Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Pt.3: Paul and Jesus

[Examining the New Testament texts that are believed to condemn same-sex marriage]

In the first post in this series, we laid down the foundation as to why I believed it to be the side that believes same-sex marriage should be prohibited in the church, that emphatically believes it to be sin, to be the party that must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is on that side, because, biblically more is at stake. It seems based on the words of Jesus that being wrong in the case of self-justifying religion is far worse than being wrong on behavioral sins rooted in humility. In the second post, we examined the context behind the gang-rape story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cult-prostitution of the Canaanite religion. Now today, we’ll look to what Paul and Jesus say about it. I name Paul first because his writings are believed to speak more directly to the subject, where the teachings of Jesus do not.

Now let us go to the text itself and see what we can understand from the context, the setting, and the direction of the narrative. In the first chapter Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul describes a scenario where the people being mentioned are caught up in worshipping idols. Then begins a downward spiral of consequences for worshipping idols, as stated in the verse:

God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice. This is because what is known about God should be plain to them because God made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities — God’s eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. So humans are without excuse. Although they knew God, they didn’t honor God as God or thank him. Instead, their reasoning became pointless, and their foolish hearts were darkened. While they were claiming to be wise, they made fools of themselves. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that look like mortal humans: birds, animals, and reptiles. So God abandoned them to their hearts’ desires, which led to the moral corruption of degrading their own bodies with each other. They traded God’s truth for a lie, and they worshipped and served the creation instead of the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. That’s why God abandoned them to degrading lust. Their females traded natural sexual relations for unnatural sexual relations. Also, in the same way, the males traded natural sexual relations with females, and burned with lust for each other. Males performed shameful actions with males, and they were paid back with the penalty they deserved for their mistake in their own bodies. Since they didn’t think it was worthwhile to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to a defective mind to do inappropriate things. So they were filled with all injustice, wicked behavior, greed, and evil behavior. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, and malice. They are gossips, they slander people, and they hate God. They are rude and proud, and they brag. They invent ways to be evil, and they are disobedient to their parents. They are without understanding, disloyal, without affection, and without mercy. Though they know God’s decision that those who persist in such practices deserve death, they not only keep doing these things but also approve others who practice them. So every single one of you who judge others is without any excuse. You condemn yourself when you judge another person because the one who is judging is doing the same things.

As we look at this passage from this letter, let us first take note that this suggests that homosexuality from Paul’s understanding is a result of sin, but not directly prohibited. “So God abandoned them to their hearts’ desires” is what the text said. Because they worshipped idols, God abandoned them to their hearts' desires. As scholar Eugene Rogers states: “homosexual activity, then, is not a provocation of ‘the wrath of God’ (Rom. 1:18); rather, it is a consequence of God’s decision to ‘give up’ rebellious creatures to follow their own futile thinking and desires.”

Of course, we know now, as there are many people in the LGBTQ community that deeply love God and seek to honor God, that do not fall into such a downward spiral involving envy, murder, strife, etc. that this is in fact inaccurate. Paul here is addressing what philosophers call natural law (Rogers), the laws of the world that can be observed. Paul is also addressing natural theology, the idea that God’s existence is self-evident. Paul says, because these people are worshipping fake gods rather than the true God, the God they can observe, that is self-evident, that God let them spiral down into a state that is unnatural, that is contrary to nature (1:26). Paul’s argument here is that homosexuality is contrary to nature. In the time period of Paul, this would have been a reasonable belief. The idea that people are oriented toward a certain sex was not in the general worldview of that time. Scholar Preston Sprinkle displays some evidence that some philosophers believed in the idea that people may be predisposed to a same-sex attraction, but it was not common knowledge then. The idea that animals may have such inclinations would have been well outside their worldview. Now, however, we know that homosexuality is expressed throughout the animal kingdom. It has been discovered that over 1000 species exhibit homosexual tendencies. Some female species engage in sex acts in what seems to be simply for pleasure. Two male penguins that seemed to be in a relationship in a zoo swiped an unhatched egg and took turns acting as the mother penguin and appear to have co-parented this chick. Some bird species have had 2 unrelated females co-parenting, something that was usually limited to the biological mother and father. So, apparently, homosexuality is not actually contrary to nature at all.

So, what does this mean? Is the scripture wrong? No, it is not. Paul can be wrong about a fact that would be discovered almost two millennia later, while still speaking truth. The truth is still truth and always will be truth. So what is Paul’s message here? The message is idolatry. There are negative consequences to idolatry, Paul just happened to make certain incorrect statements regarding natural law. His message regarding idolatry is still truth and an important message. It was the core of his message in this part of the letter. It is also quite important to note that this part ends with Paul saying not to judge others because the one who is judging is doing the same things. As we can see in our society today with unfettered capitalism, greed, political power, guns, prestige, etc. that idolatry is still alive and well and probably one of the most widespread sins.

Now, we’ll move onto the next “clobber verse,” verses used by Christians to “clobber” people with, in an unloving manner, found in 1 Corinthians:

There were two words that Paul used in his letters that are currently translated into some form of “fornication,” “sodomites,” or “homosexual offenders” depending on the translation. Those two words are αρσενοκοίτης and μαλακός. Some of the translations suggest that they mean the active and passive partners in homosexual sex acts respectively. αρσενοκοίτης is actually a compound word coming from the Greek manuscript of Leviticus that would literally translate to “man bedders.” It does seem there is a connection to Leviticus, so Leviticus is still indeed of relevance to Christians.

One of Yale University’s biblical scholars, Dale Martin suggests that we are viewing these words out of context. αρσενοκοίτης has never been used in any discovered Greek document until it appeared in Paul’s writings, first to the Corinthians, then in the first letter to Timothy. It has only appeared a few more times after this point and has most often been grouped either solely with economic sins, or in between groupings of sexual sins and economic sins. It is a reasonable assumption that based on this word placement and usage; it likely refers to some form of sexual exploitation.

μαλακός has a much clearer understanding of the definition, but the context can make it less clear. As Martin claims, we know that it means effeminate or “soft” male. What is different about the context is what this actually means. Men in this time period that had sexual experiences with many women would be labeled as soft because they did not have the self-control a man was expected to have. This was considered sinful, but not connected directly to homosexuality. In this time, people of higher status (always men) were always supposed to be the active partner in a sexual relationship and people of lower status (men and women) the passive. This μαλακός male was a male that was acting more as a woman, an inferior (true of the ties, unfortunately). Another characteristic of soft men were men that liked lavish luxury. It seems word seems to apply to our current President as well as former President Clinton, despite neither having any known homosexual escapades.

Also, why was femininity considered a weakness, rather than simply a difference, especially after Paul states in his letter to the Galatians that there is no longer male nor female, as we are all one in Christ? What is clear is that Paul intentionally brings up μαλακός, a.k.a. the soft male. What is not clear, is if he is speaking broadly about all men that don’t fit the gender roles or specifically about men that lack self-control. The latter makes more sense since Paul in Romans 9 brings up God-loving Jacob but hating Esau when Esau conformed to normal male patterns but Jacob did not. Esau hunted with his father Isaac while Jacob stayed at home and cooked with his mother. A former pastor of a former church I used to attend, Perry Noble, described them as Esau being a “mans man” while Jacob wore skinny jeans. Jacob would likely, in some ways, fit under the label μαλακός. So, there is doubt that this is what Paul is addressing. Paul regularly addresses self-control, so that is likely what he is referring to. The text in 1 Timothy only has αρσενοκοίτης. It does not contain μαλακός.

So, what type of exploitation would Paul be addressing? The context behind this text was widespread practice among Greco-Roman men of elite status called pederasty (Harper). This is when men of power have male sex “servants” of lower status. This is exploitative! Some translations will translate αρσενοκοίτης as the active partner in a homosexual sex act, the giver, and μαλακός as the passive partner, the taker. This is accurate of pederasty because in this context, the man with power would be the aggressor and the man of lower status would be the man assuming the role of a woman. This was normal in the Greco-Roman world, and Paul is not having it. If the roles were reversed and the man of higher status became the passive partner, that would be outrageous in this society. So, in this time period, all homosexual acts were lumped into these two categories of αρσενοκοίτης and μαλακός. Equals were rare, and there wasn’t really a concept for it. We do not know whether or not Paul was only referring to this practice since the modern concept of sexuality was generally unknown at that time (Halperin).

The theologian Eugene Rogers via his book, “Sexuality and the Christian Body,” introduces another fascinating observation that inserts more reasonable doubt into the traditional argument. Let us go back to Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul states that “Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural.” He follows with the same for men. Unnatural comes from the two Greek words παρὰ and φύσιν, which respectively translate to “contrary” and “nature,” or “contrary to nature,” which was mentioned above. What Rogers points out that is so fascinating is there is one other time in the same letter that Paul describes something as παρὰ φύσιν, contrary to nature. This time it is in Romans 11:24, where Paul describes the Gentiles being added to the list of God’s children. The Gentiles are anyone that is not Jewish, meaning most, if not all of us. It was contrary to nature, God’s nature, for God to invite us, through Jesus to take part in this story. Let us not get too territorial over our inheritance when God changed the system to bring us in. Something being “contrary to nature” may just be another opportunity for God to show radical hospitality. God justified the Gentiles without requiring circumcision, which was once biblically mandated in the Torah. Could it be possible that God no longer requires marriage to be one man and one woman?

The last of Paul’s writings we shall look to is 1 Corinthians 7. Here Paul states the following:

Does this not apply to people attracted to the same sex? If Paul thinks it is better to be with a partner than to be overtaken by lust, how do we help the person with a homosexual orientation? Would it not also be better for them “to marry than to be aflame with passion?” Of course, during this time, the very concept of orientation was relatively unknown as mentioned before. Advising a homosexual man that he should marry a woman to quench this passion simply would not work or vice versa. In fact, many gay Christians have tried and failed, causing heartache and pain not only in their lives, but in the lives of their former wives or husbands and their kids. So, again I ask, was Paul wrong? I do not think so. The core point of his message was to root such passion into a God-honoring, grounded, monogamous relationship.

Those points address Paul’s views expressed in scripture. Now let’s get to Jesus. What did Jesus directly say about homosexuality? Nothing. Not. a. thing. What people sometimes use of Jesus’ words regarding homosexuality is when Jesus pointed to Genesis regarding marriage:

First, Jesus is answering a question about divorce in a time period when same-sex marriage would not even be considered, in part because orientation was not an understood concept and in part because pro-creation was of utmost importance in this time in Judaism. This context of Jesus’ remark is of critical importance. Next, let’s look at what Jesus is teaching from. He is going back to Genesis, verses 1:27 (Mark v6) and 2:24 (Mark v7). This teaching also mirrors Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 5:21–33 where Paul describes human marriage as a triune metaphor. Just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all submit to the Father, yet are all equal, here it says the husband (Jesus), Wife (church), and Father (God) are all in a union. It is a beautiful metaphor. Some use this metaphor to say that marriage must be one man, one woman, and God to complete the metaphor, the symbolism.

Scholar Eugene Rogers, mentioned above, makes the argument that while humanity was created in the image of God, as both male and female, that this does not need to be understood literally in the context of marriage. Gender has been used to describe people groups as specific types. One example is how the church is described as female, the bride of Christ. It is not crucial that the person representing the bride be a woman in a marriage because the bride of Christ is not all female. This is anagogy (spiritual or mystical interpretation). Men and women can participate in anagoges of the opposite sex. For example, the church is the bride of Christ, a female anagoge, a female image, but not all members of the church are female.

Sexual difference is an important part of humanity being created in the image of God, but based on the fluid use of anagogy, such as the church being female as the bride of Christ, yet containing many males, the literal understanding may not be as crucial. Until recently, the female “bride of Christ,” was administered by all males.

God created the first human beings in God’s image as male and female, Adam and Eve. However, as Rogers points out, Adam and Eve are not the model relationship to base all relationships upon, as their relationship was an example of failure. He remarks, “They fail as soon as they act.” Neither lay down their life for one another, which is how Jesus describes the ultimate love. While they may be the first people in the story of God’s creation, they are not model people.

Jesus himself is another problem regarding the literal interpretation of the male-female dichotomy as the full image of God. If the image of God must contain both male and female, then Jesus would be deficient as he remained single (Martin).

Lastly. Jesus was Jewish. Very Jewish. As Sprinkle attests to, the Jewish people of Jesus’ time were not in favor of homosexual activities. Jewish writings of the time period show that they disproved of such sex because it wasn’t procreative, forced a man to take the role of a woman, and because even though Leviticus was written within a context, it still did not explicitly list its context as the reason for the prohibition, so some Jewish writers of that time still used Leviticus as their rationale (Sprinkle). Despite all of this Jewish context, Jesus, a very Jewish man, a very Jewish teacher, did not teach on this. He was explicit about divorce. He was very repetitive and explicit about greed. He was explicit about adultery. Yet, he never mentioned this topic. At. All. The marriage and divorce topic, mentioned above, was the closest.

So, there is a lot to digest here. To sum up, let’s start with what we know: Paul teaches emphatically against idolatry. Paul lists two unacceptable forms of sexual-practice with roots in Leviticus. Paul believes celibacy and singleness is the ideal standard but offers a caveat of marriage. Jesus answers a question about divorce with an illustration about male and female creation in Genesis. Jesus is very Jewish.

What we don’t know: What was Paul’s intent with the natural law debate? Is there merrit to being contrary to nature being an opening for God’s grace? Is αρσενοκοίτης always explotative, or does it refer to any man that is the active partner in a homosexual relationship? Is μαλακός any form of soft man, only a man that receives sex from another man, or someone morally soft? Was Jesus using Genesis as a blanket foundation or was he using the illustration because it made sense to the Jews he was teaching?

You have now heard my case regarding Paul and Jesus. It is complex. It is grey. It shows that nothing is as simple as it may seem. Do these questions 100% legitimize same-sex marriage in the church? No. Does it cast doubt that same-sex marriage is absolutely sin and must be prohibited? I would say so, it does cast enough reasonable doubt.

Sources for this blog are from the following materials:

• David Halperin: How to do the History of Homosexuality
• Kyle Harper: From Shame to Sin
• Dale Martin: Sex and the Single Savior
• Eugene Rogers: Sexuality and the Christian Body
• Preston Sprinkle: People to be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue