GAY TRUTH

A Corinthian Changes April 18, a.d. 56 Gaius was troubled as he passed through the market gate into the city of Corinth. He could not help noticing the fertility symbols emblazoned on the gateposts and lintel. Such open sexuality had earned Corinth an infamous name. He was again facing intense desires. “No!” his thoughts shouted as he wrenched his gaze from the decoration, “God, deliver me.” John was coming through the crowded market. “Gaius, my brother,” John said in warm greeting. “Your public confession has encouraged me to live for Christ. I am on my way to pray with Stephanos. Do you wish to come?” “Yes, I really do,” Gaius responded with a silent prayer of thanks. How long would he struggle so? April 12 Gaius felt such relief! A weight of guilt was lifting from his shoulders. For the first time in his life he felt clean, forgiven—free. Brothers and sisters in Christ gathered around him. He had crowded into the small dwelling with forty or so worshipers that morning. Standing at t...

The only model of sexual expression contemplated in Scripture is that which finds its pattern in the Creation model of Genesis 1–2. This is the pattern taught by our Lord and the apostles (see, for example, Matt. 5:27–32; 19:3–12). It is to occur in heterosexual marriage. If in Romans 1 Paul opposes all forms of sexual expression between people of the same sex, then his judgments are, as Scroggs admits, “eternally valid.”97 Revisionist interpretations would do well to come under the meaning and authority of Scripture. So What? Several reasons seem persuasive that Paul does oppose homosexual lust and expression: 1. Paul writes as a Jewish Christian whose theology and ethics are formed by an Old Testament worldview, not Greek philosophy.98 Yet he speaks to Jewish and gentile readers with terms (the natural use and what is contrary to nature) that Greeks and Romans understood. 2. For Paul, what is “natural” (vv. 26–27) reflects the being or nature of the Creator (vv. 18–23) and His revea...

As we consider the significance of Romans 1 for contemporary ethics, one view is that Romans 1 identifies a temporary Jewish purity rule rather than a universal moral principle. When Countryman makes that suggestion, he errs in reading the literary context. In this context, the passage, with its “nature” terminology, can be interpreted only as an appeal to creation.  The words of verses 26–27 are on the level of universal moral principle. Unless the writer signals a change in meaning, context will not allow a limited purity rule to be sandwiched between universal moral standards in verses 24–28. The first and the third of three parallel passages clearly are universal and deal with sin, not impurity. Note Paul’s warning that “God abandoned them” in vv. 24, 26, and 28. God cannot consign the Gentiles to punishment for breaking a Jewish purity rule. The literary form of Romans 1:1–2 also demands identification of homosexuality as sin. When Paul says that “God abandoned them,” the the...

The Meaning of Arsenokoites Why should we believe that the apostle Paul , when he used the term arsenokoites, had in mind any kind of same-sex activity or practice? Is it not possible that he had in mind something very specific and did not refer to adult, mutual homosexual orientation? Is there any basis for insisting that the term does extend to homosexual activity and orientation? A fair consideration of the writings and background of the apostle Paul reveals that he was well versed in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint ( LXX ). It was his “Bible,” the text he used to share the truth of the gospel as he traveled about the world. While it seems sure that Paul could read the Hebrew as well, he was the apostle to the Gentiles, and the Septuagint was the source of his proclamation and the ground of his defense of the gospel as well. Indeed, at times, when the LXX differed in its wording from the Hebrew text , Paul would choose the LXX, knowing that his au...

Romans 1 :26–27 Perhaps no New Testament text has suffered more assaults than has Romans 1 . Central to the revisionist approach like Brad Chilcott- to Romans 1 is the focus on new ways of understanding the meaning of nature (physis) in verses 26–27. 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. The words for “natural relations” represent more literally “natural use” (physikēn chrēsin). Unnatural relations, then, are “against nature” (para physin). The word for “nature” occurs once as a noun (in v. 26) and twice as an adjective (in vv. 26 and 27). “Against Nature”—Views of Interpretation Perverts and Inverts Some interpreters limit the term natural to “what is natural for m...