What does jesus say about gays
If homosexuality is a sin, why didn’t Jesus ever state it?
Answer
Many who sustain same-sex marriage and gay rights contend that, since Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, He did not consider it to be sinful. After all, the argument goes, if homosexuality is bad, why did Jesus cure it as a non-issue?
It is technically true that Jesus did not specifically address homosexuality in the Gospel accounts; however, He did speak clearly about sexuality in general. Concerning marriage, Jesus stated, “At the beginning the Originator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a guy will leave his father and mother and be combined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh[.]’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has connected together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:4–6). Here Jesus clearly referred to Adam and Eve and affirmed God’s intended design for marriage and sexuality.
For those who obey Jesus, sexual practices are limited. Rather than take a permissive view of sexual immorality and divorce, Jesus affirmed that people are either to be single and celibate or married and faithful to one spouse of the opposite gender. Jesus considere
What the New Testament Says about Homosexuality
The Fourth R Volume 21-3 May-June 2008
Mainline Christian denominations in this country are bitterly divided over the question of homosexuality. For this reason it is important to ask what light, if any, the Recent Testament sheds on this controversial issue. Most people apparently suppose that the New Testament expresses strong opposition to homosexuality, but this simply is not the case. The six propositions that follow, considered cumulatively, lead to the conclusion that the Modern Testament does not provide any direct guidance for understanding and making judgments about homosexuality in the modern world.
Proposition 1: Strictly speaking, the New Testament says nothing at all about homosexuality.
There is not a solo Greek word or phrase 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 modern concept that would simply have been unintelligible to the New Testament writers. The word “homosexuality” came into utilize only in the latter part
The Bible on Homosexual Behavior
One way to argue against these passages is to make what I phone the “shellfish objection.” Keith Sharpe puts it this way: “Until Christian fundamentalists boycott shellfish restaurants, discontinue wearing poly-cotton T-shirts, and stone to death their wayward offspring, there is no obligation to heed to their diatribes about homosexuality being a sin” (The Gay Gospels, 21).
In other words, if we can disregard rules appreciate the ban on eating shellfish in Leviticus 11:12, then we should be allowed to disobey other prohibitions from the Antique Testament. But this argument confuses the Old Testament’s temporary ceremonial laws with its permanent moral laws.
Here’s an analogy to aid understand this distinction.
I recall two rules my mom gave me when I was young: hold her hand when I cross the street and don’t drink what’s under the sink. Today, I hold to follow only the latter rule, since the former is no longer needed to protect me. In fact, it would now do me more harm than good.
Old Testament ritual/ceremonial laws were prefer mom’s handholding rule. The reason they forbade the Israelites from using certain fabrics or foods, or interacting with bodily
This article is part of the What Did Jesus Teach? series.
Silence Equals Support?
In a 2012 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 elevated school after college 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 declaration on the shirt. Oremus suggests that Jesus’s views on homosexuality were more inclusive than Paul’s. He writes,
While it’s reasonable to believe that Jesus and his fellow Jews in first-century Palestine would have disapproved of gay sex, there is no record 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 present that since Jesus never explicitly mentioned homosexuality, he must not have been very concerned about it.
There are at least two reasons that we should be skeptical of this view.