Ep. 15 - What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?

Could the intricate stories of the Bible hold modern-day insights on one of society's most debated issues? Prepare for an eye-opening journey with Sam and me, Tim, as we tackle the Bible's perspective on homosexuality, a topic that intertwines with the very fabric of human relationships and spirituality. As your guides through this complex terrain, we're committed to shedding light on scripture without inciting controversy, ensuring our conversation deepens understanding and respect for these sacred texts.

Our latest dialogue traverses the historical landscapes of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Levitical laws, and the New Testament teachings, bringing into focus the nuanced interpretations of sexuality within the Bible. We grapple with whether biblical depictions of marriage exclusively endorse heterosexual unions and what that implies for the LGBTQ+ community. By dissecting passages that have sparked endless debates, we aim to clarify not just the words, but the intentions behind them, providing context and compassion along our exploratory path.

As we conclude this episode, we look toward the application of these insights within the faith communities we're a part of. Our next chapter promises to navigate the delicate task of open dialogue, encouraging inclusivity while remaining true to scriptural tenets. It's not just about understanding the Bible's stance; it's about how we carry these discussions forward in love and fellowship. So join us, and let's explore together the intersection of faith, identity, and scripture.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

All right, here we are back with the Psych and Theology podcast, sam and Tim here. This is episode two of our series, so this is part two, is homosexuality a sin or are we born that way?

Speaker 1: 0:22

Today, we're talking about what does the Bible have to say about homosexuality a sin, or are we born that way? Today, we're talking about what does the Bible have to say about homosexuality? Yeah, yeah, let's start our pod with this question, tim. All right, and if you've been listening to the podcast, again, we keep on hearing comments and receiving some great feedback and we love that. Please keep doing that. It's very encouraging for us to read your comments. I mean, literally after we finished the last episode, I got a notification. Read it out to Tim and, again, it's just really encouraging to just see, um, uh, those moments and what you guys are commenting. So thank you for that. Keep doing that. And adding reviews and also, uh, the ratings and the reviews. So be sure to write a review for us.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Write a review for us as well on our apple podcast yeah, and I know we say this a lot we're not going for shock value we're not, we're not going for engagement, farming, um, and things like that.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Now, you know, the time will come where maybe we grow our platforms to other things and we start producing kind of more high production type stuff, but what our heart is to educate people, and so we want to go long form podcasts where we are diving deep into subjects that will actually help people understand them. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, if you have people in mind say, hey, this episode would actually be really helpful for this person, I'm thinking of go ahead and share it with them. Just don't oversell us.

Speaker 2: 1:46

It's like ah, these guys are just owned to the libs, you know, on this episode, because that's not what we're going for.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Okay, just to preview some other ideas that we have, if you're okay with this, some other ideas that we have coming down the pipe. Yeah, for the podcast yeah like we are thinking about a series on uh manhood like alpha, like the alpha, the alpha beta male, yeah blowing up the alpha, beta, male myth and then we're going to be hopefully interviewing some guys that, uh, there's an episode we want to call it gentle dangerous men. It's about guys who are really mild mannered and kind but are actually quite killers quite quite dangerous military vets, you know.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Yeah, and then we'll talk about the pressures of just being a Christian man in a culture that says you gotta be. You gotta be a certain way. You know and and how to be a Christian man. That's not that way.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Yeah, so that's another series that's coming up. Maybe another one is we've been hinting at it a lot and that's like the demonic possession. How do we understand that, both from the Bible and psychology. So that will come eventually down the pipe.

Speaker 1: 3:02

But those are just some things'll we're going to be doing yeah, and to tim's point, we want to go deeper on these topics, so these mini series kind of help us develop that and we'll look forward to your response. You know, uh, this was one of the episodes both the gender one, the attending a gay wedding those were pretty um popular by you guys and it's the one that created some some engagement. So we feel like that's something that's either on your minds or it's a topic of conversation just because it is so culturally relevant. But today we're going to now answer the next question of this three-part series of what does the Bible say about homosexuality. So I will give the floor over to my good friend here, tim, so he can discuss to us with us, what does the Bible actually say about homosexuality, because people use the Bible and they're justifying homosexuality but maybe they don't even know what the Bible says.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Yeah, this is where you get to interrogate me. Yeah, this whole episode. Yeah, test, my metal Test your metal Test the knowledge.

Speaker 2: 4:03

Let's go there, okay, all right, so there's kind of two ways to answer that question what does the Bible say specifically about homosexuality? And then a more broader question is what does the Bible say about sex? Because that will help us answer the question of what does it say about homosexuality, yeah, okay. So I've said this before in some of the other episodes the gay wedding episode, I think, in the transgender episode the universal depiction of a proper sexual relationship in Scripture is a sexual union of a man and a wife. Okay, that is universal throughout the Scriptures of what is considered appropriate and proper. The proper place for sex is in a marriage union of a man and a woman. Anything outside of that activity is considered inappropriate, improper sin. It's considered a deviation from the created norm, how we were created to relate to one another as man and woman.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Normal behavior, kind of like we referenced in our previous episode.

Speaker 2: 5:11

So any sexual behavior outside of that could be fornication, it could be homosexuality. Transgenderism isn't necessarily a sexual activity, but you could put it in this category of manifesting as the opposite sex or presenting oneself as that Bestiality, incest, pederasty or pedophilia, anything like that. Any sexual activity outside of the heterosexual marriage union is contrary to the way god created human beings. That is the picture in the bible, throughout the old and new testament, both. So let's get into some passages of what that looks like. The first and foremost is genesis one and two, the creation narrative. God creates them, male and female. He. He creates them in his image. Their function is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Okay, now, right away people are going to say, well, that's a positive case for heterosexual marriage, but that's not a clear prohibition of homosexual activity. So this is why I say let's first answer the question of what the Bible says about sex, but then we can also get into what does the Bible say specifically about homosexuality. So that first question yeah, the depiction of sex is marriage, union, heterosexual. Okay, what are some passages, though, that really indicate the idea that homosexual behavior is looked upon as sin in Scripture? Now, again, we've said this before these episodes are not for immature audiences. This is for a mature audience. So we're going to get into some cultural, historical things here. It's also we're not saying we're not trying to put down people who are experiencing same-sex attraction or even who maybe they're gay and they're listening to these episodes. We're not trying to put you down and say that you're somehow inferior to a heterosexual person. The question is what does the Bible say about this subject?

Speaker 2: 7:22

So I'm going to lay out what that is. I'm going to make arguments for that.

Speaker 1: 7:26

And then let me add something there real quick, Tim. Like for those of you who are listening, one of the common things that people will do is they'll make an argument about the Bible without actually reading the Bible. So someone told them something oh it says this here and you'll make it. So I think what Tim is going to do here is going to actually go to those passages and show you exactly why it is, or is not a good argument for your case. So take it away, Tim, Sorry.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Now I may not, just for sake of time I may not read the passage, but I will talk through that passage.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Probably one of the more popular ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:02

So what are the main passages that people typically associate with this topic of homosexuality? The most famous one, or infamous one, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities in ancient Mesopotamia. You can find this story in Genesis 18 and 19. As the story goes, these two cities, and some surrounding cities as well, were engaging in the scripture calls detestable acts. They were, or grievous sin is what the actual story says they were engaging in. And so God comes down to Abraham, genesis 18. This is the same story where he prophesies that Sarah is going to have a son. So, three guys. Abraham sees three guys walking coming up to his tent, and it turns out that one of those guys is Yahweh in body, in body form. Okay, so it's the Lord in in embodied form, which that's a whole nother mind bender that we could talk about. And then the two other, the two other guys, two other men, are angels, and so they sit down.

Speaker 2: 9:09

They have they have a meal with abraham, which is like another thing. Like you know, god and the angels have a meal with abraham, um, and then, as they're walking along, they say, hey, abram, you're going to be the father of many nations, all that stuff. And then then they're, they're about to leave. They're like we're on our way to sodom and gomorrah, and abraham walking with them, kind of like seeing them along the way. And that's when God reveals to him what he's going to do. He's like I'm going to destroy these cities. And Abraham's like, oh, please, don't destroy If there's even 50 righteous men, if there's even 40 righteous men if there's even 30 righteous men, would you destroy the city?

Speaker 2: 9:40

He goes all the way down to 10. And the Lord's like, okay, yeah, if there's 10 righteous people I will spare the cities. Spoiler alert, there weren't 10. There's only Lot and his wife and daughters. So God actually tarries with Abraham and he sends the two angels on their way. And the angels arrive at the city. Lot sees them coming. Lot immediately recognizes who they are, which is another like how did Lot know that they were angels? He knows that there's something different about them. There's whole kinds of theories about that.

Speaker 2: 10:16

We don't have to get into the rabbit trail. But that's where I nerd out on stuff like that, that people in the ancient world might have known what angels look like in body form. But anyway, I won't go there. So anyway. So he's like hey, you know the two guys. Like they were going to stay in the town square because there was no place for them to stay. And Lot's like no, no, no, you can't stay here, you got to come stay with me. So he brings them into his house. Then the men of the city of Sodom start pounding. They come to Lot's house and they start pounding on the door and say hey, there's two men in there that you brought with us. Send them out here so that we can quote know them. Which is the connotation there is that it's sexual.

Speaker 2: 11:02

To know in this context is to have sexual knowledge or intimate knowledge of that person. What was going on there is that they basically were like send these two men out because we basically want to rape them. We're going to basically have our way with these two men. This was something that seems to be going on with Sodom is that when visitors would come to the cities, these cities, hospitality was a really important thing in ancient mesopotamia. Like you show hospitality to your visitors, think like abraham showing hospitality to yahweh, and these two angels that show up when they he didn't know at first. They were just strangers at first. You know um. Contrast that with sodom that would try to like sexually assault um and sexually dominate um visitors. So that's what they're trying to do and lots like you don't want to do this guys, you trust me, you don't want to do this, um, and he actually offers up his own daughters.

Speaker 2: 12:00

He's like I'll, I'll give you them, and and the just the level of depravity that you see in the city is that they're like no, we don't want them, we want these two guys, um, and he's like don't do this. You know, and they're about to. They're about to um bulldoze run over a lot to get to these two guys and the one of the angels reaches outside the door, grabs a lot, pulls him back in the house and then smites the crowd with a blindness and then the angels take Lot and his family out of the city and then the cities are destroyed. Okay, so it's a long story, but that's the famous story of two cities engaging in, and so that's where we get the word. Sodomize, or sodomites means people who would engage in um sexual penetration, sexual penetration of like a homosexual way, like anal sexual penetration, basically, um, so that's where we get that um, that term. Uh, so that's the famous story of like.

Speaker 2: 12:59

These cities were judged because of their grievous or detestable acts. So that's one example. You walk down through history lane, so Sodom and Gomorrah are judged. Homosexuality is also condemned in the Levitical law. This is Leviticus 18.22 and then Leviticus 20.13. These are the famous verses that talk about homosexuality being an abomination to the Lord, that those who engage in such acts are an abomination, they need to be put out of Israel. But they're not the only sins that are listed in this line of sins, this line of abominations, and that's very important to remember later on. But essentially these two passages. It's very explicit that homosexual behavior is considered an abomination and is not to be tolerated among the people of Israel when they're in the land of Canaan.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Okay, going on down the line, you have a very similar story. A lot of people don't make this connection, but there's a story in Judges 19 where a Levite priest. He goes to the town of Gibeah, which is in the tribe of Benjamin, and it's a parallel to Sodom and Gomorrah. There's nowhere for him to stay. Much like the two angels, he's with his concubine, and so they start to sleep in the the town square, uh, and then someone I forget who, but there's a guy that says, no, come and stay with me, it's not safe for you here. And then they go and stay. And then the men of gibeah come to that guy's house and they say like give us the levi priest, we want to have our way with him. You see the parallels with sodom and gomorrah. And the le host, the homeowner, says don't do this detestable act here, take my wife or my daughter. And then the Levite priest said take my concubine. There's a whole thing about how women were viewed and treated during this time period.

Speaker 2: 15:03

It's really bad. But so, essentially, they give over this concubine to these men who, who you know, have their way with their eventually basically killer, you know, abuse her to death and she dies the next morning. And that story is meant to show the depraved, the level of depravity that Israel had steeped to in the time of the judges, but they had steeped to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah. There's a direct parallel. So Judges 19 is another story.

Speaker 1: 15:31

I don't even remember that one.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Yeah, it's often not known. So, okay, I need to speed up a little bit. We'll get into this a little later. But there's evidence of homosexual cult prostitution in ancient Israel during the divided monarchy as well, and a lot of people don't know that, but there are instances of that and it's condemned, like God basically condemns this stuff and the righteous kings are praised for getting rid of it.

Speaker 2: 16:02

But then you get to the New Testament and there's passages like Jesus teaching from Matthew 19 on the issue of it. But then you get to the New Testament and there's passages like Jesus teaching from Matthew 19 on the issue of divorce. Now he's answering a question about divorce, but he references the created order. He says, like you guys, moses granted you guys with the right to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And then he starts repeating the creation narrative of male and female. Sam albury has, uh, you know, made this argument that jesus doesn't have to address specifically the issue of homosexuality because he's he's assuming the created order is like he's just assuming that. Like, yeah, it's, this is the way it's supposed to be male, male and female. So that's another issue Some people will.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Matthew 19 is a passage that's used to talk about this, and then the really famous one in the New Testament is Romans 1.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Paul's teaching about people giving themselves over to things that are unnatural, and we all come back to each one of these. So, for the sake of time, I'm going to answer your question. Then we'll come back to them. So Romans 1 is the big one that Paul talks about the progression, or digression, maybe, of societies where they give up belief in God and then they engage in idol worship, and then there's a connection there with giving themselves up to sexual deviation and God giving them up to those passions as well. Some other New Testament passages would be 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul lists homosexuality as one of the many sins that is not consistent with the Christian life, and then a very similar passage is in 1 Timothy 1, 8 through 10, where Paul, among a list of sins, homosexuality is mentioned as something that lawless people do not, that Christians do. Okay, so those are the main passages that seem to be clear examples of homosexuality being named specifically as a sin. It's not something that God wants us to do.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Yeah, exactly yeah, and I'm glad that you gave all those examples, because one of the things that did not come up in one of those examples was the word itself, homosexuality, or maybe it is in romans one. Well, people will say it's not so much that it doesn't say the word, but that the word wasn't added until you know whatever year was that it was added in the yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:30

So they'll say the, the, yeah, we can get to this.

Speaker 1: 18:33

And then which doesn't make sense either, because you're still describing homosexual behavior so yeah the word, whether it's in or not, doesn't make.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah so, so let's get into that. Let's unpack each of these passages then, because, well, ask when you ask you maybe your next question, because I think that'll lead in.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, it's good segue, yeah it was exactly that was one of the arguments that people make is that you know, say what didn't say homosexuality in the you know the first versions of scripture. So is it is that is that true you know, and if so what does that mean?

Speaker 2: 19:02

yeah, so, uh, I like something that I got from robert gagman's book, the bible and homosexual practice. He said make you know when you're dealing with this subject. Um, it's a lot like real estate. Um, in real estate, there's three things that are important location, location, location. When, on subjects like this's three things that are important location, location, location, when, on subjects like this, the three things that are important are context, context. Context context will tell you a whole lot. Now, there's some, there's some passages I didn't reference but that help to tie in some of these other, some help to explain and add clarity. Okay, so maybe let's, let's, maybe let's go with the Sodom and Gomorrah passage first. Okay, so what the counter argument typically made there? And stop me if I'm getting ahead, if you will have this one.

Speaker 2: 19:49

The counter argument that's made with this passage is that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't homosexuality as we think of it today, as this loving, monogamous, caring, compassionate relationship between two consenting adults. Okay, that's how the people frame it, that's what we mean by homosexuality. So they would say in ancient times and we'll get into this with some of Paul's things Paul and the other biblical writers didn't have that kind of category in their mind. What they had in their mind was sexual exploitation, homosexual exploitation, domination and things like that. That was not loving and it was abusive and all kinds of things like that. So they would say well, of course the Bible doesn't address our modern understanding of homosexuality because they didn't have that category. They're just addressing an exploitative form of it. I would say that's wrong and we'll get into why that is. But let's look at the claim of Sodom and Gomorrah specifically, because with Sodom and Gomorrah they will typically say a pronun who's going to say that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality? So let me just pause for a minute.

Speaker 2: 21:06

When someone is trying to make a biblical argument for homosexuality, they typically cannot make a positive case for that lifestyle. They have to provide defeaters for our arguments, essentially saying these passages that I just listed don't refer to the common understanding of homosexuality. They refer to something else. So they have to knock down those arguments and then they will make some sort of indirect theological or moral case for homosexuality. They'll say that it's akin to a heterosexual marriage, it's a way that people can express love, the Christian love and charity and all that kind of agape love that we're supposed to model. So they first have to knock down the explicit prohibitions and say those don't refer to the kind of love that we're talking about, and then they'll make an indirect theological or moral argument.

Speaker 2: 22:04

So that's you gotta. If people get into this and you and you encounter someone who's making an argument like a biblical argument for homosexual marriage, that's what's happening. Yeah, okay, okay, so I I maybe, maybe digress there. But Okay, so I maybe digressed there. So they'll say that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't homosexuality as we think of it today.

Speaker 1: 22:31

It was either one of two things a lack of hospitality and or sexual violence.

Speaker 2: 22:34

Okay, and so they'll use some passages in their favor that talk about this. Ezekiel 16, 49 through 50 is another, is one of these. Let me just read this for you, because the prophet Ezekiel is writing this down and God is speaking and he says he's talking to Israel or Jerusalem. And he says now, this was the sin of your sister. So he's talking to Jerusalem. Now, this was the sin of your sister, sodom. She and her daughters, that would be the other cities with her. She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned, that is, unconcerned with the poor. They did not help the poor and needy, they were haughty and did detestable things.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Before me, therefore, and then there's one more passage in Isaiah 1, 7-17, which essentially has the same language, that is describing the judgment of Sodom, as they were arrogant, they wereadent, they had, they had abundance, they didn't care for people that were poor and needy and they were just haughty. Okay, and and they'll sort of, uh, try to, they'll explain that when the ezekiel passage has this term detestable, they did detestable things. And so, uh, someone who's making a pro let's we'll just say a pro-gay argument, if they're making that kind of argument, they'll say well, detestable there refers to these lack of hospitality. Okay, that's what they'll say. There's a problem with that, though? Okay, so this argument of like, the sin of Sodom was just lack of hospitality. It requires us to take this either-or position. Their sin is either lack of hospitality or it's homosexuality, and these passages say it was a lack of hospitality.

Speaker 2: 24:35

But, the text doesn't demand that we do that, the Ezekiel passage doesn't demand that we take that position. Okay, the context of the story of Salem, especially how we see homosexuality treated later in the Pentateuch that's the first five books of the Bible in the Levitical law, let's say this suggests that both homosexual practice and inhospitality, both of these things are in view. In fact, that word detestable, when it says they did detestable things in the Ezekiel passage, that is the same word that's translated as abomination in the Levitical text. Okay, so this suggests that there's a stage of progression here. And I get this from Robert Gagnon's book, which is an excellent resource. He's a really good scholar on this subject and he says that the Ezekiel passage indicates like a four-stage progression of Sodom's sin. One like material abundance, and then two, arrogance and rejection of God and created order. And then three, a callous disregard for the poor and the needy or the vulnerable, let's say. And then four is sexual abomination. So that's like the culmination of their sin. And this is really interesting if you consider Paul's argument in Romans 1 of how societies go from rejection of God to sexual deviancy. So we would say, well, it's not an either or it's both and, and that's perfectly consistent with how we would read Ezekiel and Isaiah. Now here's another. Here's a meta argument. Okay, this is wild. And that's perfectly consistent with how we would read Ezekiel and Isaiah. Now here's a meta argument. Okay, this is wild. Okay, a lot of people won't pick up on this, but when Ezekiel and Isaiah, they're pronouncing judgment on Israel and they're saying your sister Sodom, she didn't take care of the poor and needy, she didn't do this, she didn't do that and God judged her. You know, you guys are bad.

Speaker 2: 26:47

There's a connection here that whenever God is, when God is judging Israel, the sins of Israel are likened to a wife who has gone whoring after someone else. So God said I married you, israel, you're my bride, but you have whored yourself out to other idols, you have prostituted yourself out to these other gods. Okay, there is always this allegorical message of your idolatry. Israel is like the most perverse sexual sin. So it's like, in an allegorical way, you are committing spiritual sexual perversion, israel. So when you think about that in terms of that's, that makes a lot more sense why god would be linking israel and jerusalem to sodom. Okay, because sodom was known for that. Um, so we should not just we should, should not think that inhospitality simply refers to like well, they didn't make them a cup of coffee when they got there.

Speaker 2: 27:47

You know the context of the story in Genesis, coupled with the connotations of Israel's judgment, coupled with the Levitical law. All of this points remember context, contextually, to there is something in view here that's so bad that Sodom and Gomorrah were engaged in that Israel considered an abomination. Now, I said before, like the Levitical law, we have to remember that if you take our view, which is the conservative, evangelical view of these books, they're all written by the same person. Moses is the primary author of Genesis through Deuteronomy. They're a cohesive unit. Now, they address different things, they do different things, but they're a cohesive unit of books.

Speaker 2: 28:39

Okay, think of it like JRR Tolkien writing the trilogy of Lord of the Rings or CS Lewis's Narnia saga. Okay, lewis is not going to put something in book three that contradicts book one. All right, leviticus is book three in the Pentateuch, genesis is book one. Leviticus links the sin of homosexuality to what the Canaanites were doing and he calls it an abomination people, namely Sodom and Gomorrah, and some other things too. There's the story of Ham and Noah, and that story about Ham uncovering Noah's nakedness is likely. Now, this is not a passage that we can say definitively, but it's likely that the euphemism there of Ham uncovered Noah's nakedness is that Ham actually committed a homosexual act against Noah while he was drunk. Actually committed a homosexual act against Noah while he was drunk, so these stories are included throughout the Pentateuch to show that there's grotesque sexual sin happening here.

Speaker 2: 29:48

That's a deviation from what God designed human beings to do it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's why Leviticus, the Canaanites were engaging in these things. Okay, let me tie this in together. So who were the Canaanites? The Canaanites were descendants of Canaan. Who is Canaan? He is the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Ham commits his sin against Noah. He uncovers Noah's nakedness. Ham commits his sin against Noah. He uncovers Noah's nakedness.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Now, there's a lot of background, historical stuff of why, to our minds, our modern minds, like, why on earth would Ham have done something like that? Like it seems so gross, like whoa, like why would, in that way? To gain, like the right for his lineage to have power and control? Okay, think of, like it's Noah and his three sons. Okay, so those three lines are going to repopulate the earth. Ham wants his line to be the dominant one, and so the, the, his act of doing it. Remember, he boasts about it to his brothers. Why would he boast about, like you know, the, the? The Sunday school version of this story is like Noah got drunk, laid down in the sun naked, and ham laughed at him you know, and then told his brothers that's not what's going on.

Speaker 2: 31:19

okay, so Ham boasts about something, but he's boasting so that he can have, like, basically rightful claim to be on the head dog now okay. Remember this whole like sexual domination connotation. Noah's curse is on Ham's son, canaan. Now, remember this is all a cohesive unit. Moses is including this story in Genesis. So the Israelites are going into the land of Canaan, and the Canaanites are known for doing these kinds of practices too. And Israel was not to engage in the same practices because it was an abomination to the Lord. Does that all make sense?

Speaker 1: 31:59

Yeah, I mean you're tying it all together, yeah hopefully that's good, fascinating, you know.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Hopefully I've blown some people's minds there yeah, well, with son of gomorrah.

Speaker 1: 32:07

I know you mentioned about their um lack of hospitality was there was there? Was that explained in the story of son of gomorrah, or only through that ezekiel and isaiah passage?

Speaker 2: 32:18

through the Ezekiel and Isaiah passage. However, let me go back. I'm glad you answered that because it's a passage I didn't mention earlier. So you know the sexual sin is clarified in the New Testament, the sexual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Actually, if you look at the book of Jude Jude, verses five through eight, jude links the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah to the sins of. He links it to a few things and this is really fascinating.

Speaker 2: 32:44

There's a lot of references to Sodom and Gomorrah, yeah, and we don't have time to go into the really interesting, weird topic that I love to talk about and that's Genesis 6, which is all the Nephilim stuff. Anyway, put on your tinfoil hat for that one. I don't know if that's kind of out of scope for our podcast. But Jude and Jude, verses five through eight. He's addressing false teachers, okay, the problem with the false teachers in the New Testament community. He is describing the sexual behavior or the sexual deviancy, let's say, of these false teachers, the sexual immorality.

Speaker 2: 33:19

Now we talked about false teachers in one of our previous episodes. One of the key characteristics of false teachers is sexual immorality. So that's what Jude is talking about here. He brings up Sodom and Gomorrah and he brings up Genesis 6 as well. So why does he do all this in the context of false teachers? He brings up Sodom and Gomorrah, the Genesis 6 story and then Israelites perishing in the wilderness, which doesn't really have a sexual connotation. It's more of like just sheer disobedience and haughtiness, like rejecting God's authority. But the two things that he does link to. He links them to the sins of the sons of God in Genesis 6, which my view is that these were angelic beings, and this makes a lot more sense if we unpack that.

Speaker 2: 34:03

But basically they're called watchers in the Old Testament. But so Jude says that their sin was that they left their proper dwelling. This is the language of Jude, that these guys in Genesis 6, he calls them angels. He says the angels who left their proper dwelling and are now put in chains of gloomy darkness. So the guys in Genesis 6 who were angels, they saw human women and they did their thing, those guys are locked up. They are in the abyss. For those who love eschatology and what the abyss is in Revelation, well, there you go. That's what it is, um in the case of. So he talks about that, like these guys, these angels are locked up in chains of gloomy darkness. Then he says in the same way, or in in the same way, sodom and gomorrah, in the same way of what? In the same way that these angels did what they did, they left their proper dwelling and did these horrible, detestable things and now they're in prison.

Speaker 2: 35:03

Basically, he says in the same way, sodom and Gomorrah gave themselves up to sexual perversion. That's interesting. He says in the same way, they did that and now they serve as an example of those awaiting eternal fire. And now they serve as an example of those awaiting eternal fire.

Speaker 2: 35:20

So the angels in Genesis 6 did their sexual perversion and they're in prison. Sodom and Gomorrah did their sexual perversion and they were judged, and now they're examples of those awaiting eternal fire. Okay, so it wasn't just hospitality Jude confirms this. It was sexual sin as well. Leaving the proper dwelling, as Paul would say, forsaking the natural use this is romans one forsaking the natural use of the man or natural use of the woman yeah so then, jude goes on to link the behavior of false teachers with these two incidences and he says, in the same way, these to teach.

Speaker 2: 35:54

These teachers defile or pollute their own bodies.

Speaker 1: 35:59

Wow, that's really interesting.

Speaker 2: 36:00

Yeah, so you'd have to, you have to, you have to de-link all of those things to make the case that Sodom and Gomorrah was just about homosexual or just about inhospitality and not about homosexual practice.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Yeah, and to add to that, tim, I think you know obviously there's a lot of focus there with that one from the Old Testament but the New Testament one. I've also heard arguments for Romans 1 where they say that it's not actually addressing homosexuality but rather the abuse of young boys, so pedophilia in a sense.

Speaker 2: 36:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:35

Is this true? What is that passage actually addressing for those who are, who may have used romans one as a possible argument, uh, you know, against heterosexual or poor homosexuality?

Speaker 2: 36:48

yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:48

So the argument goes that, well, paul paul is not addressing, um, again, that loving, caring, pat, compassionate homosexual relationship. He is addressing sexual exploitation, or what we might call like exploitative, uh, pederasty older men having sex with young young boys young men, okay, teenagers, and things like that. That was a common practice in the greco-roman world, and so the argument is that, well, that's what pa's addressing here, is that kind of exploitative thing. Okay, so let's get into that a little bit. The argument goes that this kind of exploitative pederasty we'll call it was the dominant form in the ancient world, and so that's what Paul and the biblical authors would have been thinking about, and so they wouldn't have been thinking about this other, more modern understanding, and so they wouldn't have been thinking about this other, more modern understanding, so they couldn't have possibly have prohibited homosexual, gay marriage and all the things that we think about today. Therefore, the Bible doesn't prohibit what we think of as gay marriage or homosexual relationships. Here's the problem, though it is true that, again, these arguments, there's always an element of truth in them.

Speaker 2: 38:13

It is true that that kind of pederasty was the prominent form of same-sex relations in the Greco-Roman world, specifically between older males and younger males. But it was not the only form and, more specifically, it was not the only form that was spoken of positively in the greco-roman world. So the argument goes that, like, paul is only addressing a. So the greco, the greeks especially, really thought highly. They considered pederasty a form of mentoring. So aristotle talks about this.

Speaker 2: 38:38

Remember that guy we talked about with soulmates, aristophanes? He actually talks about this too. There's they. They lauded the, they lauded this idea of, like, a younger male being mentored by an older male and part of that being sexual mentoring. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so, and there was this strong bond of affection that would almost exceed the love of a woman a lot of times. And so they would, they would, they would talk about this very highly, um, and so the argument. So the argument goes, paul's only addressing that. Well, the problem is there were all, almost any. Every other kind of same-sex union you can find references of it being spoken of highly, including lesbian couples and things like that. So all of these things were in place long before Paul gets on the scene. Paul would have known about all of them.

Speaker 2: 39:31

He would have known how all of them were viewed in the culture. So it really is not a good argument to say that Paul would not. Paul's not addressing the same-sex union, all forms of homosexuality, because he didn't know about them. That's not true. Um, so anyway, that that's my response to that. Is that, yeah, and let me just let me just um robert again. Robert gagnan has some really good material on this. If you get his book he can.

Speaker 2: 40:00

He goes in a deep deep detail on this uh, even pulling up the the sources, I talk about that. So Paul's references in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 that reference homosexuality is not consistent with the Christian life. Again, this is a similar argument. Some people are going to say, no, paul's only talking about domination here. He's not talking about loving same-sex unions. The problem is that Paul is using the same words here, when it referenced homosexuality, that the Septuagint uses in Leviticus. Now, those who don't know what the Septuagint is, that's the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This is what would be in common use during the first century in Jesus and Paul's time and the disciples. So that word again, I should have written it down in my notes here. I didn't have it in my other notes. But the words that Paul uses to talk about homosexuality, it's the same word, greek word, in the Septuagint, in the Levitical passages that we talked about.

Speaker 1: 41:07

Yeah, that's interesting yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:08

So Paul is already linking it that way. So if he's just talking about sexual exploitation, there was a word he could have used for that and he didn't use that.

Speaker 1: 41:17

That's good.

Speaker 2: 41:17

Yeah. So Paul is always linking this lawlessness. Again, leviticus says these things are not, these things should not be. These are abominations and israel, you're the people of god, you shouldn't do them. Paul is saying christians, such were some of you like, some of you were this way, but now you're not. This is not consistent with the way people of the kingdom act you see the parallel yeah, paul's making that parallel.

Speaker 2: 41:47

Yeah, so again, like when you look at the broader context, the new testament is just as clear as the old testament when it comes to this issue.

Speaker 1: 41:56

Yeah, yeah, and you made. You made a really good point about how those who are pro, pro-gay make the arguments or have to break down the passages and break down those arguments. But I'm curious would they actually have any biblical arguments to make for a loving, caring homosexual relationship? Is there anything in scripture that points to? You know what it is acceptable here, and I think you said it in one of our previous episodes we said nowhere in the bible do we find any type of homosexual union that is either spoken of or or supported.

Speaker 2: 42:37

They'll try so the common example is david and jonathan.

Speaker 2: 42:40

Yeah, they'll, uh, they'll point to the passage where it says david's love for jonathan was greater than that of the love of a woman. Okay, and they'll say, haha, that means homosexuality. Okay, now, think of this in the context of you have, you have a old testament. Scribes, um, writing these books, okay, israelites okay, and david is their hero, do, hero. Do you think that? Let's just go with this for a minute and say, maybe David and Jonathan were gay? Okay, do you think that Israelite scribes would include that in the stories of their greatest king? Especially?

Speaker 2: 43:24

People need to understand that the books of Samuel and 1 Kings and the Kings and the Chronicles these are stories about Israel's rise and demise. So these scribes, the later scribes, who kind of polished and finished off these books, they would already be familiar with the law, what the law says about these things, about sexual sins. Why would they include something like that about David? Why? So could it possibly actually mean something else Like the love they had for one another? Could it possibly mean something else other than homosexuality? Okay, so it's just extremely unlikely that that is definitely what they mean there.

Speaker 2: 44:07

There's another, actually I think a stronger argument against this, and that's if you read that passage, um. If you read the full passage, the story of um, where that little bitty verse is found, you'll notice that the word love comes up many, many times and there's at least four meanings of the word in the passage. So the argument that we would make is that you'd have to show that the specific love in reference here is not that kind of friendship, phileo love that we reference in the New Testament, that it refers to a homosexual love, a category that didn't exist in the Old Testament language or in the Hebrew, like there's no reference to some sort of positive homosexual love in the Bible in the Old Testament. Okay, so what else could it mean besides like a? It's talking about the great devotion that each of them had for one another.

Speaker 2: 45:07

Yeah, so it's just a them had for one another, yeah, so it's just a really bad argument.

Speaker 1: 45:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, outside of that they're going to make.

Speaker 2: 45:14

they're going to make these theological arguments, like I said, very broad. God wants us to love, god wants us to show agape love. What better way to show agape love than to be, than to express that, you know? Or god made all people in his image, including gay people, yeah, so they'll make kind of these kind of theological arguments. They can't make direct textual arguments yeah, no, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Yeah, so there is no support for homosexuality anywhere in scripture that is my position.

Speaker 2: 45:44

Yeah, let me just add a few more things, as we can tie, tie up and make some theological points. Okay, unless you have another question, let me. Uh, no, no, I was, it was yeah, yeah, let me. I'll make a couple points. And this gets to the romans, one passage which we didn't really unpack, um uh, because I think everyone's familiar with it, so you can read it and be like oh, wow, that's what what Paul Homosexual practice is a.

Speaker 2: 46:10

The scriptures link this to a form of idolatry, and this is Paul's argument in Romans 1, that when people, when they exchange the truth that they should know, that they look out into the creation they should be able to. It's self-evident, it should be that there's a God who made all of this and he's greater than all the created things. So we shouldn't worship these created things, we should worship him. But they exchange that truth for the lie and they worship the creatures rather than the creators. They begin to make idols for themselves and they worship creeping things and all that stuff. When they do that, then a further lie comes in and that is this lie of sexual perversion. When they pervert that natural knowledge of God, it leads to a further perversion of their natural use of their bodies. This is Paul's point here. So the Bible actually links homosexuality to forms of idolatry in many sense. So in some of the background, homosexual practice in the Old Testament and in the New Testament is linked to the cult of Ishtar, the cult of Asherah and even the cult of Sibyl in the New Testament. Now Asherah and Ishtar show up.

Speaker 2: 47:29

In the Old Testament Now I referenced before about these homosexual cult prostitutes that were in the divided monarchy. You know, asa King, asa King, josiah, are praised for putting out or shutting down, destroying the Asherah pole and destroying these other things, and they're praised for getting rid of something called Kedassim, or Kedass is the singular word, kedassah is the female noun for that, but Kedassim is the plural Q-E-S-E-D-I-M. That word refers to homosexual cult prostitutes. So that was going on in Israel and during the divided monarchy, and so again it's another form of judgment. So homosexuality is linked to idolatry in many different ways in the Bible.

Speaker 2: 48:27

Here's some positive things, okay, some encouraging things for people to think about, and I think episode three we should probably get into this too is sexual orientation. The Bible never links our identity with sexual orientation. Our identity is as an image bearer. It's not in my heterosexuality, right, okay? Or even my ability to have sex or to express myself sexually. Jesus talks about some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom, so that's a point we can get into. The third one is how do we, how do we talk about this with people in the church? So we need to talk about identity being different than sexual orientation, because that's the thing that we'll run into. A lot of people say, well, I being different than sexual orientation because that's the thing that we'll run into.

Speaker 2: 49:09

A lot of people say well, I'm, I'm a gay Christian.

Speaker 1: 49:11

And we say no, you're not.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Yeah, and then and then just some other things, and again, I think this will segue into episode three, and that's dealing with the temptation toward same sex attraction and saying no to that and how do we resist that? The Bible gives us some some good, helpful, helpful advice on that. But if we're just talking about what the bible says about homosexuality I hope I've laid out it sounds like a pretty stark picture. But that's the point, is that it's a very serious thing. Um, some people will say, well, homosexuality is just one thing among many sins, and that's true in a sense. Um, just like you know, murder and other things. But we wouldn't say, well, like telling a white lie, telling fibbing, okay, is a form of sin, it's dishonesty, but is that the same severity as like murder?

Speaker 1: 50:00

right, see my point, yeah so all things are sin.

Speaker 2: 50:02

All these things are sin. Homosexuality is one of them, drunkenness is another one, adultery is another one, um, covetousness is another one. They're all sins, okay. They all alienate us from god. So that in that sense it's true. But the bible doesn't treat all sins equally, in the sense of their, their consequences, both in the natural world, let's say, there are severe natural consequences for some sense, like some sense it brings more severe natural consequences than others yeah and uh, if you're talking about a hierarchy there, things like homosexuality are pretty severe in the lens of scripture in terms of the natural consequences that follow from that.

Speaker 2: 50:45

yeah, so it's a's a stark picture, but that is the picture that the scriptures want us to see is that it's a really serious sexual sin, and it's not to say that the other sexual sins can't lead to that, but it's a serious one.

Speaker 1: 51:00

Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. Lead it out well. I hope you all took notes. That was really good, very in-depth understanding for each of these passages. I wonder, if there's. Are there other popular passages that we may have missed, other than the Romans, romans Psalms and the Bible?

Speaker 2: 51:14

Yeah, we can revisit those later if somebody has one.

Speaker 1: 51:16

if I missed one, no we talked about a lot of them. So you talked about a lot of them. Yeah, that's good, all right. Any final thoughts? No Before. Any final thoughts before you get into part three next week part three how do we talk about this in the church? Stick around for that. We'll see you then.