Tag Archives: S. Donald Fortson III

Is Jesus Okay With Homosexuality? (6 of 6)

Do Christians today need to agree with the historical Jesus on the question of homosexual activity? In my last post I presented this conclusion: the total available historical evidence fits only with the hypothesis that Jesus—the historical Jesus of Nazareth—did not approve of homosexual behavior. Nearly all Christians everywhere have always believed this. But should Christians today feel bound to affirm the sexual teachings of rabbi Jesus who lived nearly 2000 years ago in ancient Judea?

Could Jesus have been mistaken about homosexuality? Hiding his true beliefs? Awaiting a time when further revelation would be possible?

This is part of a six-part blog series on Jesus and homosexuality:

    1. Introduction, Explanations, and a Summary of this Series
    2. How Should We Interpret Jesus’ Silence About Homosexuality?
    3. Does “Love Your Neighbor” Mean Jesus Affirmed “Gay Love”?
    4. Why It’s Wrong to Say Jesus Said Nothing About Homosexuality
    5. Historical Conclusions: Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality?
    6. Conclusions for Today: Is Jesus Okay With Homosexuality Now?

William Witt offers an informative article about various “attempts to reconcile the endorsing of same-sex practices with the authority of Scripture.”1 Witt identifies three ways people try to do this:

  • The first approach (“selectivist”) argues that the Bible is mistaken on some matters that reflect ancient social values, and that the more “positive” themes in the Bible call us to embrace liberation and love.
  • A second approach (“revisionist”) argues that “Scripture does not condemn loving committed same-sex relations, and loving committed relationships are the only kind of sexual relationships the modern advocate is interested in endorsing.”2
  • A third approach (“ecclesial dispensation”) argues that “although the Scriptures prohibit same-sex activity, nonetheless, the Church is free not to be bound by these proscriptions in the same way that it has recognized that it is not bound by other prohibitions in the Bible.”3

Though I won’t follow Witt’s three categories, I will explore some of these ideas in this post.

Adapted from an image belonging to Good News Productions International and College Press Publishing, used with permission from Free Bible Images.

Is Jesus Okay With Homosexual Activity?

What if Jesus was indeed okay with homosexual behavior, but could not say so because he lived in a homophobic society? Or, to suggest a similar possibility, what if Jesus knew that homosexual activity was not acceptable yet, under the Law of Moses, but would be after the new covenant was inaugurated by his death and resurrection?

Jesus did indeed remain secretive about some beliefs that he knew would be explosive for his Jewish hearers. A famous example that scholars talk about is his “Messianic secret”—how the Synoptic Gospels show that Jesus avoided publicly saying that he was the Messiah. This parallel falls flat, however, for several reasons. First, Jesus clearly told his inner circle that he was the Messiah (Matt. 16:16-17). Second, even in public he used “code language” that was later understood to mean much the same thing (“Son of Man”; cf. Dan. 7:13). Neither is true, however, of any supposed secret belief of Jesus that homosexual behavior was okay.

On ethical matters, in fact, we often see Jesus openly challenging the assumptions and practices of the Jewish religious leaders. On some points he indicated they were too strict (washings before meals, Matt. 15:1-20; Sabbath laws, Matt. 12:1-8). At other times he called for greater strictness (divorce, Matt. 19:1-9; use of the temple, Matt. 21:12-17). If Jesus had thought the Jewish leaders were too legalistic (cf. Matt 23:23-24), too oppressive (cf. Matt. 23:4), or too hypocritical (cf. John 8:7) regarding their stance against homosexual activity, he could have said so.

The same evidence weighs, too, against the idea that homosexual activity is now acceptable under Jesus’ new covenant—as if Jesus “is” okay with homosexual behavior now though he “was” not then. Though Jesus apparently lived faithfully under the Law of Moses (cf. Rom. 15:8), he left hints that its era was almost over. He challenged the Jewish animosity toward Gentiles (Luke 4:24-28) and foretold their full inclusion (John 10:16; Matt. 28:19). His teachings laid the groundwork for eliminating at least two of the primary boundary markers of ancient Jews—food laws and the Sabbath4—and his apostles soon understood that the third—circumcision—was also lifted, at least for Gentile converts.5 When it comes to sexual ethics, however, Jesus left no hints that they would loosen under his new covenant, and his apostles came to no such conclusions.

When we examine Scripture as a whole, there is no trajectory from rigidity toward laxity regarding sexual ethics. True, there is at least one OT sexual restriction that may not be in force under the new covenant—the prohibition on sex during a woman’s menstrual period (Lev. 20:18), which may have hinged on ceremonial blood taboos. And the maximum temporal penalty for sexual sin changed. Christians no longer inflict the death penalty but rather, in fulfilment of the death penalty, “hand over to Satan” those within the church who persist in unrepentant sin (1 Cor. 5:5; cf. esp. 1 Cor. 5:13 with Deut. 22:21-24).

Being handed over to Satan is arguably more serious than being put to death, however, and the general pattern of the NT is that sexual sin is taken even more seriously than in the OT. Jesus racheted up sexual standards regarding lust (Matt. 5:27-30) and returned the question of divorce to its creation pattern (Matt. 19:1-9). The OT pattern of God largely overlooking polygamy is challenged in the NT, so that being a “one-woman man” is now the standard for a godly man (1 Tim. 3:2).6

Jesus’ apostles repeatedly warned against all sorts of sexual activity outside of male-female monogamous marriage. DeYoung makes this point clearly:

It cannot be overstated how seriously the Bible treats the sin of sexual immorality. Sexual sin is never considered adiaphora, a matter of indifference, an agree-to-disagree issue like food laws or holy days (Rom. 14:1–15:7). To the contrary, sexual immorality is precisely the sort of sin that characterizes those who will not enter the kingdom of heaven. There are at least eight vice lists in the New Testament (Mark 7:21–22; Rom. 1:24–31; 13:13; 1Cor. 6:9–10; Gal. 5:19–21; Col. 3:5–9; 1Tim. 1:9–10; Rev. 21:8), and sexual immorality is included in every one of these. In fact, in seven of the eight lists there are multiple references to sexual immorality (e.g., impurity, sensuality, orgies, men who practice homosexuality), and in most of the passages some kind of sexual immorality heads the lists. 7

The pattern regarding homosexual activity in particular is similar. William Webb, in his influential book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals, suggests eighteen criteria for determining whether a given teaching of Scripture should be applied at “face value” or whether it needs to be reinterpreted through a “redemptive-movement framework” before we can apply it correctly in our own culture. He argues that, when it comes to slavery, there is a trajectory within the Bible toward greater redemption—a trajectory that should make “the abolition of slavery and its many related injustices… a passionate value of modern Christians.”8 Similarly, he argues that the biblical witness regarding women nudges us away from the “hard” forms of patriarchy seen at places in the OT toward a “complementary egalitarian” approach.9

Regarding homosexual activity, however, Webb sees no such trajectory. This is what he does see:

Biblical tradition moved the cultural norms on homosexuality from a significant amount of tolerance and acceptance to non-tolerance and non-acceptance within the covenant community… Scripture thus sets a clear direction… on the homosexual issue… When one comes to the New Testament, there is no softening of the Scripture’s negative assessment of homosexuality found in the Old Testament10

The women texts, like the slavery texts, are generally “less restrictive” or “softening” relative to the broader culture, while the homosexuality texts are “more restrictive” or “hardening” relative to the surrounding environment… 11

We have no biblical texts that suggest that “there is neither homosexual nor heterosexual in Christ.” Nor do we find any biblical text that suggests that homosexuality might be acceptable in some form or another12

Virtually all of the criteria applicable to the issue suggest to varying degrees that the biblical prohibitions regarding homosexuality, even within a covenant form, should be maintained today. There is no significant dissonance within the biblical data. 13

Webb’s explanation of why the biblical writers opposed homosexual behavior is also worth noting. Their basic reason does not permit any ethical change or development:

The issue that the biblical writers have with homosexuality is not really about covenant or the lack of it; it is not really about the equality or lack of equality between the two individuals. The deepest issue for the biblical authors was the breaking of sexual boundaries between male and female. Until God redesigns the physical/sexual construction of male and female, this distinction or boundary continues to influence our contemporary world. 14

Some claim that “sexual orientation is a new concept, one the Christian tradition hasn’t addressed,” and that Paul “doesn’t have long-term, loving same-sex relationships in view.”15 Therefore, it is argued, the Bible does not speak directly to our modern homosexual experience. But “Paul witnessed around him both abusive relationships of power or money and examples of ‘genuine love’ between males.”16 He also, like other ancient writers of the time, was familiar with what we today call homosexual orientation. Ancient explanations for the causes of sexual orientation were varied and debated, underscoring that the concept itself was well known.

Forston and Grams present abundant historical evidence for the following claim:

Scholars who contended several decades ago that only in modern times did people discover the concept of orientation have been proven wrong, as the evidence has accumulated over time… There are clear examples of adult males and females involved in homosexual relationships in antiquity. These people did not just perform homosexual acts. Their passionate love of one another, their long-term same-sex desire, and even, on occasion, their marriage or cohabitation with one another are discussed in the sources we have. There is, in short, nothing distinct about contemporary conversations concerning homosexual orientation.17

And again, even if sexual orientation were a new idea, the basic issue the biblical writers had with homosexual behavior (“the breaking of sexual boundaries between male and female”) does not allow for any such loopholes or future ethical development.

The pattern of biblical evidence is consistent and strong: Neither Jesus nor any biblical author imagined that any form of homosexual behavior is ever ethical. Nor did they leave any clues hinting that they imagined it would ever become acceptable in some future context. In short, it is contrary to the biblical witness to propose that Jesus is okay with homosexual behavior today.

Must We Agree With Jesus?

This, then, is the crucial question: Must Christians agree with Jesus about homosexual behavior? Amazingly, an increasing number of professing Christians are answering no.

A variety of explanations are offered. Many, such as Roman Catholic NT professor Luke Timothy Johnson, note that Christians have never followed Jesus perfectly in other matters—so why make such a fuss about not following what he said about homosexual behavior?

Christianity as actually practiced has never lived in precise accord with the Scriptures. War stands in tension with Jesus’ command of nonviolence, while divorce, even under another name (annulment), defies Jesus’ clear prohibition.18

Such an argument is embarrassingly fatalistic. Why not try to obey all of Jesus’ teachings (Matt. 28:20) instead?

Some argue that Jesus was just plain wrong—that he was “a product of his time and his culture” who was “conditioned to believe that Gentiles were dogs” (Matt. 15:22-26).19 The Gospels do indeed contain hints that there were limits on the earthly Jesus’ knowledge, such as Jesus’ statement that he didn’t know the time of his own coming (Matt. 24:36). But there are no hints that anyone—Jesus, his apostles, or the Gospel writers—believed that Jesus’ ethical teaching was fallible. On the contrary, the risen Jesus insisted that his apostles must teach “all nations… all that I have commanded”—and this because he possessed “all authority” (Matt. 28:18-20).

Once Jesus is seen as fallible on matters of ethics, then other authorities are given the deciding vote. Many appeal to experience—whether human experience or what they consider to be their experience of God’s Spirit speaking a new word. L.T. Johnson again:

I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us…

If the letter of Scripture cannot find room for the activity of the living God in the transformation of human lives, then trust and obedience must be paid to the living God rather than to the words of Scripture.20

Such an approach pits “the living God” against Jesus. It is hard to square with the author of Hebrew’s foundational claim that “in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:2). Worse, it runs aground on Jesus’ own claim:

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. (John 12:48-50)

It is Jesus’ own word (including his word on adultery, πορνεία, and ἀσέλγεια) that will judge us on the last day—the word he spoke by command of the eternal Father—not some subsequent word that someone professes hearing from the Spirit.

Richard Hays, in The Moral Vision of the New Testament, draws “implications for Christian ethics” from on the life and teachings of the historical Jesus:

If God really did raise Jesus from the dead, everything that Jesus taught and exemplified is vindicated by a God more powerful than death. He must therefore be seen as the bearer of the truth and the definitive paradigm for obedience to God.21

At this point I cannot help slipping briefly into preacher mode:

Know that if you reject the historical, biblical Jesus to create a Jesus of your own imagination, then you have also forfeited the historical, biblical salvation and must create one on your own.

But how can you be sure you have the real Jesus if you have adapted his portrait in the Gospels to suit the winds of the twenty-first century? And how can you be confident of real salvation unless you have submitted to the real Jesus?

Do not attempt to fashion your own Jesus unless you are confident you can also fashion your own salvation. Do not reject the terms for eternal life that the biblical Jesus laid out unless you are ready to forfeit the eternal life he offered. Do not imagine you can claim the love the historical Jesus offered unless you are willing to enter through the narrow gate he described. Do not imagine you can change his paradigms of love and truth and still enter his kingdom.

History matters. Who Jesus really was and what he really taught, as preserved the very best historical accounts we possess—the documents of the New Testament—is eternally crucial. On the last day, you will not stand before a Jesus of your own imagination. You will stand before the same Jesus who walked Judea and Galilee in the first century, and you will be judged by the word that he spoke then, not by some revision of that word that you now prefer.

If you think you are wiser than the ancient, historic, narrow-minded Jewish Jesus of the Gospels, then he will be too wise accept you into his kingdom. If you reject the ethics of the Jesus who rose from the dead, then don’t imagine he will grant you the privilege of sharing in his resurrection.

If you come to the historical, biblical Jesus only to deny who he really was before the world around you, then the historical, biblical Jesus will deny you before his Father on the last day.

But if you come to the real Jesus on his terms, submitting to his historical portrait in the Gospels, the you will find the real Jesus immeasurably meek and gentle of heart, with a welcome warmer than you could ever hope for, a love greater than any of us deserve.

Yes, we must agree with Jesus. If our Christianity is not rooted in history, then it has no future, either.

What, Then, Is the Loving Thing To Do?

It is clear to me that history and theology agree: we are building with straw if we argue that Christians today can rightly affirm homosexual activity. Historical evidence shows that Jesus did not affirm homosexual behavior and that the pattern of Scripture consistently contradicts it. And from a theological perspective, the words of Jesus (preserved in historical accounts) do not allow us to affirm what he denied. Jesus’ own theological understanding of his own authority forces any honest follower of his to stay true to the ethics he taught.

What, then, should a faithful follower of Jesus do? I suggest two responses.

First, we should hold fast to what followers of Jesus have always believed about homosexual behavior. Here the book Unchanging Witness by Fortson and Grams is incredibly helpful. They devote 137 pages to discussing what the church from start to present has taught about homosexuality. Nearly half those pages consist of lengthy quotes from primary sources. (To read excerpts from those quotes, see the appendix at the end of this post.)

Given the evidence from church history, Fortson and Grams are well able to make the following claims:

Both the teaching of the Bible and the teaching of Christian tradition have uniformly taught the same thing: homosexual practice is sinful. We agree with Saint Vincent of Lerins (AD 434) in his approach to determining heresy in the church. Heresy is that which is neither biblical nor universally taught… We believe the evidence is clear: both Scripture and the church universal (“everywhere, always, by all”) have taught that homosexual practice is sin. Those who teach otherwise are teaching heresy….

The issue is not, after all, whether the Bible addresses homosexual practice: it does. It is not whether diverse interpretations on this issue have existed in the history of the church: they have not…. Both Scripture and the church have clearly and consistently said the same thing. The issue comes down to this: the authority of Scripture and the relevance of the church’s teaching…. That is the point at which some in the church in the West are dividing from the rest of the church universal, from the teaching of the church in other centuries, and from what must indeed be considered the teaching of all Christians.22

“The teaching of all Christians?” From within the echo chamber of our own generation such a statement can sound jarring and unbelievable. Isolated individual congregations and church leaders have occasionally publicly affirmed homosexuality for over a century. Now non-denominational pro-gay organizations are multiplying within Western churches, even within evangelical ones. A growing list of self-professed or former evangelicals have come out in support of homosexual relationships as well—people such as Matthew Vines, Justin Lee, Mark Achtemeier, Jim Wallis, David Gushee, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Danny Cortez, Jen Hatmaker, Rachel Held Evans, Joshua Harris, and more.

Yet the fact remains that only a tiny minority of today’s professing Christians belong to denominations that affirm homosexual behavior. According to the best evidence I can find, not until about the past fifty years did any denomination ever affirm homosexual behavior. The Metropolitan Community Church began in 1968 specifically around the cause of affirming homosexuality and “is comprised mostly of former Protestants and Catholics who could not find affirmation of their gay lifestyle in traditional Christian churches.”23

In the early 1970s, a growing number of leaders in many mainline Protestant denominations began bucking the official positions of their denominations by blessing gay ordination or same-sex unions. Not until 1978, however, did the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (today part of PCUSA) officially welcome practicing gays and lesbians into church membership, while still restricting them from ordination.24 Not until 1985 did the General Synod of the United Church of Christ adopt an “Open and Affirming” resolution on homosexuality.25 As recently as 1991 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America “reaffirmed its historic position on gay ordination,” and not until 2005 was the denomination suspended from the larger Anglican Church because they persisted in including “sexually active homosexuals in all ministries of the church.”26 Only in 2007 did the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American “finally” encourage its leaders not to discipline ministers who were in a “mutual, chaste, and faithful committed same-gender relationship.”27 The United Methodist Church is currently badly torn over the issue of homosexual relationships, but still today their official denominational position is that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”28

German theologian Wolfhart Pannenburg warned in 1996 that any church that would cease “to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm… would stand no longer on biblical grounds but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture.” It “would cease to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”29

Panneburg’s claim is, on a quantitative level, simply true, whether measured by the church of the past or the present. The vast majority of Christians alive today, especially in places where Christianity is growing fastest, strongly affirm the Church’s historic position on homosexual behavior.

Will this consensus hold? I do not know. But even if it doesn’t, we will always have the witness of nearly 2000 years of church history. Rightly or wrongly, the Church has argued for centuries over questions such as the authority of the Pope, infant baptism, whether Christians can use the sword, gender roles in the church, interpretations of biblical prophecy, and even the humanity and divinity of Jesus. But almost none of these same Christians ever had a moment’s difficulty understanding God’s will regarding homosexual behavior.

The historic rejection by Christians of homosexual activity has been consistent and uncompromising. The historic responses of professing Christians to homosexual behavior, however, have varied. They range from the utterly tragic—castration or even at times death—to the exemplary—such as some pastoral advice found in modern Roman Catholic and Orthodox sources.

As an example of the latter, consider these words from Orthodox theologican Thomas Hopko:

The homosexual Christian is called to a particularly rigorous battle. His or her struggle is an especially ferocious one. It is not made any easier by the mindless, truly demonic hatred of those who despise and ridicule those who carry this painful and burdensome cross; nor by the mindless, equally demonic affirmation of homosexual activity by its misguided advocates and enablers.30

Hopko’s words lead naturally to my second suggested response for those who want to follow Jesus.

Second, we should offer “truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) about homosexuality to our neighbor. Here is Webb again:

So the real question is, what is the loving thing to do? If a particular behavior incites God’s anger to the point where habitual participants are susceptible to banishment from his kingdom, then what is the loving thing to do? In this case, it should be obvious. The loving thing to do would be to rescue the individual from destruction (negatively) and to invite them into the glorious kingdom of Christ (positively). The continued practice of bestiality and adultery, as with sustained homosexual activity, places one’s participation in the kingdom at risk… If some action… has the potential for kingdom banishment, let alone divine displeasure, then loving my neighbor becomes a painful and tension-charged action. Silence is not love. A “live and let live” distancing is not love. Loving one’s neighbor in this instance means caring for their entire well being—temporal and beyond—even if such an act of interactive love has an extremely painful and straining side.31

In that vein, I want to end with a handful of pastoral comments followed by a list of additional resources.

Pastoral comment #1: If you experience same-sex desires and perhaps have even been acting on them, know this: Jesus loves you! He, too, battled the weakness of his own human flesh (Matt. 26:41; Luke 22:44). He knows your longing for intimate relationship. You are not alone. You are not less-than. Jesus wants you to experience his love. If this is a message you long to hear, please listen to the conversation my friend Asher Witmer recently had with his new friend Ken Brubacher, titled “Does Jesus Love Homosexuals?” Prepare to be encouraged as Ken tells his story of being transformed by Jesus’ love!

Pastoral comment #2: “Getting saved” from homosexuality is not the same as becoming heterosexual. Heterosexuals need saving just as surely as homosexuals do. The creation standard for ethical sex is not merely heterosexual orientation, nor even loving heterosexual relationships, but monogamous, loving, till-death-do-us-part heterosexual marriage—and almost every post-puberty person alive has fallen short. Further, “getting saved” from homosexuality does not necessarily or merely mean achieving a heterosexual orientation. Rather, as with people of all sexual experiences, it means living in line with Paul’s bracing and comforting words: “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13).

Pastoral comment #3: Each of us must settle this question in our minds: Who or what do I trust as my basis for determining truth? If I live by the “truth” of my body, I will sacrifice the Lord. If I live by the truth of the Lord, I will present my body as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1). If I live by the “truth” of my body—that wondrous, insatiable, selfish, sickly sack of fickle, fading flesh—my actions will declare that I do not believe the Lord’s promise of eternally glorious resurrection bodies for his children. If I live by the truth of the Lord and his resurrection promise, I will plant my current dying body as a seed in the ground, confident it will spring up as a glorious, imperishable, powerful body when Jesus returns (1 Cor. 15:35-55). Which do you trust? Your body? Or the Lord? The wonderful Christian hope is that, if you trust the Lord, you will find that the Lord is indeed “for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13).

Pastoral comment #4: Church, if your evangelistic message is “God hates you,” then your message is not God’s message. If your opening salvo to people with same-sex desires is “God hates fags,”32 then please don’t claim Jesus’ blessing when you are “hated by all” (Matt. 10:22). We read of Jesus that “sinners were all drawing near to hear him” (Luke 15:1)—this even as he called them to repentance (Luke 5:32). Eventually most sinners rejected Jesus, but not before many of them had been drawn by his loving invitation. Similarly Paul warned clearly of wrath to come, but emphasized that God’s present stance toward sinners is one of “kindness” (Rom. 2:4-5).33 God’s children should be rich in kindness, too!

Finally, here are some additional resources on homosexuality that Christians (or those exploring Christianity) may find helpful. Some deal mostly with biblical exegesis, some more with pastoral issues, and some with both.

  • A Christian Perspective on Homosexuality,” an article by William Lane Craig. This is a good addition to this list for two reasons: (a) it includes a philosophical discussion of finding the basis of right and wrong, and (b) it surveys recent medical evidence of the damaging effects of homosexual lifestyles.
  • A Gospel for Failures,” an article by Matt Moore, written after he left his gay lifestyle and just before he married John Piper’s daughter last month. “Humility requires that I not seek to make myself look better than Jonathan Merritt described me in the Washington Post, because the truth is that the public doesn’t know the half of how sinful I am….I will, however, defend the truth of the gospel. “
  • The Powerful Witness of Same-Sex Attracted Christians,” an article by Emily Hallock. “People with same-sex attraction who want to follow Jesus may be among the most important witnesses of our time. They are taking a brave, uncompromising stand for the gospel that requires great personal sacrifice…. The church needs to be there for people like my dad.”

I’m sure I’ve skipped some of your favorite resources, but I wanted to keep this list short and mostly limited to resources I’ve personally used.

Conclusion

My main goal in writing these posts has been simple but crucial: to convince readers that agreeing with Jesus and affirming homosexual behavior are incompatible. I believe it is intellectually inconsistent and disastrous to the church of Jesus to try to combine the two.

I think you need to make a choice, and I hope with all my heart that you choose Jesus.

The burden that drove me to write this series has been delivered. Where my words have been imperfect, I ask for grace from you and from God. If you have something to add, please share it in the comments below.

May the grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be with each of you. And may our churches become places where those with homosexual desires find a feast of love and truth!


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Appendix:
Witnesses From the Historic Church

The following quotes are an extremely small representation of the evidence shared by Fortson and Grams in their book Unchanging Witness. They also provide counter-evidence to claims that medieval vows of spiritual friendship effectively sanctioned homosexual unions.34

Neither fornicators nor male prostitutes nor homosexuals will inherit the kingdom of God. (Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 5, ca. 155, quoting Paul)

I should suppose the coupling of two males to be a very shameful thing. (Tertullian, Against the Valentinians 11, ca. 200)

Offenses which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites…. Divine law… hath not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. (Augustine, Confessions 3.8, 397)

If any ordained person has been defiled with the crime of sodomy… let him do penance for ten years, according to the ancient rule. (Pope Gregory III, Penitential Regulation, ca. 731-41)

If blasphemy is the worst [crime], I do not know in what way sodomy is better…. While the sons of Israel were led into captivity for blaspheming God and worshipping idols, the Sodomites perished in heavenly fire and sulphur. (Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah, ca. 1048-54)

A man who sins with another man as if with a woman sins bitterly against God and against the union with which God united male and female… And a woman who takes up devilish ways and plays a male role in coupling with another woman is most vile in My sight, and so is she who subjects herself to such a one in this evil deed. (Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias 2.6, 1179)

They [Sodom and Gomorrah] departed from the natural passion and longing of the male for the female, which is implanted into nature by God, and desired what is altogether contrary to nature. Whence comes this perversity? Undoubtedly from Satan… (Martin Luther, “Lecture on Genesis,” ca. 1535-45)

Thus it is written by Paul: …Adulterers, whoremongers, perverts, effeminate… will not inherit the kingdom of God unless they repent. (Menno Simons, The New Birth, 1537)

He [Paul] brings as the first example, the dreadful crime of unnatural lust… they not only abandoned themselves to beastly lusts, but became degraded beyond the beast, since they reversed the whole order of nature…. Paul… calls those disgraceful passions, which… redound to the dishonouring of God. (John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, 1540)

Divine law… excludes from the kingdom of God not only unbelieving, but the faithful also (who are) fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, liers with mankind… and all others who commit deadly sins. (Council of Trent, 6th Session, XV, 1545-63)

The seventh commandment forbids: adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy and all unnatural desires. (Westminster Larger Catechism, 1648)

In Sacred Scripture they [homosexual relations] are… presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God… This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved. (Persona Humana, 1975, approved by Pope Paul VI)

The position of the Orthodox Church toward homosexuality has been expressed… beginning with the very first centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical life…. The Orthodox Church believes that homosexuality should be treated by society as an immoral and dangerous perversion and by religion as a sinful failure. (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, 1976)

The moral prohibitions against homosexual behavior in the Old Testament are pointedly repeated in the New Testament… We must hold no malice toward, nor fear of, homosexuals—such attitudes are not of Christ. At the same time we must not condone sexual behavior that God has defined as sinful. (Assemblies of God, 2001)

As black preachers, we are progressive in our social consciousness, and in our political ideology as an oppressed people we will often be against the status quo, but our first call is to hear the voice of God in our Scriptures, and where an issue clearly contradicts our understanding of Scripture, we have to apply that understanding. (Gregory G. Groover Sr., African Methodist Episcopal pastor in Boston, explaining why AME preachers had just voted at the AME national convention in 2004 to forbid ministers from performing marriage or civil union ceremonies for same-sex couples)

Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and other passages throughout the Bible specifically identify homosexual behavior as sinful… In this area of our lives [moral purity] as in all others, God call[s] us to be obedient to his revealed moral rules, in no small part because these moral laws are given for our own good. (National Association of Evangelicals, 2012, still current)

The sacrament of marriage consists in the union of a man and a woman…. Acting upon any sexual attraction outside of sacramental marriage, whether the attraction is heterosexual or homosexual, alienates us from God. (Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States, 2013)

Homosexuality is not a “valid alternative lifestyle.” The Bible condemns it as sin. It is not, however, unforgivable sin. The same redemption available to all sinners is available to homosexuals. They, too, may become new creations in Christ. (Southern Baptist Convention, current undated)

  1. William G. Witt, “The Hermeneutics of Same-Sex Practice: A Summary and Evaluation,” online article, Mar. 4, 2012, http://willgwitt.org/hermeneutics_of_same-sex_practice/, accessed Oct. 5, 2019.
  2. Witt, ibid.
  3. Witt, ibid.
  4. Jesus’ teaching about what does and does not defile a person effectively eliminated the Jewish category of unclean foods (Mark 7:19), and he proclaimed himself lord of the Sabbath, thus establishing a basis for understanding it as fulfilled in himself rather than in a weekly day of rest (Mark 2:27-28).
  5. A few people argue that Jesus himself made a subtle hint that circumcision was ending.  Carson: “Jesus’ healing of the whole man… becomes a fulfilment of Old Testament circumcision” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991, 316). Glass argues this point more forcefully (and questionably): “John’s Gospel attacks circumcision in three ways. It contrasts Jesus’ healing, which makes a man every bit whole, with circumcision, which chops a bit off. It downgrades circumcision from a command of God to a practice of the ancestors. It does so in the Greek language and therefore in a cultural setting that saw circumcision as an obscene mutilation” (Michael Glass, “The New Testament and Circumcision,” Oct. 2001, Circumcision Information and Resources Page, http://cirp.org/pages/cultural/glass1/, accessed Oct. 5, 2019). What is clear is that Jesus’ apostles soon came to understand that mandating circumcision for Gentiles was contrary to Jesus’ new covenant (Acts 15; Gal. 5:2-12; 1Cor. 7:18; cf. Rom. 2:29; 4:11-12).
  6. I doubt this requirement was aimed in a limited way against polygamy, but it almost certainly was assumed to include it.
  7. Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway),74, emphasis added. DeYoung’s book is an excellent popular-level book, readable and based on good scholarship.
  8. William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuality: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), 247.
  9. Ibid., 250. While I question some of Webb’s assessments and conclusions, especially regarding the “women” part of his topic, his book is a stimulating and valuable read.
  10. Ibid., 82, emphasis added. Note: I wish Webb would have distinguished here between (a) people who experience homosexual desire and (b) homosexual activity in these statements. Elsewhere he clearly discusses how Christians must have “compassion for those who struggle with homosexual feelings and behavior” (Ibid., 252).
  11. Ibid., 83
  12. Ibid., 88, n. 36, emphasis added.
  13. Ibid., 250, emphasis added. Webb says other things also worth noting: “While the garden” of Eden “presents sexuality (monogamous heterosexuality) as normative, no one would use this pattern to condemn sexual abstinence… But to argue for homosexuality from these abstinence cases (as some do) produces a considerable leap in logic. It is one thing to abstain from heterosexual relationships; it is quite another to find sexual fulfillment through means outside of heterosexual relationships. Abstinence cases break from creation pattern, but they do so by limiting one’s sexual fulfillment. Homosexual cases break from the creation pattern by broadening the scope of one’s sexual fulfillment (as bestiality would broaden one’s sexual fulfillment options beyond the creation pattern),” p. 132. “Alternative options” to monogamous heterosexual marriage “existed in the surrounding cultures, and a negative assessment of the practice” of homosexuality “by biblical authors sets up dissonance with the acceptance of the practice by many in other cultures. This increases the possibility that the author of Genesis understood the creation story as a statement about normative sexual patterns being heterosexual,” p. 133. “The concern with homosexuality was much broader than simply a violation of covenant or simply an issue of the participant’s passive/active status… With bestiality, as with homosexuality, one is breaking the ‘boundaries’ of biological design and sexual order. Reproduction of species does not take place between and animal and a human; nor does it take place between two humans of the same sex. With bestiality one crosses the boundary between human and animal; in the act of homosexuality one breaks the structural boundaries between male and female. It is also these boundary lines, not covenant, which were important in the incest laws,” pp. 177-78. “At most, homosexuality advocates have demonstrated that some features of biblical sexuality are cultural,” such as semen-emission and menstrual intercourse laws. “Their case would have been much stronger if they had demonstrated through ‘closely related issues’ that certain components of a biblical development of ‘homosexuality’ (not just ‘sexuality’) were cultural. Thus the one-category-removed approach makes the homosexual case extremely weak. Ultimately, it is not persuasive,” p. 171. “The continued survival of a species depends upon heterosexual activity. This is why homosexuality remains an anomaly within any species where survival is viewed as a good value,” p. 217. ”
  14. , Ibid., 200, emphasis added.
  15. “A Brief Biblical Case for LGBTQ Inclusion,” online article, The Reformation Project, founded by Matthew Vines, https://www.reformationproject.org/biblical-case, accessed Oct. 6, 2019.
  16.   Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 452. Here is a fuller quote: “Many also argue that abusive pederasty was the standard form in which Paul encountered male intimacy. But Wolff shows that this is far from the case. Paul witnessed around him both abusive relationships of power or money and examples of ‘genuine love’ between males.”
  17. Fortson and Grams, ibid., 304, 312, bold added.
  18. Luke Timothy Johnson, “Homosexuality & The Church: Scripture & Experience,” online article, Commonweal Magazine, June 11, 2007, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/homosexuality-church-0, accessed Oct. 5, 2019. Johnson’s later comparison of homosexuality with slavery also falls flat given the observations of Webb summarized above; there is a trajectory in Scripture away from the heartless forms of slavery accepted in the cultures around God’s people toward an ethic that commands masters to treat slaves as they would want to be treated themselves, but there is no such trajectory in Scripture toward affirming homosexual activity in any form.
  19. Sarah Bessey, “Penny in the Air: My Story of Becoming Affirming,” blog post, June 5, 2019, https://sarahbessey.com/penny-in-the-air-my-story-of-becoming-affirming/, accessed Oct. 5, 2019. A much better explanation of this account in Matthew 15 is offered by Derek DeMars: “As interpreters have long pointed out, Jesus’ words to the woman are tinged with irony. He was speaking (as wisdom-teachers of the time often did) with a challenge or riddle intended to draw wisdom out of the other person. That’s why his final response to the woman is, ‘Because you have answered this way…’ (Mark 7:29). He was testing her.” Derek DeMars, “Was Jesus a Bigot? A Response to Sarah Bessey on Affirming Homosexuality,” blog post, Aug. 13, 2019, https://derekdemars.com/2019/08/13/was-jesus-a-bigot-prejudice-and-homosexuality/, accessed Oct. 5, 2019.
  20. Luke Timothy Johnson, ibid. Bessey gives a similar role to experience in her narrative of how she came to affirm homosexuality. She tells of her relationship with a woman who prayed for her, comparing her own change of understanding to that of Peter with Cornelius: “Eventually I learned that in addition to being a powerful and mighty woman of God, in addition to being an anointed pastor, in addition to being a devoted follower of Jesus, in addition to being kind and bold, faithful and content, funny and compassionate and godly, she was also a lesbian. And just like that, the penny dropped. All the study, all the footnotes, all the scholars, went from being a jumble of intellectual opinions to a lived experience in one encounter with the Holy Spirit alongside a beloved sister in Christ” (Sarah Bessey, ibid., emphasis in original).
  21. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1996), Kindle Edition, location 4692.
  22. Fortson and Grams, ibid., 3-5. Bold added.
  23. Fortson and Grams, ibid., 11.
  24. Ibid., 156.
  25. Ibid., 144.
  26. Ibid., 149-51.
  27. Ibid., 154.
  28. “2016 Book of Discipline,” United Methodist Church, shared on the official denominational website, http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/what-is-the-denominations-position-on-homosexuality, accessed Oct. 13, 2019.
  29. “What Wolfhart Pannenburg Says About This Debate in the Church,” Christianity Today, November 11, 1996, 37, emphasis added. Quoted by Fortson and Grams, ibid., 162-63.
  30. Thomas Hopko, “The Homosexual Christian,” Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/reflections/misc-authors/the-homosexual-christian, accessed Oct. 7, 2019. Here is another helpful example, this time Roman Catholic, shared by Fortson and Grams: “While the church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, she does distinguish between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual inclination. While the former is always objectively sinful, the latter is not” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care, 2006).
  31. Webb, ibid., 183, bold added.
  32. This, of course, is the message that Westboro Baptist Church famously declares, and even the URL for their church website: https://godhatesfags.com/. A (former) insider’s view of this church is available through the recent book Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, by Megan Phelps-Roper. You can read an excerpt here. I have not read the whole book.
  33. It is true, properly understood, that God hates not only sin but also people who persist in sin (Ps. 5:4-6; 7:11-12; etc.). But nowhere in Scripture do we see this message proclaimed in evangelism. The evangelistic message of the early church was not that God hates sinners, but that God desires “to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts 3:26). “The Lord… is patient… not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
  34. All but two of the following quotes come from S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 27-163. The exceptions are the AME quote (which Fortson and Grams summarize) and the SBC quote (not included in their three pages of SBC quotes).

Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality? (5 of 6)

In this post I want to summarize our findings about Jesus and homosexuality from my last three posts and evaluate three possible counter-arguments from the Gospels. Did Jesus say some people are born gay? Did he heal a centurion’s male lover? And what about Jesus and his “beloved disciple”?

I will finish answering the question “Was Jesus okay with homosexual behavior?” Then my final post will address the question “Is Jesus okay with homosexual behavior now?”

This is part of a six-part blog series on Jesus and homosexuality:

    1. Introduction, Explanations, and a Summary of this Series
    2. How Should We Interpret Jesus’ Silence About Homosexuality?
    3. Does “Love Your Neighbor” Mean Jesus Affirmed “Gay Love”?
    4. Why It’s Wrong to Say Jesus Said Nothing About Homosexuality
    5. Historical Conclusions: Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality?
    6. Conclusions for Today: Is Jesus Okay With Homosexuality Now?

In this series on homosexuality, I have focused on Jesus, discussing other biblical witnesses primarily in relation to him. There are at least two reasons for this focus.

First, I believe that being a Christian starts with following Jesus. It certainly does not end there (see my “Red Letter Reductionism” essay), but it is never less: “Whoever says he abides in him [Jesus] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). If we can learn directly from Jesus how we ought to think and act regarding homosexuality, let us do so.

Second, Jesus is often seen as the “weak link” in the Bible’s stance against homosexual behavior. If the idea that Jesus approved of “loving same-sex relationships” turns out to be historically unbelievable, then this illusion of a weak link is removed, and the witness of all of Scripture is seen to be consistent.

In discussing Jesus’ views of homosexual behavior, I have also presented much of the other biblical evidence on the topic. But I have not directly asked valuable questions like “Must Christians obey the Leviticus laws against homosexual behavior?” Nor have I attempted a detailed exegesis of Paul’s teachings against homosexual activity. Rather, I have placed these biblical passages alongside other ancient texts and looked for consistent patterns, with one guiding question: What light do these passages shine on what Jesus himself believed?

What, then, did we find?

Our Findings So Far

First, we examined Jesus’ apparent silence on homosexuality. Jewish teachers in Jesus’ day who mentioned homosexual behavior consistently condemned it, and it was nearly unknown among Jews at the time. It was something “out there” that non-Jews did, and no Jewish rabbi had to stake out his public position on the topic. If any rabbi had been suspected of disagreeing with this Jewish consensus, he would have been rapidly rejected by fishermen and Pharisee alike.

Given this historical evidence, there was little reason for Jesus to specifically mention homosexual behavior, and every reason to assume he agreed with the Jewish consensus.

Second, we asked if Jesus’ emphasis on love is proof that he approved of loving homosexual relationships. Does “love your neighbor” mean Jesus affirmed “gay love”? Ancient Jews saw no contradiction between commanding neighbor-love and condemning homosexual activity (see Lev. 18:22 and Lev. 19:18). Paul likewise paired these teachings in his letters to Rome and Corinth (e.g. Rom. 1:24-27; 13:9). Unlike our culture, the New Testament actually contrasts love and sexual indulgence (e.g. Eph. 5:2-3). In Jesus’ view, “Love your neighbor” is the “second” commandment, subordinate to the “most important” commandment, “Love the Lord your God” (Mark 12:28-31). Thus, it is not truly loving to help your neighbor violate God’s will.1

Given this ancient context, Jesus’ emphasis on love is not proof that he approved of “loving homosexual relationships.” If anything, it is the opposite.

Third, we considered three ways that Jesus’ original Jewish audience would have understood him to be addressing the topic of homosexual behavior, despite never explicitly naming it. Jesus taught “You shall not commit adultery” (Matt. 5:27; 19:18), a command that was understood by ancient Jews to also prohibit, by implication, all other unlawful sexual behaviors. Jesus taught against πορνεία (porneia, “sexual immorality,” Matt. 15:18-19), which “was universally understood in Judaism to include same-sex intercourse2 And Jesus warned against ἀσέλγεια (aselgeia, “debauchery,” Mark 7:21-22), “a word that Jesus… could easily turn to as a synonym for homosexual activity and other similarly shocking behavior forbidden by the Jewish law,”3  a word used in 2 Peter 2:7 to describe the “filthy conduct” (NKJV) of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

What might Jesus’ Jewish listeners say if they heard the claim that Jesus said nothing about homosexual activity? “Of course he did! We clearly heard him mention adultery, πορνεία, and ἀσέλγεια!”

But Is There Counter-Evidence?

Despite this evidence, some still point to several events in Jesus’ ministry as proof that Jesus affirmed homosexual behavior, as long as it was loving and consensual. Here are three examples that are perhaps most often mentioned. It is my impression that relatively few scholars find the following arguments significant, but some do, so I will address them.

Counter-argument 1: Jesus said some people are born gay. (Matt. 19:12)

This argument uses Jesus’ words about eunuchs:

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. (Matt. 19:12)

Rembrandt, The Baptism of the Eunuch, 1626. (From Wikimedia Commons.)

Clearly Jesus affirmed that some people are born as “eunuchs.” But what is a eunuch (ευνούχος)?

Here it is easy to get lost down a deep, dark hole, exploring all the ways that the word ευνούχος was used. The first thing I want to say is that, yes, the word ευνούχος (eunuch) may sometimes have been used to refer to someone who experienced same-sex desires (scholars do not all agree).4 However, ευνούχος was not a word that specifically referred to homosexuals, and most eunuchs were not homosexual.

BDAG, probably the most respected dictionary of New Testament Greek, lists three uses of the word ευνούχος, matching them to Jesus’ use in this passage:

1. a castrated male person, eunuch. Mt 19:12b…
2. a human male who, without a physical operation, is by nature incapable of begetting children, impotent male… Mt 19:12a…
3. a human male who abstains fr. marriage, without being impotent, a celibate Mt 19:12c…

Here we need to remember that, in any given circumstance, a word means what it means in that specific context, not necessarily what it sometimes means in other contexts. Linguists warn of a word study fallacy called illegitimate totality transfer. Blomberg’s definition of this fallacy is on point, particularly the second half:

Assuming that a word carries several or all of its possible meanings in each of its appearances when in fact the most probable meaning of any word is that which contributes the least amount of new information to the overall context.5

So what does the context indicate Jesus meant by ευνούχος (eunuch) in Matthew 19:12?

Well, Jesus actually uses the word in three different-but-related ways. That is, each occurrence of ευνούχος has its own immediate context (“from birth,” “made… by men,” “made themselves”), yet they all share the same larger context within Jesus’ discussion. The immediate context for each use is relatively clear; but how does the larger context constrain and specify what Jesus means here (in all three uses) by ευνούχος?

In the larger context, Jesus is responding to a question of the Pharisees about divorce. Jesus responds by affirming the creation model of male-female marriage with its “one flesh” sexual union (Matt. 19:3-9). His disciples, dismayed at the strict limitations Jesus places on divorce, suggest a second option: “not to marry” (Matt. 19:10).

Jesus’ comments about eunuchs occur within his response to this second option, “not to marry.” Jesus and his disciples, as good Jews, do not imagine any third option; the two options are male-female marriage or “not to marry.”6 Eunuchs, in Jesus’ discussion, fall into the latter category—no marriage and therefore, in the Jewish worldview Jesus shared, no sexual union.

Thus, despite the differences between the three categories of eunuchs Jesus describes, the common ground for all three that makes Jesus’ illustration work is that they are people who are not engaging in sexual relationships.

Other issues like sexual orientation or even reproduction are not the subject of conversation in this passage.7 Rather, Jesus is saying that some people fall into the “not to marry” category for three possible reasons: they were born with conditions that leave them unsuited for marriage;8 they were castrated; or they voluntarily give up marriage “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”9

So, did Jesus say that some people are born gay? Not really, although his words do indicate that not every male is born suited for marriage. More importantly, however, his words indicate that for everyone, whatever their sexual desires, there are only two options: faithful male-female marriage until death or “not to marry.”

Gagnon’s summary is on point:

Jesus’ comparison of men who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven with “born eunuchs” shows that Jesus categorized “born eunuchs” as persons not having any sex (Matt 19), for certainly Jesus was not giving the disciples permission to have sex outside of marriage and thereby avoid his newly enunciated standard for marriage. So, from that standpoint, any argument that is made about “born eunuchs” including homosexual persons (with which I would agree) leads to the view that Jesus did not give homosexually oriented persons the option of sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. 10

Jesus’ words about eunuchs are not a blessing on same-sex relationships, but they are a clear reminder to the church to honor those who, whatever their condition as “eunuchs,” are faithfully celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.11

Counter-argument 2: Jesus affirmed a gay couple—a centurion and his “boy.” (Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10)

This argument is based primarily on a story, one historical fact, and two Greek words. The story is the account of Jesus healing a centurion’s servant. The historical fact is that, in ancient Greco-Roman culture, it was not uncommon for a master to have a servant who also functioned as his male lover. In addition, the term παῖς (pais), found in both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of this story, can mean “boy” and was sometimes used to refer to such a lover.12 Finally, Luke’s account describes the servant as being ἔντιμος (entimos) in the eyes of the centurion—a word that can mean “dear.”

Some who promote homosexual relationships among Christians go far beyond these facts (see here, here, and here). Jesuit priest John McNeill, for example, translates the centurion as talking about “my beloved boy” and proposes this interpretation:

Here we have the most direct encounter of Jesus with someone who would today be pronounced ‘gay,’ and Jesus’ reaction was acceptance of the person without judgment and even eagerness to be of assistance to restore the ‘pais‘ to health, and by implication to restore the loving relationship of the two, making possible the renewal of any sexual activity which they would have enjoyed together prior to the illness.13

The centurion with his sick servant. (Image copyright www.LumoProject.com. Used with permission from Free Bible Images.)

There are multiple problems with this interpretation. First, παῖς (pais) usually carries no sexual connotations whatsoever; only other contextual clues can provide this meaning. When used of human relationships in the New Testament and other early Christian literature, παῖς refers either to a boy, a son, or a servant/slave.14 There are no sexual connotations in any of the other places παῖς is used in the NT.

Later in Matthew, in a quote from Isaiah, Jesus is described as being God’s beloved παῖς: “My servant… my beloved” (ὁ παῖς μου… ὁ ἀγαπητός μου; Matt. 12:18). Clearly, a παῖς can even be described as “beloved” without there being any necessary sexual connotations, or else such language would not have been used by God about his own servant.

Second, in neither Matthew nor Luke do we find the centurion talking about “my beloved boy” (McNeill’s expression). What we have instead is the narrator Luke saying that the centurion’s δοῦλος (slave/servant) was ἔντιμος in the eyes of the centurion.

Much has been made of how the terms παῖς and δοῦλος are used in Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts, but no explanation is sure enough to strongly determine our interpretation of the passage.15 More clearly, ἔντιμος fails to support the case for a homosexual relationship. Though the term can be translated “dear,” the two main senses of the word in the NT are “honored, respected,” and “valuable, precious.”16 “Dear,” in fact, is related to the latter sense; it can imply an emotional attachment based on value, without the presence of sexual desire. Most English translations of this verse use a term such as “highly valued.” Similarly, Luke’s only other use of ἔντιμος is usually translated as “distinguished” or “honorable” (Luke 14:8).

Some argue that it is unreasonable to imagine a Roman centurion would plead for Jesus to heal a mere servant unless that servant were his lover. But are we willing to argue that sexual interest is the strongest possible motivation? If this centurion could possess a faith greater than Jesus had found in Israel (Matt. 8:10; Luke 7:9), why could he not also possess a great (non-sexual) concern for a  valued servant? If the centurion who called for Peter was “a devout man who feared God with all his household,” “gave alms generously,” and had “a devout soldier… among those who attended him,” (Acts 10:2, 7), why could this believing centurion not likewise sincerely care for “those who attended him”?

Third, if we take into account Luke’s assessment of how valuable (ἔντιμος) the servant was to the centurion, then we must also consider Luke’s report of how valuable the centurion was to the Jews. Luke reports that elders of the Jews “pleaded… earnestly” with Jesus on behalf of the centurion, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue” (Luke 7:4-5). If “a deeply observant God-fearer [Gentile proselyte] would not practise paederasty,”17 surely a pious Jew would avoid supporting it. Perhaps this centurion was not a God-fearer but only a benefactor; nevertheless, can we really imagine Jews in Jesus day offering such high praise for someone they know is practicing pederasty? Can we imagine them pleading with Jesus to heal a pederast’s “beloved boy”? Can we imagine the Jewish crowds standing quietly by as Jesus took an active pederast and “preached him into the kingdom” (Matt. 8:11-12)?

In contrast to such scenarios, Green’s assessment of the centurion’s possible motives is refreshingly reasonable:

His desire to see his slave returned to health need not imply an extraordinary humanitarian concern on his part, since care for sick slaves was advised in Roman antiquity as a way to prolong their usefulness. At the same time… Luke’s language suggests that the centurion not only regarded the slave as useful, but actually esteemed him. There is no socio-historical reason to doubt that, as an urban slave in the home of a wealthy master, this dying man might might have enjoyed friendship with the centurion.18

The hypothesis that Jesus affirmed a gay couple by healing the centurion’s “boy” creates far more problems than it solves.

Counter-argument 3: Jesus had a homosexual relationship with his “beloved disciple.” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20)

The disciple “whom Jesus loved” is first mentioned in John’s account of the Last Supper. There we read that “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side” (John 13:23). A more word-for-word translation could read “reclining on the chest of Jesus,” but “the position of the Beloved Disciple is not to be understood as resting ‘on top of’ Jesus.”19 We know this disciple was very close to Jesus, yet not actually on top of him, because later when he wanted to ask Jesus a question (John 13:25), “the easiest way for him to address Jesus was to lean back until his head literally rested”20 on Jesus’ “chest.”21

This physical proximity may make us uncomfortable. Scholars, however, point to abundant evidence that such practices were normal and non-sexual in Jesus’ day. For special meals like the Passover, people reclined next to each other on couches to eat.22 If this Last Supper meal followed standard banquet procedure, three people were reclining at the head table—including Jesus and beloved disciple, leaning on his left elbow, just to Jesus’ right.

In this image of the Last Supper, Peter (foreground) is addressing the beloved disciple (left), who is next to Jesus (center), with another disciple (Judas?) on Jesus’ left. If the beloved disciple wanted a private word with Jesus, he would lean back till his head was next to Jesus’ chest. (Image is property of Good News Productions International and College Press Publishing. Used with permission from Free Bible Images.)

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus similarly describes Lazarus lying “on the chest” of Abraham (Luke 16:23). “One might also lay one’s head on another’s bosom, which in that culture, far more tactile than our own, had no necessary sexual connotations.”23

Klink reminds us of our own cultural biases:

The Western reader must be immediately reminded that such physical closeness was (and is) quite different in an Eastern context. In many parts of the world today, men walk down the street holding hands as a sign of friendship, not as a sign of homosexuality. This is an especially common practice between two men operating together in a business relationship, reflecting mutual respect and trust. With this in view, the actions of the Beloved Disciple become wordless communication that shows mutual trust and respect.24

Some point to an event during Jesus’ crucifixion as more evidence that Jesus had an erotic relationship with “the disciple whom he loved”:25

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:26-27)

Keener, however, points to multiple ancient Greek texts in which people either promise to take a friend’s mother as their own if the friend dies or entrust their mother to the care of a friend.26 He also points to texts which “described a disciple’s virtue in terms of caring for the teacher’s family.”27 In this case, there was an additional motivation for Jesus’ choice:

Most important, because Jesus’ brothers did not believe (7:5), Jesus entrusted his believing mother to a disciple… This model suggests that the ties of the believing community must be stronger than natural familial bonds, a moral amply illustrated by the Jesus tradition (Mark 3:33-35; 13:12).28

How, then, do we explain this disciple’s special title as the one Jesus “loved”? First, the beloved disciple was probably the apostle John, who was indeed part of the “inner circle” of three disciples closest to Jesus. Second, he was probably also the author of the Gospel, and may have used this term as a form of authorial modesty and gratitude for receiving Jesus’ love.29 Third, his anonymity invites the reader to interact with him not just as an historical figure, but as an “ideal disciple” to be imitated.30

Whatever the reasons for this title, we should note that John also records Jesus as having special “love” for Lazarus (“he whom you love,” John 11:3, 36) and for his sisters Mary and Martha (John 11:5).31 Further, “the verbs agapaō and phileō and their cognates”—the words used for “love” in all these passages—“nowhere in John’s Gospel have a sexual connotation.”32

As Keener writes, “given John’s Jewish context, any implied sexual relationship” between Jesus and the beloved disciple “would be impossible without the Gospel somewhere indicating a lifting of Jewish sexual taboos.”33 If John’s readers would have protested at the idea, so would have Jesus’ other disciples.34

The problem with all homosexual interpretations of Jesus and the beloved disciple is revealed clearly in this assertion by Anglican priest Paul Oestreicher: “It would be so interpreted in any person today.”35

But Jesus didn’t live “today,” and not in Oestreicher’s Western culture, either. When we read these texts within the historical context of Jesus’ own ancient Jewish culture, it becomes clear that no one then saw any reason to come to any such homosexual interpretation of Jesus’ actions. Why should we imagine we can understand their own culture better than they did?

Was Jesus Okay With Homosexual Activity?

I have discussed the big picture arguments regarding Jesus’ “silence” about homosexuality and his ethic of love. I have also evaluated three details from Jesus’ life and ministry that have been used to paint a pro-homosexual Jesus. More importantly, we have examined all this evidence within the larger historical context of Jesus’ own time and place.

I believe the evidence points clearly in one direction: The total available historical evidence fits only with the hypothesis that Jesus—the historical Jesus of Nazareth—did not approve of homosexual behavior.

This fact is not surprising, for it appears that Jesus built his sexual ethic on the Genesis 1-2 creation account, as is seen in Matthew 19:3-8. The structure of Jesus’ argument in this passage (drawing on God himself) is that because God made humans male and female they become one flesh in marriage. Jesus used this creation reality to forbid the separation of male-female one flesh unions. But it is equally relevant to the question of homosexual unions, for the basis given in the creation account for becoming “one flesh” is the same-yet-different duality of male and female.

According to Genesis, Eve was taken from Adam and made to be “a helper” who was “corresponding to him” (Gen. 2:20, CSB). Another male would not “help” Adam, nor was Eve designed to “correspond” to another female. Thus, male-male and female-female unions have no foundation in God’s creation design, but actually contradict it. The fact that Jesus drew on this “from the beginning” creation design (Matt. 19:8) as the foundation for his answer to divorce strongly indicates he would have done the same in his answer to homosexual behavior—just as other Jews in his day in fact did.

Conclusion

At this point some readers will be more than content, believing that it is clear what Christians today should believe about the ethics of homosexual behavior. Other readers, perhaps agreeing with much of my historical analysis, will nevertheless feel the question of Christian belief and practice is still open. For the latter readers, I have one more post addressing this question: Is it okay for Christians today to affirm homosexual behavior?

For now, however, we should pause to reaffirm what we already know: While individual pieces of evidence can be used to paint a pro-homosexual Jesus, the total available historical evidence fits only with the hypothesis that Jesus did not approve of homosexual behavior.

Have you puzzled over the three details of Jesus’ life that we examined in this post? Have I missed other possible counter-evidence that seems strong to you? Are you finding this series helpful? Troubling? Am I scratching where it itches—without merely satisfying itching ears (2 Tim. 4:3)? If you have a comment, please leave it below. And thanks again for reading!


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  1. This is what someone like David Gushee misunderstands when he makes the following statement: “I now believe that the traditional interpretation of the most cited passages is questionable and that all that parsing of Greek verbs has distracted attention from the primary moral obligation taught by Jesus — to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially our most vulnerable neighbors” (David Gushee, “I’m an evangelical minister. I now support the LGBT community — and the church should, too,” Nov. 4, 2014, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/04/im-an-evangelical-minister-i-now-support-the-lgbt-community-and-the-church-should-too/, accessed Oct. 5, 2019. Gushee’s sentiment is also why I have placed little emphasis on “all that parsing of Greek verbs” in this series. I contend that the basic stance of the Scripture on homosexual activity is clear when simply placed within its overall historical context, without a lot of parsing of individual words. The individual words can only be understood correctly when this larger context is clear.
  2. Robert Gagnon, “The Bible and Homosexual Practice: An Overview of Some Issues,” 2003, online article based on an interview with Zenit News Agency, March 21 and 28, 2002, pub. by OrthodoxyToday.org, http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/GagnonHomosexuality.php, accessed August 28, 2019.
  3. G. Thomas Hobson, “ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008), 65, 67, 70, bold added. See here for the full article: https://www.academia.edu/31907497/ASELGEIA_IN_MARK_7_22, accessed September 2, 2019.
  4. For a positive conclusion, see Robert Gagnon and J., “Jesus, eunuchs, and the allegation of a ‘gay Jesus,'” email correspondence with links, dated 1/18/07, http://robgagnon.net/AnswersToEMails.htm, accessed September 28, 2019. However, much of the evidence shared in J.’s link refers to ancient concepts of eunuchs in cultures and languages far from Jesus’ context, and not specificially to the use of the word ευνούχος itself. For a contrasting opinion, see this article by A. Phillip Brown, III, which claims that “the Greek term eunouchos is never used to denote a person with intact sexual organs who is intersex, transgender, or engages in homosexual behavior.” If ευνούχος should indeed be understood to include people with same-sex attractions, it is still a matter of scholarly debate whether such persons were equivalent to what we today call a “homosexual.” I agree with Fortson and Grams (in Unchanging Witness) that the ancient world did have understandings of sexual desire effectively equivalent to our modern category of homosexual orientation. For a contrasting opinion, here is France’s commentary on what “born a eunuch” means: “In the context of modern discussions about homosexual orientation it might be suggested that it also includes those who are psychologically disinclined to heterosexual intercourse and thus debarred from fatherhood, but evidence for such an understanding of homosexuality in the ancient world is hard to find. Most references to homosexual behavior in the ancient world are to what we now call bisexuality, the choice of some who are capable of heterosexual intercourse to find sexual fulfillment also (or instead) with members of their own sex. Such a choice could hardly be described as being ‘born a eunuch,’ and the idea of an innate and irreversible homosexual orientation belongs to modern Western psychology rather than to the world in which Jesus lived.” R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 724-25.
  5. Craig L. Blomberg with Jennifer Foutz Markley, A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 136.
  6. I am indebted to Hugenberger for this observation: “What is notable for our discussion is that as far as Jesus is concerned, there is no THIRD option! One must either be chaste (“a eunuch… for the sake of the kingdom”) or one must be faithful in a heterosexual marriage (“male and female” “united to his wife”). Surely if Jesus wanted to affirm life-long committed homosexual unions, here is where he needed to do it because his own disciples were astonished at the radical and difficult requirements he seemed to set before them. But Jesus did not allow that third option” (Gordon Hugenberger, “Homosexuality,” June 15, 2004, https://www.parkstreet.org/teaching-training/
    articles/homosexuality (now a dead link), quoted by Aubrey Spears in “The Great Exchange: Same-Sex Sex Attraction,” sermon,  https://clovermedia.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/7572d4795b/attachments/Great_Exchange__The__Incarnation__2018.pdf, accessed September 24, 2019).
  7. It is true that, just as a minority of males “born eunuchs” have homosexual desires, so a minority of males who are castrated experience a change in sexual orientation or desire (. 2016 Mar; 4(1): e51–e59. Published online March 2, 2016. doi: 10.1016/j.esxm.2015.11.001.). In both cases, however, homosexual orientation is not the experience of most eunuchs. Thus, given both physiological realities and the literary context of Jesus’ conversation, it makes little sense to interpret his words as meaning, “Some are born with homosexual orientation, some are made homosexual by others, and some choose for themselves to be homosexual for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Context similarly suggests that Jesus and his disciples are not narrowly concerned with ability to reproduce, either, as if Jesus were saying, “Some are born unable to reproduce, some are rendered unable by others, and some choose for themselves to not reproduce for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus is not discussing varied sexual experiences (fertility vs. sterility) within marriage; rather, he is discussing the option that does not include sexual union: “not to marry.”
  8. Here is a sample of explanations of this first category of “eunuch” in commentaries: “The impotent” (Hagner); “those born without sexual organs or impotent” (Osborne); those “born without the capacity for sexual relations, such as those born without properly developed genitalia” (Wilkins); “people without fully functioning sexual organs” (Blomberg); “those who are physiological incapable of procreation” (France); “those who were born without sexual organs” (Keener); “those who are naturally impotent” (Luz). See Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28, Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 33b (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1995), comment on Matt. 19:12; Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament, Kindle Edition, comment on Matt. 19:12; Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, The NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan, Kindle Edition, 645; Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture, The New American Commentary (B&H Publishing Group), Kindle Edition, 294; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 724; Craig S. Keener. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.(Eerdmans), Kindle Edition, comment on Matt. 19:10-12; Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2001), 501.
  9. Almost all English Bible translations that avoid the word “eunuch” (or the older equivalent “gelding”) in this passage are in essential agreement with my paraphrase here. Bible Gateway lists seventeen such translations (of sixty total in English). About seven of the seventeen mirror the NABRE: “Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Another five differ mainly by focusing on reproductive ability, as with the NCV: “There are different reasons why some men cannot marry. Some men were born without the ability to become fathers. Others were made that way later in life by other people. And some men have given up marriage because of the kingdom of heaven.” Another four simply use “chaste” or “celibate” as in GW: “Some men are celibate because they were born that way. Others are celibate because they were castrated. Still others have decided to be celibate because of the kingdom of heaven.” The final one, The Message, is just plain wonky on this verse!
  10. Robert Gagnon, from email to “J,” January 16, 2007, shared at “Answers to Emails,” http://robgagnon.net/AnswersToEMails.htm, accessed September 26, 2019, emphasis added.
  11. The following comments by Wilkins are timely: “Those who have chosen to remain single as the expression of the way that they believe they can best serve God need us as their community of brothers and sisters. Jesus declares that celibacy is an acceptable lifestyle for those for whom it is given by God. Paul expands on Jesus’ statement to indicate that if one remains unmarried, one is in a position to be undistracted by the amount of work that goes into taking care of one’s family responsibilities, and the kingdom of God receives benefit (1 Cor. 7:27, 39–40). Unfortunately, many of our churches endorse marriage as a sign of maturity, and those who are married tend to get the more ‘responsible’ ministry opportunities in the church. Single people are seen as those who have not ‘settled down’ yet. We should reevaluate the way we view and value single people within our ministries.” Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, The NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan), Kindle Edition, 658.
  12. Mader explains: “Within the institution of paederasty, pais had a rather specific reference to the younger, passive partner in a paederastic relationship” (Donald Mader, “The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10,” online article, Greek Love Through the Ages, https://www.greek-love.com/antiquity/matthew-luke-loved-boy-pederasty, accessed September 28, 2019). Mader’s entire article is worth consulting, though I question some of his critical assumptions and disagree with his final conclusion. One factor he fails to consider is how the Jewish elders implored Jesus on behalf of the centurion. See below for more on this.
  13. John J. McNeill, Sex as God Intended: A Reflection on Human Sexuality as Play Including Festschrift Essays Celebrating the Life and Work of John J. McNeill (Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe, 2008), 63, 65. As quoted in Fortson and Grams, p. 22.
  14. These are the three uses listed in BAGD, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed., by Walter Bauer et al. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 604.
  15. In both accounts the centurion always refers to his sick slave as a παῖς but refers to another servant/slave as a δοῦλος. Matthew always calls the sick servant a παῖς, while Luke always call him a δοῦλος. It is hard to know what to make of these patterns. On the one hand, it shows that the two terms have considerable overlap in meaning. On the other hand, it may be significant that the centurion always refers to his sick servant by the term that can imply more emotional connection. Those who argue that a homosexual relationship was present make much of this fact, but παῖς could simply hint at a non-sexual closeness. What about the choices of the Gospel writers? It is possible that Matthew, as a Jew writing to a primarily Jewish audience, was able to use παῖς to suggest the feelings of a God-fearing centurion toward his servant without considering any possible connotations of pederasty. Luke, however, was probably a Gentile, as were many in his audience; they probably shared a greater familiarity with Greco-Roman practices of pederasty than Jews did. Thus Luke may have chosen δοῦλος to avoid any connotations of pederasty for his readers, then added ἔντιμος to retain a sense of how the centurion valued his servant. I am indebted to Mader (ibid.) for pointing me in this direction, though the conclusion is my own.
  16. These are the glosses provided in BAGD, ibid., 268-69.
  17. Mader, ibid. Mader states this despite arguing that the account “suggests an attitude of toleration toward a non-exploitive, caring paederastic relationship.” He tries to evade his own observation about God-fearers by arguing that either this God-fearer was not deeply observant or that the factors suggesting piety were added (invented) by Luke.
  18. Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 286.
  19. Edward W. Klink III, John, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Zondervan), Kindle Edition, comment on John 13:23.
  20. D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 474.
  21. Here the ESV has “leaning back against Jesus,” which does not translate the Greek word στῆθος (“chest”), but does correctly convey that the beloved disciple was now actually touching (“against”) Jesus.
  22. “It is important to note that meals in the ancient world did not involve tables with chairs but involved reclining on couches, usually U-shaped (called a triclinium) around a low table. Participants would support themselves on their left elbows and eat with their right hands” (Klink, ibid.)
  23. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. II (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 915, n. 184; cf. 915-16, also 900-901. Other scholars agree. Gagnon: “A text in Pliny’s Epistles refers to a senator named Veiento who ‘was reclining… on the chest’ of the emperor Nerva, again without any sexual connotation (4.22.4)… I wrote Dr. Katherine Dunbabin, professor of classics at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) and author of The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), and asked her whether the paragraph above reflected her own understanding of the matter. She responded (reproduced with permission): ‘I think the Pliny passage shows incontrovertibly that there is no necessary sexual connotation involved in a diner reclining “on the chest” of another; there is no suggestion whatsoever that Fabricius Veiento had any sort of sexual relationship with the emperor Nerva! What the passage does imply is intimacy; here in the sense that Veiento (whose past history was extremely shady) was being received as a favoured associate of the emperor/host'” (Robert A. J. Gagnon, “Was Jesus in a Sexual Relationship with the Beloved Disciple?” essay, Feb. 10, 2008, http://robgagnon.net/articles/HomosexBelovedDisciple.pdf, 5, accessed Sept. 30, 2019).
  24. Klink, ibid., comment on John 13:25, emphasis added. Carson: “Westerners may recoil at the physical proximity of two men. In many parts of the world, of course (e.g. the Philippines, the Arab world), men walk down the street holding hands. This is a sign of friendship, not homosexuality. Men and women in such cultures may not hold hands in public: that would be a sign of licentiousness.” D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 474.
  25. Jennings asserts, “The plain sense of this episode is to buttress our hypothesis that Jesus is to be understood as having a lover…. The relationship is depicted by the text as a homoerotic one, which is here acknowledged as entailing a loyalty that has consequences even beyond the death of Jesus. … This scene should be read as underlining not Jesus’ love for his mother (which is suggested nowhere in this or any other Gospel) but Jesus’ love for his beloved.” Oestreicher similarly misreads this text as indicating that “John becomes unmistakably part of Jesus’s family.” But the text actually says that Jesus’ mother went to live in the beloved disciple’s home, not that the beloved disciple joined Jesus’ family. See Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2003), 26-27, quoted at https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/SF/jesus.html, accessed Sept. 29, 2019; Paul Oestreicher, “Was Jesus Gay? Probably,” online article, The Guardian, Apr. 20, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/20/was-jesus-gay-probably, accessed Sept. 29, 2019.
  26. Keener, ibid., 1144.
  27. Keener, ibid., 1145.
  28. Keener, ibid., 1145.
  29. “If we wonder why the beloved disciple chooses this form of anonymity, two answers are suggested by the emphases of the Fourth Gospel. Just as ‘the beloved disciple,’ if a self-designation, implies not arrogance (as if to say ‘I am more loved than others’) but a profound sense of indebtedness to grace (‘What a wonder—that I should be loved by the incarnate Word!’…), so the silence as to the identity of the beloved disciple may be a quite way of refusing to give even the impression of sharing a platform with Jesus… At the same time, the author thus serves as a model for his readers: becoming a Christian means a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ, such that he receives the glory.” Carson, ibid., 473.
  30. “The anonymity functions as a literary device that forces the reader to engage with the Beloved Disciple primarily by his narrativized identity. For the reader then, the identity of the Beloved Disciple is not simply who he is (behind the narrative) but what he is (within the narrative). The anonymity of the Beloved Disciple depicts the “ideal disciple,” one having special access and intimate relationship with Jesus… This in no way minimizes the historical reality of the Beloved Disciple, but creates alongside his historical identity a narrativized identity and role that is significant to the message of the Gospel.” Klink, ibid., comment on 13:23.
  31. Gagnon: “It is interesting that Mary and Martha tell Jesus about their brother Lazarus’s serious illness in these terms: ‘Lord, see, the one whom you love (phileis) is sick’ (11:3). Two verses later we read that Jesus ‘loved (ēgapa) Martha and her sister and Lazarus.’ He loves all three but nevertheless Lazarus can be referred to simply as ‘the one whom you love’ (hon phileis). This sounds a great deal like the reference in 20:2 to the disciple ‘whom Jesus loved’ (hon ephilei ho Iēsous), which singles out a specific disciple even though the broader context makes clear that Jesus loves all his disciples (13:1, 34; 14:21-23; 15:9-13). If Jesus’ special love for Lazarus is not understood in a sexual sense—otherwise, Jesus would be having sex with more than one person, contrary to his own teaching about monogamy in Mark 10 and Matthew 19—how can his special love for one disciple be understood in a sexual sense? When ‘Jews’ saw how Jesus wept for Lazarus and said, ‘See, how he loved (ephilei),’ they obviously were not drawing the conclusion that Jesus was in a sexual relationship with Lazarus. Rather, Jesus loved Lazarus as
    though he (Lazarus) were his own brother. The same applies to the references to the beloved disciple.” Ibid., 4.
  32. Gagnon, ibid., 3.
  33. Keener, ibid., 917.
  34. Gagnon: “In the context of early Judaism, where homosexual practice of any sort would incur a capital sentence, how likely is it that Jesus would have had sexual intercourse with a male disciple and have done so without apparently raising an eyebrow among any of his other disciples?” Gagnon, ibid., 5-6.
  35. Oestreicher, ibid.

Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality? (4 of 6)

In this post I want to challenge a popular assumption about Jesus and homosexuality. It is common knowledge that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. That assertion is technically accurate based on our existing historical sources (though he said many things that were never recorded). Yet, as I explained in the second post in this series, it is a flimsy argument for saying Jesus was okay with homosexual behavior.

In this post I want to go further. I plan to argue here that Jesus’ Jewish listeners did indeed hear him speak against homosexual behavior, even though he may never have explicitly mentioned it.

This is part of a six-part blog series on Jesus and homosexuality:

    1. Introduction, Explanations, and a Summary of this Series
    2. How Should We Interpret Jesus’ Silence About Homosexuality?
    3. Does “Love Your Neighbor” Mean Jesus Affirmed “Gay Love”?
    4. Why It’s Wrong to Say Jesus Said Nothing About Homosexuality
    5. Historical Conclusions: Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality?
    6. Conclusions for Today: Is Jesus Okay With Homosexuality Now?

We’ve all seen it—that child who insists on interpreting their parents’ instructions as narrowly as possible. Mommy says, “Don’t draw on the wall!” So Daughter writes her name instead. “But Mommy, you didn’t say I can’t write on the wall. You just said I can’t draw on the wall.”

Or Daddy warns his children, “We have company coming in a few hours. Don’t make a mess in the living room!” The children all start heading to their bedrooms to play except for one child. He tells his siblings, “Hey, Daddy didn’t say we can’t play in the living room. He just said ‘don’t make a mess.’ Let’s get our blocks and cars and build a town over there in the corner.”

“I don’t know… I don’t think Daddy will like that,” his siblings protest.

“But we’ll keep it really neat.  There won’t be any mess. We’ll be careful!”

So, the children get out their blocks and toy vehicles and stuffed animals. They carefully arrange an “orderly” town that soon sprawls across the entire room.

Daddy returns moments before the guests arrive, surveys the busy living room with surprise and frustration, and calls his children to attention. “But Daddy, this isn’t a mess! We arranged it very carefully!” his son protests.

What do his siblings immediately say? “It was his idea! We knew you didn’t want us to bring our toys into the living room, but he wouldn’t listen!”

I suggest something similar is happening when we suggest that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. If Jesus’ original Jewish audience could time-travel and speak with us, they would say, “Of course Jesus spoke against homosexual behavior! We heard him plainly!”

Three Ways Jesus Spoke About Homosexuality

What did Jesus’ Jewish audience hear that we miss? What might we hear, too, if we listen as students of history rather than as combatants in a twenty-first century culture war? What teachings of Jesus might we be interpreting too woodenly? What did Jesus say that communicated his disapproval of homosexual behavior?

I suggest there are at least three ways Jesus referred to homosexual behavior, despite never explicitly naming it. I’ll begin with the most general and move toward the most specific.

First, Jesus taught “You shall not commit adultery.” 

The Gospels record that Jesus explicitly cited this command at least twice (Matt. 5:27; 19:18), besides alluding to it on other occasions (Matt. 15:19; 19:9).  It seems illogical to our minds, trained by Western legal traditions, to think that “do not commit adultery” could also mean “do not commit homosexual acts.” But that is exactly how many ancient Jews thought.

We can perhaps begin to understand this way of thinking if we envision a Russian nesting doll (matryoshka doll), as in the following image.

A rough illustration of how ancient Jews thought of their paradigmatic law code. The more general commands (larger dolls) implied other related and more specific commands (smaller dolls nesting inside the bigger ones). In this way a person could sum up and include many “smaller” commands simply by citing a “bigger” one. (This diagram is adapted from an image by Monika Schröder from Pixabay.)

In Jewish thought, the more general commands of their law (the larger dolls) implied other related and more specific commands (the smaller dolls nesting inside the bigger ones). In this way a person could sum up and include many “smaller” commands simply by citing a “bigger” one.

Let’s consider how “You shall not commit adultery” fits into this picture. This command was part of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. As the Encyclopedia Judaica notes, “The Decalogue came to be regarded as a summary of biblical law.”1

If the Ten Commandments were a summary of God’s law, then they could also function as an outline, with each of the Ten Commandments serving as headings for other related commands. This is exactly what happened. “Some [ancient Jewish] sources classify the 613 commandments of the Torah under the the headings of the commandments of the Decalogue.”2

One person who thought this way was Philo, a Jewish philosopher alive at the same time as Jesus. Philo asserted that “under” the commandment “against adulterers… many other commands are conveyed by implication, such as that against seducers, that against practisers of unnatural crimes, that against all who live in debauchery, that against all men who indulge in illicit and incontinent connections.”3

While discussing the Decalogue’s commandment against adultery, Philo specifically mentioned several forms of homosexual activity:

The law commands that the man-woman who adulterates the precious coinage of his nature shall die without redemption… And let the man who is devoted to the love of boys submit to the same punishment, since he pursues that pleasure which is contrary to nature… wasting his power of propagating his species, and moreover, being a guide and teacher of those greatest of all evils, unmanliness and effeminate lust… and last of all, because, like a worthless husbandman, he allows fertile and productive lands to lie fallow.4

There is evidence within the New Testament that Jesus and his apostles shared this approach to interpreting the Law of Moses. Jesus, for example, cited the two great commandments (love of God and love of neighbor) and then said that “all the Law and the Prophets” depend on (hang from, are derived from) “these two commandments” (Matt. 22:40).

Paul similarly suggested the Ten Commandments are encapsulated within the great commandments:

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up [summarized] in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”(Rom. 13:9).

Jesus seems to have applied this kind of thinking specifically to adultery. For example, Jesus, like some other rabbis of the time, taught a broad definition of adultery that included the attitude of the heart: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28).

Jesus even “expanded” adultery to include actions that were contrary to God’s creation design but which had specifically been given loopholes by the Law of Moses:

Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matt. 19:8-9).

Under adultery then, Jesus also forbade other sexual sins such as lust and divorce.

If we combine Jesus’ and Paul’s statements, we could say that inside of “Love your neighbor” is found “You shall not commit adultery,” and inside of “You shall not commit adultery” are both “Do not look at a woman with lustful intent” and “Do not divorce”—and, Philo adds, “Do not engage in homosexual behavior.”

Robert Gagnon summarizes this ancient Jewish way of reading “You shall not commit adultery”:

The Decalogue commandment against adultery was treated as a broad rubric prohibiting all forms of sexual practice that deviated from the creation model in Genesis 1-2, including homoerotic intercourse.5

Given this way of thinking about laws, it is likely that ancient Jews would have understood Jesus to be prohibiting all sorts of unlawful sexual activity, including homosexual activity, when he taught “You shall not commit adultery.”

(This way of thinking is radically different from our Western legal tradition. Our legal codes are exhaustive, and any action not explicitly banned remains legal. Ancient law codes were paradigmatic, and people were expected to extrapolate from the examples given to all similar situations. For help in understanding these differences and how they impact the commands we are discussing here, see the appendix at the end of this article.)

Second, Jesus taught against πορνεία (porneia).

This Greek word is found on Jesus’ lips in both Matthew and Mark’s Gospels.6 Jesus listed πορνεῖαι (plural) among the defiling sins that proceed from the human heart:

What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality (Matt. 15:18-19; cf. Mark 7:21)

Πορνεία (porneia) is commonly translated “sexual immorality.” It is a broad term which refers to “every kind of extramarital, unlawful, unnatural sexual intercourse.”7

New Testament scholar James Edwards says that πορνεία “can be found in Greek literature with reference to a variety of illicit sexual practices, including adultery, fornication, prostitution, and homosexuality.”8

When Jesus spoke against πορνεία, he was speaking to Jews, not Greeks.  What kinds of sexual activity would they have considered unlawful or illegitimate? Would Jews have considered homosexual behavior to be πορνεία?

We don’t have to guess. In the Septuagint (the Greek OT translated about 200 B.C.), πορνεία was used “for any sexual practice outside marriage between a man and a woman that is prohibited by the Torah” (Edwards).9 Homosexual activity certainly fits this description. 

Remember the conclusion reached by Fortson and Grams regarding Jewish writings near the time of Jesus:

Jews consistently condemned homosexual practice of any sort… Jews understood the Old Testament to speak against homosexual behavior, and they accepted biblical authority in matters of sexual ethics.10

And remember how Keener summarized Jewish practices from the same period:

Jewish people… unanimously rejected homosexual behavior… Jewish homosexual practice was nearly unknown.11

Given this historical context, Gagnon’s summary is no surprise: “In Jesus’ day, and for many centuries before and thereafter, porneia was universally understood in Judaism to include same-sex intercourse.12 The related verb ἐκπορνεύω13 is even used in the NT to describe what Sodom and Gomorrah did: “indulged in sexual immorality” (Jude 1:7).

What would Jesus’ Jewish listeners say to us today if we suggested he never said anything about homosexual behavior? “Of course he did!” they might respond. “We clearly heard him warn against πορνεία!”

Third, Jesus taught against ἀσέλγεια (aselgeia).

Mark includes this word in his record of Jesus’ teaching about sins that come out of the heart:

From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality (Mark 7:21-22)

Ἀσέλγεια is sometimes translated “sensuality” (ESV, NASB). But that expression hardly carries the negative connotation in today’s “sexy” world that ἀσέλγεια apparently carried among ancient Jews. “Lewdness” (NIV) or “debauchery” (NET) come closer. While πορνεία was used widely to refer to all kinds of unlawful sexual intercourse, ἀσέλγεια seems to have been used more narrowly to refer to sexual sins that Jews considered especially shameful.

G. Thomas Hobson surveys the usage of the word ἀσέλγεια in classical Greek, pre-New Testament, and post-New Testament contexts in his 2008 journal article “ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22.” His findings are worth quoting at length:

It’s a word that Jesus… could easily turn to as a synonym for homosexual activity and other similarly shocking behavior forbidden by the Jewish law… ἀσέλγεια was πορνεία… taken to its most disgusting degree… The term may have been used to refer to what were regarded as the most shameless violations of the sexuality taught in the Torah.

It would appear that the writer of Mark, writing for a general audience, saw a need to spell out an element of Jesus’ teaching that addressed a sexual lifestyle issue among Gentiles, a matter that was less of an issue for Matthew’s predominately Jewish audience.  Furthermore, for some reason, neither πορνεία [“sexual immorality”] nor μοιχεία [“adultery”] specifically addressed the sexual sin he had in mind.  It is likely… that Jesus was speaking of violations of the Torah such as homosexual behavior, incest, or bestiality, rather than comparatively less shocking sins such as adultery and fornication.14

In fact, there is one place in the New Testament (2 Pet. 2:7) where the word ἀσέλγεια is used explicitly to refer to the actions of people who were homosexuals. Hobson again:

Second Peter uses ἀσέλγεια more than any other NT document.  It links ἀσέλγεια explicitly with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, picturing Lot (2 Pet 2,7) as “greatly distressed by the licentiousness (ἀσέλγεια) of the wicked” around him. 15

Given this usage of ἀσέλγεια, what might Jesus have meant by the term in Mark 7:22? Hobson once more:

Exactly what did Jesus consider to be “utter shamelessness”?  What did he consider too far “over the line”?  The danger is to impose twenty-first century AD politically correct ideas on Jesus… In context, it is far more likely that Jesus had in mind what his fellow Jews (like the author of 2 Peter) meant when they used the word: images of Sodom and Gomorrah, images of outrageous violation of the one-flesh union of man and woman

If Jesus had wished to speak of homosexual behavior in his list of sins that defile the human heart, to what other word could Mark have turned in his translation?  Παιδεραστία [“paederasty,” from “love-of-boys”] was too narrow a term. Ἀρσενοκοίτης [“man-bedder”] had barely been coined by Paul.  And πορνεία [“sexual immorality”] is too broad a concept, although it is the only word Matthew chooses to use in his version of Jesus’ sin list.  Ἀσέλγεια was an ideal word for identifying both homosexual behavior and other similar sexual sins of which even the Mishnah was reticent to speak any more than was absolutely necessary

The appearance of ἀσέλγεια on the lips of Mark’s Jesus must be accounted for somehow, and it will not do to say that a word of such shock value as ἀσέλγεια was a throw-away detail, or was intended as nothing more than a synonym for πορνεία [“sexual immorality”] or μοιχεία [“adultery”]…  It is argued here that, as he seeks to faithfully communicate Jesus’ teaching, Mark found it necessary to emphasize to his readers that Jesus did explicitly reaffirm the Torah’s prohibition of the most shocking sexual offenses.16

Again, what might Jesus’ Jewish listeners say to us today if they heard us suggest Jesus never said anything about homosexual activity? “Of course he did!” they might respond. “We clearly heard him mention ἀσέλγεια!”

And, of course, it is clear that Jesus’ first followers did indeed understand that homosexual behavior was incompatible with following Jesus. (I’ll share more of that evidence in my final post.)

Conclusion

A primary goal of this blog series is to help us interpret Jesus within his own ancient Jewish historical context. If we read his silence, his speech, and his actions as if he were our next-door neighbor or even a twenty-first century rabbi, we are sure to reach conclusions that are historically invalid at best and dangerously deceptive at worst.

It is frequently claimed that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. That may be technically true according to our post-Scientific Revolution, post-Enlightenment way of reading science journals and law codes. But it is also very misleading according to ancient Jewish ways of talking about laws and sins.

Jesus’ general language condemning sexual immorality would have been understood by his original listeners to prohibit all mutually-recognized sexual sins—including homosexual activity as surely as bestiality, pedophilia, incest, and many other activities he also “failed” to mention.

Any ancient Jew would have concluded that Jesus did indeed address the topic of homosexual behavior. He did so when he taught about adultery, even more so when he mentioned πορνεία, and especially when he warned about ἀσέλγεια.

Are you able to hear Jesus through ancient Jewish ears? If you have a comment, please leave it below. And thanks for reading! I realize the posts in this series take some time to read and absorb, and I hope you have found the time worthwhile.


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Appendix:
The Implications of Ancient Law Codes

The following is excerpted from “The Paradigmatic Nature of Biblical Law,” an excursus in Douglas Stuart’s commentary on Exodus:17

“Modern societies generally have opted for exhaustive law codes. That is, every action modern society wishes to regulate or prohibit must be specifically mentioned in a separate law… By this approach, all actions are permitted that are not expressly forbidden or regulated. Thus it is not uncommon that criminals in modern Western societies evade prosecution because of a ‘technicality’ or a ‘loophole’ in the law…

“Ancient laws did not work this way. They were paradigmatic, giving models of behaviors and models of prohibitions/punishments relative to those behaviors, but they made no attempt to be exhaustive. Ancient laws gave guiding principles, or samples, rather than complete descriptions of all things regulated. Ancient people were expected to be able to extrapolate from what the sampling of laws did say to the general behavior the laws in their totality pointed toward… Ancient judges were expected to extrapolate from the wording provided in the laws that did exist to all other circumstances and not to be foiled in their jurisprudence by any such concepts as ‘technicalities’ or ‘loopholes’… The Israelites had to learn to see the underlying principles in any law and not let the specifics of the individual casuistic citation mislead them into applying the law too narrowly…

“It is in connection with the paradigmatic nature of Israel’s covenant law that Jesus, following the established tradition in Judaism, could make so sweeping an assertion as that two laws sum up all the rest… Properly understood, two laws do indeed sum up everything in the entire legal corpus of the Old Testament. So do ten laws (the Ten Words/Commandments); so do all six hundred and thirteen… If a reasonable number of comprehensive and comprehensible laws… are provided to a people as paradigms for proper living, there is no excuse for that people to claim ignorance of how to behave or to claim innocence when their sins are found out.

“Most laws are expressed as commands in the masculine singular—the you of the laws is ‘you, a male person’—from a technical, grammatical point of view. But here again the reader/listener would not have the slightest ground to say, ‘It prohibits individual men from doing such and such, but I’m a woman/we’re a group, so the wording of the law exempts me/us.’ Implicit in the wording is the need for paradigmatic extrapolation to all persons, singular or plural, male or female…

“Without an awareness of all six hundred and thirteen commandments and seeing within them the high standards of God’s holiness… a person corrupted by a fallen world does not easily get the point of what the two great commandments are intended to summarize. Once one has learned the breadth and depth of God’s expectations for his holy people, however, the two greatest commandments serve brilliantly as comprehensive reminders of all that is expected of God’s covenant people.”

In his discussion of the Ten Commandments, Stuart applies this understanding to command about adultery:

This commandment does not explicitly condemn premarital sex, postmarital sex (as by a widow or widower), cohabitation without formal marriage, bestiality, or incest, all of which are dealt with elsewhere in various ways; but by implication it certainly does condemn all those practices… Again the principle of law as paradigmatic is essential for appreciating the implications of this command: reasonable and careful extrapolation from the paradigm of the adultery law yields the realization that all sex outside of marriage, whether before, during, after, or instead of a person’s actual legal marriage would be a violation of the divine covenant… The commandment also argues, implicitly, against divorce. If marriage is so important that is must be protected against adulteration—even the sort of adulteration that might occur in brief interludes—it certainly is important enough to protect against dissolution altogether.”18

  1. “Decalogue,” David Kadosh, Encyclopedia Judaica, The Gale Group, 2008, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/decalogue, accessed August 2, 2019.
  2. David W. Pao and Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Luke,” Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 351.
  3. Philo, The Decalogue, XXXII. (168), http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book26.html, accessed September 2, 2019.
  4. Philo, The Special Laws, Book 3, VII. (38, 39). English source: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book29.html  Greek source: http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/philo/specialg.pdf, pp. 82-83, accessed September 2, 2019. Philo’s comment about a “man-woman” seems to be concerned with men who change their appearance and actions to be like women. As for his comment about “the man who is devoted to the love of boys, it is worth noting that Philo does not seem concerned about child abuse or sexual abuse in any modern sense of those terms. Rather, the concerns he mentions are that such unions (1) are “contrary to nature,” (2) contribute to population decline, (3) train boys to be effeminate, and (4) cause women to remain barren. As with other ancient Jewish authors, the question of consensuality apparently was not a prime factor for Philo in evaluating the ethics of homosexual unions; other factors weighed more, and could not be overruled by the presence of consent.
  5. Robert Gagnon, “The Bible and Homosexual Practice: An Overview of Some Issues,” 2003, online article based on an interview with Zenit News Agency, March 21 and 28, 2002, pub. by OrthodoxyToday.org, http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/GagnonHomosexuality.php, accessed August 28, 2019.
  6. It is likely that Jesus did much of his teaching in Aramaic, in which case the Gospel writers (or the sources upon which they drew) chose which Greek words to use. Historians generally agree, however, that their translations reliably convey the message of Jesus’ teaching.
  7. See Geoff Ashley’s survey of definitions of πορνεία in “Jesus and Homosexuality,” online article, The Village Church, https://www.tvcresources.net/resource-library/articles/jesus-and-homosexuality, accessed September 2, 2019. Compare also with the usage noted in BAGD (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker): “of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse.” Mounce similarly notes that “the word group to which porneia belongs generally relates to any kind of illegitimate sexual intercourse” (Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words).
  8. James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 213.
  9. Ibid.
  10. S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 235.
  11. Craig S. Keener, Romans, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009), Kindle Edition, commentary on Romans 1:24-27.
  12. Gagnon, Ibid.
  13. The relationship between the words can be glimpsed even by someone who dooes not read Greek; compare πορνεία and ἐκπορνεύω, or, in transliteration, porneia and ekporneuo.
  14. G. Thomas Hobson, “ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008), 65, 67, 70, bold added. See here for the full article: https://www.academia.edu/31907497/ASELGEIA_IN_MARK_7_22. See also this summary by Richard Klaus: “Jesus Did Mention Homosexuality!” online article, White Rose Review, October, 2014, https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2014/10/jesus-did-mention-homosexuality.html, accessed September 2, 2019.
  15. Ibid., 68.
  16. Ibid., 72-74, bold added.
  17. Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 442-444.
  18. Ibid., 464-65, bold added.