to explain away 18:22 and 20:13 by means of idolatry is really absurd. Contextually, there’s nothing that ties these verses to idolatry. And if one suggests that all verses in Lev 18 prohibit the stated actions only when they’re part of idol worship, should we conclude that God is cool with Christians having sex with their parents as long as it isn’t part of idol worship? Of course not.
Leviticus 18 is a list of the practices of the pagan nation that lived in Canaan before Israel came in that God hated. Chapter 20 is a reiteration of chapter 18, and includes two verses prohibiting witchcraft, as well as punishments for violating the prohibitions.
18:3, “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.”
18:27-28, “(for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”
20:23, “And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.”
One last point about Lev 18 and 20: the Law of Moses was given to Israel, and it isn’t binding upon Christians today. You will see some try to dismiss the use of these verses in the argument against homosexuality on these grounds. However, v. 3, and v. 27-28 of chapter 18, and verses 22-23 of chapter 20 clearly show that the moral aspects of the Law were not just for Israel; they were (and are) binding on everyone.
“16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
"24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
"26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
"28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
Ok, so, Paul is here describing the traits of unrighteous people who turn away from God. In that context, Paul paints a picture of homosexual behavior that is entirely consistent with the depiction of homosexual behavior in Leviticus. As with the Leviticus passages, revisionists will argue that what Paul is talking about is homosexual sex related to idol worship, citing v. 21-23. But that isn’t the case. If we examine the overall context, we see that Paul isn’t focusing on idolatry; Paul’s focus is the unrighteous who turn away from God, and the consequences that follow. Idolatry is presented as one possible outcome. Paul goes on to list many actions / traits / behaviors that result from a life devoid of God. The homosexual behavior isn’t tied to idolatry any more than murder is. Paul is condemning homosexual behavior in general.
“9 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. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
“8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.”
This one is a little less clear than the others, as there is some uncertainty involved. In both passages, the phrase “men who practice homosexuality” is “arsenokoites” in Greek. The fact is that this Greek word appears in no other Greek manuscript prior to Paul’s use of it. It is believed that Paul actually devised the word himself. For this reason, revisionists will argue that we just don’t know what the word means, so the English translation is meaningless. But there is good reason for taking the word to be referring to the practice of homosexuality.
“Arsenokoites” is a combination of two other Greek words: “Arren,” meaning male, or man; and “koite,” literally meaning bed, but used euphemistically to indicate sex. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) uses these two words in its rendering of the passages from Leviticus that we looked at earlier:
Leviticus 18:22, “Kai meta arren ou koimao koite gyne bdelygma gar eimi."
Leviticus 20:13, "Kai hos an koimao meta arren koite gyne bdelygma poieo amphoteroi thanatoo enochos eimi.”
I think the traditional rendering of this word to refer to homosexual practices is exactly right. I think it is beyond doubt that Paul was making explicit references to the Leviticus passages when he used “arsenokoites."
With this in mind, take special note of 1 Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (emphasis mine) Anyone, gay or straight, can come to Christ and be saved, but all who come to Christ leave behind the sinful behaviors of their former life.
What Did Jesus say about it?
One of the most common arguments from people who support the inclusion of homosexuality within the Church goes like this:
“Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality, and if He didn’t, then it must be ok."
The Lord Jesus never mentioned homosexuality directly anywhere in the Gospels, that’s true. But He did indirectly teach against it. Every time the Lord Jesus endorsed or extolled the Law of Moses, He gave full affirmation of its commands, including the Law’s direct prohibition of homosexual behavior. Besides, mention of homosexuality directly wouldn’t have even been necessary in first century Israel; it was a non-issue, given what Law of Moses says about it. Dr. James White said it this way:
"There was never a Jew before Jesus, during the days of Jesus, or for a millennium after Jesus that ever questioned the fundamental understanding that the Mosaic Law condemned homosexuality as a grievous sin in the sight of God, and a total forfeiture of the Covenant.”
Furthermore, Jesus taught positively that the intent from the beginning for human romantic relationships was male and female:
“4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”
“6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.”
That said, we must also remember that Jesus is God incarnate. Any part of Scripture that can be said to have come from God (read: all of it) came in a very real sense from Jesus Himself.
For more detail on the Biblical perspective on homosexuality, check out these videos by Mike Winger:
https://youtu.be/l_5WvYcKv18
https://youtu.be/qxw4I5nQs84
Homosexual acts are clearly sin, all the time, in every circumstance; honest treatment of the text makes this conclusion unavoidable. There will be false teachers who lie about it, who intentionally muddy the waters and obfuscate the truth (Rom 1:18; 2 Tim 3:13; 2 Peter 2:1-3; Jude 1). Don’t be suckered by them.
And there will be people who are more in love with sin than they are with God, some of which will wear the title “Christian” (2 Tim 4:3). Don’t fall in with them.
God desires to save, and is willing to save all who come to Him and humble themselves before Him. That means, in part, letting go of what God calls evil. As I said in the original post, having same sex attraction does not mean that God hates you, or that you can’t be saved. Having the attraction in and of itself is not sinful. It’s what you do about it that matters.
If you come to Jesus and surrender yourself to Him, He will save you. You may end up living a celibate life, and that isn’t a bad thing at all. Jesus Himself was celibate while He was here as a man. The Apostle Paul was celibate as well, and he said that in his estimation, being celibate was better than being married (1 Cor 7:32-35, 40).
But, on the other hand, the Lord could also deliver you from samesex attraction. Many will mock that idea. “You can’t pray away the gay!” they say. But the truth is that God can do literally anything. The power of God is unparalleled. If the Being who breathed the stars into existence gives you His power, nothing can stop you from changing. Don’t believe the lie that your current feelings are permanent and unchangeable. God delivers people by the hundreds and thousands from the desires and obsessions of their sin nature every single day.
Surrender to the Lord Jesus. Humble yourself, and ask Him to save you, to accept and change you into who He would have you be. Swear fealty to Him as your King, then take up your cross and follow Him.
