Isn't the Apostle Paul talking ABOUT PEDERASTY AND NOT GAYS?
Objection Stated
Paul is only speaking of pederasty here, not of adult homosexual relationships, and hence the passage is misused when applied to homosexuality.
This is the viewpoint expressed by Robin Scroggs in his work The New Testament and Homosexuality.6 It is commonly repeated in liberal theological institutions.
Biblical Response
The exegesis of the passage has already addressed this common error. Paul speaks of “males with males committing indecent acts.” He does not say “men with boys” (and there are appropriate Greek words that Paul could have employed if he meant to communicate this idea), nor does the text give the slightest hint that this should be read into it as an assumption.
The desire expressed is mutual between both the lesbians of 1:26 and the homosexual males of 1:27; that is, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is written in reference to pederastic relation ships. Indeed, the mutual kind of desire seen in these verses utterly refutes the simplistic assertion that these words are to be limited to pederasty.
Scroggs and others claim the language is a stereotypical “Greco-Roman attack on pederasty” and that “it has nothing to do with any theories of natural law or with interpretation of the Genesis stories of creation.”7 But we have seen that rather than drawing from some stereotypical language here, Paul’s point flows naturally through the entire discourse. He most assuredly is drawing from Genesis and God’s creative decree, as he does so often in his writings.
6 Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1983), 109–18.
7 Ibid., 114–15.
White, J. R., & Niell, J. D. (2002). The Same Sex Controversy: Defending and Clarifying the Bible’s Message about Homosexuality (pp. 130–131). Bethany House Publishers.
