Noimplant4me
Homosexuality is certainly a sin and an abomination.
There is deliverance and forgiveness found in Christ.
Romans 1:27
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Some will say that homosexuality falls under the category of sexual immorality, as mentioned in Acts 15:29. But commonly mistranslated for homosexuality is a section in Romans:
Romans 1:24-27, NIV
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
In these passages, it blatantly states that lust was the cause behind their sin. Not only is lust a sexual immorality, but so is sleeping around.
1 Corinthians 6:12-18, NIV
"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
This verse says to "flee sexual immorality", but it only mentions whoring yourself. Further, to prove that God condones ALL forms of love, including homosexual love:
1 John 4:7-12, NIV
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
These verses, properly interpreted and read, not misquote or drug out of context, show that God is behind all forms of love, and that lust and prostitutional fornication are the sexual sins mentioned. The verses from 1 John specifically refer to unconditional love. It states that any love that is unconditional is from God. Homosexuals can love their partners unconditionally, therefore, can have unions blessed by God.
Topic 6, Paul: The Ever-Hateful Christian?
Paul has been described as a man who looks down on women and also as the soul source of anti-homosexual sentiment in the New Testament. People constantly forget two things, however. The first is the fact that, before Christ laid the Holy Smackdown of Conversion on Saul of Tarsus, Saul/Paul was a hugely devout Jew. A Pharisee with the most a**l retentiveness to the law as was possible. At times, he allowed personal opinion on how the Church should be run to enter his Epistles. He has even specifically said such things. For example:
1 Corinthians 7:10,12, NIV
To the married I give this command
(not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
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To the rest I say this
(I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
He specifically states that his own opinion is being inserted. On to the second thing too many people forget about Paul and his Epistles: Many, if not most, of the things he wrote about were specific to the time, culture, and region he was writing to. To bring up the Romans quote again:
Romans 1:24-25, NIV
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Take note of what I have bolded there. It is a key verse, a key note that must be remembered to understand what Paul is talking of in the next part.
Romans 1:26-27, NIV
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Now. We have some key words in this part. Shameful, lusts, natural relations, indecent acts, perversion. These key words, when added to the verses above as well as a knowledge of Roman society, tell us something. We know that homosexuality is natural as it occurs in nature, yes? But even if it wasn't, what could Paul be talking about? What could he have knowledge of just by walking through the streets of Rome?
The Roman god Bacchus was a god of wine and pleasure. He, as well as other members of the pantheon, was celebrated with festivals that appropriately resembled or reenacted some aspect or story of the deity. When celebrating Minerva, goddess of crafts, they would weave a large blanket to drape over her statue. To celebrate Bacchus, god of wine and pleasure, they would get into a state of public drunkenness and have extremely large orgies that would last for days.
Such a public event is something Paul most likely had the "honor" of viewing when taking his trip through Rome. Remember that key verse that mentioned serving and worshiping things that weren't God? These festivals were definitely signs of worship to other gods. Still, people will say, "Well, Paul condemns homosexuals later in his Epistles, so it must've still been about gays."
Firstly, one must ask how Paul would've known about any homosexual acts the Romans did unless they were in public. Secondly, and most importantly, one must look to see if Paul actually condemns homosexuals. There are two verses that use the word homosexuals in the Modern English versions of the Bible, or at least many of the popular ones. Let's look at them in English, shall we?
1 Corinthians 6:9-10, NIV
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
The next verse isn't commonly translated as homosexual, so we will temporarily depart from our use of the NIV.
1 Timothy 1:10, NASB
and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,
Now. That's what they say in English. Homosexuals, homosexual offenders, effeminate, or sodomites. Let's look at them in Greek.
Homosexual, in Greek, is now: ομοφυλοφιλικός, or omophulophilikos as best as my translating abilities carry me. Now, we'll play spot the word.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Greek
ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἄδικοι θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν; μὴ πλανᾶσθε: οὔτε πόρνοι οὔτε εἰδωλολάτραι οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε
μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται οὔτε κλέπται οὔτε πλεονέκται, οὐ μέθυσοι, οὐ λοίδοροι, οὐχ ἅρπαγες βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν.
That section that I've bolded is where the words translated to homosexual and company are. Let's look at them closely.
μαλακοὶ, or malakoi, and ἀρσενοκοῖται, or arsenokoitai. Do those look like ομοφυλοφιλικός, or omophulophilikos? On to Timothy.
1 Timothy 1:10, Greek
πόρνοις, ἀρσενοκοίταις, ἀνδραποδισταῖς, ψεύσταις, ἐπιόρκοις, καὶ εἴ τι ἕτερον τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ ἀντίκειται,
See ομοφυλοφιλικός? Doubtful. ἀρσενοκοίταις is what shows up. It says arsenokoitais, which I'm told is the same as arsenokoitai. Still isn't omophulophilikos.
To continue with this, I will quote a man who has done much more research on the subject than I could at my age.
Reverend Mel White from www.soulforce.org
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.
A big question to ask is this: "If Paul didn't condemn homosexuals before these two verses... And Christ didn't condemn them... and the Old Testament didn't condemn them... But everything else Paul condemned was condemned by the Old Testament or Christ... Where'd he get it from?"
Paul does not condemn homosexuals. Bad translators do.
Another chunk I wrote on Paul's passage in Romans:
There are numerous clues to understanding that passage. First, "They knew the truth of the Creator, but exchanged it for a lie." (I'm paraphrasing from memory, btw.) In that bit, it says that they knew about God but decided to ignore Him. Second, "They worshiped other gods." There's mentions of animals and such, as I recall. So, they knew about God, ignored Him, and started to worship other gods. Idolatry. Third, "So, God gave them to shameful lusts." Now, there's actually two things in that. First, "God gave them [...]" This wording is reminiscent of God turning the heart of the Pharaoh, or even better, removing His Spirit from King Solomon. If we recall the story of Solomon, Solomon was loved and blessed by God. However, Solomon began worshiping other gods. The gods of his wives. God, angered and saddened, removed His Spirit and allowed Solomon to fall into a degenerative path. The second bit, tied in with the Solomon story, is the word lusts. Shameful lusts, at that. Now, Solomon had tons of wives. He gave into their religious ways to please them because of their beauty. Lust. Which we already know is a sin. If Paul's "they" is indeed the Romans, there is a distinct possibility that Paul is referring to orgies. Idolatrous orgies. (Which is something Solomon could've done with his wives, btw...) In the Roman religion, there were many different sexual festivals and feasts. One that I like to liken this verse grouping to is the feast of Bacchus. Bacchus, as some may know, is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Dionysus. He is the god of debauchery and hedonism and, more importantly, alcohol. Wine. Bacchus had a group of women that followed him around the world, the Maenids. Crazy crazy sexual women. Like, by crazy, I mean insane. Anyways, one of the ways the Romans celebrated Bacchus was by getting piss-a** drunk and having raunchy, orgiastic sex. With everything and everyone. In public. I'd personally think that a public drunken orgy is rather shameful, wouldn't you? And it's definitely unnatural.
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