Interesting biblical commentary on Paul’s 3 statements about
homosexuality. I share it to help some of the Christians in our midst
understand why other Christians may genuinely interpret these passages
differently:
[quote]ROMANS 1:26-27
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
What does Romans 1:26-27 say about God?
For our discussion, this is the most controversial biblical passage of
them all. In Romans 1:26-27 the apostle Paul describes non-Jewish
women who exchange “natural use for unnatural” and non-Jewish men who
“leave the natural use of women, working shame with each other.”
This verse appears to be clear: Paul sees women having sex with women
and men having sex with men, and he condemns that practice. But let’s
go back 2,000 years and try to understand why.
Paul is writing this letter to Rome after his missionary tour of the
Mediterranean. On his journey Paul had seen great temples built to
honor Aphrodite, Diana, and other fertility gods and goddesses of sex
and passion instead of the one true God the apostle honors.
Apparently, these priests and priestesses engaged in some odd sexual
behaviors – including castrating themselves, carrying on drunken
sexual orgies, and even having sex with young temple prostitutes (male
and female) – all to honor the gods of sex and pleasure.
The Bible is clear that sexuality is a gift from God. Our Creator
celebrates our passion. But the Bible is also clear that when passion
gets control of our lives, we’re in deep trouble.
When we live for pleasure, when we forget that we are God’s children
and that God has great dreams for our lives, we may end up serving the
false gods of sex and passion, just as they did in Paul’s time. In our
obsession with pleasure, we may even walk away from the God who
created us – and in the process we may cause God to abandon all the
great dreams God has for our lives.
Did these priests and priestesses get into these behaviors because
they were lesbian or gay? I don’t think so. Did God abandon them
because they were practicing homosexuals? No. Read the text again.
In our Soulforce video, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy, the Rev.
Dr. Louis B. Smedes, a distinguished Christian author and ethicist,
describes exactly how the Bible says these promiscuous priests and
priestesses got into this mess. Once again it has nothing to do with
homosexuality:
SMEDES: “The people Paul had in mind refused to acknowledge and
worship God, and for this reason were abandoned by God. And being
abandoned by God, they sank into sexual depravity.”
SMEDES: “The homosexuals I know have not rejected God at all; they
love God and they thank God for his grace and his gifts. How, then,
could they have been abandoned to homosexuality as a punishment for
refusing to acknowledge God?”
SMEDES: “Nor have the homosexuals that I know given up heterosexual
passions for homosexual lusts. They have been homosexual from the
moment of their earliest sexual stirrings. They did not change from
one orientation to another; they just discovered that they were
homosexual. It would be unnatural for most homosexuals to have
heterosexual sex.”
SMEDES: “And the homosexual people I know do not lust after each other
any more than heterosexual people do… their love for one another is
likely to be just as spiritual and personal as any heterosexual love
can be.”
Thank you, Dr. Smedes. (To get a copy of the video featuring Dr.
Smedes, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy, visit www.soulforce.org.)
Getting to know a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person of
faith will help you realize that it is unreasonable (and unjust) to
compare our love for each other to the rituals of the priests and
priestesses who pranced around the statues of Aphrodite and Diana.
Once again, I feel certain this passage says a lot about God, but
nothing about homosexuality as we understand it.
You’ll also note that Romans 2 begins with “Therefore, [referring to
Romans 1], you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others;
for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself…” Even after
he describes the disturbing practices he has seen, Paul warns us that
judging others is God’s business, not ours.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10
THE MYSTERY OF “MALOKOIS” AND “ARSENOKOITAI”
Now what do the writings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy
1:10 say, first, about God, and then about homosexuality? These are
the last two places in the Bible that seem to refer to same-sex
behavior. We can combine them because they are so similar.
Paul is exasperated. The Christians in Ephesus and Corinth are
fighting among themselves. (Sound familiar?) In Corinth they’re even
suing one another in secular courts. Paul shouts across the distance,
“You are breaking God’s heart by the way you are treating one
another.”
Like any good writer, Paul anticipates their first question: “Well,
how are we supposed to treat one another?” Paul answers, “You know
very well how to treat one another from the Jewish law written on
tablets of stone.”
The Jewish law was created by God to help regulate human behavior. To
remind the churches in Corinth and Ephesus how God wants us to treat
one another, Paul recites examples from the Jewish law first. Don’t
kill one another. Don’t sleep with a person who is married to someone
else. Don’t lie or cheat or steal. The list goes on to include
admonitions against fornication, idolatry, whoremongering, perjury,
drunkenness, revelry, and extortion. He also includes “malokois” and
“arsenokoitai.”
Here’s where the confusion begins. What’s a malokois? What’s an
arsenokoitai? Actually, those two Greek words have confused scholars
to this very day. We’ll say more about them later, when we ask what
the texts say about sex. But first let’s see what the texts say about
God.
After quoting from the Jewish law, Paul reminds the Christians in
Corinth that they are under a new law: the law of Jesus, a law of love
that requires us to do more than just avoid murder, adultery, lying,
cheating, and stealing. Paul tells them what God wants is not strict
adherence to a list of laws, but a pure heart, a good conscience, and
a faith that isn’t phony.
That’s the lesson we all need to learn from these texts. God doesn’t
want us squabbling over who is “in” and who is “out.” God wants us to
love one another. It’s God’s task to judge us. It is NOT our task to
judge one another.
So what do these two texts say about homosexuality? Are gays and
lesbians on that list of sinners in the Jewish law that Paul quotes to
make an entirely different point?
Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois
probably meant “effeminate call boys.” The New Revised Standard
Version says “male prostitutes.”
As for arsenokoitai, Greek scholars don’t know exactly what it means
– and the fact that we don’t know is a big part of this tragic
debate. Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to the
customers of “the effeminate call boys.” We might call them “dirty old
men.” Others translate the word as “sodomites,” but never explain what
that means.
In 1958, for the first time in history, a person translating that
mysterious Greek word into English decided it meant homosexuals, even
though there is, in fact, no such word in Greek or Hebrew. But that
translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word
homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time.
In the past, people used Paul’s writings to support slavery,
segregation, and apartheid. People still use Paul’s writings to
oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in
society.
Now we have to ask ourselves, “Is it happening again?” Is a word in
Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society’s
prejudice and condemn God’s gay children?
We all need to look more closely at that mysterious Greek word
arsenokoitai in its original context. I find most convincing the
argument from history that Paul is condemning the married men who
hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they
hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose.
Responsible homosexuals would join Paul in condemning anyone who uses
children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the
threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed
priests and priestesses in Rome. So, once again, I am convinced that
this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as
we understand it today.[/quote]