Wisdom for Life: Proverbs
“The Gospel and Homosexuality”
Various Passages
November 24, 2013
New City Church of Los Angeles
I.
Introduction
[Slide 1]
We are in the middle of a teaching series called, Wisdom for Life: Proverbs.
Proverbs 1:22 says:
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“How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
Last Sunday, I preached on the topic of sex. I hope you had an interesting time
discussing it in your Grow and Serve Groups.
But when we talked about sex, there was an elephant in the room (there may be
more than one). The biggest one that we didn’t talk about last Sunday was this. What
about same-gender sexual relationships? There is a lot of discussion and confusion about
this topic in our culture and in our church.
I want us to get a greater measure of wisdom and understanding on this. I think
the above Proverbs is a good introduction to this issue because it is not simple—wisdom
in this issue is not simple, and wisdom in this issue is not about becoming a mocker and
delight in mockery. We can’t be fools on this and hate knowledge. We have to dig into
the complexity of this issue in order to find wisdom here.
[Slide 2] The title of the sermon today is, “The Gospel and Homosexuality.”
I must confess that this was probably the most difficult sermon I’ve ever prepared.
I cried many times as I prayed and struggled through what God is saying to us. I have
spent many many hours researching, reading, and talking to people. I have approached
this sermon with great fear and trembling and with a lot of prayers.
Would you pray with me?
I want to start out by saying a few preliminary things:
(1) I don’t have everything figured out yet. My perspective on this has changed
from when I was a young Christian to now. Frankly, I used to be homophobic. I
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couldn’t understand gay people. Actually, growing up, I didn’t know any gay people
very well. So, it was easy to judge them and condemn them for what I believed was a
perverse and gross behavior. But, things have changed. I became friends with gay
people. And more recently, they are among my brothers and sisters at New City. Some
of them have become dear to my heart. I have come to love them. I got to hear their
stories and their struggles. I begin to see them in 3D, with their back-stories and
struggles. Also, I don’t think I ever studied the biblical passages very closely until more
recently. I came to see that there are some real biblical interpretive issues especially
about committed monogamous same-gender relationships. I used to think that “the Bible
says it; I believe it; and that settles it.” But, as I will talk about later, it’s not that simple.
There are real interpretive issues that we have to deal with. I want to share what I believe
Bible says about this issue with you. Ultimately, I am not here to preach what I think. I
am here to preach what the Bible says. To the extent that I truly believe that is what the
Bible says, I will preach it regardless of what you will think of me.
(2) I want to ask you to hold on and hear me out for the whole sermon. There will
be parts in which you will disagree with me. That’s okay. You and I can disagree on this
issue and still be brothers and sisters. I have a feeling that most people will disagree with
me, whether you are gay or straight. Some of you might be surprised because what I
believe the Bible teaches is very nuanced. I invite you to send me emails with your
thoughts, stories, and perspectives. But, I want to ask you to be gentle.
(3) What I am about to share is what the Bible says about this issue in the context
of the church and our relationship with God. The Bible does not tell us to legislate a
moral agenda and transform society for the better by taking over the power of the sword,
taking over political power. I don’t see that at all. So, what I am about to say is not
about legalization of gay marriage or anything like that. Most of you know my
perspective on this. I think it is absolute disgrace that the primary thing that Christians
are known for in the world is our opposition to gay rights. What the Christians say in this
debate is down-right ugly and homophobic and hateful! If you are gay, I want you to
know that I am sorry for the way that the church has treated you. BTW, if you want to
know my personal opinion on these and other political issues, talk to me. I’ll tell you.
Some of you will be surprised.
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Let’s start out with our vision statement: “to be an inclusive gospel-centered
community of lovers of Jesus Christ who connect people to God, grow together, serve the
city, and extend God’s Kingdom.” At our heart, we are an inclusive gospel-centered
community, and at the heart of that is the gospel. We are a church driven and centered on
the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is at the heart of Christianity and that is at the heart of
everything. It is because of the gospel that we are compelled to be inclusive of everyone,
including gays and lesbians. Let me try to flesh out what that means.
The gospel means good news. Something about Jesus is good news to all of us;
that means it is good news to straight people and it’s good news to GLBT people. It’s
good news to everyone. So, I want to discuss this issue in the context of the gospel.
The gospel says Jesus came, and he died for us.
II.
[Slide 3] First, the gospel says that Jesus came down from heaven to earth.
John 1:14 says:
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The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth.
God became a human being. That’s what Christmas is about. We call this “incarnation.”
God becoming flesh and moving into our neighborhood. It is the good news that the
Kingdom of God has come. The good news that up there has come down here. Why?
He loves us. He came to be with us. To love us. Not only to die for us, but to
experience what we experience, to feel what we feel, to fully embrace our humanity
because he loves us. He became fully human and walked into our shoes. If you read
what Jesus taught, it’s all upside down, because God came down. It’s not about the
power-over people; it is about power-under, the power of self-sacrificial love and grace.
He taught us to love; he taught us to give; he taught us to serve; he taught us to question
our own righteousness; he taught us to love even our enemies. And the way Jesus
showed this to us was to hang out with what that society called outcasts: people who were
judged by the moral majority—those who were considered sinful, tax collectors,
prostitutes, lepers. Jesus embraced them all. In fact, he was called the friend of sinners, a
drunkard.
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What does this mean for us in the issue of homosexuality? Now, we’ll get to the
question of whether homosexuality behavior is sin or not later in the sermon, but for now,
let’s just assume that it is. It is really important you understand that this is an
assumption. I will discuss this issue. So, please don’t get turned off by this. What does
the incarnational gospel tell us?
It calls us to love one another.
[Slide 4] What does it mean practically love one another in the context of
gay-straight church relationship?
(1) It means we enter into each other’s lives. We incarnate into each other’s
lives and really get to know each other. It is a reality that so many people with samegender attraction feel that they can’t safely share their lives with people in the church.
They have been condemned, judged, and even kicked out of church just too many times.
That is so sad. There is homophobia everywhere. Homophobia is a form of fear. You
don’t know even them but you fear them. You think you are above them. You think they
are weird. It’s pretty crazy. As a follower of Jesus Christ, we are called to love gays,
lesbians, bisexuals, and trans-genders as Jesus loved and died for them. That means we
need to open ourselves up and get to know them. If you are gay, I know you have been
hurt, and there is so much discrimination against you. It is hard to live openly about who
you are. I invite you to live openly, as you are, and develop relationships with others.
There is no way to love anyone except through a relationship. There is no other
alternative to relationship. We have to share each other’s stories. In preparing this
sermon, I read a story of a guy named Justin Lee, a gay guy who started Gay Christian
Network. It moved me and helped me to understand. I have sat with many of you here
who are gay or lesbian, and heard your stories. It has helped me to see you in 3D, fully
who you are, with all the backstories. We have to get over the fear and live in the reality
of love and relationship.
[Slide 5] (2) To love also means to stop judging. One of the most common
saying from Christians that I hear about how to relate to a gay person is this: love the
sinner but hate the sin. I tried to find a passage in the Bible that says this. It isn’t there.
You know what the Bible says? It says to love the sinner, and hate your own sin; and
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after you take care of your own sin, you can deal with the sin of the other. Look at the
plank in your own eye before you pick on the speck in someone else’s eye.
The Bible says you and I are not qualified to judge. Remember the story of the
adulterous woman who was caught in the very act of adultery? Do you remember what
Jesus said to these people who wanted to stone her? “He who is without sin can cast the
first stone.” Jesus is constantly calling us to look at our own sins. We constantly want to
look at other people’s sins, and if we are straight, it is very easy to pick on homosexuality
because it’s not our struggle. We can’t do that. We can’t pick on other people’s sin. We
have to pick on your own.
It’s interesting that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. I don’t know
if we can glean too much from that fact because there are many other things he also
doesn’t specifically address, but I think we can say that this was not on his top ten sin list.
The biggest sin that Jesus dealt with was the sin of judgment, pride, arrogance, moral
superiority, self-righteousness. Read the Gospels! What percentage of the stories are
against these kinds of sins? A major percentage. That’s exactly the point of Jesus: those
who are picking on other people’s sins are the most self-righteous, bigoted, arrogant,
judgmental people. They were the ones who conspired to kill Jesus. Do you know who
loved Jesus? Those who were picked on by those people and were outcasts of the
society. I think if Jesus came now, he would be hanging out with gays, lesbians,
bisexuals and trans-genders, among others. He would definitely not be homophobic. I
think he would get in trouble with the evangelical leaders as to why he was hanging out
with sinners.
Do you remember the story of the Samaritan woman by the well in John 4? Jews
and Samaritans didn’t talk to each other. Jews looked down on Samaritans because they
were not full Jews. Yet, Jesus struck up a conversation with a Samaritan woman who
came to draw water. And Jesus offers her the living water, that is a relationship with
himself. Then, in the conversation, it comes out that she had been married five times and
the man she is living with is not her husband. Then, Jesus said, “let me stop now and tell
you about the sinfulness of living together.” No, that’s not what he does. He does not
condemn her or judge her. He embraces her, and she becomes a witness to the entire
neighborhood. Why are we in such a hurry to judge and condemn people for their
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lifestyles? Why are we in a hurry to declare the so-called truth? Can’t we be more in a
hurry to share this living water that God gives us?
So, that’s love. The incarnational upside-down kingdom good news. Do
everything possible to develop a relationship with people of different sexual identity.
III.
[Slide 6] Second, the gospel says that Jesus died for us.
This is the atonement gospel. The best way to summarize the atonement gospel is
this: we are more messed up than we know but God loves us more than we can ever
imagine. It is the reality that we are all sinners and that God loves us through Jesus
Christ. That means that we are all saved and loved and embraced by God through what
he has done for us on the cross, and not what we have done for ourselves. We are all
screwed up. But, God loves and accepts us. It is by grace (which means a free gift) that
we have a relationship with God. It is not by our works that we come to God and become
accepted by him. In other words, we don’t go to heaven based on what we do; we go to
heaven for putting our faith in what Jesus has done for us. That’s why the cross is at the
center of our faith. That’s why grace is at the center of our faith.
What does this mean in the context of the issue at hand?
It means that whether you go to heaven or not is not based on your sexuality. You
don’t go to hell for gay behavior just as you don’t go to heaven for straight behavior.
You don’t go to heaven based on any behavior. It is by accepting (which means by faith)
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we enter into a relationship with God. He has a
gift for us—a relationship with him—and we can’t earn that relationship; we can only
receive it; and once we receive it, we can’t lose it. It was never based on our own work;
it was based on his work.
Some of you are thinking, yes, but what if they continue to sin after they become
a Christian. Wouldn’t that send them to hell? It’s interesting that some of you only think
about that for homosexuals only. Let me ask you: After you become a Christian, if you
continue to lust, do you go to hell? Lust is sin, right? If you continue to judge, do you go
to hell? If you continue to be a racist (maybe you grew up in a culture of racism and
Christianity has not eradicated it yet from your heart), do you go to hell? If you continue
to be greedy, do you go to hell? If you continue to be bitter and angry, do you go to hell?
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Is that what the gospel is about? God saves you but if you continue to struggle in sin, you
are a goner!? Here is the point: we are all more messed up than we think we are. But,
God loves us more than we can ever imagine. Let’s take the gay issue out of heaven and
hell issue and put it in the context of the gospel.
But, nonetheless, there is still an issue as to whether God has revealed his will to
us concerning this matter. It’s not an issue of heaven or hell, but if we love God and if
we revere and worship God and acknowledge him as our Lord and Savior, we must
struggle and ask the question: what does God think about this? Lord, what is your will
concerning my lifestyle? So, I want to discuss some passages in the Bible that might give
us some light regarding this issue.
There are only 7 verses in the entire Bible that talk about this issue. There are 31,
273 verses in the Bible. Only 7 address this issue. Let’s go through them one by one to
see what they say.
[Slide 7] 1.
Story of Sodom
Genesis 19, God had decided to destroy Sodom and sent two angels of God are
guests in the house of Lot in the City of Sodom. A mob of men from every part of the
city of Sodom surrounded the house and yelled out to Lot: “Where are the men who came
to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” They try to
gang-rape the angels, but the angels take Lot’s family out of the city and destroy the city.
Of course, many people say, the sin of Sodom is homosexuality. I think this is a
problematic view. The Bible does not say that. The story talks about a gang-rape
situation. In fact, it is known throughout history that men raping other men was a form of
domination and intimidation. In fact, I hear that it even happens now in prison. It is not
about mutually loving monogamous relationship; it is about power-over, intimidation,
and violence. That’s what is so bad about what they want to do. Also, Ezekiel 16:49-50
tells us specifically what the sin of Sodom was:
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“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were
arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They
were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with
them as you have seen.
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It does not say anything about the committed same gender relationships. So, this passage
is not instructive.
[Slide 8] 2.
Holiness Code of Leviticus.
The second and third time homosexuality appears is in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.
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“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is
detestable. (some translations say abomination)
Verse 20:13 is pretty much identical.
You might say: well, “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” Well, actually no. If
you look at the context of this passage, it is about the clean laws. Look at some of the
other things that are not allowed: Don’t have sex with a woman while she is having her
period (verse 18:19). Don’t mate different kind of animals (19:19). Don’t plant your
field with two kinds of seeds (19:19). Don’t wear clothing woven of two kinds of
materials (19:19). Don’t cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of
your beard (19:27). Don’t get a tattoo (19:28). Later on, eating certain kinds of food that
are not kosher is called abomination.
These are the laws that we are freed from. The church initially was only Jews.
But later, the gospel reached the Gentiles and the issue came up as to whether Gentiles
had to obey the Laws of the OT. It was perfectly natural for Jews to obey them because
they lived by them and they were used to them. But, when Gentiles came into the church,
they were unclean. They didn’t follow the laws. The laws of circumcision, dietary laws,
and all kinds of laws. The Council of Jerusalem (the Apostles gathered) was held to
resolve this question. I preached on this when I preached through Acts and Galatians.
So, if you are wondering about this, you can go back and listen to those sermons. The
bottom line is this (from Ephesians 2:14-16):
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For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the
barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its
commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new
man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of
them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
[Slide 9] 3.
Romans 1.
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The passage is talking about human rebellion. Instead of acknowledging God, we
decided to seek idols and rebel against God. Romans 1:26-27 says:
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Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women
exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men
also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one
another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in
themselves the due penalty for their error.
The revisionists note that Rome was rampant with homosexuality that was very
promiscuous. Men had sexual relationship all the time with other men while they had
their own wives. Having sex with men or boys and participating in orgies were a part of
the culture at the time. Even Plato did that. That’s what Paul is referring to, they argue.
Therefore, the revisionists argue that it is not referring to committed same gender
relationship.
The traditional reading is that the meaning is pretty clear. It doesn’t just talk
about men but also women. This is the only passage in the NT that talks about lesbians.
It seems to be addressing more promiscuous homosexual relationships, but the language
appears to be broader and inclusive of all homosexual relationships. So, I personally
have a hard time not apply this passage to homosexuality in general. I think this passage
is probably the strongest passage that appears to say that homosexual behavior is not
God’s will.
[Slide 10] 4. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:8-10
1 Corinthian 6:9-11 says this (KJV):
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Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And
such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
This passage is saying that unless we repent and put our faith in Jesus, we will not inherit
the Kingdom of God. Look at the word “effeminate” and the phrase “abusers of
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themselves with mankind.” The phrase “abusers of themselves with mankind” also
appears in 1 Timothy 1:8-10. What do they mean? This was later translated as “male
prostitutes, sodomites” in NRSV and “men who have sex with men” in NIV. The two
terms are combined in NIV. The two terms in Greek are:
[Slide 11] Malakoi: this word, translated as “effeminate” in the KJV, literally
means soft. Greeks had a culture of keeping boys for sex. They were male prostitutes.
Married men frequented them. That’s why some of the translation translates them as
male prostitute.
Arsenokoitai: this is a compound word that combines the word “male” and “bed.”
This verse and 1 Timothy verse are the only two places this word is used in the Bible and
in all ancient writings. So, most scholars believe that Paul cointed the term. KJV
translated this as “abusers of themselves with mankind.” I guess that means
masturbation? Or homosexual sex? The revisionists argue that no one really knows the
meaning of the word. So, we should not translate it as NIV does or NRSV does. But,
there is one other place that these two words are used. It is in the Septuagint LXX, the
Greek translation of the OT that was available to Paul at the time. And the Leviticus
passage we talked about earlier uses both arseno and koitai, although not together to
describe homosexual sex.
So, it appears pretty clear that arsenokoitai means men having sexual relationship
with me.
The revisionists, however, argue that malakai and arenokoitai must be translated
together to mean “the young male prostitutes and men who have sex with young
prostitutes.” They maintain that the passage is not talking about committed and loving
monogamous same-gender relationships. I think there is some merit to this argument.
But, I am not sure. It is undisputed among scholars that such kind of prostitution was
common in Greek society.
I know some of you are saying, you are playing with what the Bible says. It
seems clear on the surface and we should just keep it at that. I beg to differ on that. We
can’t be lazy about reading our Bible. We have to do the homework to figure out what
the author was really trying to say. We have to understand the context, culture, and
understanding the people who wrote the text 2000 years ago had. If we don’t do this, we
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can make huge mistakes. For example, the church argued from the Bible that slavery is
permitted. But, if you study slavery at the time of the NT, it was nothing like the African
kidnapped life-long bondage that was justified through the biblical texts. The kind of
slavery that Paul did not condemn (although you can see that he didn’t like it) was mostly
a debtor-creditor based system. It was an involuntary servitude for a fixed period of time.
The slaves had their own family and often lived apart from the master. They had certain
rights as well. Those who had studied the context carefully came to the conclusion that
the word “slavery” in the Bible and “slavery” as people understood it in the United States
were completely different. Do you see what I mean? You have to do contextual
homework. That’s why picking up a good commentary and studying the word is so
important. Let me give you another example: People often use biblical passages to keep
women from leadership at church. But, again, we have do the hard work of interpreting
the text. For example, we note that there are several examples of female leaders in the
Bible. So, it is difficult to say that what that particular passage limiting women
leadership is meant to be applied to all cultures and contexts. This is one of the reasons
that I have difficulties equating this issue with gender equality issue. There are tons of
examples of female leadership and gender equality in the Bible and in the tradition of the
church; but, there is no example in the Bible or the history of the church affirming same
sex relationships.
But, I think there is room to discuss this further and study this further. Even
though I am not yet convinced that the NT says that loving same-gender relationship is
within God’s will, I do believe that there is some ambiguity. I believe that there is room
for reasonable disagreement.
IV.
Conclusion
Here is the final thing: we have to put all of the teachings in the context of love.
Paul taught us that love trumps everything. If it is not loving, don’t do it. Romans 13:810 says this:
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Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another,
for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall
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not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall
not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this
one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b]10 Love does no harm to a
neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
He says all of the laws—“and whatever other command there may be” are summed up in
this one command: love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm. Love fulfills the
law. If we love, we fulfill the law. I think we have to take this into consideration when
thinking through the ethics of sexuality. I don’t believe that this means that we can
ignore things that are clear, but it also gives us a rule to see that we need to nuance our
thoughts.
Here is the bottom line. God calls us to love one another. That means gay people
are called to love straight people as much as straight people are called to love gay people.
Although there is some reasonable dispute about whether gay behavior is sinful (and as
you know, I believe that the Bible says it is), there is nothing in the Bible that says that
being gay is sin. There is nothing that says that even on its face. So, we all need to
understand that. Our sexual orientation is not sin.
I know it is difficult, but this is not something that should be an obstacle to our
relationship with God whether you are gay or straight. We need to sincerely seek God’s
will for our lives, but I don’t think we are going to get clobbered by God if we get this
wrong. I think there are a lot of other important issues and things to focus on—issues of
justice, mercy, grace, love, and sharing the gospel with people, especially GLBT
community who I believe the evangelical church has condemned in whole. This is not
THE issue of Christianity. The primary issue of Christianity is that God loves us and
gave his life for us in that while we were sinners, he died for us. He wants us to come
close to him. He wants us to embrace him. He wants to fill us with his Spirit. It doesn’t
matter whether straight or gay. He wants to fill you with his love and adopt you as his
child, and give you all the rights of his child.
We are all on a journey together. I want us to know that this is not an issue that
should divide us as a church. Can we agree to love one another? Can we agree to respect
one another? Can we agree to stop judging one another?
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I heard a gay guy talking about how important the church community is for him.
He decided to remain celibate. He was tearing up as he talked about one of his brothers
in the church who said, if you get too lonely living by yourself, come live with us; be a
second father to our children. We can live together. I think church should be like this. I
think this is what is means to be an inclusive gospel-centered community of lovers of
Jesus Christ.
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