What does the bible teach about homosexuality
What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?
What Does The Bible Speak About Homosexuality?
Introduction
For the last two decades, Pew Research Center has reported that one of the most enduring ethical issues across Christian traditions is sexual diversity. For many Christians, one of the most frequently first-asked questions on this topic is, “What does the Bible say about attraction to someone of the alike sex?”
Although its unlikely that the biblical authors had any notion of sexual orientation (for example, the term homosexual wasn't even coined until the sdelayed 19th century) for many people of faith, the Bible is looked to for timeless guidance on what it means to honor God with our lives; and this most certainly includes our sexuality.
Before we can vault into how it is that Christians can maintain the authority of the Bible and also affirm sexual diversity, it might be helpful if we started with a terse but clear overview of some of the assumptions informing many Christian approaches to understanding the Bible.
What is the Bible?
For Christians to whom the Bible
The Bible on Lesbian Behavior
One way to argue against these passages is to make what I call the “shellfish objection.” Keith Sharpe puts it this way: “Until Christian fundamentalists boycott shellfish restaurants, stop wearing poly-cotton T-shirts, and stone to death their wayward offspring, there is no obligation to eavesdrop to their diatribes about homosexuality creature a sin” (The Gay Gospels, 21).
In other words, if we can disregard rules like the ban on eating shellfish in Leviticus , then we should be allowed to disobey other prohibitions from the Old Testament. But this argument confuses the Old Testament’s temporary ceremonial laws with its immortal moral laws.
Here’s an analogy to aid understand this distinction.
I remember two rules my mom gave me when I was young: keep her hand when I cross the street and don’t drink what’s under the sink. Today, I have to follow only the latter rule, since the former is no longer needed to protect me. In fact, it would now act me more injure than good.
Old Testament ritual/ceremonial laws were like mom’s handholding rule. The rea
What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
Answer
In some people’s minds, creature homosexual is as much outside one’s control as the dye of your skin and your height. On the other hand, the Bible clearly and consistently declares that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis –13; Leviticus ; ; Romans –27; 1 Corinthians ; 1 Timothy ). God created marriage and sexual relationships to be between one man and one woman: “At the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’” (Matthew –5). Anything outside of God’s intent and design is sin. The Bible teaches that Christians are to live for God, deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow Him (Matthew ), including with their sexuality. This disconnect between what the Bible says and what some people feel leads to much controversy, debate, and even hostility.
When examining what the Bible says about homosexuality, it is important to distinguish between lesbian behaviorand hom
Male and Female, God Created Them
The Bible is unequivocal on the question of homosexual sex. First, men sleeping with men is prohibited in the Jewish law (e.g., Lev. ; ). This does not prove the case for Christians. Many Old Testament laws are specifically declared not binding in the New Testament (for example, food restrictions). But the logic of opposite sex marriage and the prohibition on homosexual sex are reaffirmed multiple times.1
Let’s launch with Jesus’s framework. Jesus is sometimes caricatured as a prophet of free love, unconcerned about sexual ethics. But his instruction on sexual morality was consistently stricter than the Old Testament law.2 For instance, when the Pharisees asked Jesus whether a man may divorce his wife “for any cause,” he replied:
Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a guy shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, allow not man separat