PASSAGE 4
ROMANS 1:26-27
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
Sweeeet! Some New Testament stuff now!
Question One:
This is the MOST controversial passage of them all, I think. This verse appears to be clear. Paul sees women having sex with women and men having sex with men, and he condemns that practice. But let's go back 2,000 years and try to understand why.
Paul is writing this letter to Rome after his missionary tour of the Mediterranean. On his journey Paul had seen great temples built to honor Aphrodite, Diana, and other fertility gods and goddesses of sex and passion instead of the one true God the apostle honors. Apparently, these priests and priestesses engaged in some odd sexual behaviors... including castrating themselves (why? I don't know), carrying on drunken sexual orgies, and even having sex with young temple prostitutes (male and female)... all to honor the gods of sex and pleasure. Sounds like sinful fun right?
The Bible is clear that sexuality is a gift from God. Our Creator celebrates our passion. But the Bible is also clear that when passion gets control of our lives, we're in deep trouble.
When we live for pleasure, when we forget that we are God's children and that God has great dreams for our lives, then we may end up serving the false gods of sex and passion, just as they did in Paul's time. In our obsession with pleasure, we may even WALK AWAY from the God who created us... and in the process we may cause God to abandon all the great dreams He has for our lives.
Did these priests and priestesses get into these behaviors because they were lesbian or gay? I don't think so. Did God abandon them because they were practicing homosexuals? No. Read the text again.
Question Two:
Rev. Dr. Louis B. Smedes, and distinguished Christian author and ethicist, describes exactly how the Bible says these promiscuous priests and priestesses got into this mess. Once again it has nothing to do with homosexuality:
SMEDES: "The people Paul had in mind refused to acknowledge and worship God, and for this reason were abandoned by God. And being abandoned by God, they sank into sexual depravity."
SMEDES: "The homosexuals I know have not rejected God at all; they love God and they thank God for his grace and his gifts. How, then, could they have been abandoned to homosexuality as a punishment for refusing to acknowledge God?"
SMEDES: "Nor have the homosexuals that I know given up heterosexual passions for homosexual lusts. They have been homosexual from the moment of their earliest sexual stirrings. They did not change from one orientation to another; they just discovered that they were homosexual. It would be unnatural for most homosexuals to have heterosexual sex."
SMEDES: "And the homosexual people I know do not lust after each other any more than heterosexual people do... their love for one another is likely to be just as spiritual and personal as any heterosexual love can be."
Getting to know a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person of faith will help you realize that it is unreasonable (and unjust) to compare our love for each other to the rituals of the priests and priestesses who pranced around the statues of Aphrodite and Diana. I feel certain this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it.
Christians who hate... let me say this from Romans 1 (referring to Romans 1):
"Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself..."
Even after he describes the disturbing practices he saw, Paul warns us that judging others is God's business, not ours. BOOM!
ALMOST THERE! Hang strong! I'll combine them to make this last point easier.
PASSAGES 5 AND 6
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10
THE MYSTERY OF "MALOKOIS" AND "ARSENOKOITAI"
Question One:
Paul is tired. The Christians in Ephesus and Corinth are fighting among themselves. (Sound familiar?) In Corinth they're even suing one another in secular courts!! Paul shouts across the distance, "You are breaking God's heart by the way you are treating one another."
Like any good writer, Paul anticipates their first question: "Well, how are we supposed to treat one another?" Paul answers, "You know very well how to treat one another from the Jewish law written on tablets of stone." The Ten Commandments!
They were created by God to regulate human behavior. Paul recites examples from the Jewish law first. Don't kill one another. Don't sleep with a person who is married to someone else. Don't lie or cheat or steal. The list goes on to include admonitions against fornication, idolatry, whoremongering, perjury, drunkenness, revelry, and extortion. He also includes "malokois" and "arsenokoitai."
"But Matt Matt... I'm confused. What are those?"
These two Greek words (good thing I'm in Greek class) have scholars confused.. even today!! Keep these words in your thoughts, we'll get to them when we talk about sex (baby... let's talk about you and me... oops.. sorry). What do these texts say about God?
After quoting from the Jewish law, Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that they are under a new law... the law of Jesus... a law of love that requires us to do more than just avoid murder, adultery, lying, cheating, and stealing. Paul tells them what God wants is not strict adherence to a list of laws, but a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith that isn't phony. So all you Christians that call yourselves Christians because you think it'll get your name in the Book of Life... don't be phony... be Saved!
That's the lesson we all need to learn from these texts. God doesn't want us arguing over who is "in" and who is "out." God wants us to love one another. It's God's task to judge us. It is NOT our task to judge one another. God is the judge... not mankind.
Question Two:
Are gays and lesbians on that list of sinners in the Jewish law that Paul quotes to make an entirely different point?
Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois probably meant "effeminate call boys." The New Revised Standard Version says "male prostitutes."
"As for arsenokoitai, Greek scholars don't know exactly what it means -- and the fact that we don't know is a big part of this tragic debate. Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to the customers of "the effeminate call boys." We might call them "dirty old men." Others translate the word as "sodomites," but never explain what that means." -Mel White
Check this out!!!
In 1958, for the first time in history, a person translating that mysterious Greek word into English decided it meant homosexuals, even though there is, in fact, NO SUCH WORD in Greek or Hebrew. But that translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time.
In the past, people used Paul's writings to support slavery, segregation, and apartheid. People still use Paul's writings to oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in society.
Now we have to ask ourselves, "Is it happening again?" Is a word in Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society's prejudice and condemn God's gay children? :::shakes fist at the world:::
We all need to look more closely at that mysterious Greek word arsenokoitai in its original context. I find the argument from history that Paul is condemning the married men who hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose.
Responsible homosexuals and heterosexuals would join Paul in condemning ANYONE who uses children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed priests and priestesses in Rome. These passages = lots about God... nothing about homosexuality.
WHEW! Not done yet! I told you... passion.
PREMISE SIX
The biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it.
"But Matt Matt... what about the verses we just read?"
Oh you mean the verses that I have soulfully refuted with accurate evidence? Hmm... can't use those anymore.
We've looked closely at the six biblical texts used by some people to condemn homosexuality. But we must also remember that Jesus (LORD), the Jewish prophets, and even Paul never even comment on the responsible love a gay man or lesbian feels for another.
The Bible is completely silent on the issue of homosexual orientation. And no wonder!! Homosexual orientation wasn't even known until the 19th century.
The discovery that some of us are created and/or shaped in our earliest infancy toward same-gender attraction was made in the last 150 years. Biblical authors knew nothing about sexual orientation. Old Testament authors and Paul assumed all people were created heterosexual, just as they believed the earth was flat, that there were heavens above and hell below, and that the sun moved up and down. Galileo was put to death for trying to prove the Earth rotated. Check that out!
In 1864, almost 3,000 years after Moses and at least 18 centuries after the apostle Paul, the German social scientist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first to declare that homosexuals were a distinct class of individuals. It was a big moment for all sexual minorities. It's like Columbus discovering the New World. It's like Madame Curie discovering radium used for Xrays. It's like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It may seem like one small step for the rest of you, but it's a giant leap for them. Ulrichs assured the world of what homosexuals already knew in their hearts. They aren't just heterosexuals choosing to perform same-sex behaviors. They are a whole class of people whose drive to same-sex intimacy is at the very core of their being from the very beginning of their lives.
The authors of the Bible are authorities in matters of faith. They can be trusted when they talk about God. But they should not be considered the final authorities on sexual orientation any more than they are the final authorities on space travel, gravity, or the Internet!!
Genesis 1 does not say "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... and processors." Little joke to help us relax.
Since the writers of Scripture are not the final authorities on human sexuality, since they didn't even know about sexual orientation as we understand it today, since Jesus and the Jewish prophets were silent about any kind of same-sex behavior, I am persuaded that the Bible has nothing in it to approve or condemn homosexual orientation as we understand it.
PREMISE SEVEN (two more)
Although the prophets, Jesus, and other biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today, they are clear about one thing... As we search for Truth, we are to "love one another."
Thank God! "The truth will set you free"
Also take the time to look at my favorite verse... John 16:13.
We may not be able to use the Bible as our final authority on sexual orientation. But as we search for the truth, we can and should use the Bible as our final authority on how we should treat one another along the way.
I love this next part!!
A young Jewish scholar asked Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment?" Quoting the prophets, Jesus replied, "The great commandment is this... to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second command is like it, to love your neighbor as you love yourself."
"This is my commandment," Jesus said, "that you love one another, as I have loved you." On this the Bible is explicitly clear. Even if we disagree about what the Bible seems to say about homosexuality, we can agree that above all else we are commanded by the Scriptures to love God and to love one another. Straight from the Gospel of Matthew.
Since God is the God of truth and since Jesus himself told us that the truth would set us free, one way that we love God and love one another is by seeking the truth about sexual orientation wherever we can find it.
There is a growing body of evidence from science, psychology, history, psychiatry, medicine, and hearing personal experiences that leads to a clear verdict: Homosexuality is neither a sickness nor a sin. Let's face it, the church has always been slow, if not the last institution on earth, to accept new truth.
Look up the stories of Galileo and Copernicus. All of which were admitted wrong later by Pope John Paul II. The Pope said something we must never forget: "Recent historical studies enable us to state that this sad misunderstanding now belongs to the past."
What if the biblical scholars of Galileo's day had said to Galileo, "We don't agree with your Copernican theories, but we love and trust you. As long as you love God and seek God's will in your life, you are welcome here." Think about that one haters!
Instead, well-intentioned (but wrong) Christians are driving their own children away from the church, using Scripture passages that may not even pertain to sexual orientation as we understand it.
FINAL PREMISE:
Whatever some people believe the Bible says about homosexuality, they must not use that belief to deny homosexuals their basic civil rights. To discriminate against sexual or gender minorities is unjust and un-American.
"But Matt Matt... I was raised to hate and discriminate."
Then you need to call out to God and ask Him to forgive you!
