GAY TRUTH

Homosexuality as “Against Nature” in Romans 1 Is Paul making a blanket pronouncement that homosexuality is sin against God in Romans 1:26–27 when he speaks of a behavior (“men with men” and “women with women”) that is “against nature”? The Revisionist Answer It is not possible to read here a reference to a crime against nature or a so-called “natural law” because such a concept is Greek and was unknown to Paul. The Biblical Answe r Natural law was known to Philo and Josephus, contemporaries with the apostle Paul , and it is reflected in literature contemporary with, or antecedent to, Paul. For Jews , it represented creation and God’s law brought into harmony The Revisionist Claim In Romans 1, Paul condemns men and women who leave their natural state. He does not condemn those who are born homosexual, who have the homosexual condition, for that is their natural state. Ancient peoples did not know of the modern ideas of a mutual, permanent homosexual union and homosex...

Painting by Rembrandt of Paul, one of the most notable of early Christian missionaries, who called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles." Paul, a Hellenistic Jew, was very influential on the shift of Christianity to Gentile dominated movement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Romans 1:26–27. Perhaps no New Testament text has suffered more assaults than has Romans 1. Central to the revisionist approach to Romans 1 is the focus on new ways of understanding the meaning of nature (physis) in verses 26–27. The verses read (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. The words for “natural relations” represent more literally “natural use” (physikēn chrēsin). Unnatural relations, the...

Paul the Apostle, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) ROMANS 1:26-27 "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another" (vv. 26-27a). The righteousness that can avail for us before the Lord must come through faith alone, because of the depravity of Jew and Gentile alike (Rom. 1:16-3:20). In due time, the Apostle Paul will tell us that human beings are depraved because they are in Adam (5:12-21), but at this point in his epistle to the Roman church, he is content simply to state the truth of the human condition, particularly the condition of those without access to God's special revelation in Scripture. Human beings have denied the God who is and have knowingly suppressed His truth, leading o the worship of the creature rather t...

The effect of the repeated “handed over” is not to imply any increasing depth of depravity, implying a downward spiral of degradation, since what is described in vv 26–27 is no different from and no worse than the state depicted more briefly in v 24. But the repetition of the same phrase, “For this cause God handed them over,” increases the solemnity and seriousness of the charge being made, the awfulness of the state to which man has come by virtue of turning his back on God, literally, the God-forsaken character of his plight. The description which follows is a characteristic expression of Jewish antipathy toward the practice of homosexuality so prevalent in the Greco-Roman world . Paul’s attitude to homosexual practice is unambiguous. The third appearance of the word “changed” (cf. vv 23 and 25) seems to imply that the action described (“changing the natural use to that which is contrary to nature”) is of a piece with and direct result of the basic corruption of the glory and t...

Image via Wikipedia Author Elodie Ballantine Emig Romans 1:26,27 is perhaps the most difficult passage in the Bible for pro-gay, revisionist theologians.  Not only does it appear to condemn male homosexuality, but lesbianism as well. So too, revisionists cannot dismiss it as being part of the Old Testament Law, subsequently fulfilled in Christ. Nor can they write it off as part of a “vice list” which Paul may have borrowed and with which he may not have been in entire agreement.  Taken at face value, in Romans 1 we find Paul’s pronouncement that homosexuality is both shameful and unnatural. Before we examine the revisionist reactions to and interactions with the passage, however, we must turn to introductory matters. It is useful to know that Paul had not planted the church in Rome. Although he knew some of the Roman Christians (see chapter 16), he did not have the intimate relationship with them that he had with the recipients of his other letters.  Romans is the least...