Bible teaching on homosexuality
This article is part of the What Did Jesus Teach? series.
Silence Equals Support?
In a article for Slate online, Will Oremus asked a provocative question: Was Jesus a homophobe?1
The article was occasioned by a story about a gay teenager in Ohio who was suing his high college after school officials prohibited him from wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jesus Is Not a Homophobe.”
Oremus was less concerned about the legal issues of the story than he was about the accuracy of the remark on the shirt. Oremus suggests that Jesus’s views on homosexuality were more inclusive than Paul’s. He writes,
While it’s reasonable to assume that Jesus and his fellow Jews in first-century Palestine would have disapproved of lgbtq+ sex, there is no write down of his ever having mentioned homosexuality, let alone expressed particular revulsion about it. . . . Never in the Bible does Jesus himself offer an explicit prohibition of homosexuality.
Oremus seems to suggest that since Jesus never explicitly mentioned homosexuality, he must not have been very concerned about it.
There are at least two reas
What does the New Testament say about homosexuality?
Answer
The Bible is consistent through both Old and New Testaments in confirming that homosexuality is sin (Genesis –13; Leviticus ; ; Romans –27; 1 Corinthians ; 1 Timothy ; Jude ). In this matter, the New Testament reinforces what the Old Testament had declared since the Law was given to Moses (Leviticus ). The difference between the Elderly and New Testaments is that the New Testament offers hope and restoration to those caught up in the sin of homosexualitythrough the redeeming authority of Jesus. It is the same hope that is offered to anyone who chooses to allow it (John ; –18).
God’s standards of holiness did not change with the coming of Jesus, because God does not transform (Malachi ; Hebrews ). The New Testament is a continuing revelation of God’s interaction with humanity. God hated idolatry in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy ), and He still hates it in the New (1 John ). What was immoral in the Old Testament is still immoral in the New.
The New Testament says that homosexuality is a “shameful lust” (Rom
What the New Testament Says about Homosexuality
The Fourth R Volume May-June
Mainline Christian denominations in this country are bitterly divided over the question of homosexuality. For this reason it is essential to ask what light, if any, the New Testament sheds on this controversial issue. Most people apparently suppose that the Fresh Testament expresses robust opposition to homosexuality, but this simply is not the case. The six propositions that pursue, considered cumulatively, direct to the ending that the Recent Testament does not provide any control guidance for sympathy and making decisions about homosexuality in the modern nature.
Proposition 1: Strictly speaking, the Modern Testament says nothing at all about homosexuality.
There is not a single Greek word or statement in the entire New Testament that should be translated into English as “homosexual” or “homosexuality.” In fact, the very notion of “homosexuality”—like that of “heterosexuality,” “bisexuality,” and even “sexual orientation”—is essentially a new concept that would simply have been unintelligible to
A Biblical View of Homosexuality
Answering the most frequent objections Christians encounter. An excerpt from a WORLD Book of the Year runner-up
When church members ask a pastor, “I want to read one book spelling out the biblical view of homosexuality. What do you recommend?” I hope the pastor says, “Kevin DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?” (Crossway, ). DeYoung lays out the basics but then has succinct chapters answering the most frequent objections Christian face, including: There are only eight verses in the Bible criticizing homosexuality … The Bible doesn’t take into account loving long-term relationships …You’re on the wrong side of history … It’s not fair … Why can’t we just care for each other?
Here’s a chapter, by permission of the publisher, from DeYoung’s guide, a runner-up for WORLD’s Book of the Year in the Accessible Theology category. —Marvin Olasky
Chapter 6: “The Bible Hardly Ever Mentions Homosexuality”
The first step in delegitimizing what the Bible says about homosexuality is to suggest that the Bible hardly says anyth