LGBT+ and the Bible

Should LGBTQ+ People be accepted into our worship?

How is being LGBTQ+ any different from lying, murder, sexual wrongs? All these are welcomed in our church.

If God loves everyone, why is it an issue being gay?

Must speak to any issue with truth and love

We are a New Testament Church

We strive to follow we follow Patterned Theology

Resources

Homosexuality: Society, Science, and Psychology by Jeff Miller, Ph.D. apologeticspress.org

The Bible Does Have Something to say About Homosexuality, by Dr. CarI Bridgess: bibletalk.tv

What is Sexuality For?

Genesis 1:27–28 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:18–25 ESV

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Procreation

God designed a woman to be a help meet for the man

Functionality because man and a woman had to fulfill the mandate to multiply and fill the earth had to have a differentiation. A man could not fulfill that with another man (same for a woman)

Fidelity or Loyalty

One flesh

It’s not just an individual preference

Any Sexual Relationship Outside the Matrimonial Bond Between a Man and a Woman is a Sin

KEY SCRIPTURES

Leviticus 18:20–23 ESV

And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.

Leviticus 20:13 ESV

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

1 Timothy 1:8–11 ESV

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

NOT THAT MUCH

We dealing with only a few verses

Not tolerated by Jew or Christian (obvious and a grievous sin)

Counting up the number of verses on a particular topic is not the best way to determine the seriousness of the sin involved

Jesus said nothing about homosexuality

Red writing over black writing.

Must look at the Bible as one story

Mark 7:21 ESV

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

PORNEIA

NOT THE SAME

· Loving, life-long, committed, and monogamous partnerships

· Prostitution

· Pederasty

· Exploitive relationships

· General language not distinctive

· Passages in rooted in creation account

· Arsenal, Coiti (man who beds with other man)

· Romans 1 – consumed with passion

· Romans 1 – lesbianism

· Exchange natural relations

Jude 7 ESV

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Romans 1:26–28 ESV

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

NOT A BIG DEAL

We disagree about when to have the Lord supper, how many songs to sings and how many stanzas

Porneia is in a whole different category

Sexual sin is never treated as a matter of indifference

8 vice list in NT Porneia is a part of and at the top

Not the main thing the Bible talks about. Tolerating homosexuality leads to disaster

Revelation 2:20 ESV

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Place for broken People who hate their brokenness

Should LGBTQ+ People be accepted into our worship?

How is being LGBTQ+ any different from lying, murder, sexual wrongs? All these are welcomed in our church.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

NOT FAIR

· No one chooses to be this way

· Consign me to a life that’s not loving

· No strong evidence for biological reasons (what about an abundance of testosterones)

· Lonely miserable, never have a hug, never touch anyone, no roommate, no meaningful relationship

· Sin is not made acceptable because they feel natural to those who engage in them

1. God loves us all John 3:16 (homosexuals are not exclusively broken)

a. But this a part of me. Don’t see it a brokenness. I celebrate it, the world celebrates it.

i. What only matters truthfully is how God see us. God does not see us as one part of us, is all of us. This is how you may be experiencing life

Appeal to another authority outside the Bible – our own experience.

· Gay and Lesbian friends think that we have this marriage, and we want to restrict it and they can’t have it because we’re selfish and self-serving and want to keep it to ourselves

· Not saying that we don’t want you to be married-we saying it’s imposable based on God’s divine instruction and blueprint

· This is not private – you framed it civil rights issue (religion violating civil rights)

· If marriage is based on “love

· All legal decisions are based on principles and established precedent

o Right now, the principle is “all you need is love”

o So, if marriage is based on popular opinion and who loves each other (any conceivable union is ok)

Harm is not always immediate. Monogamous relationship

If God loves everyone, why is it an issue being gay?

1 Corinthians 13:4–6 NASB95

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;