One of the more interesting reactions to my last post came from a good friend who has struggled over a passage from Paul's letter to the saints at Rome. For this individual, the most troublesome passage in Scripture with regard to homosexuality is found in Romans 1:26-27. Paul wrote: "That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved." (NLT) Having done an intensive study of the other "clobber" passages (those scriptures used to condemn homosexuality) and reaching the conclusion that they did NOT constitute a blanket condemnation of homosexuality, my friend still struggled with this particular passage.
Now, from my own perspective, longtime readers of my blog will understand that I reached the conclusion many years ago that a fundamentalist/literalist approach to Scripture is logically, philosophically, and spiritually unsustainable. Again, from my own perspective, Scripture contains many statements that can be described as culture-specific or cultural anachronisms. In other words, statements that are specific to a certain time and place and were never intended to be universal spiritual truths or principles. I think that many Christians forget that Paul was writing to specific communities which existed in the First Century, and that he was addressing concerns and problems that were peculiar to the folks whom he was addressing. Moreover, Paul is often very clear in telling his readers that he is offering his own opinion/perspective on some matter - that what he is sharing with them didn't necessarily come from God! Unfortunately, all too often, we forget that Paul probably had no idea that his letters to these various communities would one day be regarded by Christians everywhere as Scripture!
Even so, for the sake of my fundamentalist friends, a closer look at this passage from Paul's letter to the Romans is warranted. Now, something that almost all of us can agree on relative to the interpretation of Scripture is that CONTEXT is extremely important. Hence, in looking at this particular passage, our very first order of business is to put it into the context of the larger epistle of which it is a part. In other words, what is the principal object/subject/theme of Paul's letter to the Romans?
Long ago, most Biblical scholars and students came to the conclusion that Paul is addressing how Christ makes us right with God in the first half of this epistle. To be more precise, he is writing to this congregation of Jews and Gentiles that "everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard." (Romans 3:23) Sure, the Jews have actually violated the commandments enumerated in the Torah, but Gentiles also stand guilty before God because of the things which he has revealed about himself/his nature to them! Hence, whether Jew or Gentile. Jesus Christ is "the sacrifice for sin." (Romans 3:25) He continued: "People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood."
Now, in the first chapter of the epistle, Paul explains to the Romans how Gentiles can also be considered sinners - despite the fact that they NEVER received (or professed to have followed/obeyed) the Torah! He wrote: "But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." (Romans 1:18-20) Notice that Paul says that sinful behavior suppresses the truth, and that these Gentiles should have known better just by observing the world around them (which God had created). He continued: "Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:21-23) In other words, instead of being thankful and in awe of the Creator, these people turned to idolatry!
This point that Paul is making about idolatry is critical to fully understanding what is about to follow. The Greco-Roman world of Paul's day was literally full of idolatry! There was a god for almost everything and everybody! Moreover, as many Biblical and historical scholars have observed before me, human sexuality was an integral part of almost all of these pagan cults. Temple prostitutes, both male and female, were a common feature of "Gentile" religious practices in Paul's day. Hence, it is no great wonder that Paul would have singled out these practices for condemnation in his letter to the saints at Rome!
In his An Analysis of Romans 1:18-32, Bruce L. Gerig wrote: "Louis Epstein (1948) noted that orgies commonly occurred at heathen festivals, even in Israel (e.g., Hos 4:12-18; Isa 57:3-5; Jer 2:20, 33 and 3:1-2). And there is little doubt that Paul’s discussion of food offered to idols in 1 Cor 8–10 included a problem with prostitution (porneia), which flourished on festive occasions in some pagan temples.52 Paul’s reference to the Golden Calf incident (Exod 32:6, 1 Cor 10:7), where we find the ancient Israelites ‘eating and drinking and rising up to play,’ there is little doubt that “to play” here is a euphemism for sexual activities.53 Later John the Apostle criticizes the church at Pergamum (now in western Turkey) for being guilty of eating food sacrificed to idols along with sexual immorality (Rev 2:14ff); and the general Church decree in Acts 15 seems to confront this same problem, with its call to abstain “from things polluted by [meat offered to] idols and from fornication” (Acts 15:20, NRSV).54 As Catherine Edwards (1993) explains, sexual pleasure was often expected at the end of a banquet, with prostitutes offered as part of the entertainment. Dio Chrysostom (c.40–c.120) remarks how brothel-keepers brought “their stock” to these “great festive occasions” (De invidia: Oratio 77-78.4).55"
As part of the same commentary, Gerig went on to note that: "The first 'giving over' (Rom 1:24-25): Heterosexual practices which dishonor the body. Then Paul writes: “[24] Therefore God gave them up [i.e., these God-rejecters] in the lusts [epithymiai] of their heart to impurity [akatharsia, KJV-ABS: ‘uncleanness’], to the degrading [atimazō, KJV-ABS: ‘dishonoring’] of their bodies among themselves, [25] because they exchanged [metallassō, G3337] the truth about God for a lie [lit., “the lie,” see Van der Pool; Harrison in Gaebelein 10 1976, p. 25] and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (NRSV). Because these Gentiles refused to worship the true God and thank him for their creation (Rom 1:18-20), they were left with the folly of worshipping their own man-made idols and gods (1:21-24), which were a fake. But God also “gave them over” (NRSV, paredōken autous, G3860, G846) in three other ways: (1) to engage in sexual activities which ‘dishonored their bodies’ (1:24-25), (2) to exchange ‘natural sexual use’ for ‘unnatural sexual use’ (1:26-27), and (3) to create a social world of chaos and cruelty (1:28-31)."
Gerig continued: "Atimazō is usually translated as “dishonoring [of their bodies]” (cf. Green 1986, cf. UNASB 1999, ESV 2001, cf. Van der Pool 2006), or “degrading [of their bodies]” (NIV 1978, NRSV 1989). Caught in the clutches of intense sexual passions, these people turned to what Paul considered “filthy [practices]” (NJB 1985, akatharsia), or doing “shameful [things with their bodies]” (CEV 1995). But what kinds of specific things did Paul have in mind here—relating to heterosexual behavior, since 1:26-27 later seems to turn to homosexual behavior? First, 1 Cor 10:7-8 and Acts 15:20 suggest that Paul’s biggest sexual problem in his churches were converts who continued to attend the free pagan temple feasts, which generally ended in heavy drinking and group debauchery (cf. the “drunkenness, orgies” in Gal 5:21; and “reveling and drunkenness . . . debauchery and licentiousness, Rom 13:13, NRSV), where prostitutes were also present.4 The Jewish historian Josephus tells of the lady Paulina engaged in sex all night in the Isis temple precincts in Rome with Mundus, whom she thought was the Egyptian god Anubis (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.65-80).5 Paul was aware of the sizable number of slaves in his churches (see ‘the lowly and despised things,’ 1 Cor 1:26, and cf. 7:20-21 and Rom 16); and he no doubt had heard wrenching stories of how good-looking, especially younger slaves, of both genders, were often sexually abused by their Roman masters and mistresses.6 Because these God-rejecters had “project[ed] the sexual license they desired onto their gods,” this left them “free to follow their own unbridled passions” in many and varied ways.7 When Paul visited the public baths, in some places he may have seen erotic scenes like those pictured in the dressing room of Suburban Baths in Pompeii, which showed: a woman mounting a man, a woman performing fellatio on a man, a man performing cunnilingus on a woman, two women copulating (apparently using a dildo), a threesome with two men and a woman, and a foursome with two men and two women, etc.8"
We should also remember that. although the things that we would describe as homosexual behavior were certainly known in Paul's day (and in the days of the Jews who compiled the Torah), the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity were entirely unknown to them. In other words, they had little or no understanding of the actual psychology and biology of human sexuality. Moreover, we are not bringing this up to denigrate them or underscore their ignorance - we are simply stating the FACT that they did NOT have this information.
As part of his commentary on Paul's clear differentiation between natural and unnatural "use" (or sexual intercourse), Gerig observed that: "One approach to understanding how Paul viewed 'nature' here is to see how he speaks about this elsewhere in his letters. For example, he writes of those being 'uncircumcised' as being Gentiles ek physeōs (“by nature,” G1537, G5449, Rom 2:27, KJV-ABS), while the Jews are Jews (or circumcised) “by nature” (physei, G5449, Gal 2:15, KJV-ABS). He notes also that idols “by nature” (physei) are not gods” (Gal 4:8, KJV-ABS) and that unbelievers, as “children of [God’s] wrath,” are sinful “by nature” (physei, Eph 2:3, NRSV). All these references seem to point to a “cultural distinction”12 or to an “inborn character”13. Then, amazingly, Paul writes that God has “cut [Gentiles] from what is by nature [kata physin, G2596, G5449] a wild olive tree” and has “grafted [them], contrary to nature [para physin, G3844, G5449]” onto “a cultivated olive tree,” i.e., he made them part of his people (Rom 11:24, NRSV, italics added)—and if the Almighty can do something “contrary to nature,” this can hardly mean “sinful per se.”14 Indeed, God sometimes acts in a way that is “more than” or “beyond” nature—and as Strong’s concordance shows, para (G3844) can mean “other than, more than” just as well as “contrary to, against.” Then Paul also writes: “Does not nature teach you that if a man wears long hair [NEB: ‘flowing locks’], it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is for her glory?” (1 Cor 11:14-15, NRSV, italics added)—and the criteria for “nature” here seems to be “widespread social usage.”15 So in his letters Paul uses “against/beyond nature” or “unnatural” (para physin) as a synonym for “(seriously) unconventional”16 or for something that is “surprising and out of the ordinary”17."
Hence, in the light of all of this context, we can see that making Romans 1:26-27 a blanket condemnation of homosexuality is both simplistic and misleading. Clearly, Paul was NOT thinking about homosexuality or homosexual behavior in the same way that you or I would think about those things. Remember, whatever you decide that this passage means to you, your conclusions MUST reflect an understanding of the context in which Paul made these remarks. In other words, we must try to look at this through Paul's eyes. We can all agree that temple prostitution, orgies, and the sexual exploitation of slaves and children is horrendous and obviously sinful (whether it's heterosexual or homosexual in nature). While there is certainly NOTHING wrong with adapting Scriptural principles to our own time and circumstances, we must understand a little bit about both the textual, cultural, and historical context in which these things were originally penned! What do you think?
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