Question of the Week: Is the Bible’s stance on homosexuality misunderstood?
When it comes to any area of controversy, there are always three kinds of responses; compromise, overcorrection, and truth. The position of compromise when it comes to homosexuality usually goes to passages like Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and clarifies that the statements are taken out of context and the focus is only on the topic of judging one other. They will also look at passages like Leviticus 18 and claim that it only applied to Israel and God is doing a new work of sanctification in our day like Acts and the Gentiles. Then they will take passages like Genesis 19 and Judges 19 and clarify the sin was in rape, not necessarily homosexual practice. For those taking notes, you’ve probably noticed that this is a lot to redefine in order to make a solid case about the Bible’s stance about a particular issue.
1. There is not a single case of a positive homosexual relationship in the entirety of scripture without reading into the text a sexual relationship that you wouldn’t get from a plain reading. Examples: 1 Samuel 18:1, 2 Samuel 1:26, Matthew 8:5-13, etc.
2. There is no consistent form of context that could be presented for Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 that would make anything Paul mentions in both lists somehow righteous in God’s eyes if practiced the right way. Examples: Extortion, Adultery, Theft, Rebellion against God, Idolatry, etc.
3. The attempt to make peace at the cost of truth cuts both ways. If the Bible isn’t clear on what is sin, then the Bible isn’t clear on what we salvation from. Likewise, if the Bible defines sin, we need to treat all sin the same way. Heterosexual immorality is just as much sexual immorality as any other form. It isn’t the unforgivable sin, but still is a sin that needs to be forgiven.
Justification of sin through compromise is allowing the culture to redefine our Bibles. It is wrong. Likewise, overinflating one form of sexual immorality above all others is just as much a mishandling of the Biblical text. Therefore, we need to stick to scripture if we care about God’s standards for our sexuality. These were defined for us in Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, and Ephesians 5:31. If they don’t know the God who defined those standards for us, then make sure they aren’t getting the cart before the horse. An unsaved soul that is sexually moral is still in need of a Savior. We shouldn’t expect non-Christians to have Christian standards. Christians, however, should have Christian standards.
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