What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

by Kevin DeYoung

The issue is not, as one revisionist author argues, whether procreation is required for a marriage to be valid.4 The issue is whether marriage—by nature, by design, and by aim—is a covenant between two persons whose one-flesh commitment is the sort of union which produces offspring.

so God cares more about if the 'plumbing' fits together? why? how does this serve him? just because it's the design he chose?

In Jesus’s mind, to answer the divorce question necessitates a right understanding of marriage, and to get at the nature of marriage one must go back to the beginning, where we see God instituting marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

yes, but that's because there were no homosexual marriages/positive homosexual relationships at this time in history, only homosexual temple prostitutes, so for Jesus to bring up homosexuality in a marriage debate would just confuse those he's trying to teach about the question at hand--which is about divorce.

and pursuing homosexual behavior.

couldn't this, again, be due to the historical relevance of homosexual temple prostitution?

but because that act itself, as a truth-suppressing exchange, is contrary to God’s good design.

is homosexuality bad because it goes against gods very design?

Even when Paul references nature (physis) in 1 Corinthians 11:14—a more difficult passage for the conservative to explain since it has to do with hair length and hairstyle—the meaning (if not the application) is nevertheless plain: there is a divine

design to manhood and womanhood that should not be transgressed.

so is the author saying here even hairstyle is part of God's Devine plan and should not be transgressed? if so, what about Samson?

With these allusions to creation in the background (the foreground really), “nature” must mean more than “prevailing customs and social norms.” When Paul faults homosexual behavior for being contrary to nature, it’s not like condemning deaf persons for speaking with their hands in an “unnatural”

way.

There is no way to “rescue” Paul from his strong condemnation of homosexual behavior. We can’t make “unclean” mean “ritually impure.” We can’t make “contrary to nature” mean “out of the ordinary” or “against my personal orientation.” We can’t make this text about nothing more than pederasty, exploitation, and excess passion. The allusions to Genesis and the emphasis on the “exchange” present in same-sex sexual intimacy will not allow for any other conclusion but the traditional one: God’s people ought not engage in homosexual behavior or give approval to those who do (1:32).

what about historical context?

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality

if the verse really is translated like this, it's interesting sexual immorality is deliberately separate from homosexuality--considering the argument goes homosexuality was condemned /because/ of it's sexually immoral nature in this time... edit: after reading other affirming authors and scholars in history/culture if this time, the 'homosexual' in the English version is most likely nit meant to be translated as homosexual. look into ed Oxford 's research into the first recorded use of homosexual in English bibles.

The text says nothing about temple prostitution, effeminate men, or sexual domination.

yes, but that doesn't change the /historical/ context, which is also paramount in understanding what would have been meant at that time.

On the face of it, it’s strange that progressive voices would want us to reach this conclusion; it would mean that committed, consensual, lifelong partnerships were completely

unknown and untried in the ancient world. It seems demeaning to suggest that until very recently in the history of the world there were no examples of warm, loving, committed homosexual relationships.

No one is saying they didn't exist. what they ARE saying is that, at that time and in that culture, loving homosexual relationships were most-likely either overlooked or condemned based on the majority of what they saw, which was exploitative and predatory. Kind of like how a lot of non-affirming christians today see ALL LGBT as what the news portrays--drag queens, excessive lewd actions/portrayals, etc.

What you’ll find in the sourcebook is not surprising given the diversity and complexity of the ancient world: homosexual behavior was not reducible to any single pattern, and moral judgment did not fall into neat categories. There was no more consensus about homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome than we see today.3

If the ancient world not only had a category for committed same-sex relationships but also some understanding of homosexual orientation (to use our phrase), there is no reason to think the New Testament’s prohibitions against same-sex behavior were only for pederasty and exploitation.

Paul could have believed that tribades [the active female partners in a female homosexual bond], the ancient kinaidoi [the passive male partners in a male homosexual bond] and other sexually unorthodox persons were born that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and shameful. . . . I believe that Paul used the word “exchanged” to indicate that people knew the natural sexual order of the universe and left it behind. . . . I see Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who had turned away from God.8 Nascent ideas about orientation were not unknown in the Greco-Roman era.

Thomas K. Hubbard, ed., Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 7–8.