Lovers, Not Lawyers

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?
Part 7

[[Okay, so let me get this straight. You have concluded the following things:

(Part 2) the creation account in Genesis is really 2 creation stories that contradict one another

(Part 3) the Bible never identifies homosexuality as the sin which caused Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction

(Part 4) Christians are often incredibly inconsistent with the laws in the Torah that they choose to apply to their lives

(Part 5) Jesus said nothing on homosexuality, nor offered a definition of marriage

(Part 6) Paul's views on homosexuality were informed by an outdated understanding of the natural world, and were responding to homosexual practices that were often associated with pedophilia and prostitution

That's all well and good, but where in the Bible does it say that homosexuality is okay?]]

It doesn't. There are no verses in the Bible that explicitly support homosexuality, even in marriage. For those solely interested in the historical contexts of the Bible verses frequently used in the Christian debate over gay marriage, this is where I leave you. I have shown to the best of my ability that the Bible was not written with gay marriage in mind, and as such did not speak for or against it. Do with this information what you will.

However, I find that when I read blogs about controversial topics such as this, I want more than just the cold facts. I want help making sense of them. So for this article, I will do exactly that. This is a controversial topic within Christianity, so I will forgo my usual academic perspective, and instead write from the perspective of my own tradition. I will switch my point of view from the third-person to the first, no longer merely describing what "Christians" do, but will rather comment on what I would like to see "us" do as Christians.

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I will begin where this blog series started: with exegesis. Exegesis is the process by which we interpret our scriptures. This whole blog series can be understood as historical exegesis—exegesis which attempts to understand the passages of the Bible in the way that their authors understood them through historical evidence and textual criticism. However, the exegesis which we far more often participate in is called theological exegesis. This is exegesis which seeks to understand the will of God through scripture, not only for people in the time of the Bible, but also for our own lives now. It's how we determine whether certain passages of the Bible are still relevant for us today. Indeed, theological exegesis is how we pick and choose which parts of the Bible we apply to our lives.

That last sentence likely rubbed some the wrong way. After all, among Christians it is generally considered a taboo to pick which passages we want to live by and choose which passages we ignore. But hopefully it has been apparent by now to my readers that that's exactly what we all do. We see the blatant contradictions in the first two chapters of Genesis, yet many of us choose to ignore the actual words of the Bible to reaffirm our belief in a literal 6-day creation. We see that the Torah has many laws that we don't follow, yet many of us choose to use select verses from the Torah as evidence that God agrees with us. We see that Jesus taught against divorce except in the case of sexual immorality, yet many of us choose to ignore this rule in cases where one spouse is physically abusing the other. We see that Paul taught that homosexual intercourse was against nature, yet we choose to ignore that he also taught that long hair on men was against nature, as well as short hair on women.

I think that most of us would agree that many laws in the Torah are worth following (such as prohibiting child sacrifices to Molech), that abuse is a very good reason to divorce your spouse, and that any length of hair on anybody is not an act against nature. I do not write this to encourage a rigid moral reform within Christianity to "pure" biblical standards, only to show that we are under a delusion if we think our view can actually be purely biblical. We need to acknowledge that just because other Christians disagree with us (and the biblical passages we deem relevant) does not necessarily make them ungodly, wicked, corrupt, or apathetic to God's Word.

Despite the fact that we all do it, the idea of picking and choosing makes many uncomfortable. After all, it's much more comforting to think that our views reflect the will of an omniscient God, not merely our own understanding of things. But the truth is we all interpret the will of God through our all-too-human minds, and this leaves plenty of room for confusion, disagreement, and error. This isn't to say we might as well disregard the Bible in all respects and do whatever we feel like. There is a line to be drawn between equating our understanding with God's will and throwing our beliefs/morals to the wind because they are not as black and white as we wish they were. The real argument between Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin and Christians who don't is over how we draw that line—that infuriating, incredibly complicated line.

So how should we draw the line? This is not an easy question to answer. A few years ago I was wrestling with my own stance on gay marriage. I was taught from an early age that any kind of homosexuality was sinful, but when I grew older I began to reflect on what I was taught. Why would God condemn homosexual love? In my quest for answers, I found two passages in the Bible that helped me make sense of the issue, so I thought I would share them here. And yes, they are both Jesus cards.

The first passage can be found in Mark 10.1-12. We have already looked at this in Part 5. Jesus is asked by the Pharisees if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. The "Bible" for Jesus and his contemporaries was similar to the Christian Old Testament, and the most authoritative section of this Bible was the Torah. So in other words, the Pharisees are asking Jesus "is it biblical for a man to divorce his wife?"

IT OBVIOUSLY WAS. As we saw in Part 4, the laws in the Torah clearly allowed for men to divorce their wives except in special cases. But Jesus does NOT respond by saying that Moses technically didn't allow for divorce in Bible, nor do we see Jesus pretend his own views were perfectly lined up with the Bible. Jesus instead acknowledges that the laws allowing for divorce were corrupt, and only given by Moses because of the stubbornness of the Israelites.^[1] Jesus then argues that the Torah also teaches that man and woman were created for companionship in the creation accounts in Genesis, and that they should not be separated simply because men grew tired of their wives.

Here Jesus is picking to take the creation accounts seriously, and choosing to ignore the parts of the Bible that allow for divorce. We'll come back to why that is later.

The second passage is found in Mark 2.23-28. The Pharisees see Jesus and his disciples not only plucking grains to eat, but also traveling on the Sabbath. The Torah forbids any work on God's holy day. Indeed, in Numbers God has a man stoned for merely picking up sticks on the Sabbath.^[2] When criticized by the Pharisees, Jesus does NOT retort that he technically wasn't breaking the Sabbath. Instead, he paraphrases a passage in 1 Samuel where David eats bread which was prohibited by the law for all others besides priests.^[3] He is pointing out that the human need to eat transcends the letter of the law, and states that "the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath" (2.27). In other words, the law was made to help us, not to hinder us for its own sake.

Here Jesus is picking to take the passage in 1 Samuel seriously, and choosing to ignore the laws pertaining to the Sabbath (and that's one of the Ten Commandments!).

It seems that, like us, Jesus also picked parts of the Bible he wished to apply to his culture, and chose to ignore other parts as irrelevant. If we are indeed supposed to live like Jesus, we must ask ourselves this incredibly difficult question:

If we have to pick and choose, how do we pick and choose like Jesus did?

Both of the passages above describe the Pharisees putting strict adherence to rules above helping others, and then Jesus turning the tables on them. The Pharisees were right, divorce was biblical. But Jesus taught against it because it was being used casually and left women in a very vulnerable position, often without a livelihood. The Pharisees were right, working on the Sabbath was unbiblical. But Jesus taught that it was okay if it was feeding those who were hungry.

Jesus was a Jew, and there are plenty of verses that indicate that he thought the law was a good thing that ought not be neglected. But he also recognized that it was only good if it was used to help people, not if it was used without consideration of the actual this-worldly needs of others. In other words, Jesus seemed to believe the law should be followed if it encouraged love rather than mere retribution for rule-breaking.

Christianity is a religion founded on the teachings of Jesus, yet far too often do we approach it like Pharisees. Sure, we added a New Testament, yet unlike Jesus we often treat the words of our scripture with unyielding rigidness. Far too often do we focus more on defining biblical sin rather than recognizing human needs that are being neglected around us. Far too often do we use the Bible to knock people down rather than actually help up those who are already down in our society. Far too often are we lawyers, not lovers as Jesus commanded us to be.

According to Matthew, Jesus taught that the entirety of the law and the prophets hangs on two principles: loving God and loving others. These are the principles that should be the real points of discussion in the Christian debate over gay marriage. Does a homosexual relationship hinder one's ability to love God? Does it hinder one's ability to love others? I can't answer this from an omniscient perspective, but from where I'm standing it seems like those who would use the Bible's words to condemn a practice solely on the basis that "the Bible says no" are far more hindering to love than the sexual orientation of people within marriage.

I will leave the discussion there, not with the expectation that my readers will agree with my stance on gay marriage, only in the hope that we can move this debate beyond the mere words of scripture, and towards a discussion tempered with the active pursuit of empathy and understanding so that we may better meet the needs of others—needs that may even fall in between the cracks of the Bible.

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This concludes my blog series, and I am very appreciative of everyone who has taken the time to read, whether you have agreed with me or not. I am especially appreciative of those who have given me constructive feedback, either in my comments section or in personal conversations. As an old Israelite proverb tells us, "Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another."

Thanks for reading!
Caleb

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Notes

[1] Many Christian legitimize their rejection of the laws of the Torah by claiming that Jesus' death on the cross issued a new covenant with God, which no longer binds us to the law. However, Jesus taught that these laws pertaining to divorce were wrong before he was crucified; indeed, he taught that they were always wrong, and only included because of the hardness of hearts of the Israelites. This makes me wonder how we can believe that "inspired" scripture must mean it is perfect for defining sin, even if it's in the New Testament.

[2] Technically Jesus and his disciples were not breaking the Torah's explicit guidelines for the Sabbath, only the spirit of the Sabbath. Some travel was permitted on the Sabbath by Jewish custom (less than half a mile). It's unclear how far they traveled. While the Bible says nothing about plucking grains, God does forbid the Israelites from collecting manna (bread from heaven) on the Sabbath day, and instead has them collect enough food for two days the day before. He also commands them not to travel (see Exo. 16.27-30). However, Jesus does not refute the accusations made against him by saying he was not technically breaking the Sabbath as defined in the Torah. He instead responds by addressing the original purpose of the Sabbath.

[3] The passage Jesus is paraphrasing is 1 Samuel 21. This is actually a bit awkward, since Jesus gets the story wrong. According to Mark, Jesus says: "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? [David] entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions." However, according to 1 Samuel 21, the priest David deals with is not Abiathar, but his father, Ahimelech. Ahimelech would have been high priest at the time, not Abiathar as Jesus claimed, since the role of high priest was passed down from father to son. The author of Matthew corrected this error by omitting "when Abiathar was high priest" in his account (see Mat. 12.1-8). This also makes me question how we can believe that scripture records inerrant history. Either the author of Mark is wrong, and Jesus never made this factual error, the author of 1 Samuel is wrong, and the high priest was really Abiathar as Jesus claimed, or both are right, and Jesus really made a factual error in regards to scripture.