Has "Homosexual" Always Been in the Bible? An Interview with Preston Sprinkle

we're thrilled you are joining us today i'm your host sean mcdowell and i'm here with just a dear friend of mine one of the people that i look to on a range of issues but in particular on sexuality uh someone who's committed to the scriptures but also committed to being gracious and loving towards people who see the world differently if you're tuning right now you'll recognize either's face or the name on the screen preston sprinkle man thanks for taking the time to come on and talk about this important topic hey thanks for having me on sean it's good to finally be a guest yeah you betcha well i know a lot of people watching this are familiar with you uh your book people to be loved is one of my favorites for both its tone and uh the content you also have a youtube channel that you just kind of started recently and if you just go to youtube and search preston sprinkle uh you'll find i found a dozens of videos there not just on sexuality on a range of interesting topics but also on sexuality so tell us really quickly about your youtube channel because obviously anybody watching this enjoys apologetics and theology theology so tell us quickly what you're doing on your channel i appreciate the shout out yeah so i've been podcasting for i would say gosh about six years i'm coming close to a thousand episodes on podcasts and uh i always record on video and then a few months ago i'm like hey i should start doing more you know posting stuff on my youtube channel so i sort of dusted off my old channel and been posting a lot of videos typically you know one to three a week interviewing people who are wrestling with their sexuality well i'm having a lot of conversations about uh race relations in america yeah pretty much everybody's thinking about that and science in the bible and kind of a lot of the same stuff you're doing too well i love your podcast theology and the raw you've had people on who experience intersex people who are transgender and just as the title says have raw conversations and that's one reason i want to have you on today is there's increasingly a popular uh kind of revisionist argument you might say that says the word homosexual uh is a bad translation and if we trace it back at the root of homosexual being put in the bible was somewhat uh it's been damaging and harmful to gay people and doesn't represent what scripture actually teaches now i started thinking this is important because i started getting emails getting texts from people getting questions whenever i get a range of questions on a common issue i started to think oh this is something that i need to address so we're gonna unpack this together i see folks from boston uh from missouri tell us where you're from we would love to just hear sometimes we get people from overseas joining us and by the way if you're new to the channel make sure you hit subscribe because we have a range of issues uh actually a range of issues we're covering but interviews coming up that you will uh you will not want to miss on a range of uh different uh topics coming up including a follow up with my father on the interview we did on uh related to his uh his journey and spirituality and people that influenced him so with that said preston let's jump in and uh talk about what this objection is essentially the the idea is that the word homosexual doesn't appear in uh it shouldn't appear in the bible at all and then if we go back about a half century century and a half it was kind of inserted in the bible in a way it shouldn't be and has caused damage to gay people and also doesn't reflect the biblical text now before we jump in and start responding did i at least get what the general argument is correct what would you add to that no i think that's it yeah i think we need to make a distinction between homosexual as a noun like like a person is a homosexual versus homosexual as an adjective for instance like if you use the phrase homosexual behavior um the concern is more with the noun that the that as a label for people um homosexual is not in the bible but yeah that's basically the the gist of the argument now one of the things that i love about you is when we enter in these conversations you always just qualify it by saying this isn't just an issue for you you're talking about people so before we jump into this maybe just kind of word for those listening there's a good chance we have people christians non-christians those wrestling same sex attraction those with kids who have gone through this and are hurting maybe just give kind of a word before we jump into some of the arguments behind this topic yeah you know i really appreciate that because i think people like you and i who you know who are straight we're attracted to women we have the majority experience it's easy for us especially us you know one scholar to another to to just dive into the academics and and we're going to spend obviously most of our time there but um yeah man over the years i've just have gotten to know so many people who have wrestled with their sexuality their faith and have been really dehumanized by the church man sometimes intentionally sometimes people say and do things they don't realize are really hurtful and offensive but we're just talking to a buddy of mine today who's he's a pastor married to a woman but his whole life he's been attracted to guys and um he says he as a teenager man he just had piles and piles and piles of shame and when he was 16 years old he went in and grabbed a gun out of his dad's closet my goodness you know was sitting there and he truly believed my parents would rather have me dead and that's but that's one of many there's many people that have had that experience so um has ha has the interaction between faith and sexuality done a lot of damage in people's lives yeah man yeah the church has not always done things well and and uh so we need to not just get the bible right but we need to get love right and uh everything we're gonna say here sean and i know your heart and everything we're gonna say here is we'll just say is assuming that pastoral posture so you know you dig into the academics and greek words and stuff that's not at the expense of love it's because we're trying to love people better and i think that's because you and i really believe being faithful to scripture on all issues just not like this one is really what sets people free and is the only way to love people that's not popular today but that's what you and i are committed to so let's jump into this should the word homosexual be in the bible in any translation what do you think yeah um so i'm i'm gonna say something that might might be shocking to my readers i don't know all right listen our viewers um but i'm gonna say no um as a noun okay uh the english word homosexual is never a good rendering of any greek hebrew or aramaic word in in the bible okay i'll just let that sit there and we can okay now now tell us why i know where you're going with this i was fixing my mic here but tell tell us where you're going with this for clarification yeah so the word homosexual and just so my viewers know i i prefer to use the term gay but because if i'm just talking about you know somebody's orientation today but because we are talking specifically about the english word homosexual i will use it um the word homosexual refers to somebody who is attracted to the same sex it does not necessarily mean somebody is having sex with somebody the same sex just like the word heterosexual you can be heterosexual and never be having sex right it doesn't mean you're not heterosexual just means not acting for whatever reason on that attraction same thing with the word homosexual now the bible never singles out a person who is simply attracted to the same sex while it does explicitly in several passages i'm sure we'll get to prohibit people from engaging in i'll say same-sex sexual behavior so for instance first corinthians 6 9 has been mistranslated by several translations the old niv used to say you know homosexual offenders or i think the new king james just flat out said homosexuals like homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of god i'm like wait a minute i know some quote homosexuals who are so dedicated to jesus that they're committing their life to celibacy because they believe it's wrong to act on it will they not inherit the kingdom of god goodness if they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god then we're all up the creek if you will [Music] so part of the concern is that the word homosexual can refer to orientation it can refer to attraction it can refer to identity it can refer to behavior and just simply saying homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of god doesn't appreciate that nuance now when the bible talks about this say first corinthians 6 and we'll get some of the language behind it it's not talking about identity it's not talking about say your sexual orientation it's talking about behavior right what we do with our sexuality is that right that's exactly right the greek words used in first corinthians six nine uh two greek words uh arsenal tests and myla koi they are referring to people engaging in same-sex sexual behavior and i would even push it a little bit farther even to say within the context it's talking about people who are actively engaging and not repenting from it just like the other what nine other sins listed in that verse or you know adulterers and immoral and slanderers whatever it's not talking about people who have slandered or maybe even struggle with slandering and but repent from it it's talking about people who are actively in in an ongoing way engaging in this immoral activity that makes sense that that's really real helpful by the way we have uh friends the man says i'm a christian and gay from westmore india we have folks thursday in london a day ahead even as far as ohio and indiana so you are you are bringing them out preston this is great to see such a range of folks well before we look at a proper interpretation of our cinequates how has this been interpreted in different english translations over the years yeah well it's been interpreted um differently by different translations i mean if you add up all the translations of all the different languages there's i mean tons of different translations so um you know more modern translations will translate it differently i mean the kjv says you know abusers of themselves with mankind it's like what does that even mean uh new king james says homosexuals the niv used to say homosexual offenders and some of my gay friends joke and say yeah stop offending homosexuals but then actually the niv faced a 30 million lawsuit maybe 60 million dollar lawsuit they they won the lawsuit but um somebody said that this translation homosexual offender caused them such great turmoil and anxiety that they're sued they sued zondervan so zonova ended up changing in 2011 to read uh men who have sex with men which is a pretty accurate translation i would have some quibbles with that okay um when you go to older translations so i don't i mean i don't speak all these languages but i've heard that the german norwegian i think even the swedish translation um translates it like boy molester and so in the ancient world it was very it was a common practice that older men would have sex with teenage boys and so some translations uh interpret it that way some earlier translations like the latin the coptic what else the syriac these are really popular translations in the early church they all translate it kind of like the newer niv the man who's having sex with another man so more more kind of generic so there's a myriad of different translations of this verse which is why you know i think it's raised a lot of debates people say like well how come it means that here and who yeah why does this person say it means this here and it's caused a lot of confusion by the way uh paul is from indonesia not indiana uh my bad slight difference we're glad you're joining us um how relevant is it that when we look throughout different languages and different countries and different translations that there's boy molester sometimes it refers to pederasty boy abusers how relevant are these different translations to determining how we should actually translate our cinequitas in first corinthians 6 9 and 1 and in first timothy 110 yeah so i mean when you look at um i think modern or even ancient translations um can play a role when you're trying to understand a passage especially a passage that has you know maybe some perceived difficulty in translating it um but they don't play a determining role right i mean when we're trying to work through a passage and you've done this you know if you come across a word they're like man this is a i'm not familiar with this word and there's some debates among commentators it's good to consult other translations as kind of supplementary role in interpreting but i think we need to go to the text itself in the original context and maybe even some old testament background that might be shaping uh the specific words in the new testament so yeah in a sense the fact that there's various translations um that's i mean that's true of many words and verses in the bible translation theory can be can be a bit difficult doesn't matter you know with various passages by the way as we unpack this we're going to come to more specific questions as we move through the interviews so we want to know exactly what you think and we will respond uh to some of these so here's the argument as best i've heard it preston i'm curious if you've heard it the same way essentially it goes like this number one homosexual is a recent interpretation number two some translations have things like boy molester or boy abuser in its place therefore modern english translations are wrong and the biblical prohibitions the clobber passages do not relate to the kinds of homosexual relationships we see today uh yeah i mean that's um i've i have heard versions of that argument um it i mean i'm trying to think of a better way to it's flawed logic i mean right and i would say this if i was an atheist okay if i was an atheist i'd lose my faith tomorrow i would i would still say that just just the logic alone like because some translations translated this way maybe they've gotten it wrong therefore the meaning of the text it's that therefore that just doesn't work if you want to determine the meaning of the text it's insufficient to simply point to some modern translations that you feel like they've have misinterpreted this word even if they really have misinterpreted the word like like in this case i do think homosexual is a bad interpretation but that doesn't mean um therefore you can make some global conclusion based on what the verse um means about you know same-sex relationships or what the bible as a whole says about same-sex relationships okay this is really important we're gonna go back uh in just a moment here and look at what our seneca tastes really says when we look in context but it's really important that listeners realize because i saw this on a tick tock video yesterday i had somebody email me this and they said look you go back to the rsv translation in 1946 it's the first time the word homosexual appears they didn't understand certain things we know about homosexuality today shouldn't be translated that way should be boy molesters or homosexual offenders or abusers irrelevant to the kind of consensual same-sex relationships we see today and what you're saying is they did actually make a mistake by putting the word homosexual in there there's a better translation but we know this by going back to the original source itself the original language either hebrew or in the case of greek that's what matters most when it comes to interpreting uh what is often uh in the passages described as homosexual behavior did i sum up the key objection to this would you add anything i i've got nothing to add that that is okay exactly um the point just because some modern translations wrongly put the word homosexual in there and maybe you know people say what was their motivation they're trying to make the bible anti-gay and me i don't i don't i've never met the rsv translators i mean they're all dead now so i don't know what their motivation was maybe they were raging homophobes maybe nah maybe they were gave themselves we we don't know you don't know nobody knows their intentions um but it's irrelevant for the meaning of when paul wrote arsenal tests and 2000 years ago that meaning of that word in that context was unrelated to how 20th 20th or 21st century translators are rendering that word we have to go back to the word itself and look and see um you know looking to see you know if there's ancient clues to what the meaning of that word is from the original this is really helpful because you and i have no problem saying times where we have the church have fallen short and we have harmed the lgbtq community and we need to do better i have no problem admitting that i think many times that it's happened but we're talking about a biblical argument that rests upon the text itself so motivations aside that's important for how we make amends and we move forward and heal people who have been hurt but here what we're talking about is what how the passage should actually be translated within itself so let's actually jump in and you tell me i know you've written a lot on this and you've you've done a number of podcasts about this how should our seneca taste actually be translated when we consider not only first corinthians 6 but also in light of leviticus 18 22. yeah good um first of all it's important for people to understand that this is the first time as far as we can tell in all of greek literature that this word arsenal test is used uh so paul see as far as we can tell he's kind of coining or even creating a word here um and that's what throws people off like oh my gosh do we even know what this word means we don't have any parallel literature up until first corinthians um that has this word however once you do a little research you see the arsenal test is a compound word in other words it's a it's made up of two different greek words arson and koite now arson just means male and koite means bad these are very common greek words so it's not it's not like paul's you know um saying a word like flankerton which does no meaning i just made it up you know he's actually taking two real greek words now um what what makes it even well what makes it very interesting is those same two greek words arson and koite occur right next to each other in the greek translation of leviticus 2013 right next to each other arson and koite now leviticus 2013 basically prohibits uh two men from having sex with each other and then you mentioned leviticus 18 22 also contains these two words they're like a couple words apart a little more separated a little more separated but they still occur in that verse too so virtually every scholar i've read whether they're affirming liberal conservative whatever virtually every scholar out there this is not really that debated my only hesitation is everything's debated i mean that the earth is round is debated so uh but virtually any scholar worth their salt um we'll say paul is drawing he's forming this word from these two prohibitions in leviticus now those two prohibitions prohibit male same-sex sexual relationships and so it does seem that that is the best meaning for this word here in 1st corinthians 6 and 1 timothy 1. so describe what arson means and what koite means in independence independently and why together what they should imply because sometimes compound words i've heard words like butterfly like you have the word fly but where does butter come from just because it's a compound worm doesn't mean it matches uh the distinct independent parts yeah no it's great and that's a great point and and uh we can't just determine the meaning of arsenal tests by taking the meaning of these two words and adding them up butterfly is a great example however bird watcher does mean a person who watches bird you know so it doesn't mean it can't mean that it just means we can't jump to conclusions too quickly and that's why the original context in leviticus 18 22 and especially 2013 is so important if we didn't have that background then we would be we would be on a bit of what cement determining what the what the word means but if the two compound words if we if they do maintain their individual meaning in the new compound word then man better or you know somebody who beds a well i would even say be more specific somebody who goes to bed with a male and going to bed has sexual connotations i mean koite is where we get the word coitus to have sex um so one who beds or has sex with males is what the raw meaning of the compound word would mean which is confirmed by the original context in leviticus 18 to 20. so talk a little bit about the context so to get people who've just jumped on we're talking about how the word that's often translated homosexual in passages like first corinthians 6 9 should actually be translated in the original greek arson and coitei come from are found first in leviticus 1822 and 2013. so when we look at it the two words mean male and one who beds a male what is it about the context that tells this it's not just two guys sleeping in the same bed who are friends but there's a sexual connotation going on here that's being uh condemned yeah i mean it's well the original context of leviticus 18 verses 6 through 23 is all about um uh sexual relationships that were prohibited prohibited in israel and leviticus 18 if you've done research on leviticus you know that leviticus 18 sort of mirrors leviticus 20 it's kind of like two bookends so um in the context of leviticus 20 is also clearly about sex and you know even says you know do not have sex with a man as one has with a woman like it's there's again there's no debates there's few debates about whether leviticus 18 to 20 or talking about something sexual the only debate that some people will raise is whether um leviticus 18 and 20 is prohibiting only a certain kind of same-sex male relationship like oh you know somebody of a higher social status shouldn't have sex with somebody of a lower social status or or maybe there's you know it's because it doesn't procreate is why it's being prohibited but you know so i mean people could kind of try to narrow the kind of male same-sex relationship but few people are gonna say it's not talking about male same-sex relationships at all okay so does this apply to female sexual relationships because leviticus 18 does not mention that it refers to males and then first corinthians 6 9 is often translated referral to men who have sex with men would this apply to women or homosexual behavior as a whole or just a male homosexual behavior and you're smiling because i know you get asked this a lot and there's a lot to unpack and it might not be as simple but tell me your thoughts on that no that's a great question and if you've noticed i've been careful to say male same-sex relationships and look man i i'm a big fan of not going beyond the bible um so yeah i think first corinthians 6 9 is like paul the intention of the author is he is talking about male same-sex relationships now in romans 1 26 he does prohibit female same-sex relationships right and also you know throughout scripture marriage is defined as a union between a male and a female and all sexual relationships outside that covenant bond are ruled out so even if romans 1 26 wasn't there yeah female same-sex behavior would would still be ruled out because it goes against the biblical teaching on marriage and sexual relationships as a whole so so no i don't i don't need to sort of cram some sort of female same-sex prohibition into this works i i don't think that's paul's point here so i think that's fair i actually think if you go back to leviticus 18 and uh i did an article for the christian research journal on this and i think the language that it's used when it says a man should not sleep with another male is reminiscent of this kind of creation kind of language that's used that it's wrong because god made them male and female and it's not stated explicitly but when you especially look at leviticus and it talks about being in the land and being kicked out of the land it's clearly playing off this genesis narrative so i would argue it's at least implicit within the writing of paul and within the writing of moses uh given that it was a patriarchal culture but you're right we have to be careful because it's not as explicit as is in the definition of marriage or in saying romans chapter one no that's good and um j j sklar uh s-k-l-a-r he's a professor at covenant seminary wrote a really good recent article on leviticus 18 are arguing for that same thing that there's clear allusions to the creation account here so that this male same-sex prohibition is going against the fundamental expression of sexuality and marriage in genesis one and two um and i think it's right i think there are i think leviticus 18 as a whole is talking about a departure from uh god's creative intent and design so yeah no that's that's fair so let's make a distinction here i had a a youtube debate with a friend of mine is no longer a christian and one of his three reasons for leaving the faith was he said when i discovered that the bible says gay people are an abomination and i stopped him and i said well first off all of us are an abomination if you take original sin seriously second it's talking about certain behavior not people is so tell me that sounds like you agree with that point absolutely that's that's you just it's exactly what leviticus 18 22 says it says a man shall not lie with a man as he does with a woman it that sex act is a is an abomination um and also i mean this is something that some of our affirming friends have brought up and i think it's valid that i mean a lot of things are called an abomination in the old testament breaking the sabbath picking up sticks on saturday um even eating certain types of you know food a bacon sandwich is an abominable act so i think we got to be careful with that language certainly it sounds really harsh and i think in most cases it is talking about something that would be a super super serious sin well i mean breaking the sabbath in the old testament was a really serious sin so um but yeah no god doesn't i call the person an abomination we are created in his image um but certain acts certain things we do lots of things we do are abominable so yeah god's not picking on gay people anywhere in the bible one of the objections that comes back here is that the bible's not talking about consensual same-sex relationships you mentioned this earlier it's entirely abusive relationships and clearly at that time there were some there were master and slave uh homosexual behavior there was pederasty but you've pushed back on this in both leviticus and the romans passage arguing that it's not singling out abusive behavior alone so at least it's not talking about heterrasty in leviticus right for example tell me about that that's good yeah so um yeah i'm going to summarize something it could take me you know an hour to unpack um yeah that argument that these prohibition passages are only talking about abusive relationships it was popular in the 80s and 90s like in scholarship but especially through the work of bill loader who's the world-renowned expert on sexuality and judaism christianity he's written like eight scholarly books on the topic and he affirms he's a christian he's a methodist christian by the way i was gonna say those looking for his works he writes under william loader william one of the best no he goes by bill but you're right one of the most important right writings to read on this because his understanding of the ancient world at that time right and he's unearthed er i mean so much evidence and he affirms same-sex marriage in the church today but he goes out of his way to say there's no i mean there's there's it's just historically not valid to say the biblical writers were only thinking of abusive relationships i say historically unvalid invalid because yes it is true as you said in many cases male same-sex relationships were abusive in the ancient world from what we could tell from the literature but not all of them but here's the kicker when it comes to female same-sex relationships in the ancient world they were not abusive at all in fact they were almost exclusively among two consensual adults we've got archaeological evidence for this textual evidence from various sources and in romans one paul condemns prohibits same-sex relationships among females and then turns right around and says likewise the men you know were sleeping with men so um there's it's it's just historically inaccurate to say the biblical writers had no category for a two adults of the same sex having a consensual relationship but more than that there's just nothing in the text itself which singles out slaves and master or masters raping their slaves or there's lots of greek words for peterson a man sleeping with a teenage boy and none of those birds are used in the new testament or the old testament the old testament new testament when it prohibits same-sex relationships it uses generic terms for male and female and especially in romans 1 and a bit in leviticus it has genesis 1 and 2 as a background it's not talking about some specific aberrant kind of abusive form of same-sex relationships it's saying same-sex relationships intrinsically goes against god's intended design according to genesis 1 and 2. that's a short version there's a short version i could go yeah yeah that that's okay at the end we can suggest people where they go further but i've always found leviticus interesting that there are multiple passages ruling out incest in leviticus 18. so it says your mom your grandma your cousin and in some ways if you rule out incest you actually have to define how far that goes is that a first cousin is it a second cousin is it an adopted cut like it actually raises those questions but then when it comes to homosexual behavior there's one line that says a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman well why is there only one line because if it's talking about all kinds of same-sex sexual behavior power plays non-power plays it doesn't require qualification i think it's encompassing all of them especially as it comes after the passage on on insects so that's one one no no it's important that no it's i would affirm all that and um when you do read and i've read all this stuff the greco-roman jewish literature when they are talking about kind of power dynamics or um or an abusive relationship that it's it's really clear in their language there's an interesting book by uh kyle harper from shame to sin he's he's a classicist okay so he reads the new testament he reads primarily the greco-roman literature and then he reads the new testament as this weird kind of subset of greco-roman literature when he comes to romans 1 he says it's startling that paul's language does not reflect the common greco-roman language of singling out abusive relationships he uses generic language for male and female and even he says i don't even know if this guy's a christian or what but i mean he he says this this is in light of the other ways in which people are talking about this paul is clearly ruling out um same-sex relationships because of the intrinsic nature of a same-sex relationship not because it's simply abusive or an outflow of a lustful heart or something that that's really helpful i appreciate you waiting in here i see a lot of comments and people interacting if you're enjoying this give us a thumbs up in just a short time we are going to come to your specific questions especially if they're related to how the word homosexual should or should not be translated into the scriptures itself that's our focus i realize this raises a ton of questions and issues even personal ones that people have maybe we'll have you come back on and we'll we'll really talk through some of those personal questions that people have which are important um how would you recommend that first corinthians 6 9 be translated because you said it shouldn't be translated homosexuality or homosexuals what do you think would be the most careful accurate translation that would convey what paul is trying to convey to the corinthian church yeah i mean the most woodenly literal um precise translation i would say something like men who are having sex with males and i specifically make that distinction because males does include teenage boys whatever so it includes peter c it's just not limited to it if you say men having sex with men well that's a little too limiting because that doesn't include men having sex with boys so men who who are are having or who have like it's characteristic of who they are men who have sex with with males that's really helpful because i think you're also saying that the person who would say the boy or the young man in the pederastic relationship is not being condemned or the slave it's the men who have the power over them in those particular dynamics right is that why you say men and with males yeah and that's a good point and um because we're talking about the greek word arsenal test which is man having sex with males but then it also says the malikoi and that's the one sort of on the other side of the equation who is receiving the sex um and yet that person's condemned too now the bible doesn't condem innocent victims so this is some kind of abusive relationship and the malikoi was like an innocent victim receiving something he has no power over he wouldn't be listed in the in the condemnation so clearly it's i mean clear it's clear to me that that it's there's a it's a consensual relationship you know that is being included in this uh condemnation you're such an academic i love that you qualify everything i do too on my interview for biola they're like apologists overstate stuff qualify carefully and i really learned i'm like okay that that's fair you got to say something when it's strong but also qualify that some people disagree i think you do that you do that really well now one of the claims is that our seneca taste has been used as a translation to clobber gay people now there's a lot of ways that we could go with this tell me your thoughts when you hear that because we've all talked about romans 1 or 1st corinthians 6 or galatians 19 and people say these are just the clobber passages yeah tell me your thoughts when you hear um let me first of all resonate with that um yes christians have used the bible not just in this conversation but in many different contexts to do bad things to they've misused the bible or they've uh only emphasized certain things in the bible like the do's and don'ts and not also talked about grace and love and kindness and yeah there's people that have used these passages as a weapon there's people who've used the whole book of joshua as a weapon against whole people groups you know um uh i i know a lot of i've heard i've seen startling quotes from uh people from hundreds of years ago when they were christians coming to america and they kind of mapped the book of joshua on coming to america so that the native americans were now the canaanites that needed to be slaughtered oh my god this that's a misuse of that text of scripture so um so yeah these texts have been misused and we need from those we if you've misused misused this bible or these verses then you need to repent from that now i i'm nervous about the phrase clobber passage i used to use it and i don't anymore because it's still i mean the passage itself isn't clobbering um it's the word of god and to kind of say call it label it as a clobber passage i think that's not speaking highly of god's word so i do have a problem with that just because people have misused it doesn't mean the passage itself is the problem it's the person that's using it um it's important to understand look i mean the bible in six passages you know maybe seven maybe five the bible specifically names and prohibits same-sex sexual relationships how many times does it condemn straight people for their sexual immorality how many times does it condemn all people for not caring for the poor for um being you know not not caring for the the immigrant the sojourn or the you know so we're you know people say does the bible condemn almost homosexual people i'm like well on the one hand it condemns us all that's what romans 1 2 is all about and that's why we need romans 3 which says we all need jesus but no the bible doesn't just go out of its way to single out gay people or even same-sex relationships any more than it singles out all kinds of other sins to point us to jesus i think that's really helpful sometimes i feel like when someone goes oh you're bringing up a clown or passage i want to say well yeah but we are talking about romans 1 and it's meant to say if i press on the bible i'm clobbering them and it's kind of a way that silences discussion so i think we have to recognize that it has been abused and not take lightly the way it's been harmfully used in people's lives but also go back and look at the text at least those who are christians and believe it's the word of god and not dismiss it that's the balance that i that i aim for let me ask you to sum up uh for us in the sense that what if this objection is right that the word homosexual was not added until the middle of the 20th century uh what follows from this logically speaking for how we should interpret first corinthians 6 9 and first timothy 1 10 specifically what else follows for how we should view the morality of same-sex sexual relationships can you um i think i know what you're getting at could you maybe uh tweak the question a little bit or reword it okay it was actually two questions i piled on here for you so if people have uh inherently put the word or errantly put the word homosexual in translations yeah what follows or doesn't follow for how we should translate first corinthians six and then i'll come to the next question after that and first timothy 10. okay yeah i i think um what doesn't follow is that just because this has been a mistranslation we can't make sweeping conclusions about what the bible as a whole says about same-sex sexual relationships and that's the people that i've um read and talked to that use that argument they that's typically what happens they say oh my gosh this word was added in very late and therefore you know the bible doesn't condemn same-sex relationships whatever i'm like that's just that therefore is um uh is you're putting way too much stress on the therefore um so yeah i think that would be inaccurate on the flip side yeah i mean i i think um uh i don't want to j i don't i i truly think it is unfortunate um that many of my friends personal friends and many other people have had to look at first corinthians as they're wrestling with their sexuality and trying to follow jesus with it and have read the word homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of god there's people who have lost their faith unnecessary because they said because i simply have this experience this temptation um it's impossible for me to be a christian that that's unfortunate man and i i don't want to you know not everybody has had that reaction but i i truly mourn that like you know that that's translations have ramifications and that's why the people i know that deal with translation theory man that they do the ones that i know work really hard because they do know interpreting the word of god accurately is super important and in this case it's extra important so it sounds like just using the word homosexual without clarity without context does a disservice to those who are affirming because it makes them feel like if i have these attractions or this orientation i can't enter the kingdom of god but also does a disservice to those who are non-affirming by maybe making them mistreat or misjudge people with same-sex attraction when the text is not talking about that so that i think you and i can both affirm that even though we don't think this argument is sound for what follows for the morality of same-sex sexual behavior that using the word homosexual as far as it goes has definitely brought some confusion in people's minds that we need to clarify very much so i got nothing to add to that that's exactly right all right well let me here's here's a question from getting through life that i think uh might help and then let's jump to some questions at the end says question for mr sprinkle first off that's dr sprinkle give the man some respect you never you never play that card by the way so i'm totally totally messing with you would the apostles have understood sexual orientation as an effective means of human identity if not what is the best biblical form of identity huh um man i i would effective means i would need to tease that out i'm sorry i don't want to get all scholarly but it's such a good question that i um i wouldn't want to make sure i'm answering it according to what is being said so um i don't yeah i don't think the bible would advocate for um or promote um somebody upholding their sexuality as some sort of like primary identity i mean um uh now some people this is this well there's several different things i could chase down here let me say this that the idea that some people could be even born with some kind of innate desire for the same sex that idea was it's well documented in the ancient world um so this idea that some people that it's not just some raw choice i want to have sex with guys um that idea was well at home in in in paul's world did paul was he aware of that i don't know i think the category that the bible would use is the category of desire that um we have desires uh which lead to temptation which can lead to sin um and uh it's okay it's good many times to say no to your decision your desires just because you have a desire doesn't mean that defines who you are just it makes you human um so yeah i would be nervous with the with a christian building their primary identity around their sexuality now i i say primary because sure you and i both have friends that you know if you ask them are you you know uh tell me about your story you know and they might use the term gay to describe themselves um that and the ones that i know i mean i know people across the spectrum but several people that i know would simply use the term gay as a synonym for not who they are fundamentally but for how they are as part of their experience so the so they're not using the term gay and some sort of all-encompassing identity sure um but if somebody does yeah i think that that would be uh problematic um i don't think the bible can make a great case from the scriptures that you should build your primary identity around your sexual desires like i just don't think the bible would elevate our sexuality that high that's real helpful there's a ton of questions here uh shannon i see your question i believe you described yourself as an atheist and the question is uh what is the moral reason adult consensual same-sex relationships should be prohibited there's no harm and there are infertile people having marital sex that isn't for procreation now one of the things i want to pause and say i'm going to come back and bring on a guest and we're going to talk about this not referring to scripture this conversation as a whole is we're responding to a revisionist argument if somebody says hey i'm a christian and i think the bible is in favor of same-sex relationships that is not to downplay your argument or your question i think it is super important i'm glad you're asking it in some ways it requires a lot more unpacking um just one thing i would say as a christian response which as a whole i think you'll find not satisfying and i realize why is say as a believer if there is a god who has made us in his image and has given us a design for how we are supposed to live then we as human beings will flourish most emotionally spiritually and morally when we're living according to the plans of that designer that is the basic approach that i would have so questions of homosexual behavior and all other moral behavior as far as i'm a christian stem from the larger questions is there a god is there a creator has he intended us to live and use our bodies in a certain fashion now that in itself i realize is not going to be satisfying you and i really appreciate you weigh in but you want to add anything to that or you disagree with i appreciate the question so much i mean it's a question this person says they're an atheist the lots of christians um raise the same questions one of my kids raised that question just the other day so i mean this is not a this is a great question so let me answer let me give an atheistic answer to an atheist okay this idea that something is only sinful if it harms somebody else um that's a very western modern ethical perspective so fellow atheist uh jonathan height he's a world-renowned social psychologist you know he talks about the kind of harm ethic that's so popular in the west that he used to as a new york jew he used to hold to that too until he traveled to india and realized there's all kinds of other ethical impulses that this culture has because it's not a western culture and so in his book the righteous mind he talks about i think six different just from an atheistic um perspective there's like six different ethical questions we should ask about whether something's right or right or wrong um and i don't remember what those are but it's um just because or even if you could say that there's no harm in this that's one of several other questions you should ask even from an atheistic non-religious um perspective but i would affirm everything you would i mean i think we have to ask questions about divine intent and design i don't think procrea you can reduce the good of uh marriage or sexual relationships to procreation i think procreation plays a role in a significant role um but i also think we should look at genesis one and two and how the coming together of male and female follows the sort of grain um with the howard wass used to say you know with the grain of the universe that just the way things have been laid down in creation so that coming together male 1 female in a one flesh union is like almost symbolic of all these creational differences coming together in in unity there's also a deep spiritual meaning to marriage and sexuality within a christian framework throughout scripture and lastly i would say in most cases the bible does reveal to us why something is deemed wrong in some cases it doesn't i mean i can't really give a good argument for why two people who don't have children who get married man and woman and then they end up falling out of love why can't they get divorced like what if they just like totally can't stand each other like it's like my life's gonna be miserable if i stay with you and your spouse says same here you can make all a great case for like you guys should get for the good of you and humanity you should get divorced the bible just doesn't allow that i don't i don't know why that is i could probably come up with a theological answer but a real practical one i'm gonna have a hard time with so i don't as a christian when i say i want to follow the way of jesus that comes with me putting myself under god's authority and if he reveals to us the why question then great if not he's god and i'm not i know it's not a satisfying answer to somebody who's not religious but i think that requires a full show and i really appreciate you asking the shannon we will come back to that on my channel in due time and uh unpack it let me ask you this you mentioned jesus and it's come up a few times in the comments jesus does not use our seneca days uh directly but does the teachings we have of jesus way into the broader question of god's design for marriage and sexuality and the permissibility of same-sex sexual behavior abs absolutely he does um so it is true jesus never directly mentions same-sex sexual relationships and some people are thrown off by that but um there's several things that every human would consider sin that jesus doesn't mention and that's because the ethics that he does address happen to be ethics that were being disputed within judaism and i don't care if you're a sadducee pharisee and a scene whatever nobody in judaism disputed whether same-sex relationships were god's intent or not so it never came up in his palestinian you know conversations but he does in matthew 19 3-5 he not only defines marriage as a union between male and female but he goes back to genesis 1 27 male and female he created them and then he kind of splices that together with the big marriage statement in genesis 2 24. therefore manchester united's father might be joined to his wife and the two linguistically logically ethically the word the two in jesus statement refers to male and female not just to consensual humans so um and honestly sean i know we're talking about arsenal tests and first corinthians 6 9. for me everything we've said tonight is really secondary to the primary question what is marriage what is marriage for what is sex for you know we need to ask some deeper fundamental questions about that and then once we get our head around that then i think these secondary questions about specific prohibitions uh make a little more sense so i think jesus statement of matthew 19 is really really important this is really helpful and i'm super glad you brought this up i actually had put it in my notes and skipped over it that it the biblical view of sexuality is not just isolated passages one translation that's been translated correctly and incorrectly throughout the history of the church it actually goes to arrange kind of an entire biblical theology beginning in genesis so if the heart of the question is about marriage i realize you only have a little bit of time left but how would you frame biblically how we should approach issues of sexuality and marriage kind of a 30 000 foot view and then how this discussion fits into that and then carmen i see your question you're asking is a mennonite i'll come back and i'll ask preston that next well yeah i don't um i would just say you know marriage in genesis 2 and there's whether you're a muslim jew christian you know if you're a monotheist you know genesis 2 is is fundamental genesis 1 2 is fundamental for our understanding of marriage for the western world it's been fundamental for understanding marriage so um when you go back to genesis 1 and 2 it's important to just look at how the the framework and institution of marriage is woven into the fabric of the creation account genesis 1 and 2 brings together this beautiful display of unity with indifference and marriage plays a significant role in sort of drawing out and showcasing unity within difference um so yeah and then throughout scripture you see marriage is is is kind of cliche but it's a shadow pointing to something a thousand times better than human marriage and that's our relationship with god and this is where my catholic brothers and sisters have done great work in connecting um human um sexual desire with our desire to be known and loved by god you know augustine said our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you o lord and um falsely accredited to uh gk chesterston i think you know every man who rings the door of a brothel is searching after god you know yeah i don't know who actually actually said it but that idea that um we cannot connect we can't separate our sexual desire from our ultimate need to find our rest in god which is why marriage human marriage is but a shadow to our ultimate marriage or relationship with with god i think that's beautiful i you know people say marriage is not important to god the bible begins with a wedding in genesis chapter 2 and it says a man and his wife so it's not just a man and a woman it's a wedding and it ends with a wedding with you know christ and and the bride and the groom so this is a prime way we understand god and his love and his character so it's not just six isolated passages it's a larger biblical theology rooted in what genesis teaches and exists throughout the scriptures even though god's people consistently fail to live this out right that's for sure carmen asks a really heartfelt question says as a mennonite we take the bible very literally and the majority of my family and extended family translate homosexuality is evil as quote homosexuals are evil how am i to tell them that that's wrong oh man uh carmen that's a such a good question and i i almost um don't want to get i don't even want to answer because it would take a much larger conversation um i you know you're dealing not just with a question about homosexuality or the bible you're dealing with some deep psychological and embeddedness you're dealing with people that have held to a view for so many years and might be very scared to let go of this view that gay people are intrinsically more evil than straight people which is which is crazy um so yeah you know i have found over the years um real life stories do help um i release a documentary called dear church i'm gay a little short free 20-minute documentary that might um if you show that i don't know they might watch that and just be even more turned off i don't i don't know your parents but uh humanizing this conversation i think can can help and you know there is hope i i saw you know i do a lot of conferences helping pastors understand this conversation i'll never forget in arizona doing one and there was this this old couple they were like 80 years old and i knew the grandson who brought him there and he says okay my grandparents are coming they're super homophobic you know like i'm like oh here we go well as i often do i have people come on stage and actually talk about their story as it relates to sexuality and faith and one of my friends um used to identify as transgender they transitioned several years ago they ended up de-transitioning and um and just her heart for jesus is just over the top and this these grandparents they were just undone they came up at lunch and hugged this girl and and said you know we want to adopt you as our grandkid we want to please for we want to repent to you for our 80 years of homophobia in the church so you know i i i'm not saying that can happen or that will happen but you know human stories and power of god can can do a really mighty work in people's hearts so don't don't give up keep loving them and it's slowly two baby steps don't expect them to change that view because you smack them over the head with you know some documentary or something but um you know maybe slowly trying to help them to humanize the conversation oh i i would tell folks carmen in particular pick up a copy of your book people would be loved because my guess is there's probably a lot of ignorance and fear among this person um fear that if you don't say homosexuals are evil you're just abandoning biblical commitments which doesn't follow at all so maybe giving permission to say look i still hold scripture i still hold the view of natural marriage that is in scripture that the church has held 2000 years but that's very different than condemning people who have been hurting so that distinction i think if you pick up preston's book and read it number one understanding some of these distinctions yourself and the passages we talked about will give you kind of just the i guess the confidence to talk about this with wisdom and be able to slowly move the person away from that but it's not going to happen in one conversation it's going to take some time um goodness there's a ton of questions here uh some we can't come to i i realize that go beyond the scope of this discussion itself but that gives me an excuse to have you back in fact you are coming back in august to talk about your next book you've been researching like crazy and you gave me the opportunity to endorse it on kind of transgender identities but i don't know anybody who spent more time talking with transgender people but also looking theologically and historically and scientifically to approach this fairly and lovingly and i love your book so we're going to have you back early august to talk about this i'm already looking forward to it those of you yeah those of you again who are new to the channel make sure you hit the subscribe button because we have a number of interviews coming up you will not want to miss have my father uh josh mcdowell coming back to do part two of the life of the radical people that shaped his life we have a q a coming up with uh jp moreland good chance we'll have william dempsky who's one of the four kind of founders of the intelligent design movement who's retired from it but we're co-authors so he agreed probably in fall to come on in a whole bunch of other videos so just make sure you hit subscribe and also this channel is actually brought to you in partnership with biola apologetics so if you've ever thought you know what i want to go deeper learn how to defend my faith but do with kindness and graciousness towards others think about joining me today at talbot in fact i finished uh uh i've been working preston on this new class i'm teaching on the problem of evil and really this conversation that we're having about lgbtq is kind of a subset of the problem of evil why does god allow people to hurt why does he allow injustice so if you look down in the description of uh of this video you'll find information if you've ever thought about getting a master's we'd love to have you if you're not ready for masters we also just have a certificate program where we'll kind of guide you through learning apologetics and help you with the right lectures to watch and just simple assignments that we'll even grade for you just to keep you on track learning so follow that below but again preston thanks for coming on subscribe to his youtube channel pick up a copy of his book people to be loved make sure you subscribe press and hang on don't go anywhere uh to the rest of you look forward to seeing you in our next interview thanks for joining us you

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

Views: 87,141

Rating: 4.6089568 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, scripture, LGBTQ, affirming, argument, evidence, bible, new testament, Jesus, Paul, text, Word, homosexual, gay, 1 Corinthians, revisionist, Romans, Side A, Side B, debate, discussion, translation, NIV, King James, NASB, modern

Id: noXmiLzbhPY

Length: 63min 5sec (3785 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 08 2020