May God remove the blinders from your eyes and set you free to see His truth.

GKMN

We often hears that Christians have no choice but to regard ho-mo-s3x-ual-ity as a sin – that Scripture simply demands it.

As a Bible scholar and pastor myself, I say that Scripture does no such thing.

“I love gay people, but the Bible forces me to condemn them” is a poor excuse that attempts to avoid accountability by wrapping a very particular and narrow interpretation of a few biblical passages in a cloak of divinely inspired respectability.

Truth is, Scripture can be interpreted in any number of ways. And biblical writers held a much more complicated view of human s3x-uality than contemporary debates have acknowledged.

In Genesis, for example, it would seem that God’s original intention for humanity was androgyny, not s3x-ual differentiation and heteros3x-uality.

Genesis includes two versions of the story of God’s creation of the human person. First, God creates humanity male and female and then God forms the human person again, this time in the Garden of Eden. The second human person is given the name Adam and the female is formed from his rib.

Ancient Christians and Jews explained this two-step creation by imagining that the first human person possessed the genitalia of both s3xes. Then, when the androgynous, dually-s3xed person was placed in the garden, s/he was divided in two.

According to this account, the man “clings to the woman” in an attempt to regain half his flesh, which God took from him once he was placed in Eden. As third century Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman explained, when God created the first man, God created him with two faces. “Then he split the androgyne and made two bodies, one on each side, and turned them about.”

When the apostle Paul envisioned the bodies that would be given to humanity at the end of time, he imagined that they would be androgynous, “not male and female.” The third-century non-canonical Gospel of Philip, meanwhile, lamented that s3x-ual difference had been created at all: “If the female had not separated from the male, she and the male would not die. That being’s separation became the source of death.”

From these perspectives, God’s original plan was s3x-ual unity in one body, not two. The Genesis creation stories can support the notion that s3x-ual intercourse is designed to reunite male and female into one body, but they can also suggest that God’s blessing was first placed on an undifferentiated body that didn’t have s3x at all.

Heteros3x-ual s3x was therefore an afterthought designed to give back the man what he had lost.

Despite common misperceptions, biblical writers could also imagine same-s3x intimacy as a source of blessing. For example, the seemingly intimate relationship between the Old Testament’s David and Jonathan, in which Jonathan loved David more than he loved women, may have been intended to justify David’s rise as king.

Jonathan, not David, was a king’s son. David was only a shepherd. Yet by becoming David’s “woman,” Jonathan voluntarily gave up his place for his beloved friend.

Thus, Jonathan “took great delight in David,” foiling King Saul’s attempts to arrange for David’s death (1 Samuel 19:1). Choosing David over his father, Jonathan makes a formal covenant with his friend, asking David to remain faithful to him and his descendants.

Sealing the covenant, David swears his devotion to Jonathan, “for he loved him as he loved his own life” (1 Samuel 20:17). When Jonathan is killed, King David composes a eulogy for him, praising his devotion: “greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Confident claims about the forms of s3x rejected by God are also called into question by early Christian interpretations of the story of Sodom. From the perspective of the New Testament, it was the near rape of angels – not s3x between men – that led to the demise of the city.

Linking a strange story in Genesis about “sons of God” who lust after “daughters of men” to the story of the angels who visit Abraham’s nephew Lot, New Testament writers concluded that the mingling of human and divine flesh is an intolerable sin.

As the New Testament letter Jude puts it:

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which, in the same manner as they, indulged in s3x-ual immorality and went after strange flesh, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire (Jude 6-7).

The first time angels dared to mix with humans, God flooded the earth, saving only Noah, his family, and the animals. In the case of Sodom, as soon as men attempted to engage in s3x-ual activity with angels, God obliterated the city with fire, delivering only Lot and his family. S3x with angels was regarded as the most dangerous and offensive s3x of all.

It’s true that same-s3x intimacy is condemned in a few biblical passages. But these passages, which I can count on one hand, are addressed to specific s3x acts and specific persons, not to all humanity forever, and they can be interpreted in any number of ways.

The book of Leviticus, for example, is directed at Israelite men, offering instructions regarding legitimate s3x-ual partners so long as they are living in Israel. Biblical patriarchs and kings violate nearly every one of these commandments.

Paul’s letters urge followers of Christ to remain celibate and blame all Gentiles in general for their poor s3x-ual standards. Jesus, meanwhile, says nothing at all about same-s3x pairing, and when he discusses marriage, he discourages it.

So why are we pretending that the Bible is dictating our s3x-ual morals? It isn’t.

Moreover, as Americans we should have learned by now that such a simplistic approach to the Bible will lead us astray.

Only a little more than a century ago, many of the very same passages now being invoked to argue that the scriptures label ho-mo-s3x-ual-ity a sin or that God cannot countenance gay marriage were used to justify not “biblical marriage” but slavery.

Yes, the apostle Paul selected same-s3x pairings as one among many possible examples of human sin, but he also assumed that slavery was acceptable and then did nothing to protect slaves from s3x-ual use by their masters, a common practice at the time. Letters attributed to him go so far as to command slaves to obey their masters and women to obey their husbands as if they were obeying Christ.

These passages served as fundamental proof texts to those who were arguing that slavery was God’s will and accusing abolitionists of failing to obey biblical mandates.

It is therefore disturbing to hear some Christian leaders today claim that they have no choice but to regard ho-mo-s3x-ual-ity as a sin. They do have a choice and should be held accountable for the ones they are making.

I will pray for you, brother.

I would say you were tortured inside because you personally feel homosexuality is wrong but not all homosexuals feel that way. They are capable of accepting the fact they are created this way, they are capable of loving their true selves. They should not be condemned for that. You cannot say with complete certainty that God created one man and one women for purpose of marriage. Where did Cain’s wife come from if God did not create her? God created more than just Adam and Eve and just because his other created children aren’t mentioned doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. The bible doesn’t answer every question and it doesn’t tell us everything that happened in the past. The story of Adam and Eve is not a scientific thesis, nor a manual on marriage. It is a brief explanation of PART of the creation story. Please remember that in some translation from Hebrew it’s not translated as Adam but as humanity until he is put to sleep.

According to traditional interpretations, men and women are given different natures, designed by God to complement each other, so that only when they bond together can they be whole. Many have concluded on the basis of this interpretation that diversity in sexual orientation is not part of God’s plan but a “disorder” objectively (at least) associated with sin. As the placards put it: God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. But this interpretation is not necessitated by the silence about same-sex or the celebration of other-sex marriages in Gen 2. In fact there are several reasons to question this interpretation: (1) The text does not specify why Adam is lonely. This loneliness is a problem whose solution is associated with sexual differentiation, but nothing in the text suggests it was caused by the absence of a differently gendered complement. Indeed, the Hebrew terms that specify male and female do not occur in the text until the Creator puts Adam to sleep. Only then does the text suggest that humankind was sexually differentiated. (2) The only creatures specified in the 62 text as unfit sexual partners are from different species. They are unsuitable because they are not human. Gender is not explicitly identified as a criterion for complementarities (3) The text does explicitly suggest that Eve is suitable for partnership not because she is sexually “other” than Adam (though obviously she is) but instead because she is human. Adam does not cry out “Vive la différence!” but exclaims, “Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” The story emphasizes the similarities between these two at least as much as, if not more than, their differences.

I do pray that my young daughters will not see her (J Knapp) as an example-no way- she is a confused and lost woman- I pray they look to Paul- who left his sinful life and gave his life for Christ~ and although he endured prison and many hardships and trials on earth he will enjoy a sweet reunion and everlasting communion with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in eternity.

If we say we love the Lord but can not deny our flesh- it makes me question the sincerity of that statement- to love the Lord fully we must deny “self.” I could go on and on and on and on… but this really makes me sad  Sad for her and sad for the generation of so called “Christian” that my children are growing up with as well…

Hi Giovanna,
I’m unsure where you get that I’m referring exclusively to bisexuality. I didn’t single it out and was speaking to homosexuality and any sexual relationship which steps outside the boundaries of God’s plan for marriage which is one man/one woman. I am not judging anyone because I know what this is all about having been there myself. The scripture is very clear on God’s design for a sexual relationship beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. I could debate the scriptures with you but this isn’t the forum for that. The devil is out to steal, to kill and to rob us from God’s plan for our lives. I bought into it for seven years all along knowing it was wrong. My life was just about destroyed because of it. God never left me alone. He continued to love me as he does all homosexuals… His desire is for us to be whole in every way and that doesn’t include a same sex relationship.

Blessings,
GKMN