What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? Quotes

“The biblical teaching is consistent and unambiguous: homosexual activity is not God’s will for his people. Silence in the face of such clarity is not prudence, and hesitation in light of such frequency is not patience. The Bible says more than enough about homosexual practice for us to say something too.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Our feelings matter. Our stories matter. Our friends matter. But ultimately we must search the Scriptures to see what matters most.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“They took a bite from the forbidden fruit, and the fruit bit back.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“But before we get up close to the trees, we should step back and make sure we are gazing upon the same forest. As is so often the case with controversial matters, we will never agree on the smaller subplots if it turns out we aren’t even telling the same story. The Bible says something about homosexuality. I hope everyone can agree on at least that much. And I hope everyone can agree that the Bible is manifestly not a book about homosexuality.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“We don't get to pick the age we will live in, and we don't get to choose all the struggles we will face. Faithfulness is ours to choose; the shape of faithfulness is God's to determine.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“the right conclusion can be handled in the wrong way. Focusing on other people’s sins, while ignoring our own, would be the wrong way.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Nothing in the Bible encourages us to give sex the exalted status it has in our culture, as if finding our purpose, our identity, and our fulfillment all rest with what we can or cannot do with our private parts.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“God is love, but this is quite different from affirming that our culture’s understanding of love must be God.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“As Christians we ought to fear being on the wrong side of the holy, apostolic, and universal church more than we fear being on the wrong side of discredited assumptions about progress and enlightenment.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Our feelings matter. Our stories matter. Our friends matter. But ultimately we must search the Scriptures to see what matters most. Don’t discount the messenger as a bigot if your real problem is with the Bible.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“A rant is not an idea, and feeling hurt is not an argument. To be sure, how we make each other feel is not unimportant. But in our age of perpetual outrage, we must make clear that offendedness is not proof of the coherence or plausibility of any argument. Now is not the time for fuzzy thinking. Now is not the time to shy away from careful definitions. Now is not the time to let moods substitute for logic. These are difficult issues. These are personal issues. These are complicated issues. We cannot chart our ethical course by what feels better. We cannot build our theology based on what makes us look nicer. We can’t abdicate intellectual responsibility because smart people disagree.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“When Christians maintain that homosexual behavior is sinful or that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, you can count on a chorus of voices declaring confidently that these old views are on the “wrong side of history.” The phrase is meant to sting. It conjures up pictures of segregationists clinging to their disgusting notions of racial supremacy. We are meant to think of the church persecuting Galileo or of flat-earthers warning Columbus about sailing off the edge of the world. The phrase seeks to win an argument by not having one. It says, “Your ideas are so laughably backward, they don’t deserve to be taken seriously. In time everyone who ever held them will be embarrassed.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Darkness must not be confused with light. Grace must not be confused with license. Unchecked sin must not be confused with the good news of justification apart from works of the law. Far from treating sexual deviance as a lesser ethical issue, the New Testament sees it as a matter for excommunication (1 Corinthians 5), separation (2 Cor. 6:12–20), and a temptation for perverse compromise (Jude 3–16).”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“It’s hard not to conclude from a straightforward reading of Genesis 1–2 that the divine design for sexual intimacy is not any combination of persons, or even any type of two persons coming together, but one man becoming one flesh with one woman.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“For two millennia the church has focused on worshiping a Christ who saves, a Christ who forgives, a Christ who cleanses, a Christ who challenges us and changes us, a Christ who convicts us and converts us, and a Christ who is coming again. If, as the Apostles’ Creed tells us, Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead (Acts 17:31; Rev. 19:11–21); and if those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ will live forever with God in his new creation (Mark 1:15; Acts 17:30; Rev. 21:7; 21:1–27) through the atoning work of Christ on the cross (Isa. 53:1–12; Rom. 5:1–21); and if those who are not born again (John 3:5) and do not believe in Christ (John 3:18) and do not turn from their sinful practices (1 John 3:4–10) will face eternal punishment and the just wrath of God in hell (John 3:36; 5:29); and if among those in the lake of fire excluded from the heavenly garden are the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars (Rev. 21:8, 27)—then determining what constitutes sexual immorality in God’s mind has everything to do with the storyline of Scripture. Is homosexual activity a sin that must be repented of, forsaken, and forgiven, or, given the right context and commitment, can we consider same-sex sexual intimacy a blessing worth celebrating and solemnizing?”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Leviticus 18 doesn't tell us everything we need to know about sex, but it gives us the basic rules: incest is bad (vv. 6-27); taking a rival wife is bad (v 18) . . . adultery is bad (v 20); killing our children is bad (v 21); homosexuality activity is bad (v 22); and bestiality is bad (v 23).”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Taking a strange book seriously, Leviticus 18, 20”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“. . .your tolerance is not love. It is unfaithfulness.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Few things are more important in life than repentance. It is so important that the Gospels and the Epistles and the Old Testament make clear that you don’t go to heaven without it. Ezekiel said, “Repent and turn from your transgressions” (Ezek. 18:30). John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). Jesus said, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Peter said, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). And Paul said God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Scripture warns us against pursuing sexual practice inconsistent with being in Christ. When we tolerate the doctrine which affirms homosexual behavior, we are tolerating a doctrine which leads people further from God.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“The God we worship is indeed a God of love. Which does not, according to any verse in the Bible, make sexual sin acceptable. But it does, by the witness of a thousand verses all over the Bible, make every one of our sexual sins changeable, redeemable, and wondrously forgivable.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“We must not be naive. The legitimization of same-sex marriage will mean the de-legitimization of those who dare to disagree. The sexual revolution has been no great respecter of civil and religious liberties. Sadly, we may discover that there is nothing quite so intolerant as tolerance.6 Does this mean the church should expect doom and gloom? That depends. For conservative Christians the ascendancy of same-sex marriage will likely mean marginalization, name-calling, or worse. But that’s to be expected. Jesus promises us no better than he himself received (John 15:18–25). The church is sometimes the most vibrant, the most articulate, and the most holy when the world presses down on her the hardest. But not always—sometimes when the world wants to press us into its mold, we jump right in and get comfy. I care about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the laws our politicians put in place. But what’s much more important to me—because I believe it’s more crucial to the spread of the gospel, the growth of the church, and the honor of Christ—is what happens in our local congregations, our mission agencies, our denominations, our parachurch organizations, and in our educational institutions. I fear that younger Christians may not have the stomach for disagreement or the critical mind for careful reasoning. Look past the talking points. Read up on the issues. Don’t buy every slogan and don’t own every insult. The challenge before the church is to convince ourselves as much as anyone that believing the Bible does not make us bigots, just as reflecting the times does not make us relevant.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“The reason is that the state has an interest in promoting the familial arrangement whereby a mother and a father raise the children that came from their union. The state has been in the marriage business for the common good and for the well-being of the society it is supposed to protect. Kids do better with a mom and a dad.1 Communities do better when husbands and wives stay together. Hundreds of studies confirm both of these statements (though we all can think of individual exceptions I’m sure).2 Same-sex marriage assumes that marriage is redefinable and the moving parts replaceable. By recognizing same-sex unions as marriage, just like the husband-wife relationship we’ve always called marriage, the state is engaging in (or at least codifying) a massive reengineering of our social life. It assumes the indistinguishability of gender in parenting, the relative unimportance of procreation in marriage, and the near infinite flexibility as to what sorts of structures and habits lead to human flourishing.3”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“In the traditional view, marriage is the union of a man and a woman. That’s what marriage is, before the state confers any benefits on it. Marriage, in the traditional view, is a prepolitical institution. The state doesn’t determine what defines marriage; it only recognizes marriage and privileges it in certain ways. It is a sad irony that those who support same-sex marriage on libertarian grounds are actually ceding to the state a vast amount of heretofore unknown power. No longer is marriage treated as a prepolitical entity which exists independent of the state. Now the state defines marriage and authorizes its existence. Does the state have the right, let alone the competency, to construct and define a society’s most essential relationships?”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“There is no positive case for homosexual practice in the Bible and no historical background that will allow us to set aside what has been the plain reading of Scripture for twenty centuries. The only way to think the Bible is talking about every other kind of homosexuality except the kind we want to affirm is to be less than honest with the texts or less than honest with ourselves.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“All of these third ways end up the same way: a behavior the Bible does not accept is treated as acceptable. “Agree to disagree” sounds like a humble “meet you in the middle” compromise, but it is a subtle way of telling conservative Christians that homosexuality is not a make-or-break issue and we are wrong to make it so. No one would think of proposing a third way if the sin were racism or human trafficking. To countenance such a move would be a sign of moral bankruptcy. Faithfulness to the Word of God compels us to view sexual immorality with the same seriousness. Living an ungodly life is contrary to the sound teaching that defines the Christian (1 Tim. 1:8–11; Titus 1:16). Darkness must not be confused with light. Grace must not be confused with license. Unchecked sin must not be confused with the good news of justification apart from works of the law. Far from treating sexual deviance as a lesser ethical issue, the New Testament sees it as a matter for excommunication (1 Corinthians 5), separation (2 Cor. 6:12–20), and a temptation for perverse compromise (Jude 3–16). We cannot count same-sex behavior as an indifferent matter. Of course, homosexuality isn’t the only sin in the world, nor is it the most critical one to address in many church contexts. But if 1 Corinthians 6 is right, it’s not an overstatement to say that solemnizing same-sex sexual behavior—like supporting any form of sexual immorality—runs the risk of leading people to hell. Scripture often warns us—and in the severest terms—against finding our sexual identity apart from Christ and against pursuing sexual practice inconsistent with being in Christ (whether that’s homosexual sin, or, much more frequently, heterosexual sin). The same is not true when it comes to sorting out the millennium or deciding which instruments to use in worship. When we tolerate the doctrine which affirms homosexual behavior, we are tolerating a doctrine which leads people further from God. This is not the mission Jesus gave his disciples when he told them to teach the nations everything he commanded. The biblical teaching is consistent and unambiguous: homosexual activity is not God’s will for his people. Silence in the face of such clarity is not prudence, and hesitation in light of such frequency is not patience. The Bible says more than enough about homosexual practice for us to say something too.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“The problem is when incessant talking becomes a cover for indecision or even cowardice. As one who has pastored for more than a dozen years in a mainline denomination, I have seen this far too often. It’s death by dialogue. The conversation never stops after reaffirming the historic position. There will always be another paper, another symposium, and another round of conversation. The moratorium on making pronouncements will only be lifted once the revisionist position has won out.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Homosexual behavior is a sin, not according to who practices it or by what motivation they seek it, but because that act itself, as a truth-suppressing exchange, is contrary to God’s good design.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Marriage, by its very nature, requires complementarity. The mystical union of Christ and the church—each “part” belonging to the other but neither interchangeable—cannot be pictured in marital union without the differentiation of male and female.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

“Fifth, the redemptive-historical significance of marriage as a divine symbol in the Bible only works if the marital couple is a complementary pair.”
― Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?