Same-Sex Unions: EVERYTHING the Bible Says About It

if you want to know what the bible teaches about same-sex unions you're in exactly the right spot but i gotta warn you this teaching is not for the faint of heart some of you if you follow me on youtube would know that i do these two to three minute quick video responses to tough questions this teaching is basically the opposite a professor and myself who i'm going to introduce in just a minute are going to go in depth on the scriptural passages that address same-sex unions and responding to revisionist arguments against them the point is to go into considerable depth methodically carefully and slowly through what the scripture actually teaches about this important topic now for us to record this we broke this up into three one hour plus teaching sessions so we didn't wear ourselves out so if we had to do that to record this you might want to do a similar thing when watching it of course you can stop it wherever you want to and then come back to it when you have the time and have the energy for me sometimes when i find a book that i love or teaching that's helpful i will listen to it or read it multiple times to really make sure i get the depth out of it and i hope this could be a resource you might consider using in that fashion as well now my guest who i will be in conversation with his name is darren snyder bellusik he's a professor of philosophy and religion at ohio northern university he got a phd in the history and philosophy of science from notre dame and he's the author of an excellent book called marriage scripture and the church i came across this book and thought this is the most up-to-date book that makes a case for a natural marriage and responds to revisionist arguments against us so number one it's up to date number two it's written by philosopher so it's very systematic and careful and thoughtful number three the tone is just great it's gracious it's charitable it's honest i love the way he approached in his book and i think you will love him as well when you meet him and see that his heart comes through this teaching as well now for those of you watching you might realize we didn't actually cover everything the bible says about same-sex unions that's not possible in the video he gets closer to it in the book but we're going to go live on friday june 4th the two of us together and what we're going to do is we're going to take the best questions that are posted in comments below in this video now keep in mind we're only going to take questions on the content of this video so you're going to need to watch it or a lot of it before you post a question and we'll do our best to just decipher the most thoughtful questions rather christian non-christian affirming non-affirming and then go live next friday at 12 pacific standard time noon on my youtube channel and if there if we have time we'll take some other questions live that people ask related to this topic so if you know other people who might want to watch this and weigh in please consider sharing this with them last thing i'll say before we get started here's a quick outline of what we're going to cover in what you might call part one we're gonna kind of introduce the subject and talk about some underlying issues that frame how we should approach same-sex unions in the bible and we're gonna jump into the scripture of genesis part two we're gonna shift to what jesus teaches about marriage and look at a number of revisionist objections to the historic christian view of what jesus taught about marriage and then the third and final section we will only focus on the most common and prominent revisionist objections or arguments in favor of same-sex unions that's where we're headed [Music] enjoy [Music] let's begin with a question of why you wrote an in-depth academic book on scripture and same-sex relationships yeah good i i didn't set out to write a book i mean i think that's an important part of this it wasn't that i sat down and sort of looked over the church and what was happening with the discussion the debate around same-sex relationships and then thought well the church needs a book it needs this kind of a book and i'm the one to write that book so here we go i didn't have those thoughts at all at the start this is a question that has been making its way through the church for a couple generations now going back say to the 1970s and my own experience with it goes back about 20 years or so where this question was circulating and causing and was causing for discussion and dissension debate within my own denomination and and so at that time i thought i needed to start to study this question and i did a preliminary study uh of this question using some uh trusted scholars that i knew you know richard hayes from uh duke and willard swartly and mennonite scholars so just just looking at what they had written i trusted them and i looked at what they had written and so on so that was sort of a preliminary thing about a decade later or so um this question sort of really erupted into uh my denomination's uh overall conversation in a way that was uh causing you know cause for them lots of just focus to be on this and just in a very intense way and in a way that was threatening to uh threatening to cause division um and this is and and then it has in the in the years since and so at that time i thought okay i need to do for myself an in-depth study because i need to be part of this conversation as a member of the church as part of the body i need to be able to have something thoughtful and careful to say and that means i need to have studied this question biblically and and also i need to have listened to the uh stories and the voices of those who experience themselves as same-sex attracted or identify as gay in the church and and and have that all those things in mind and heart uh as i approach this question as i it will inevitably be involved in discussions and conversations and perhaps even part of making decisions about this whether in my own congregation or in the broader denomination and so that's where it started and i asked myself what i could contribute as a philosopher i'm trained as a philosopher what what i could contribute but also uh what i needed yet to learn what are the questions i did and asked and framing it as a matter of marriage was not on the radar screen for me at the start i started where practically everybody the whole discussion has been framed and starts you start with those particular passages in paul and leviticus and so on that sure and and you when you work you work from there and it was only though as i was thinking about what paul says about marriage in ephesians 5 where he talks about the one flesh union of a man and woman quoting genesis 2 as a mystery of christ in the church that i thought there's something profound here that i just have not thought through that is really important but i'm not really sure how and my own tradition i i grew up baptist um and then later as an adult i joined with the mennonite church both of those neither of those traditions has really delivered to me and and a robust theology of marriage and so it but it's well i need to think deeply um about marriage here uh to try to understand what this particular text might have to do with this question of same-sex union and and so then that set me off to sort of gotcha thinking more carefully about marriage and so that as i started adding on to what i had already done as a philosopher trying to analyze some arguments carefully and thoughtfully um to see whether they were sound arguments and so on that were the kinds of arguments i was encountering um then to expand that into sort of thinking about well what's the bigger picture of all of this and that picture needs to be marriage um and our theology of marriage and it turns out as i discovered that's the whole picture of scripture from beginning to end now i'm not the first one to discover that of course i agree with you realizing that dawning on me for myself that this is profound that that's the bigger picture and it's the whole picture of scripture that we need to be talking about okay so that's when i realized this need to be something much bigger and honestly in the literature i was reading and i was reading a lot of the sort of the classic literature on this question going back to the 70s 80s 90s as well as what was coming out in you know say the last uh 10 years or so um and as reading that this discussion around what marriage is was not part was not a central part of the of the uh sort of the orienting uh framework which we all whether we're traditionalists um or we're revisionists or innovationists that there wasn't sort of a sense here that that's what we need to be having the central conversation about um and so uh as a way of trying to contribute something edifying to the church uh good to help this conversation that i just kept working on this and a book grew um a book grew out of those initial seeds and and took shape well you kind of say this maybe grew out of that as well what you started because this is an extension of that i about 15 years ago for me i work with high school students also teach at biola full-time almost every time i open up for q a one of the first questions was on lgbtq relationships and i realized i hadn't really thought this through as carefully as i needed to and so went on a similar journey as you did now for me also you mentioned listening to people that was also a ton of conversations with students high school students as i would speak and i would teach were really torn up about their sexuality so put a very personal face on this for me as well that's that as president sprinkle would say this isn't just about an issue this is about people that was similar in your experience as well it wasn't just searching this for denominations but there were a number of relationships tied to your experience as well right oh yes um going back to even before i started to study this question um going back when i was in graduate school at the university of notre dame i had three good friends including my campus roommate the first year who turned out is gay and um and his name is eric and um sad to say he died an untimely death here a couple of years ago but he um you know this is my first basically very personal encounter not only just having someone i knew not just a friend but a roommate we were living together in the same quarters and sharing life together and and through him i got to know some other of his friends um who became part of my circle of friends then and i was really touched by the way they they were transparent about they weren't you know yep this is what's true was but they were also devoutly christian um and um and intended to go on serving the church they were already serving the church um in different ways and intended that for a lifelong vocation and so this sense of here were here were three gay men who were also christians and they loved the church and wanted to serve the church and so they've been constant companions of mine um in my mind and heart over the years um and i'm grateful for the way their hospitality to me and friendship to me helped me help kind of woo me back to the church i had wandered away and they helped woo me back to the church so i i that i hold as precious um and anything i think or write or say or do about this that always remains as a kind of a reference point against which i have to check things right um to be in a way kind of honest about that and true about that and so on and then things happening within my own later in life later years um of in my congregations i've been in and people i've known and uh that have uh um involved you know uh uh you know a couple splitting up because one uh you know you know uh later after years of marriage i i'm gay and they split up i've known couples like that who've then sort of left and so on i also have many friends who are pastors in our denomination as well scholars teachers theologians and so on who are affirmative of same-sex unions and some who have uh celebrated uh same-sex uh weddings and so on and so um it's not for me it's it's in that way it's a very personal issue in terms of relationships um and that i want to be have integrity in and relate to them as brothers and sisters in christ even even in the midst of a significant disagreement about this and with uncertainty also about what this will all mean eventually for our denomination and so on how all that will sort out so i want to walk with integrity about this as well as in charity and fidelity with my brothers and sisters well that that kindness comes through and that's one reason i wanted to invite you on to have this in-depth teaching is you think philosophically very rigorously and carefully and we're going to jump into all those arguments but i also sense a heart for people wrestling with this and it's important that we do both so in a minute let's go to the way you frame this book in terms of marriage a robust view of marriage shapes how we think about same-sex unions and i think that's exactly right but first perhaps the most common revisionist claim is that uh consensual mutual lifelong loving same-sex relationships did not exist in the greco-roman world and so paul and jesus could not have been addressing these kinds of relationships you have an entire appendix to the book that's online for free we'll link to it below but scholarship has shifted and shown that that's false hasn't it yeah that's true that was that was the assumption robin scroggs as a new testament scholar wrote a book published in the early 80s new testament and homosexuality in which he kind of set the baseline for probably the next generation of conversation and this was one of his central claims that the that whenever we think about same-sex relationships and really relationship is really itself and probably an anachronistic term an inappropriate term to apply to what was going on in ancient greece and rome uh that that this is uh that what was when we talk about that at ancient greece in rome we can't imagine we can't project on uh yes loving mutual faithful relationships that really this was exploitive uh it was um in some ways predatory kind of behavior but the primary mode of same-sex sexual activity was pederasty which was an older man with a younger man and really not a younger man but a boy right and preferably in some cases a prepubescent boy who had not yet gone through puberty and started and and so it might have been in features more feminine or whatever but that this is what it was and it was part of what you explore what all of heterostate was was about and it was different between greece ancient greece and ancient rome um but that was the primary thing we need to have in mind and then also that there were other forms of same-sex sexual activity but these were very predatory and exploitive they would involve masters abusing their slaves masters had free reign over the bodies and lives of their of their slaves and could commandeer a slave for sex at any time a free male could in the household whether it's the master the father families of the house or a son in the house who's come of age you know could commandeer a slave male or female for uh to satisfy their sexual urges or they could go to the marketplace to the prostitutes right and so this was then this was it and those processes could be male or female depending on your preference um depending on what so on so this was that was the understanding from the early say in the 70s early 80s that's set for a whole generation to come and then yes more more research this often happens right there are early claims and hypotheses and claims made and people go as if that's the canonical truth and then more research gets done that unearths a lot of evidence now i'll name two particular scholars that i think are a great resource neither one of them is a traditionalist neither one one is not even a christian the other one is a christian um but would be of a revisionist um frame of mind uh so one is bernadette britton um who's a classic scholar um and uh her book love between women came out in the 1990s and she took a lot of cue off of paul speaking about women with women in romans 1. what was that about him for a lot of people thought that can't be about women together with women that has to be women engaging in unnatural sex that's what paul talks about exchanging the natural for the unnatural that must be about something else that's not women and women burn it up hurting it's like no that's kind of dismissive of women's experience and men covering that up so she unearths a whole lot of evidence from ancient greece of rome of same-sex relationships that are mutual loving uh and including between between women as offering presenting a kind of context and then she lays out a very extensive examination of romans 1 from that viewpoint and the other was william loader who's ordained minister in the uniting church in australia and just monumental scholar of early christianity late judaism early christianity and is written of like as a five volume work i haven't written all five volumes at all but he's written a couple of summary books that are very accessible and are really quite helpful and and also he presents you know that look there's good evidence of this um that this was known that this is in part of the commentary and so indeed when paul talks about same-sex relationships there um in men and women men with men and women with men in romans 1. it isn't only necessarily the kind of predatory exploitive kinds of activities or practices that were common that were known of course um but there are there were other kinds of uh same-sex relationships with could and some of which involved lifelong companionship um and that that were known um now nobody would have ever called it marriage they would have said no it's not marriage marriage just the greeks and romans would have agreed as men and women and it's meant for procreation and that would have been a common view among the philosophers and in law and so on but these kinds of uh same-sex partnerships would have been known and recognized as existing um and people had different views of them right people had different assessments of whether these were good or not but they were known that's a remarkable shift in scholarship over the decades that shows the teachings in the scripture do relate to our understanding of sex marriage and relationships today they're not talking about something entirely unknown and foreign to the experience today although there are some differences that we may get into that's really helpful and i've read william later and he is affirming he gets there by having a different view of scripture than you and i would hold but he says if you take scripture at its word it's going to view marriage as one man one woman one flesh for one lifetime and sex is reserved for marriage if you take scripture that's what i appreciate about lord i think he has real integrity in the way he approaches this now let's shift to your your approach which i honestly i felt like a breath of fresh air as i read this and kind of wondered how had i not written this first not that i could have written your book but why didn't someone else approach it this way because essentially these debates are often done with the clobber verses so sodom and gomorrah leviticus 18 romans 1 as if scripture only has a few isolated passages that talk about same-sex unions your approach is to say no let's look at the question of same-sex unions ultimately through the lens of marriage how central is marriage to scripture and what does the bible describe as marriage so to answer the question of the scriptural permissibility of same-sex marriage we have to first answer the question of what marriage is tell me why you chose to frame it that way maybe just flesh that out add more to what i described yeah uh i realized early on there was only so far you could get with looking specifically at those several passages we call sometimes called the clobber passages because of the way they're used by people in the church to sort of clobber other people and end the discussion and that kind of thing that there's only so far to get because you get into exegetical questions about what was actually what it what what the what that isolated verse actually means as well as historical questions like we were just talking about and then even once you add in a more fleshed out historical context and even when you put those verses in their exegetical context and paul's letters and so forth there's only so far you can get by doing that um because those first even that that approach isolates those verses from again that bigger context of the whole of scripture and loses that frame of reference of marriage that's in the background it isn't always named but it's in the background and for example first corinthians 6 where paul is has this list of this vice list in which is included this term which has been much discussed in arsenal coitus which is men having sex with men basically in his etymology his terms that in that same passage a few verses later he's talking about a man uniting with a prostitute and paul's calling that into question right he's talking of a christian man a believer he's going down the marketplace to visit the prostitutes and he said no you've been joined to christ in one union in one spirit and your body is for the lord now because you've been baptized this is nuptial language it's marriage language that paul is using and i think he expects people to catch that and i think in many ways we kind of might miss that but that's the background language that this joining of the believer to christ through baptism is a nuptial kind of thing it is a covenant and a joining in one spirit and then you're going to go off to the prostitute and join as one flesh that's an example of where the marriage and an assumption an assumed view about marriage which is in the background here and that is paul's understanding of how we think about sexual relationships it's right there and we can miss it and and so i think that's what that's what the the discussion that's framed around those those um those several passages misses and also misses is how they are part of the whole and then when you shift to thinking about marriage indeed you've got the whole biblical canon opens up before your view and it's sort of breathtaking for beginning genesis 1 and 2 the marriage the creation of humankind male and female and the one flesh of man and woman instituted by god and at the end at the end of revelation we have the the union of christ in the church the marriage of the lamb uh the bride and the bridegroom that coming together in this bringing about this union of heaven and earth of god and and humankind and so and everything laid out in between um and so once you bring all of that into view then i think you have a proper uh sort of uh frame of reference in which then to have discussions about those particular passages that's great as a secondary and consequential thing right sort of once you've laid all of that out later as we've laid all that out then we can come to those passages and understand them and what their significance is in relationship to the whole but the weight of the christian view about this question like what i think should be the christian view the church's understanding of this it doesn't rest on those passages alone it it is something that rests upon the whole the whole of scripture concerning marriage i think that's really wise and i would love to see more of a shift to christians recognizing that for example when you talk about marriage being central recently with my high school students i still teach one class part-time at a christian school and went to the board and i said does marriage matter to god i say give me examples in scripture where marriage matters they said well genesis 2 you know in the creation account you have a man leaves his mother and father clings with his wife it begins with a marriage the longest chapter in the torah genesis 24 is actually about abraham getting a wife for isaac and rebecca the ten commandments three of the ten honor your father and mother do not commit adultery and do not covet your neighbor's wife all assume a certain intent for marriage as you point out in the book isaiah envisions yahweh's redemption of jerusalem in the image of marriage jesus talks about marriage in matthew 19. his first miracle in john 2 is at a wedding paul in ephesians 5 and the bible ends with the marriage supper of the lamb in revelation 19. so all of scripture is framed through this lens that marriage is the prime relationship god has chosen to illustrate his love for the church to the world you think about god could have chosen brothers he could have chose soldiers together in battle he could have trolls business partners mother daughter he chose that marriage relationship and it's central from beginning to end to not only procreate the earth not only for companionship but there's something special in that illustrating god's love for the church now you and i are going to talk about this more that doesn't make singleness unimportant that is absolutely one thing you and i do not want to communicate i think singleness anticipates heaven in a very different way that we'll come back to in part three but you also point out in the book that when people are unfaithful to god it's often described as adultery which is breaking a kind of marriage so that framework as you say i think is really really important and not only shapes your book but shapes our discussion moving forward so given how central it is let's give a let's get a definition of what is biblical marriage what is the historic christian doctrine of marriage and how universally has it been held in the church yeah so this is um you know of course you can think about the uh formula you kind of expressed it earlier one man and one woman has one flesh for one life for a lifetime and that kind of thing i think that that kind of captures the basic that captures the basic the fundamental uh form of marriage as i as i worked on this and i worked with a classic christian texts from the early church which wrote about marriage and also looked at christian rights of marriage uh and one framework one that i use throughout the book make reference to use in the book of common prayer from the you know the church of england handed down from the 16th century which is a form that probably most people would recognize if they heard it red oh yes i've heard that on tv or in movies or whatever maybe i've heard that in church that form being used that and this is sort of my sort of inductive work with this instead of sort of a dogmatic here's what the church says i work sort of worked inductively what does scripture say and i saw a marriage as a reality sort of having you think of it as three different levels or three dimensions or three facets i i'm whatever metaphor you want to use but as three as having three intersecting interacting parts and one is this fundal fundamental form of marriage and it's that it's uh unitive of the sexes it's man and woman male and female it brings them into union these created sexes that god created from the beginning with the intent to unite them uh into into one flesh and that one flesh involves a mutuality of coming together uh said consent you know consensual but mutual that it is faithful uh well that it's exclusive first that's exclusive of all others uh so we think about monogamy right it's one to one um and it is faithful through all of life right so this this is this exclusive enduring fidelity that these two are faithful to each other uniquely uh apart from all others and that this endures through all life so that's the basic form that that brings together the creation and covenant together and unites them and as as i turned it takes the form of creation male and female united together sexually and socially and inscribes within that form of creation this covenant of fidelity of exclusive loyalty and uh partnership with each other uh that endures as intended to endure all things as as for better for worse till death us depart as the traditional uh violence does and then at the second level there is called the function or purpose of marriage that god institutes this for a reason as part of god's plan and god's purpose going forward in creation and through covenant um to uh to indeed as be fruitful and multiply to bring forth to propagate god's image male female created in the image of god for the purpose of sort of ruling over creation and over the creatures well then marriage will propagate god's image through procreation and of course it will form families in which people will be nurtured not just generating babies it's not just generating more people it's about forming a family in which people are nurtured um and and in which people relate to each other and then within that there's partnership and companionship of the spouses of course and there's also a formation of ourselves as moral beings um and cultivation of virtue and then and then observe you know uh kind of protection from sin right so that this provides a uh a um a sanction form for chaste sex and um and provides them in a venue in which sex is to happen and helps uh guard against us you know going off the rails as it were and then the third level so we have the basic form and we have the sort of function then we have the figure of marriage marriage as a figure of god's love for creation uh in the biggest picture and we have then you know god's covenant with israel which the prophets understood uh as a in nuptial terms as you were talking about as kind of a marriage and it's exclusive you and me i will be your god and you will be my people and this and that was sort of a mutual i will be your god and we will be your people right as this covenant form at cyna and so you can sort of even see that as kind of a nuptial as kind of a a union into this commitment with each other um and that through this god is going to work salvation in the world and bringing all nations all peoples back to um this wasn't just about israel being a a special nation apart from all the others there was a purpose of choosing this partner this covenant partner which was to as the prophets and vision bring all nations to god um and and then this then gets fulfilled right in christ in the church now that's our part of christian theology and then paul takes this marriage over and says you know referring back to genesis 2 the one flesh union is a mystery of christ in the church so that's this third level of marriage this third level the reality of marriage is it's fake it has this figural correspondence to um to uh which images or symbolizes god's love for the creation and god's intent to reunite with creation as the final act of salvation and that's depicted at the end of revelation this understanding oh i'm sorry go ahead no so that was sorry you said what is it that's kind of how i've yeah flushed it out and then you asked how universal is this okay um you find this throughout church history um pretty consistently um there are some differences of emphasis and different understandings in various ways but those three basic elements those three basic dimensions of whatever you find over and over and over again um and i think you know at least from the at least from the second century of course you have it in the biblical canon and i think at least from the second century you find this reflected and this understanding being transmitted and so on and so i think you know it is as catholic lower sea catholic of doctrine as there is in the church even more than even more i wouldn't say even more than the doctrine of the trinity or the doctrine being wow which were formalized not that they were unknown and people didn't believe them but the development of those and the expression of those coming in the fourth and fifth centuries and so on um they came through some pretty vigorous debates with some disagreement um i don't find any disagreement anywhere in church history until the last generation yeah over what over what marriage is and what it's for and what it means um and you find differences of emphasis and so on um and different ways of uh and so on which we could talk about but um it's it says i think it it enjoys you know antiquity that's one of the criteria of catholicity it's as old as as old as the church can be uh universality you find it everywhere and then you find consensus you find it agreement among all there were disagreements around in the early church around whether we should be getting married or not or whether celibacy was more important than marriage and things like this um but those were not debates about what marriage is and what it's for and what it means there was a complete agreement about that so far as so far as i can tell that is really helpful because we're going to get into when we look at the teachings of jesus uh summer vision so push back and say they're not changing the definition of marriage they're just making space for same-sex marriage and we're going to come back and push back and say no you're actually changing and revising what has been held universally since the inception of the church up until a generation ago so orthodox protestant catholic so because of that you argue in the book that what you call either innovationists or revisionists have a burden of proof to carry because of that explain what you mean by that and i want our i want to remind our viewers that this comes from somebody who has a phd in philosophy so you're looking at this philosophically in terms of how we should reason with logic yes um i am but i'm also thinking it thinking about it in terms of how discussion around doctrine goes in the church um and that um if you thought about something else i mentioned the doctrine of the trinity and the doctrine of the incarnation you know so the trinity that god is three persons and one substance you know it's a basic formula and incarnation that jesus is the perfect union of divinity and humanity fully god fully human um that if you wanted to have the church change one of those doctrines and some really fundamental way um that you would the burden of argument would be on you the burden of arguing would be those who would want to change that doctrine and say no we should go back back to a strict uh you know sense of one god as the way in which classically jews have uh viewed uh jesus view god and and not include jesus in the identity and person and reality of god but well if you wanted to make that put that forward and say the church to subscribe to that or at least tolerate that view well the burden of argument would be on you just to argue why we should do that um as well as to consider what the kinds of implications for that would be that would have implications for the doctrine of salvation if jesus is not fully god if jesus is not part of god jesus is just a creature we had that debate back in the back of the third and fourth century in the church well then what happens to the doctrine of salvation how can a creature even the highest of all creatures the first of all creatures that god creates how can that creature be our savior um and uh and so on and how can that creature be worshipped as god problems with our worship are we idolaters if we worship jesus if jesus is not fully fully god in this way the church has confessed okay so i think you would have the burden of art to uh to make the case for that as well as to deal with the kinds of implications of that for uh for how we think about god and how we think about jesus and also about salvation and worship and other kinds of the implications that we need i think likewise for marriage that because this has been held universally in the church from the earliest of times and that this has never been debated um down to that fundamental form of marriage going all the way down to male and female man and woman this has never been in question and there have always been good reasons for this that if you are then wanting the church to change that and shift and say no it's not just man and woman in fact sex and the unity of the sexes is not integral to what marriage is um well that's a change in doctrine that's a very basic change and because it is tied into as we've just talked about not only how the holy scripture is laid out in this grand story of god's love for creation um but also would you think when you can sort of flesh this out it's tied into doctrines of salvation too um and how we think about what salvation is um that uh and so on that well because of that well then the burden is on you to make the case for that and so it's not um i i think he can make and i think the book does make a fairly solid case for what the biblical traditional understanding of marriage in the church has been i agree um but it also but uh but i think then it is in the responsibility to say if you're gonna revise this then it's not me trying to say well we shouldn't do it for this week well why should we and then what do you say about these implications how do you handle those i think that responsibility goes and that's a kind of responsibility it's not just a matter of fuel intellectual responsibility if you're the one wanting uh people to agree to a certain proposition then you should make the case for it and then deal with the what if questions and one or four questions and so on that's a that's part of intellectual responsibility i think it's also part of a responsibility that we have to others in the church that we're part of one body in the church and that this affects people and of course that goes both ways traditionalists have a responsibility there too a responsibility think about how they interpret scripture and whether they convey that interpretation of scripture with charity uh in ways that build up the love of god and the love of neighbor among the whole church so there's a responsibility there too so we have responsibilities to each other within the church and i think with regards to this debate the traditionalists have that responsibility of charity in their interpreting and the scripture and they're communicating that and living that out before the church and in relation especially of course with uh with believers who are same-sex attracted or identified as gay and then the revisionists have this responsibility to persuade right or to justify here's yeah i mean i've had one person say well i don't think i need to persuade you at all i just need to be allowed within the church to do what i think is right and for others who think likewise to do what is right i don't think i need to persuade you okay but if so let's shift the questions to shift it but at least to justify this to say this is what we're doing and this is why and this is why you should be um tolerant of what we're doing in what we want to do in the church that that because it runs counter to what 2000 years and how many generations of faithful christians have always believed and what they've been convinced of and for good reasons goods consistent biblical reasons and solid theological reasons of what marriage is well then you need to make a case to the church um and in turn and do it in terms that christians will recognize do it in biblical terms do it in geological terms as being the primary uh way of making the argument and not go around that as sometimes happens now to talk about inclusion or justice of sometimes becoming the sort of the watch words of contemporary discussion and and as a way that effect doesn't end run around all this biblical theological discussion we can talk about inclusion and justice that's part of this but i think there's a responsibility then to present a solid biblical theological case well we're going to get into the case for inclusion as we get uh through our discussion here but i i think your point is right on that if there's been 2 000 years of unanimous church agreement on this there's just a burden of proof shouldn't be an impossible burden of proof it's possible we get things wrong but they need to make good scriptural arguments and i think you're right to say somebody say hey i should just be allowed in the church to teach what i think is right is actually shifting the nature of marriage saying this is a morally scripturally permissible kind of relationship which is the very thing that's in debate and needs to be addressed scripturally now one issue when we say marriage has been universally held one man one woman one flesh for one lifetime i know in the back people's minds right now is wait a minute look in the old testament this is clearly not how god's people live now notice you said the church which starts officially with jesus moving forward so clearly the old testament chronologically before that but i would say a couple things then i'm curious what you think we have to be careful not to confuse what the bible records with what the bible endorses the bible records a lot of immoral things by its leaders whom god uses doesn't make those things right in fact you might say there's a difference between what the bible describes and what the bible prescribes so yes god allows polygamous relationships and uses people in polygamous relationships but it was never god's intent from the beginning which we're going to talk about in a moment second when you look at the life of jacob who practiced polygamy and the chaos in his home it's almost like god doesn't have to judge and says well kind of gave you this command at the beginning right you get and you see it with with david with one of his sons raping his other daughter a son murdering another one you know one of the other sons stealing the throne it's almost like god is allowing this so we will slowly learn these lessons over time so i think we have to admit that god does allow this in the old testament and sometimes i wish he spoke out more fervently against it but i think there's a sufficient response in scripture that this was never god's intended design would you add anything to that yeah no i think well first of all if you look at um look at adam and eve right or just first couple right they're clearly it's a monogamous uh thing i mean they uh and this is sort of was understood certainly in jesus time this was understood as a model right as a as god's intended pattern um and not just what you got to start with two and go from there uh to get more and so on this kind of thing but that this was god's intended my and that's why when jesus appeals back to this addressing the divorce question everybody would have understood that yes that's that what you see there in genesis one and two is indeed well and then what you have beyond that you don't even have to go to abraham and uh and jacob um but back up to lamech right yes beyond the garden right so lamech decides to take two wives and and then he's boasting of you know i'm gonna you know uh abel was avenged seven times clemek will be avenged 77 times he's going to one up god more than one up god you know and and and this is this is what you see beyond the garden you see um this kind of power move on the part of lamech of lording it over two women and this is like oh wait a minute there's something going awry here um the things are falling apart this is in the lead-up to um up to the flood and and this is part of the disorder that is ensuing from uh from human beings uh rebelling against god right and so you see all and there's all these kinds of downstream stuff but then you sort of question well how does god respond to that well the flood is one way of god responding to that wiping it out but before long noah is engaging in incest right with his with his daughters and and and then you have the families that emanate from from there and out of one of those branches of those various families and lines of nations and so where god takes right he's going to start over and make a new family um and that's abraham right and sarah uh and and yet and yet god is is this sort of think of here about god's prophets right god making use of this and what's god's purpose and plan and that god doesn't try to all at once create the the people of god uh all at once and in one generation and uh and so and so yes we get this uh so we see in all these very stories of god making use of imperfect people and people who are part of their culture and you see those cultural patterns reflected in the way things happen um including you mentioned before well we need to get a we need to get a wife or isaac right and so this strong story sending the servant to get a wife for isaac right that reflects in various ways customs of the time and so forth and how charges were done so on um so god makes use of all of this um but at the same time we also see once the once israel is in the holy land once israel is in the promised land and god then wants to make a differentiation at that point right there's this exclusive commitment that's been made at sinai um i was following the exodus from egypt uh that we are god's people alone and god is our god and we will listen and we will obey and then god is going to make a distinction then we get these uh as part of that distinction of israel is going to be a distinctive nation we get laws in the in leviticus right um which very specifically rule out some of the kinds of relationships we see among israel's patriarchs abraham was married to a half-sister uh that's right jacob was married to two sisters that's right um both of those things are explicitly verboten forbidden in leviticus right and um so there's a point being made here that god didn't approve of that was not god's intent for that to be that that kind of thing is not to be carried forward into god's holy people um and and i think so one of these sort of there's sort of a gradual unfolding what is it that god intends what is it that god intends what is it to live in accordance with in marriage genesis one and two right and indeed we get the decalogue right we get the ten commandments which includes honoring mother and father no adultery no coveting another's life that honors what god instituted in genesis 2. so god is and then there's these other prohibitions and that rules this out and rules that out to live in a way that uh that honors what god has instituted in creation and which god wants his covenant people to live fully into as a witness to all the nations but to have that be so they can't be still living the way same ways as all the nations around them god draws this distinction he says you're going to live by a different law a law that is faithful to what i intended from the beginning concerning sex and marriage well let's talk about that we've been talking about creation a lot so let's finally in one sense get to the passage itself okay and let's talk about genesis 1 27 and i'll read it uh 127 128 make some comments and then you can add what you think it's important for us to know yeah when we get to matthew 19 we talk about jesus referencing back to this we'll have a lot more to say about this verse in 224 but genesis 1 27 this is the esv it says so god created man or humans in his own image in the image of god he created him male and female he created them and god blessed them and said to them be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it now a few things jump out to me about this number one is humans are not accidental we're the creation of a purposeful god second we're made in god's image which is where our dignity value and worth comes from it makes us distinct from the animals but god has also made us as sexed beings so our intelligence our skin color our socioeconomic status where we're from these are all secondary to our nature but god didn't make us with three sexes he didn't make us asexual god made us as sexed beings that's a part of what it means to be human now we'll come back to the question of intersex later because that comes up but for now that seems to be 127 128 it says and god bless them so marriage is a kind of blessing that god is giving to mankind and he says to them seems to give him a command be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it so after describing that god is made male and female then there's command that says multiply fill the earth and subdue it now we're not given marriage yet so the question remains right now in what way are males and females supposed to populate fill the earth and subdue it what does this look like and of course that comes in genesis chapter 2 but is there anything you would add to this passage that we need to see before we move to 224 yeah i think the the about this passage alone um i think the directedness of the passage um that it's that it's that it's following a certain direction and that there's a purpose that the creation in the image of god and creation is male and female um are not sort of just stand-alone facts oh isn't that interesting we'll just register those facts and and we'll repeat them as we ask about what about human beings but this is all part of a forward-looking forward-moving purpose which then moves right into the blessing right and the commission what i call commission it's expressed grammatically as a command as a commission to go forth and to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue or to rule over the earth and all the other creatures and that this is so that the creation of human beings in the image of god and as male and female is directed towards this purpose um and we to understand ourselves as in the image of god and to understand ourselves as male and female is to understand ourselves in relation to this larger purpose that god has in view and and for which these are purposefully created and uh so i think that's that i think is very is very important that there's this directed or jesus philosophical a teleological that's right directed towards a goal directed towards a purpose um and and you just follow out the the follow out the text that this is one thing builds on the next builds on the next and so forth that this is all part of a a single purpose of god great that's that's really really helpful let's jump down to 224 which comes after this and again in matthew 19 jesus cites both of these passages and this is right after adam after god has created eve out of adam and he says at last bone of my bone flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man and then 2 24 says therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh now to me there's a couple things that are embedded within this it says a man leaves his father and mother so clearly implicit if not explicit in this is that the household is meant to be a father and mother it's not a father and mothers it's not fathers there's this design and assumption that the household is supposed to be one man and one woman now a man leaves and holds fast to his wife tells us pretty clearly that it's marriage that's in play here that this is now explaining the pattern set up in genesis 1 27-28 how we're supposed to populate and fill the earth so the man leaves this household and then some translation says cleaves with his wife holds fast to his wife binds to his wife and they shall become one flesh so there's this pattern that's set up where mom and dad have kids and then the kids leave they go get married have their kids and this is how the earth is populated and filled through the institution of marriage so again it tells us that marriage is sexed that's a part of it it tells that marriage is meant to be permanent hold fast to his wife and that procreation is certainly not the only purpose but at least one purpose embedded in god's design for marriage now we could talk a lot about this one flesh union but i think when we read the context in others it's clear that this is a physical union it's an emotional union it's a financial union but it's also a sexual union and that union itself when you just look at the nature of male and female man and woman there's a built-in design in our bodies that create a one flesh union i've heard ryan anderson say many times in his book what is marriage that all biological functions individuals can perform as an individual so respiration blood circulation digestion but reproduction is the one biological function in which human beings have half and become one flesh with the opposite sex that's a piece of marriage now that one flesh doesn't always result in kids but by its very nature is a pro-creative kind of union now what would you add to this passage to help us understand it biblically at this point yeah i think that's that's all that's all very good and helpful i think the uh the implication even though there is no um you know you have a commission to procreation be fruitful back in genesis 1 28 that is not repeated there at the end of genesis 2 but it's implicit uh it's implicit as as you said in then a man should leave his mother and father well how did how did the mother and father have a child right there's implicitly already a family intact that has been the joined of a man and a woman who have had offspring right and that that's that's part of the picture there uh and so on the second thing would be that in leaving the father and mother that marriage crew does create a new kinship unit that's distinct from father and mother all right so he so this leaving and cleaving as it sometimes yeah leaving the father and mother cleaving to this to the wife that this creates a new unit and they should become one flesh right there now and that language of one flesh indicates the flesh of a new family and i think one of the things i think about happening here is that this is something new in creation um that this is um that god um you know we have the new thing of god creating humankind and creating a male to know the image of god um and then god and here i'm looking at this through i can't help but interpret this through the way jesus reads it in matthew 19. when she says god joined them together this isn't just the families agreed that they should come that the spouses agreed that they should come together the sense is that that one flesh is something itself created by god this is a new creation this is a new part of creation a new thing god is doing um and so that's very important to see that what's happening here is that um they that uh if we read this text through the way jesus reads it that this is god's act to create this one flesh so it's a new thing in creation and and i think when you back up in the story um just prior to this you see the way in which that one flesh is indeed prepared for by the differentiating of man and woman right the differentiating of the creation of woman out of man that's a new thing and then the uniting of them is another new thing right but that they're differentiating of them to be able to unite them that those two things go together so would you get to the one flesh that's been prepared for and presupposes the very logic that's there implicit as you follow it through that that's all based upon this god's differentiating women from man and creating these two sexes right that the the one flesh that's how that becomes possible and so that's implicit right there it doesn't say they have sex it doesn't use any kind of uh metaphorical language there to indicate that that's what's happening right but that is part of that picture that that differentiation and that when they come together as one flesh and of course i think you're quite right you know scripture uses lots of figures of speech or whatever that are meant to be really evoke our imaginations and this is one of them and and it and some may think it's kind of crass oh that we're going to talk about bodies and body parts and things like this i don't think we should talk about body parts we think of body as our holes but we recognize that there is then this this um what's very much looks like a designed fit between male and female and that that divine that design fit doesn't just stand alone it has a function of purpose and and we see what that is in in in reproduction and procreation um and and that that's what is in mind here and scripture often uses kinds of language that evokes those kinds of things without speaking about them directly and i think this is a this is a case where that's true and but when this but this one flesh as you said you know it's a uniting of two whole persons it's not just a sexual union it is also a social union we have a new social unionship unit and the the way i so think about we often talk about sex difference um that's often language used male and female sexual differentiation and god creates human beings in this difference of sex there's more than just a difference here because this difference is meant to um i think to sort of to correlate the two um together in in this unique way and also then to allow them to unite um not and socially and sexually and spiritually um and also then to generate so it's it's this difference is correlative it's unitive it's generative and right there you get i think you get the um sense of that basic understanding of marriage that is implied right out of this difference this difference of sex that laws men and women to unite correlates them together it unites them and allows them to generate and you get again that sense of that basic uh thinking about what marriage is packed all into their uh that expression of one flash human that's great let's talk about one objection to this position and then we'll move to part two and start talking about jesus and marriage and you mentioned how marriage is a new kinship family union unit where the husband and his wife are distinct from the mom and the dad now they might have shared a physical home in the past and sometimes today but the point was it's a larger connected but also distinct kinship union as you know one of the common pushbacks from this comes from a scholar named james brownson who basically says that this kind of kinship union doesn't require sexual difference the one flesh union does not require sexual difference so he gives an example in his book of say when they want a king israel says we want someone of our own flesh now one pushback i would have and i know you think is there's a difference between being of the same flesh and being one flesh this one flesh union distinctly refers to this passage in genesis 2. jesus refers to it matthew 19. paul refers to it ephesians 5. it consistently has sexual difference as a part of it that corinthians 6 as well and first corinthians 6. that's right that's different than being of the same flesh so my daughter and i are of the same flesh my wife and i are one flesh that's one confusion i think he makes but i think he also airs in saying that sexual difference is not integral to the one flesh union of marriage and it seems to me people make one of two mistakes either they'll say it's all about difference it's male and female and they have nothing in common or it's only about them being human and a pair and ignores the difference you say that the passage clearly teaches that sexual difference is integral to marriage yeah and and also the coming i mean you think about just go back up a few verses when he says you know she shall be called you know this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh right when the man says this all right he's really talking about their common humanity there is that distinctive you know when god creates the woman in genesis 2 does not create her afresh from the ground creates her from the flesh of the man and that she's not and then there's all sorts of you think about theological implications of that for the relations of men and women i think they're quite profound but the idea is that adam has or the man has already been presented with all of these other creatures created from the ground as adam was right so it's the first adam the first human is created from the ground in genesis 2. and then god says it's not good that the man should be alone the the man needs a partner for this work that i've given uh the human needs of work partner for this work uh of of tending the garden right and um so god sets out the big part and creates all these other creatures from the ground from the ground from the ground but this now this new one is created from from from the man's side right so it's bone in my mouth so this one is human like i am this is another one like me right okay so that's there indeed um but then just she shall be called woman taken out of man a difference has been made right and is calling attention to that there's it's another one like but this is a different one this is a this is one who stands in kind of and this is in this um phrase you know she's a sort of a partner opposite me you know that's what i will make you sort of the one who is a partner opposite you and there's a sense of one who is uh who shares something with you but also who sort of stands in opposite um and in correspondence to you and that's what we have there so we have both of those notions right packed in there of that sameness uh that they're both human but also that difference that that sexual um that sexual differentiation that's made but of course this again the sexual difference is done to enable them to unite in this unique way that then of course uh bonds them together and generates new life uh and and so both of those things are in there i think the difference between one flesh and of the same flesh are is is that's a it's a good observation to make the i think they're connected though and and this matters when you get to leviticus 18 and look at all these different laws about who you're not united speaking to male adult males in the family who you're not allowed to unite with you're not allowed to unite with anyone of your own flesh and i think observation and so anyone who is connected to and derived from that one flesh union is off limits so yes the man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife but they could well be living in the same household right under the same roof but they're all off but these two together and then all other possible pairings off limits that's what leviticus would say right that now this separate one flesh you know and that you're of the same flesh though but you're not then supposed to um to cross those boundaries right um sexually and so that and i think that those laws then help to guard the integrity of each of those one flesh unions um and uh the mother and the father right and the son leaves and who's joined now you have another one flesh union alongside and this other year and to guard the integrity of that and to guard of course the privacy of it and to uh to guard the vulnerability especially of uh women in the household who might have been vulnerable to uh predation as as happy with tamar and yeah amnon you know in david's household um that those are there for that for that purpose and so i think they're connected together but the one flesh is the more primitive more basic uh the more basic thing there um and that's again rooted in what you noted was that very basic aspect of human uh of human beings are our sex right that we are sexed beings uh from the beginning and that that is prior to whatever other differences um that uh might be uh we might observe in human beings and in fact we know biologically it's the source of all those other differences right all those other differences come to be ultimately from the difference of sex which allows this unique unity between man and woman male and female from which is generated everything else right among humans um and so that's the basic thing that point between the same flesh and one flesh is valuable that of when people of one flesh husband and wife are supposed to be in sexual union of the same flesh leviticus 18 rules that out very very helpful distinction i'm glad you made that now we've talked about genesis i think it'd be helpful if we shift to talk about jesus's view of same-sex unions because of course he points back towards genesis 1 and genesis 2. so far we've been talking about the scriptural view of same-sex unions through the lens of marriage and we define marriage scripturally as one man and one woman who become one flesh for one lifetime now we went back to genesis 1 and genesis 2 to see how scripture starts with a marriage now we're going to kind of shift and talk about what did jesus view in terms of marriage and same-sex unions now one question darren that always comes up and an objection that's often made is that jesus was silent on the issue of same-sex unions and sometimes people say because of a silence we can't say anything in terms of what jesus viewed others would say because of his silence we can actually take a more affirming position now i have a few concerns about this then i want to know what you think number one it is an argument from silence there's a lot of things jesus didn't speak on directly that we can go through the gist of scripture and his other teachings and with confidence know exactly where jesus stands so this is an argument from silent you know as a philosophy teacher is a logical fallacy the second point i would make is there was no debate this is the point you made earlier is that the biblical view of marriage again one man one woman one flesh one lifetime with the components you talked about has been a catholic doctrine with ac since the beginning even earlier than the trinity so there was debates about say what infertility meant for marriage if you could divorce there was debate about permissibility divorce leverage marriage etc but there was no debate about marriage meaning to be a sexed institution third i would argue that jesus does rule out sexual immorality in mark 7 and he uses the greek term porneia which a very good case can be made that he would have had in mind the what was considered sexually moral from leviticus 18 such as incest such as fornication such as same-sex relationships so he did address same-sex immorality and then fourth what we're going to get to he didn't address same-sex marriage or unions directly but he addresses marriage sufficiently so we can know precisely what he would have believed about this would you add anything or expand anything on those points yeah i think that was a good summary um the yeah as a argument from silence it has as you played this sort of sort of a logical weakness to it and it sort of assumes that well had jesus disapproved of same-sex jesus well he would have said something to that effect right and the disciples would have recorded that if we would have that but why would he have said anything about it in the first place uh i mean of course you can go off with all kinds of other things while he didn't directly prescribe sexual orgies so um or or anything like that or uh you know you could abandon us because other things but we know this doesn't give license to things that those sorts of things but the it assumes that jesus would have said something about it but why would he have said something about it unless it was something a matter of debate right um and i mean the reason he has something to say about divorce which is what's being addressed in matthew 19 there's because that was a debated question about the legitimate causes for divorce and how to interpret the law of moses around this question um the reason he has something to say about the marriage at the resurrection is because resurrection was a debate whether there would be a resurrection um and it's between sadducees and pharisees and other parties and because he's asked this question which is posed to him in terms of marriage if it's involved leverage marriage but then he has something to say about something about marriage right but there was no debate about same-sex relationships or same-sex uh sexual activity because there was uh sort of general agreement among all who would have been having these debates about other things that that was just that that was wrong that was forbidden by scripture and you have jewish writers who are discussing this like philo of alexandria you know who sort of has extensive uh writing on this and explaining why it's why it's wrong and so on so that would have been just universal agreement about that and you know you might sort of actually put it the other way that had jesus disagreed with the consensus well then that would have itself become a point of debate and have this be known well then they would have been pointing this question to him and and so on so again a sort of argument from silas but then there's the other argument from silence which i think is just as strong well is there anything that jesus says which would give us any even slight suggestion that jesus would have been okay with this um but then there is what jesus does say and you and i think you've uh brought up you know key points and of course one can look at uh the assumption that jesus has that there should be no sexual immorality right and he addresses this in a couple of different places and and he does there is then used in sort of translating what jesus says into greek his uses his word cornea which was by the first century a general catch-all term used within uh judaism and then in early in early christianity you can track this term and how it's used and it's used elsewhere in the new testament as a kind of general uh summing up of all the various kinds of uh sexual immoralities that are forbidden in the old testament and maybe as a summary of what you have there in leviticus 18 as you said um so that could be implied there but i think the strongest response to that question is well what did jesus say about marriage exactly and and he might well have responded the same way he responded to the divorce question you know they're asking well what about any cause for divorce and he says to them right have you not read perfect what was written from the beginning right and and say exactly the same and maybe say exactly the same thing that he said to the pharisees about divorce that did god create male and female and for this reason the two shall become one flesh and therefore and he had one conclusion to draw about divorce um and so might well have then said isn't the conclusion obvious about this other question too um so i don't you know in terms of this argument from silence that we don't have anything to go on um i don't think that's true um again when we reframe it as a question about marriage we have jesus saying something very specific and something that is quite applicable um and uh in just as applicable to the question of same-sex union as to the divorce question this is a perfect segue let's go to matthew 19 and see what jesus said about marriage so let me read this for those who are watching unpack some points and you can kind of add what you think needs to be added here so in verse 3 this is matthew 19 verse 3 i'm reading again from the esv it says and pharisees came up to him jesus and tested him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause now behind the scenes was was jesus going to side with the kind of the party of hillel who was more liberal you can divorce your wife if she cooks a bad meal or more the group of shamai who was more conservative they there that's behind this question and verse 4 jesus says have you not read now what's interesting to me is of course the pharisees had read so i kind of envisioned jesus poking and prodding and almost plain dumb to give them a hard time because they prided themselves in knowing the law but also what's interesting is when he says have you not read he's pointing back to this text he's about to read as if it's still authoritative to answer the question of divorce in his day so for people who look at the old testament and say the old testament law and the stories no longer apply well that's not the view of jesus he might say that all of it doesn't apply wholesale but he certainly thinks this creation account as it applies to marriage is normative beyond that period so he says have you not read he who created them from the beginning made them male and female he quotes genesis 1 27 and said therefore man shall leave his father mother hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh now he quotes genesis 2 24. then he says so there are no longer two but one flesh what god has joined together let not man separate which makes the point you made earlier that marriage isn't just a human institution joining there's a divine top-down sanctioning and unity that god is speaking into marriage now one point i want to raise about this and then get your thoughts is to answer their question about divorce jesus only needed to cite one of these two passages he only needed to cite genesis 2 24 says a man leaves his father and mother holds fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh it's that passage that talks about marriage being permanent and not meant to be broken but jesus also quotes genesis 1 27 which tells me he saw this whole story going together not just as isolated passages but it's also as if he's going out of his way to say in the very beginning god made them male and female and marriage is a sexed institution so jesus is saying this is god's idea it's meant to be permanent it's a sexed institution and he speaks out firmly against divorce so he's not speaking about same-sex unions but he clearly speaks in a way that applies to same-sex unions because like you said if we go back to the beginning he would say wait a minute god made them male and female they become one flesh which requires sexual opposites therefore we have a very firm understanding of how jesus viewed same-sex unions your thoughts yeah so right the point you made that for the conclusion the ruling therefore what god has joined together let no one uh separate that that logically only requires them to look at well they become one flesh and sort of what does that mean i remember first time i saw this argument i think preston sprinkle had uh put this up on his blog and then it was came into his book and that was really thinking about this and interacting with some other people uh some revisionists around this how to what to say i thought that was a very important observation that preston sprinkle had made and in engaging with others around this kind of question this is also one of the sparks which got me off into thinking about marriage as the bigger framework here okay in addition to what paul says in ephesians 5 about the one flesh here jesus again quoting that same text from genesis 2 24. and that jesus you know answers a question about divorce by talking about marriage and that i think is a first important thing for us to clue into here how might jesus respond to our in our debate around this question around same-sex union that we might expect him to respond the very same way and say well let's go back to the beginning and talk about marriage and about the beginning of marriage at the beginning of creation and that that is the orienting viewpoint from which to then engage with this question i think that was a very important junction one thing that set me off to thinking oh we need to think about this in terms of marriage because that's how jesus talked about the issue around divorce um and that the debate around divorce had gotten distracted and gotten off the path um and gotten sort of lost in the weeds as it were and talking about debating this cause versus that cause and how much latitude and so on uh there should be and had and and i think part of what's going on here is that that divorce law that you find in deuteronomy 24 um that that uh that they're talking about um is a is a case law um and it's important this is i think important to where jesus is getting at um it's a it's a law so well what should be if such and such is the case well then what should we do you know and says suppose you know a man writes to his wife a certificate of divorce and she goes off and joins another man and then he sends her away can he come back can she come back to the sink and he take her back the original husband and mo says well no she's now unclean for the first husband she can't go but she can't go back that's that's the that's the case law and then there's the but it just assumes it doesn't endorse you know this is one of those things where there's lots of things reflected in scripture that aren't necessarily endorsed by scripture there's no law that ever gives that ordains or institutes divorce um and spells it out and here's what you just did there was a practice already on involved that this was a custom that was done um and the certificate of doors was just practiced to make this sort of formal and that all is assumed by what is there in deuteronomy 24 but jesus says well we can't really start there you the more important than that is what we cited earlier from the ten commandments you shall not commit adultery and and jesus will say well you can't use uh the this cons what he's going to call a concession here you know to human hard-heartedness why did god why did moses give us this allowed because you are hard-hearted um that you can't use that concession to divorce to get around the law of against adultery you can't dismiss your wife to go hook up with your lover or whatever that you want you know i i'd rather have somebody else um you can't do that um and then but jesus by citing genesis as his as as the sort of the preface and premise of his ruling is saying even then you don't start with the divorce law or the adult law against adultery you don't start with the divorce law prior to that more important than that is the law against adultery but even more important and prior to that is the is this is the story of creation in which god institutes uh marriage and the way jesus quotes genesis i think is important he says have you not read that at the beginning the one who made them so it starts with god's act of creation god's intention tense and acts in creation god made them male and female and said the creator said that line forget and the two should the ones the man shall separate from the husband a friend as mother and father and be joined his wife and the two should become lord god said that according to jesus and then it says later in the conclusion what god has joined so here we have god creating god's speaking god joining that's how jesus reads that reads genesis and then so he reads all of this the institution oh it's all according to the intents and acts of god um and they're not it's not merely human acts and intents that are involved it is first and foremost the acts and intents of god that make marriage what it is um and and then secondly the point here is like while he cites genesis 1 27 got made the male and female and they said genesis 2 24 and in in you know if one of my students did that or one of you students did that sort of thing you might think well look you've sort of pulled these out of context in you right right you're proof texting sticking them together that's maybe not the best way to interpret scripture and not getting the way to use it and so on but here jesus is assuming a certain reading of genesis that is different than the way in which modern scholarship will read genesis they'll see genesis 1 up to about genesis 2 verse 3 as a separate distinct account of creation and genesis 2 4 on through the end yep there uh 225 um as a separate account of creation having different sources different times and so forth and now they've just landed together you know collated by the scribes at some point into scripture and they just sit there together um jesus seems not to observe that those kinds of distinctions between the texts and the way he reads it now certainly he like everybody else at the time could read it and see the differences between the two accounts and so on they could see what we can see right just as well but they read it as a unified account and there are other examples of this of jewish texts of you know city recovery a couple hundred years earlier doing exactly the same thing of pulling these texts together into a single coherent story and read as a single coherent story and that's what we should see jesus doing here and hence that one flesh that that emerges there at the end of chapter two we can't take that out of context and separate that from what's been going on all along in the story from genesis 1 27 so in fact what jesus quotes here 127 to 22 24 these are the bookends of the section of that whole genesis 1 and 2 that have to do with human beings right and jesus has taken them and pulled them together this is one seamless story in his reading of genesis and these two things go together and the one flows in together and hence the creation as male and female is the beginning of the story the premise of it and which unfolds and and comes to conclusions and they're joining as one flesh so that these two things go together they were meant to go together by god's acts and intents and hence we shouldn't separate them right exactly and that i think applies to divorce um you know he that's what he's speaking to right there so don't separate what god has joined but what god has joined together there implicitly is male and female and the one flesh that's right those go together by god's joining of them um deliberately um and that we ought not to separate those either and i think that's then one of the implications here and and this is god who establishes marriage and as you pointed out jesus looks back to genesis as if it is still as authoritative as it ever was and telling us what marriage is and what god intends and hence what we as human beings should conform our lives to um and in how what we think about marriage and the way we practice marriage we should live according to this jesus that's uh transparently how jesus sees it um and so this is still authoritative for us as followers of jesus because precisely because jesus himself does authoritative and jesus is the prime authority in interpreting scripture so we should follow jesus lead on this okay i that's uh plainly sort of i think as a sort of almost as a matter of discipleship right what does it mean to follow jesus we should follow jesus um and how he interprets scripture um and so on and that indeed then jesus um so we see how jesus reads the story of genesis and we see how he interprets the law as coming under that story and he prioritizes the apodictic law of the ten commandments no adultery you shall not commit adultery puts that above because that higher priority over the case law which um um makes some provision around a situation of of divorce right and and so we get we get our ordering right the story of creation establishes marriage the law of adultery against adultery which protects marriage the integrity of marriage and the permanence of marriage and um and then the divorce thing down here so i think we should take our cues there and how we then think through this kind of a question from exactly that kind of way approach that jesus took the to the divorce question that is super helpful and i can see your clear delineation and philosophy coming through which you are man after my own heart this clarity is really important now let's look at six objections that revisionists will often make to the applicability of this passage to jesus and same-sex unions and maybe we'll just give kind of the concise response because we want to jump on next to whether or not same-sex marriage would change the nature of marriage so the first one is when jesus said male and female it was just a shorthand way of saying as it is written in genesis so in other words it's a way of taking out jesus viewing male and female as essential to marriage now to me even if that's true he still points back to genesis and genesis lays out male and female so even if this objection goes through i'm not sure how it helps but tell me why from the get-go it's actually not effective in getting rid of jesus saying male and female yeah i mean the background to the objection is that this is a oral interaction that jesus is having with the with these pharisees right and so we have to understand this from sort of an oral culture right in which people knew the scriptures of course but then you had ways of speaking um and there were ways of speaking to sort of signal you know as we might say as it says in the bible right well there are ways of you know as it is written matthew uses this all the time in writing his gospel you know as it is written and that and that's just a wave into like we're going to reference scripture as it is written literally we're referencing scripture and so the idea is that this is just jesus way of saying now let's reference scripture as uh a reference point right for a question and but he does do that but that phrase comes before him quoting genesis 1 27 god made the male of females he says from the beginning of creation this in in greek is almost i it's very similar to the the um the greek text of the first verse of genesis in the beginning and it's very similar then to when john uh in the beginning of his gospel says you know of in the beginning right these are very similar phrases in greek and in fact again you find examples of uh of texts using this kind of phrase as a way of referencing genesis and saying now to quote from genesis right from the beginning and so on so jesus does do that to indicate to the to the pharisees let's go back to the beginning let's go back to genesis and see what's written there and so he does do that but that comes before the um the quotation of genesis 1 uh 127. and you know i'm not an expert on this stuff about uh this uh you know as a scholar about this sort of thing i found this in literature i did have a scholar who was saying that argument to me that's why i started looking into it really is that the is that is that true and then as i read deeper into the world oh that's a good insight to be pay attention to that in this oral culture in which you're having this argument you've got to look at the ways in which scripture is referenced um but then i find out well jesus has done just what would be expected to be referenced genesis but he's done that in the previous phrase from the beginning which of course is an echo of genesis 1 1 so that he's sort of giving the sort of paraphrase or echo of genesis 1 1 then he's exactly quoting genesis 1 27 and then genesis 2 24 right together so that is sort of the tip off let's go back to genesis and then he cites these two verses which are the bookends of this of this you know what he saw as a unified story about gods creating humankind and instituting marriage excellent let's look at another common objection that is that genesis describes what's called a majority pattern but this wouldn't disqualify certain minority patterns such as same-sex unions so in jesus citing genesis he's saying yeah most unions are male female but that's not normative for the way it has to be and it doesn't rule out certain minority patterns such as same-sex unions yes now this is a this is a a kind of response i think really deserves of extended careful consideration and i devote several pages in the book to responding to this to this uh to this argument um and i think you know one you know sort of at first glance as well of course genesis doesn't on its sleeve say this is the normative pattern for all humankind for when you think about all sexual relationships or all marriages and so forth that this is that this is the normative sort of thing it doesn't explicitly say that um and so as a sort of and again i put my philosopher head up okay logically speaking this is possible right and even exegetically because it doesn't say this is the only allowable pattern and so on and this is all god intended and whatever varies from this is contrary to god's intention um so even exegetically sort of just reading out what the path what the text says um doesn't directly rule this out so we have to think more in a more nuanced way in responding to this um but i do think it all ultimately comes down and says well wait a minute jesus thought this this was authoritative and he thought it was authoritative for all marriages with regard to divorce and hence with regard to the fidelity of this exclusive enduring fidelity right which he is upholding here that this is exclusive of all others right you can't include you can't just get rid of one to have another right by divorce right no that violates the law of adultery that violates god's intent from the beginning so exclusive enduring fidelity is part is god's intent and jesus appeals to genesis as an authority for that well um well what about this other pattern of male female sex united right we thought about the fidelity part or what about the unity part of that basic form of marriage um we would have to sort of think that jesus would appeal to that that's pulling these two verses together across the story pulling it all together into one and saying well this one part this is normative but the other part isn't that doesn't fit with the way jesus interprets the text it doesn't it doesn't fit with the way he reads it all as one it should have all one standing one's one kind of authority and in either both aspects of that the sex punitive as well as the exclusive enduring fidelity either both of those uh patterns or forms are are normative um for all or neither one i think that's ultimately what it comes down to that and and where i've seen this argument presented i have not seen those presenting the argument really directly addressing the significance of the way jesus reads genesis for that for that argument there are some other implications of that too with regard to um well okay if you know if if male and female is just normative for the for uh for the heterosexual majority of the population but not for sexual minorities well what about the monogamous monogamy part of that the exclusive enduring fidelity that exclusive lawlessness well what about that why should that be normative that's a great um and if if the again looking at the whole story why should we take one part of it as normative for the whole for everyone universally normative and the other part as well it's just normative for the majority if we're going to say this part over here the the section of part is normal for all the majority we can sort of turn this around well why is monogamy normative for all and this is not an idle question because non-monogamy is a increasingly significant cultural practice um in and in western culture i'm not talking just about polygamy i mean there's polyamory there's serial marriage marijuana divorce marrying another divorce mary another that a significant portion of the population say in north america has has uh kind of pattern has followed sure um uh as well as um other forms of other forms of non-monogamy open marriages and things like this and so it's not not an idle question it's also not idle with respect to same-sex union because research has shown of empirical research by those who study um same-sex uh same-sex couples that um that there's a significant amount of same portion of same-sex couples which have an open open couple understanding in others that each partner can engage sexually with partners outside the couple um by permission and so so we have to take this seriously about this we call it and call it a minority pattern of non-monogamy and well if we're going to read genesis to allow minority patterns of of marriage around male and female why not around the one and one part of man and woman that's that's a majority pattern well how about the one and one is that a majority pattern two and then there's room in there to read genesis and to think about how jesus reaches to allow for non-monogamy too i i don't see i mean there are other arguments you could give for monogamy but if you wanted a biblical argument that addresses you know that deals directly with you well i think you've got to come back and say this allows too much right it's an argument to open up room for same-sex unions but i think it also opens up uh room for a whole lot more than that right that's not adequately considered by those who present this argument that's great and i just want to remind our viewers that you go into so much more depth in your book marriage scripture and the church and i hope they'll pick up a copy and unpack some of these uh even further uh let's look at a couple more objections to jesus view of marriage as it relates to same-sex unions david gushes argued in his book changing our mind that the church should not rely on arguments from design and creation we should look forward when thinking theologically not backward my problem with that is and it seems like an obvious point but jesus does point back to creation we just saw this in matthew 19. he points back to say what god intended from the beginning let man not tear apart but then he also in matthew 22 in the discussion with the sadducees also points forward to talk about how there will be no marriage in heaven so i think he's half right that we shouldn't just look back that we should also look forward so it's a mistake to just do one um but we should do both would you add anything to that or is that capturing your responsibility i think yeah that's right but in both both counts both are not favorable neither of those is favorable to same-sex union um so obviously enough and i and i this is one where i um i mean i know david gushy he's been he's a past president of a professional society uh to which i belong and i this is why i've not talked to him directly about this but this is sort of a head scratcher i've not got as much hair as you've got so up here to scratch but this is one where i just have to scratch my what i've got left up there and say how can you write that um that's exactly what jesus did and so i had to sort of write that in the book i tried to be as as gentle with it as i could but without sure but stating the obvious that jesus does exactly what david guess she suggests to the church that we not do he looks directly back to genesis and now david's concern is that genesis has been used and abused within the church right there he's concerned about the misuse of scripture and that's something we do have to be concerned about but misuse of scripture does not nullify its proper use and what we need to discern what is the proper use of scripture and who is our best guide for that or oh that's jesus and jesus shows us how to use genesis uh here and so we could spend a lot of time thinking about how jesus appeals to genesis how he reads it and how he uses it and so on we could even say more about that but i think then jesus does do this and so we can and should do this um and so of course looking back to genesis this does not help the case for and he's aware of that that doesn't help the case for same-sex union so we should look forward to look forward into jesus and what does he say well he commends celibacy that's that follows soon after this in this follow-up conversation with the disciples well how do we this is a hard teaching how do we live according to this and so he commends celibacy uh after this and then and yes then there's another conversation jesus has about marriage which is often not taken into account even by traditionalists and in which the sadducees with the resurrection and so on and they have this scheme about this woman who's married to seven brothers and then his bride who is she married to in the resurrection and jesus says well you don't understand what that what you're talking about because they don't believe in the resurrection but that in the resurrection there will not be you know um those who belong to the resurrection will not uh will not marry or be given in marriage and so then there's all these questions about how to interpret what jesus says here but but when he looks forward well they're looking forward to beyond resurrection no marriage so that eschatological that looking towards the end the completion of god's purpose in resurrection and in the new heavens and the new earth and so on that marriage in that sense will be surpassed that um and so whether you look one way back to the creation or look the other way forward to the resurrection and jesus has us look both ways to think about marriage properly we have to look both ways same-sex union doesn't appear against either horizon of the beginning or the end that that's well said let's look at one last objection to the claim that when jesus addresses divorce in matthew 19 it gives us his view of marriage that applies sufficiently to same-sex unions eugene rogers observes that we see examples of people acting outside of normative marriage in the genealogy and he's right you have uh genealogy of jesus you have tamar ruth rahab bathsheba etc but the question is what follows from this does it fall from the fact that god used certain non-normative marriages and broken relationships that god affirms those and secondary does it mean that he would affirm same-sex unions now you have a pretty quick response to this that i think gets right to the heart of it so i'll let you jump in sure i mean to the to the one part i mean there are others who make similar kinds of arguments around um out of normal expectations like mary and joseph right okay and so on that god would do something out of the ordinary out of the normative out of the normal or whatever and that maybe we should see same-sex unions and so on but of course all of these examples that are looked to are well male female unions right they're all three men and women even if even if some of them do not fulfill the law they don't abide by the law and god's intention from creation they're all and this is this is you know i think well that's a trivial point to make well of course they did or something like this but i think this is this is um this is important because what eugene rogers is trying to do at that point in the argument is to say that when it comes to marriage as a one the one flesh of marriage as a symbol of christ in the church what matters crucially and centrally is only the covenantal aspect of that only the binding together of the one and the one into a into a unit of fidelity and it's not fidelity in covenant that is what is significant for the church in looking at marriage as a symbol of christ in the church and so he's trying to support that case and he's saying look god acts outside of well wait a minute i think that kind of undermines the case because what you see is god acting in some cases outside the normativity of confidential fidelity and yet acting all the way through that genealogy through male female union marriage to the next generation offspring to the next during the next generation marriage and more often on down god works through that whole process of marriage and generation marriage and generation marriage and generation all the way down to jesus and you could make them the opposite argument that what deeply most deeply matters here not that i'm making this case myself but i think in response you could say turn it right around and say that genealogy is very important for us understanding what god is doing in this whole plan of salvation from all the way the calling of abraham all the way down to jesus and marriage and his is his part is part of that and he's eugene rogers is recognizing that but what's constant through that whole genealogy right is male female union um and that that matters uh more than covenantal fidelity which is what he's one now i think both of them matter right both of them together matter the creational and the covenantal aspects of that one flesh that both of those matter together uh in in marriage as a symbol of christ in the church and god's work of salvation through christ um and so yeah so i think i think that um doesn't take us where eugene rogers perhaps hoped it would um appealing to those kinds of those kinds of examples good good response let's uh let's shift a little bit we're still in kind of our part two we've looked at what jesus says about marriage now we're kind of asking the question would allowing same-sex marriage in the church actually fundamentally change the nature of marriage because we consistently hear over and over again that they're not trying to change the nature of marriage but just make space for same-sex marriage now there's two examples you give in the book let's look at each one of these the first one is no fault divorce just explain briefly what that is and how that actually does change the nature of marriage right well that's sort of a latter-day invention that's a legal invention in which divorce can happen without either the parties making a claim that the other one has has fundamentally faulted them right has wronged them through adultery or through abuse or abandonment or something like this the usual kinds of um historically the usual kinds of causes or reasons that would justify a divorce and so no fault divorce the parties just don't want to be married anymore and you can just declare it that way in part and go your separate ways without any lingering obligations of one party to the other to support the other or anyway whatever and so that changes if we were to accept that that's become a legal um reality in the western world uh in uh in recent you know generations but if we were to accept that theologically except that was in the church that couples could just part their ways if they if they wanted to that changes marriage into something other than a covenant a covenant in which you have enduring promises that promises that endure as long as you endure promises to the other that right and of course and changes into a kind of a contract in which you know uh if you and i were to make a business contract in which i agree to i i i grew up in farm country i always think of agriculture so i'm going to grow some corn and i'm going to deliver to you so much corn at a certain date and time and uh and you agree to pay a certain price in that corn and those are our promises to each other i promise to deliver the corn you promise to pay a certain price for it once we both delivered on on our ends at the ends of the bargain i've delivered the coin we've paid me the contract's done it's over with we have no further obligations to each other we can make a new contract if we want but it's done that's the difference of a contract is that it lasts as long as we wish it to last and as soon as both of us have gotten what we want out of it we can say we're done we're done okay we can just go our separate ways it makes marriage into something like that and it makes marriage in a way kind of subject to the fickleness of our feelings the fickleness of the changeableness of our desires um through life and that no marriage can can withstand you know those those changes probably if that's the basis of it just what do you want what do i want as long as we both want the same thing we're married as soon as we want different things well then we're not married that's not what marriage is as christian uh tradition has understood and as the bible presents it as a covenant in which covenant partners are bound together inseparably um and and come what may in which you make promises that last and so on and so god's promises and covenant to israel are irrevocable right um and um and uh and and the promises then we make the marriage are to mirror that right to be a symbol of what god has christ christ's love for the church is also undying you know it's forever and if if marriage is to be a symbol of that then then likewise our our commitment to each other and marriage has to last as well as long as we can't right and that's still death right we can't promise anything beyond that that's right outside our power right so that's why the promise until death us depart is there um and so if you accept no fault divorce then it really changes the nature of marriage from a covenant into a kind of transaction of a contract and it also then destroys marriage as a as a symbol as a figure of god's covenant with israel christ's love for the church so what's so helpful about this is that adding no fault divorce doesn't make space for an additional view of marriage it changes the nature of the rich it's not like we've got okay you know just that permanent marriage will have non-permanent marriage alongside of it you can't do that permanence is part of what marriage is and as soon as you make space along it you've made the permanence if a couple then does say no we're never getting divorced we're in this for the long haul until deathless depart for true for real then that's just the women will of those two partners it's not about them entering into what marriage is it just expresses the wish and will of those two partners and it's no more significant than that and two other partners may not make the same commitment you know until till we fall out of love we do part you know or whatever whatever you want to make it it does it makes it so when people do make that commitment of permanence that's just about those two it's not about the church that's not about god's will and we have really truly changed at that point that's really helpful because it not only changes the marriage it changes the symbol as you said of what marriage is meant to indicate between god's unending unfailing love and covenant with israel so it changes marriage and what the metaphor indicates now what about open marriage just briefly this one seems like more people would agree with this the idea if no fault divorce challenges um the permanence it seems open marriage would challenge the exclusivity that a man leaves his father and mother and exclusively bonds with his wife and then in turn that would change god's exclusive love not just for israel but exclusive use of israel as his agent with the intention we learn in genesis 12 to bless the entire world but also his exclusive coming through the person of jesus so both no fault divorce and open marriage aren't just adding additional uh making space for additional views of marriage they're fundamentally changing it and the biblical ideas now with that said let's apply that to same-sex marriage because that's the question the revisionist argument is they're not fundamentally changing the nature of marriage but making space for a new view your argument is no like no fault divorce like open marriage this is fundamentally changing what marriage is and thus the symbol of what it means in terms of christ's love for the church right right so it obviously changes the sex unity aspect that it's in marriage is integrally fundamentally the union of the two sexes um and more than that but it is fun and that sort of lies you know sort of that that kind of as we're at the root um and that's where jesus goes to remember and talk about divorce let's go to the root of it the creation male if you know god's intent then to unite these two as one flesh so that gets as it were cut off right or or made optional i mean you want to put it it's one option for marriage and then same-sex uh union is another option for marriage and but yet that does that does change things that changes things um first and immediately you see because it uh only the sex unit of marriage is potentially generative um and uh generative of offspring right so right insofar as commission appropriation is part of the purpose of marriage we would no longer be able to say that procreation is is integral to the purpose of marriage again it would be an optional thing if the couple's wish and if they wish not um and so would that too would have to be as it would be demoted from something that sort of is is part of what marriage is for to well it's part of what the spouse has made before but not necessarily part of what marriage is for itself um and so that's the first and obvious obvious uh alteration there or the implication of that fundamental alteration of the form you alter then the purpose uh that that procreation cannot be understood any longer than as integral uh to what marriage is for but then it also changes the symbol of marriage uh or the figure of marriage um and and here is where uh here here's where you know some of the argus sort of sort of push back and say and this is part of what we talked about earlier with eugene rogers and so on well is is the unit unity of the sexes uh in that one flesh is that really necessary is that really uh was that just sort of an accidental thing that's come along down through history by custom by you know and and so on and and it's just there but we can dispense with that and we can sort of and see that really the heart of it is is this covenantal fidelity and not that not the creational unity but just the covenant the fidelity of the partners not their creational unity as two sexes united in one flesh and i think that also changes the figure of narrative the symbol of marriage right and to get at that uh you trace this i i and anybody can do this i i you know you can go to the ephesians where paul ephesians 5 31 32 wherever where he talks about um you know he's talking there about husband and wife and then and we talk about the husband's love for the wife right should be as christ's love for the church as he gave himself up for her so a husband should you know um uh love his wife in that kind of sacrificial way um and then he says and uh you know i think what's genesis 2 2 24 for this reason you know uh man should leave us our father mother and be joined his wife become one flesh this is a mystery he says i'm telling you this is a mystery and of and applying it to christ in the church and i what he's talking about there then is that the union of man and woman that's specifically what's being talked about in just 2x4 and what he's been talking about here husband and wife is then he says a into one flesh that this is a mystery what kind of a prophecy of christ in the church as it were it foretells what is going to come to be and what god's plan has been okay and you can trace in ephesians go backwards trace these words mystery trace the words plan one and two and find them in the text and hopefully your translation preserves the same transl your version preserves the same translation of those words across the whole letter sometimes translators don't do that if you look at it in english you get lost you can't see the connections but this is the third time paul has talked about the mystery that god is revealing mystery about jesus christ that god is revealing through the church and the first time is in uh ephesians one and then and the plan and that's connected then to this plan that god has had from the beginning which is a plan of salvation to unite all things in christ he says things in heaven and things on earth there's the big picture and that we see come to fulfillment and completion at the end of revelation the union of all things in christ things in heaven and things on earth the marriage of creator and creation heaven and earth through ultimately the marriage of christ and the church but there's also then a union that goes in the middle and that that's the union of jew and gentile in the body of christ paul introduces that in ephesians two and he talks then about this is the purpose um this is the outworking of god's purpose in christ through the cross and that the cross is a peace a peacemaking event that brings together these two uh um formerly alienated portions of humanity jew and gentile and that god had created that made that distinction of jew and gentile to have or israel and the nations to have a people who would learn to live god's distinctive way and god's learning god's way and attract all the people to this and then there would be then this union of all of all these other nations uh with israel a union into one people one people of god and that paul says is happening in the church and this was god's purpose and is being accomplished through the cross um the zoo and gentile being united as one um and and this mystery that is being revealed through the church he says in ephesians three chapter three it's been revealed to all creation and to the highest authorities and so on and so on is being revealed this mystery about jesus christ um and and so then he comes in ephesians 5 and then he condenses all of that down into saying union the one flesh of man and woman in marriage that this is this mystery of christ in the church and he condenses it all there so you have to attract this correspondence of these unions the union of husband and of man and woman this is a union of these uh in creation in the order of creation god's created male and female created man and woman and and and ordained their union right and that union he says is a mystery kind of a prophecy a revelation of what god ultimately intends to do in all creation and through then the union of uh jew and gentile israel and the nations into the people of god and that as a as a step towards the final culmination then of the union of creation of heaven and earth of god a creator in creation through this union of christ in the church by first forming the church as this union as this body this bride to be united within christ and all creation and so these you see this created distinction of man and woman male and female is there as a correspondence of ultimately of creator and creation this correspondence here and of christ in the church and also then for prophecy of the union of israel and the nations into the body of christ all of that's interconnected in that in paul's letters of ephesians and all of this goes together it all hangs together and so if you alter marriage that one flesh and say hey male and female not really part of that well that's then you've lost that connection in the cinema all the way back to the beginning of creation and this full plan then of which that is then a symbol a prophecy of this fulfillment at the end of scripture that the end of all things of god and creation you've you've sundered that right you've taken that apart and so you come back to again coming back to and robert song does this too you've mentioned eugene rogers but robert song is another uh theologian does this too he wants to see in christ the separation of the creational from the covenant in marriage and we can leave the creational part behind the male and female and the procreative stuff and we keep the permanence and the fidelity the covenantal stuff and that opens then the space then right for these what he calls covenantal unions which um are it wants to just use a different term than marriage marriage yes is male and female is per creative but now we have this third possibility marriage celibacy and in between covenantal union which could be male and female could be same-sex but it's not procreative it's but the heart of it is just this fidelity and so he wants to separate the creational from the covenantal and yet that's just what is condensed together and unified in this symbol of marriage as a symbol of uh of christ in the church symbol of god's plan of salvation to unite all things in christ is in heaven on earth um and so on and and that the covenantal and the creation are then bound together and here is where i sort of do a little uh you know application of jesus when jesus comes it says you know about divorce but god has joined together yep let us not suffer let you not don't you dare separate and i think at this level the symbolic this is what's joined together the covenantal and the creational and why is this important this is important because of the doctrine of salvation we think okay there's all this symbolic stuff that's very nice it's i think it's breathtakingly beautiful and just like awesome just wow you know okay but someone says i can do without the wow all right and and so what um well it has to do with how we think about salvation this plan of gods to unite all things is a plan which doesn't leave the creation behind which redeems the creation redeems all created things in christ and of course that's because god created all things in christ as paul says in colossians it makes clear colossians 1 there is a beautiful christ in that god created all things in christ and through christ's cross and so on is working at reconciling all things in christ and reconciling them to god and this is this is important because here again the reconciling the covenantal and the creational are pulled together intertwined they are inseparable in how scripture understands what god has been doing from the beginning how jesus has talked about marriage and salvation how paul talks about salvation in marriage as a symbol of that and if we pull those two things apart it changes our understanding of salvation that salvation is ultimately about leaving behind the creation and leaving behind and there are views in the church you can find over the centuries that they've been declared heresies um you know gnosticism and other kinds of things which envision salvation just that way as a liberation from creation rather than a redemption of creation and i think implicitly what's involved then in changing the symbol of marriage by um decoupling marriage from the unity of the sexes and so on is that what's happening is we are implicitly symbolic with changing our understanding of salvation at the same time in which our creation as sexed beings in in as male and female ultimately does not matter this ultimately does not matter to god and this was a view that was there in the early church and it was fought against by people like you know saint augustine and so on you know very much against this and others you find it in gnosticism and manichaeanism too these kind of variations and which are declared heresies because their intent was to see what we call creation the material world including our bodies and our male and female genders and sex and procreation and all of this as in some sense an evil that we are trapped in and we need liberated from and that is what christ has come to do and that's how christ celibacy is interpreted in those views as a way a path out a path out of of this entrapment and that's what salvation is and that is not the biblical view from beginning to end it is about the redemption and paul himself talks about this in romans 8 and all creation is yearning and groaning in its suffering under the curse of the fall and is anticipating its redemption and and paulie talks about the redemption of our bodies okay right and that that is part of it and that part of our bodies is the way we're created as male and female and that is all part and god is through marriage is gathering all of that up into god's plan of salvation and and we dare not i think separate these two and leave that behind right as if somehow salvation is going to liberate us from all all of this and that's the point of it but i think that's one of the implications of these views um and it's a kind of i think it's fair to identify this as a kind of version a kind of latter-day version of gnosticism and and it's and it's i think theologically it's dangerous territory to get into well i i appreciate that you said it's dangerous i appreciate that you said dare not because there's a seriousness here when we toy with marriage i'm sometimes surprised how so easily some people adopt certain revisionist arguments without realizing what's at stake and if they're ultimately right and we change so be it but what you're laying out is this goes back to the nature of marriage and if we take away the male female component we're not adding a marriage we're actually changing it to become a genderless institution which is not what scripture teaches that's one then second that symbol for the church which has implications for jews and gentiles the difference between god and us coming together as one is significantly marred in the story of scripture as a whole so i hope people listening why and watching this realize we're not just debating genesis 1 we're not just debating solomon gomorrah leviticus 18. we're talking about the sweeping story of scripture from beginning to end assumes a certain view of marriage that's permanent it's one flesh and it's sexed and there's a huge burden of proof on those theologically who want to argue differently this is a great place to wrap up part two now as you know as we shift to part three we're going to basically spend the whole time responding to the most commonest common revisionist arguments some related to what about couples that are infertile hasn't uh marriage changed over time anyways what about scientific advances slavery etc we're going to take a look at these very common revisionist arguments one of the big questions that comes up from revisionist is related to infertile couples so if the church today sanctions couples who are infertile either because of medical or just biological uh challenges or issues or couples past child bearing age then the argument is they should also be willing to wed and support marriage of same-sex couples who are infertile now i want to come to you and get your thoughts on this but one way i often respond to this is to actually point out that an opposite sex couple can be infertile but a same-sex couple cannot be infertile technically speaking because infertility is the lack of something that is supposed to be there by its very design so if a couple is older or if a couple has some medical challenges then their bodies are not working the way that they were designed to work at least for a season but a same-sex couple even if their bodies are functioning exactly as they are supposed to are not oriented towards this one flesh union and not oriented towards procreation so right away this analogy falls short because opposite sex couples can be infertile but same-sex couples cannot do you have other concerns or pushbacks you would make to this analogy uh no that's that's the sort of two basic uh that's i think that's the two basic uh responses is one it's a one the first is a logical one that involves a category error that's just that's just not a true um description of the situation with a same-sex couple to apply the category of infertility you're right it that's not its own category it is a a deficiency with respect to a certain state of affairs that presupposes the possibility of fertility right yes and and we know that that that that possibility of fertility necessarily involves a male female coupling so um so it's just not proper it's not appropriate and there's also i think a certain insensitivity in describing um as uh describing uh same-sex couples as infertile in the uh you know think of a male female couple that's struggling with fertility not able to get pregnant or keep a pregnancy and so on and then to and then to say it's sort of the same thing with the same sex couple and that's just an inappropriate association that's being made there um as well as the logical error uh the category error but then secondly it has to again sort of looking at well marriage um and that these two you take imagine your mind two couples one a same-sex couple another uh a male female couple that is they're struggling with uh conceiving children and um and think about them with respect to the again the good or the goal of procreation um in marriage and so you can sort of think you know are these two couples likewise disposed towards or oriented towards or related to that good of procreation that which is one of the goods of marriage that uh the church has recognized and uh saint augustine acknowledged as one of the goods of marriage and so on um and the answer is no um the way i put it sort of to sum it up is that in the case of this uh opposite sex couple the male female couple who's experiencing infertility what you have is the absence of an aimed at good right it's both the structure of their union as well as the disposition of their minds and hearts are just are aiming at a good but it's absent for whatever for whatever reason and it could be a variety of reasons why it's absent and then with the same sex couple um their union isn't even their sexual union isn't even oriented that way towards recreation it's just not um and which doesn't you don't need to use that to be dismissive of other goods right might be present in the same sex relationship the same sex partners um because of fidelity or charity or whatever those could be there um and then they are in in some same-sex couples um so that should be acknowledged but at the same time also acknowledge that that that coupling is not even oriented towards uh in its basic functioning towards that and so what you have there is not the absence of an aimed at good but the absence of aiming at a good it's just not present there and it can't be there either in terms of their sexual coupling that that is oriented towards you know for biologically oriented towards that good nor can it be really honestly there in their hearts and minds a disposition towards that uh um and uh because because of the lack of the fit of same-sex coupling to the good our goal of procreation so it's just an in-app it's an in-app analogy um and uh it it pulls at the heart strings i mean as many persuasive arguments do because we ought to have compassion on couples that are infertile and for whatever whatever causes that are struggling with the church ought to be supportive and compassionate and not think that this somehow reflects a failing of them as a married couple or gods must be judging you by not giving you children i mean there can all be all kinds of insensitive things that we might think or say with regard to a couple struggling with infertility we ought to have compassion and we also ought to have compassion in the church towards uh those with same-sex attraction exactly or identify as gay you know of course there should be compassion but we shouldn't you that sort of common ground of compassion shouldn't take the place of making careful distinctions and thinking clearly about these different um situations and and this should not lead us to taking what we think and say about one and just easily transferring over to the other which is what the analogy right um directs us to do very well said let's take a look at another one that we often hear is that jesus moved along more liberal lines and the heart of his message was love now it's true that jesus said the greatest commandment is to love god and love others and the idea being if we would just take a loving posture like jesus towards same-sex unions we would be inclusive and accepting of those and i have a couple of thoughts and want to know what you think number one to say that jesus was about love we have to define what jesus meant by love and what that includes so he clearly modeled by laying down his life sacrificially for others we see that in jesus but jesus also said if you love me you will obey my commands so we can't set aside commands of jesus in the name of love unless those commands are lined up with how he taught us to love others but second i think when we look at the teachings of jesus specifically on sexuality and marriage and divorce he didn't move more quote liberal progressive if anything he moved more conservative so adultery is now a thought not just a physical action and in marriage he didn't go the liberal direction as we saw in matthew 19 he moved more conservative so whether or not jesus embraced this open inclusive love in other areas of his life it sure seems to me on marriage and sexuality if anything he moved a more conservative direction your thoughts yeah yeah i think those are good two good points to me to imagine that jesus thought of love as something separate from or separable from uh obedience to commandments to god's commandments that would that's inconceivable that jesus love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength and yes and then love your neighbor as yourself so uh but the fundamental one is love of god and that's to be reflected of course in our love uh for our neighbors um and we can't separate those two but we also can't separate the love of god and love of neighbor apart from as he says keep keeping me if you love me you'll keep my commandments right you will do as i as i have commanded you and that comes straight out of the covenant that god's covenant with israel that the prophets always came back to right calling calling the people back to fidelity to god i was also calling them back to obedience and so we can't separate those two things and and suppose that we were speaking um the message of jesus and yes there there was a jesus uh if anything is more stringent than his contemporaries in terms of how he thinks about the discipline of the law and particularly around matters of sex and marriage and and so there's no sense of a liberalizing trend or in the name of compassion setting aside the the strictness of the commandments jesus certainly showed compassion and care uh including the weak and and and the outcast within his within his circle and bless them and minister to them um but there's no sense in which he he um relaxed in fact he made anything intensified the laws you did as you as you point out with regard to sexual fidelity in marriage and the one text people sometimes point to and i think is a very important one is in matthew 10 at the end of matthew 10 when he says come to me all you are weary and heavy burden i will give you rest and so this is an invitation a welcome and inclusion of all you are burdened and weary amen but then i will give you a respite how does your i find rest for your souls what does he say in between and you will find rest for our souls that's the last bit of it but in between take my yoke upon you and learn of me for i am gentle and humble and hard we are to adopt the way of jesus as the way of rest and well take my yoke upon you that what he's talking about is his teaching his teaching of god's law and that we see for example in the sermon on the mount where these very stringent sayings about about uh about sex about adultery about marriage and so forth are to be found and so take that yoke of teaching upon you and learn of me learn how to live god's way by following me and that will be that is in that you will find your rest for your souls so we can't separate that welcome in that inclusion that many rightly point to from a call to again to take upon yourself a fidelity to uh to god um in in jesus is presenting him self and his teaching of of the torah his teaching of the law as indeed being faithful to that is what it means to be faithful to god and so we can't again separate those two things out jesus put them right together excellent excellent let's take a look at a third revisionist argument and this is tied to the idea that marriage has to change significantly over the years anyways so people point towards uh maybe reasons why divorce was allowed changing of leverage marriage whether infertility could lead to divorce or not uh some would argue that even there was polygamy practice in the old testament if marriage has changed significantly over the years then this doesn't this give us precedent to think that marriage could be further changed today and adopt same-sex unions yeah so this is i've encountered this argument in various ways both in published you know articles and books and so on as well as in conversation right so well marriage day isn't the same as marriage yesterday and it wasn't the same you know marriage is a marriage is a variable across history the changes and so on and we've changed marriage and this and that and so at one level this is this is sort of indisputable that you can track changes in how people get married you know what are the customs around arranging a marriage or a couple getting married about how married couples live do they live expected to live in extended household units you know or do they set up shop on their own kind of thing and of course there's a lot of variation over time and cultures and that there's also variations in marriage laws um okay and laws about for example um which couplings are off limits uh sort of uh near kin marriage right where is it where is that boundary um and there's boundaries that are set up that we talked about before in leviticus and biblical law and and over time you know maybe sometimes people have drawn the lines more broadly or more narrowly or whatever about where that line is uh can you marry your cousin for example there's no law against that and we see isaac you know marrying his cousin um uh in the in the bible right because she's his cousin um and but then you find later in roman law under a uh at least nominally christian emperor uh ruling that out and augustine praising this we should have done this long ago right a ruling out marriage between cousins so you can look at those kinds of those kinds of boundaries as well as in other impediments to marriage that might get in the way of someone being married to another person or getting married at all um so those things have been set up in law and legal regulation of course those things have changed so we look at these various you know legal and cultural aspects of marriage and we can look at lots of variation in those things over time and so on but then the question is is any of that relevant to the question we're discussing exactly which again which is why having an orient orienting the whole discussion by the question well what is marriage what is it for what does it mean how is that witness to in in scripture and how has that been articulated in the christian tradition that starting from there makes a huge difference because immediately then you see it's like well go back and your viewers might do this go back to that first uh the first session we said well what's the nature of marriage or what's outlining what this biblical theology of marriage is and you won't notice anything in there that has to do with these legal or cultural factors which are variables those things do change and have changed but they are not what define what marriage is um and and i and i guess i would sort of tell sort of is there any do you see anything with whom within the church not just like within society sure we we talked last session about uh no fault divorce that changes marriage that changes the nature of marriage that's a legal allowance of no fault divorce makes marriage into something else so you do see that kind of change uh but we also said i also insisted the church dare not embrace that right can't go that route um because of the what it implies about how we would change marriage so you'd have to look at has the church in any way change the way it understands marriage that would be provide a kind of analogy to this and i don't see one i've read this you know the history of marriage in the church you know several works on this and you know maybe something's been overlooked but i don't see the kind of change that would be analogous here that would give us warrant to say well look we've done this before this you know as the church we've done this before so we can do it again um i don't see it on that level at that fundamental level um good i think you're right that's been my experience in my research as well which i think it shows the analogy ultimately falls short let's shift to a very popular one that's been it has it's presented a number of different ways but uh a friend of mine who i had a public discussion with about the bible and homosexuality a couple years ago was published on this matthew vines ties scientific advances to that have come out recently that should change the way the church thinks about same-sex unions and the analogy that's often used or the illustration is with the debate during the 1600s with galileo over church authorities and copernican cosmology certain scientific data came out church tried to suppress it galileo spoke up and turns out he was more right than the church was at the time now we have new data on sexual orientation again the argument goes so the church should catch up with the scientific data now there's a lot of angles to this one is just how much can science tell us that we should theologically rethink moral issues because there's a difference between interpreting verses about cosmology that galileo was probably right certain language when it says the sun rises and sun sets is the same kind of language we use today and that scientific advancement helps us understand what scripture really taught but vines and others are making a different argument they're saying that science should make us rethink moral issues you take some issue with that don't you well sure and at a at a couple different levels one would just be the question is well how is it that any kind of scientific theory or hypothesis whatever however well supported by evidence how can that that doesn't inform our judgments about what is good and acceptable in a moral sense and what and what is not what is evil and what is unacceptable what's intolerable those kinds of moral categories are different from any categories that that would be used in science whether it's about cosmology or about sexuality or about anything else so you can't start with a scientific theory about any of these sorts of things and then draw it and therefore it is it is good for human beings to act in this way or it is bad for human beings to act in that way that's right that would be a non-sequitur just wouldn't follow you have to you have to then uh sort of bridge that with a claim that is sort of must go something like this that well what science is showing us now is the way god created human beings we're finding out more about how god created human beings um and i don't know how you make that uh you know how you make that that connection but you have to sort of build that kind of bridge in there sure and then we said well wait a minute is is what science sciences shows us the way things are um and whether we're talking about what science about human beings whether biology or psychology or sociology or science about the physical universe or in physics and chemistry and so on that this tells us the way things are they don't doesn't necessarily tell us the way god created things with regard to human beings we have good reason from within our christian tradition our biblical story to say how human beings are how we find ourselves is perhaps not exactly the way god created us and particularly with regard to our disposition toward sin and whatever theological label you get to it's often called original sin or you know an inherited tendency towards that so on and when we look into what we're talking about here in terms of science of sexuality well we're looking into ourselves and looking into those dispositions and inclinations within ourselves and and we find and it's not just about sexuality we find our inclinations if we're honest uh and we are in our thinking about that biblically theologically that we say well look there's a lot that's uh disordered there um in our uh our inclinations about a lot of things um our inclination towards greed or inclinations towards vengeance our inclinations toward um coveting you know what others and so on that those we find those dispositions quite generally among human beings right and but we don't draw the conclusion from that we shouldn't i suppose that uh that well therefore god blesses and ordains greed or god blesses ordains right you know vengeful action and so on um and we know god doesn't because god has said so in the sense that we'd look at scripture and say well look no that's not how we're to live we might be disposed that way but the commandment says no because of that recognition of that of that disposition that is part of kind of a fallen condition that we've inherited it's involuntary and i think that's one of the considerations here what we're talking about with sexual inclinations dispositions of sex attraction uh or same-sex orientation that this is involuntary i mean that's that's the important part of this claim it's not a chosen or willed thing um and so it seems to be as as much part of our psychology and constitution as human beings as other things that are that are unchosen and so on um and so then it must not also then be part of the way god created and intended us to be or at least some of us to be uh this way and if that's so then living according to those inclinations dispositions must be living according to god's design and creation but we have these other dispositions right that we recognize or not and some of them are sexual dispositions that are also are also just not appropriate to act on and i use example in the book you know the i get uh the uh kind of a disposition towards promiscuity um among uh among males right and so this has been observed and there's been you know discussion about you know a pro male proclivity towards multiple partners um and i as a as a as a man will confess you know to anyone who wants to hear that sure i know what that's about i get that i understand what sexual attraction to people who are not my wife is is like um and i probably every i would assume every man who has experience of sexual attraction um has noted that and right but it's not appropriate right to act on those inclinations of those dispositions um or to revise our moral norms uh because we see that as kind of almost a universal truth about human beings as we find them and instead we have to orient our our moral discernment according to what god has intended and science doesn't discover that for us science does not discover god's intents and purposes for human human life science might be useful in discovering understanding things that might be helpful in in thinking about how we live out god's mission in the world and so on um you know including psychology might help us understand the hurts that human beings have and the difficulties human beings have and how we might help people and so on but it doesn't give us those basic norms uh about how human beings should be so science just falls short on that and we shouldn't expect more of science and science by itself can't give us a sufficient reason then to revise our moral norms and so on so that's a that's one one level of a response to um to that to that question about the you know the recent discoveries and sciences on around sexual orientation the other is a scientific one which is that there's no subtle consensus about this inside of you read the review literature that looked at you know um that's published within scientific journals and so on and then there are others who are experts on this i'm not and and there just isn't a consensus uh there that that there's a sort of a universal cause of same-sex attraction or same-sex orientation in terms of its biological factors or its genetics um on one side or it's in utero environment hormones and other kinds of things or whatever combination of those or is it environmental is it something um you know that affects how people and there isn't you know the evidence doesn't finally equivocally support one hypothesis or another and the sense that if there is a consensus at this point is that well probably for each person it's probably a different combination of factors that vary from one person to another and and so that can't be sort of say well this is the one cause of and that's caution you know for both uh revisionists as well as traditionalists to not seize on one kind of theory or another whether it's a biological origin theory that religious might say look it's just god the way god created us or an environmental theory see this is this is about family influences or this or that that traditions might seize on if we just change those things or put someone through a kind of therapeutic process or whatever will reverse those influences and they'll get straightened out you know and so on i think there's caution and for on both both there um and i think for the same reasons you know there's caution for both this argument doesn't carry forward um it doesn't do the work that uh some would like it to do good i think that's very fair caution especially the work of lisa diamond who is a lesbian non-christian professor at a public university has argued that over time sexuality is fluid not in every case but in many cases both women and men should caution us from thinking we have the science all figured out here even if the science did tell us what we should hold theologically morally which it doesn't the science itself isn't settled so i think that's a great response another common one that comes up i know you've experienced this in writing you talk about in your book and in person i have as well is tied to the idea of slavery and the argument essentially goes and i've heard it you know fast in kind of different ways is that in the past the church endorsed this uh at times the church debated it and finally came along to rejecting it but for a long time it was allowed today similarly when it comes to same-sex unions and of course there's a difference here because slavery is not allowed and same-sex unions are to be allowed uh because of this debate in the church should we now uh allow same-sex unions so in other words the church's denial of same-sex unions is akin to the church yesterday justifying slavery that's usually typically how it's put your thoughts on that claim yeah so right so the census sort of puts those who are traditionalists in the church today kind of in a similar position morally theologically whatever to you know slave holders and defenders of slavery so it works there is that there is that emotional punch right to that argument that you're you're just like the slave holders of old right um and so we got to separate out that sort of emotive aspect of the analogy um of how part of that's part of how it's supposed to work and just look at the the sort of the logical aspect but i think the part of the gist of the that analogy as i have encountered it and the way i address it in the book is that it's addressed to us as we address ourselves to scripture as we let a scripture address it to us that you you know centuries past people read the bible to uphold slavery um and you can look at certain laws that that regulated slavery examples of uh of some of the patriarchs of israel who had slaves and the fact that paul doesn't directly command the members of his churches that he related to to emancipate their slaves and so on and so there was you know arguments could be built right that god must approve of slavery or at least you know accepts it as sort of part of the social structure or something like this and and then as social movements arose to resist slavery christians re-read scripture and and then you have this debate right and that debate was really about um differences in how to read scripture that was part and parcel of that debate two different ways of reading scripture some read the letters of laws right that seem to regulate and allow slavery um others looked at the spirit of this of scripture and the overarching story of scripture as weighing the other way towards liberation and of slaves and abolition of slavery altogether and the argument is while the latter one out the latter way of reading scripture went out in that debate and likewise that should happen with regard to same-sex unions sure traditionalists look at specific laws in leviticus you look at specific passages in romans the first corinthians and you see okay yeah there's these laws that seem to rule out um same-sex intercourse and and align you know condemn it um and and but then there's others who want to read scripture the spirit of it the big overarching story of it and things like that and say doesn't that point us towards inclusion towards love towards justice towards freedom and these kinds of grand themes and so on and if we live into those themes then now shouldn't then we at least tolerate same-sex union if not you know endorse it or firm it um and so it becomes a really a debate about how we read scripture uh and so that's about hermeneutics um and uh and i think that that's a very interesting that's i think it's very interesting argument um but it has a significant downfall to it as i thought more about this argument i said well well look let's take that hermeneutic that the innovations the revisionists on sexuality are wanting to grab onto that they're borrowing from the abolitionists on slavery the spirit of it and the grand arc of the story and so on instead of focusing on the these law here law there whatever and using those as kind of proof text to try to defend a traditional position and i thought well that's just what this book is doing that's just what i'm doing in this whole book and so let's do it all over again and we don't have to be labor that but what happens when you look at the whole arc of scripture and um and so forth you sort of ask well what is it we're talking we're talking about marriage and what you see across the whole arc of scripture is a single picture of marriage that is presented and and endorsed and affirmed throughout scripture which is man and woman and so at that point then it's like well if you take that hermeneutic that way of reading scripture that's being proposed here get away from the letter of the law get to the spirit of the message get to the arc of the story yep okay well what do you see when you when when you ask about well marriage and that's what you see is what we've been talking about for the last two hours plus right so so it kind of it kind of undermines itself when you put the put the art but the argument that way um and i think again that's the best way the most appropriate way for the way to frame the argument that's appropriate to the matter we are discerning which again is has to be about marriage um so then i think that argument kind of stumbles and falls at that point i think that's great i found william webb's book i think it's slaves women and homosexuals early 2000s where he says when you look at slavery in the old testament it was allowed god picked a people who came out of slavery gives laws to restrict it ultimately moving towards the point of removing slavery as an institution in the long picture and it's because of christian theology that slavery has been overturned in the world so you have this redemptive hermeneutic moving away from slavery but allowing it for a season that's very different when it comes to homosexual behavior if anything you see a restriction and no move in this open direction you see the same teaching in the new testament as the old i think that's a fair big way to look at it um what about what about this one let's take a look at another uh revisionist argument that that's brought up and it's tied to women's ministry the claim is if you accept women's ministry then you should accept same-sex unions and it seems to me there's two options there's one for say the southern baptists or others to say well we don't accept women in ministry and therefore they don't have this problem and would just say that others in the church are being inconsistent or one could say yes we allow women's ministry because there's precedent within the scripture for this in a way that there's not for same-sex unions now you described that you were a baptist when you were a child but you matured as you grew up you didn't frame it that way i'm just kidding but you take the the option b in your book describe your response yeah yeah so so this uh you know um this uh affects me in the ways that personally in the way the previous argument does not i've never owned slaves and as far as my family i don't know if anybody's ever endorsed it um and i certainly have not so it's not like i'm arguing against myself or something like this but this right so my wife is a pastor an ordained minister and so uh this question of course has a personal uh appeal to me uh but i try to approach it exactly sort of in the way uh you suggest is to think about well again we sort of have to look at the what's the likewise and what it what and you can make the you can make comparisons to again how how arguments against women's ministry have been constructed you know um and you can look at ones from the uh church history and ones from the contemporary church and so on and and you can see that there's a there's a common pattern there an appeal to certain uh rules in paul's letters rules about the roles of women uh in the church and your participation in worship and leadership and um and those rules are picked out and turned into kind of absolute sort of universal rules and even given uh the these are divine laws that these are divine deliverances although paul never says says that about these rules um and and then and so well the thought is well look if you're going to prove women's ministry you're sort of doing so against these rules right and well why then can't we do the same with regard to same-sex union you have these rules in the big x leviticus and so on and they seem to rule out same-sex union but those rules that paul i don't seem to rule out women's ministry and worship leadership and worship so and so why not you know make and if you're going to allow one then you should allow the other kind of idea and but yeah but there's a specific this is uh there's a very specific response which is say well look the herm again this is a hermeneutic argument sorry how to interpret scripture and here we're thinking about how to interpret those rules in paul's letters about the roles of women in the church and do we interpret them to be these absolute prohibitions or something like that the way in which yes in leviticus you see very much in its form and its content an absolute prohibition of uh male male intercourse right right um do these rules and paul have that have that have the same uh character to them or are they more kind of circumstantial rules that paul gave to for the sake of maintaining good order in the church and so on and uh and they're not sort of universal well how do we get at that that's a big question and i don't try to address the entire question um again that could be a book of its own sure and but rather simply to illustrate what the difference is the key a very important difference between these two these two questions and that's precisely about the evidence that the new testament provides for us about the ministry of women in the early church and including women that were associates of paul that paul knew personally and that whose ministry paul prays do this go to romans chapter 16. start reading that and count the number of women who are praised in there i'm including one genea who's numbered among the apostles um and and uh and elsewhere uh you know uh well phoebe is the letter carrier and she's a deacon um in in the church uh it's in korea near corinth and so here you have paul praising these women for their ministry in the church in roles of deacon and with the title of apostle and he praises others as workers or other women as co-workers in the gospel and so on along with him so what we have is a body of evidence and there's more examples than just just those that you could assemble that illustrate well wait a minute women were exercising gifts of leadership in the church in worship paul says you know his rule about women wearing coverings is over but it's premise it's promised upon women were praying and prophesying in worship in the church when when men pray they should do this when women pray in prophecy they should do this this assumption was that women were prophesying and praying in worship alongside men in the church um and and so on so you have this body of evidence that sort of indicates well wait a minute either paul was contradicting himself giving different rules to different churches or whatever you know over here yes the women can pray over here they've got to shut up right and should just be quiet she'll just be silent right um either that or paul did not understand these rules as these as absolute prohibitions the way they've been sometimes made out to be in church history to rule out women's ministry um public ministry and worship and leadership uh in the church and so um that's so that's about as far as i i take it this is look we've got two very different hermeneutic contexts here for interpreting paul's rules with a body of evidence that is clear and indisputable a lot all these women who were exercising uh ministry in the early church and um and you can number i do this under categories you know paul says some of them are gifted to be apostles some to be prophets some to be evangelists them to be teachers you find women under all of those headings doing all those things in the early church and paul praising them and so on and so you have that body of evidence and so that gives you a very different context in which to look at those rules and makes it reasonable plausible to say paul probably did not mean those rules to be these absolute prohibitions the way against women in ministry the way they sometimes been taken by contrast however yes paul repeats the the the laws from the old testament basically around around well his understanding of what marriage is as well as the prohibitions of same-sex intercourse and he carries that over and you think well what's the hermeneutic context for looking at those were those just meant to be did they have some kind of circumstantial or conditional character or something like this that well what's the hermetic context that would tell us that and is there something similar to what you have with women in the case of women in ministry and the answer is no right there's just no evidence of any paul or any other writer in anywhere in scripture giving approval to same-sex relationships now some try to appeal to ruth and naomi um sure back in the old testament this is us this is a stretch beyond the stretch yeah a story which is about ruth getting married to boaz who is an ancestor of david turning that into a a same-sex erotic and then you try to turn david and jonathan right into the same-sex coupling of same-sex friends turned into same-sex lovers kind of thing and again this is a stretch of a serious stretch and some try to do jesus and john the beloved disciple and so on or try to extract it from some of the stories in the gospels that seem to you know the two disciples on the road to emmaus maybe they were a same-sex couple it doesn't say explicitly they were grasping for anything to come up with some kind of example that would to look at that would be a precedent a positive affirmative precedent and apart from stretching the evidence too far for credulity's sake there isn't one and so we have two very different situations so there need not be a an inconsistency for someone who would want to uphold women in ministry and affirm women in ministry um and at the same time uphold the traditional understanding of marriage and hence be opposed to same-sex union um there just isn't a similarity of cases there there's a significant dissimilarity for how we interpret scriptures and those two different sets of laws or rules the laws of political levitical laws about sex and paul's rules about uh women's roles in the church those two cash out very differently that's really helpful again you go into some so much more depth in the book giving these examples and spelling it out but the point being if someone says if you accept women's ministry you should accept same-sex unions when evangelicals southern baptist response is to say we don't accept women's ministry right you move out of that objection your argument is even from an egalitarian position the evidence for women in ministries is much stronger than the evidence for same-sex union so that's very very helpful uh let's we've got three more uh just big revisionist ones and these are some of probably the most common biggest ones in a sense we've saved for the end and this one i'm going to ask you about we could spend i mean we could probably spend two hours just on this one because it's so central but the idea of gentile inclusion in the church and as you look back to the old testament gentiles were not allowed there was exclusion from the temple and certain practices but we move into the new testament and there's this sense of inclusion with gentiles therefore since same-sex marriage was excluded in the old testament now maybe we should include it in a similar fashion and graft the two together your response to this and then we'll jump to the claim about unix yeah so i think this is probably overall the strongest argument um of the of this sort of list that we're going through of these kinds of arguments which aren't arguments directly about marriage right these are all sort of indirect arguments about other kinds of things making an analogy drawing a parallel with some other issue and then trying to say well if we think this way and decided this way about that then we should do similarly over here and so but i think this is the strongest of those kinds of arguments and the reason i think it's strongest is is because it's of course it's very solidly rooted in scripture in terms of this it looks at the jerusalem council acts 15 and that actually yeah acts 10 through 15 in which you have this unfolding of this events that leads to the church deciding to baptize gentile believers without circumcision baptize them as gentiles the idea here without requiring them to become jews get circumcised and observe the whole law and in order to belong to the the church community and and and so that's the that's and that this is a that this represents a kind of major shift of what otherwise would have been expected right now it's not entirely a major shift because you do have prophecies about the inclusion of gentiles in which you see this as the fulfillment go back to isaiah and probably this was thinking about in second and second part of isaiah non-jews perhaps coming back with the jews from exile in babylon they were non i mean the term jew wasn't really used at the time of the exodus from egypt but there were those who were not offspring of jacob uh in that in the exodus you read carefully and there was it and others besides them there were others who came up out of egypt than just the descendants of jacob um and and so but they could they covenanted together with them at sinai right and so belonging to israel didn't depend upon strictly upon ethnicity upon belonging to that people defined by dissent from jacob the patriarch and and that was kind of always the way it was you could ruth we just mentioned ruth she was a moabite but she could covenant into um the the community by by confessing the one god and zane and i will live by god's law right that's basically all it was um and then and you see this in isaiah sort of a vision right of of gentiles who then if you will keep my covenant and observe my sabbaths and so on and live by my law well then you will be part of my people too and i get the sense that this is looking to uh gentiles who had been returning with the jews from babylon after yeah you have to go on all of that but they would have come back with them hey you're getting out of here you're getting back home can we go with you you've been our neighbors these bastards can we go with you and the answer was yes you could and there was in the promise that you could belong by agreeing to keep the covenant and so on but that would assume circumcision for the men that they belong to the covenant you would have been circumcised so the significant change is the shift away from requiring circumcision and so the thought is well you know why not shift away and have this same-sex inclusion in marriage and drop the male and female part right that's kind of the analogy sort of thing yeah now there's lots of things that could be said about this but one of the assumptions and i think that you pull out of the when you look at the more elaborated forms of this analogy our versions of this analogy in by revisionists is that there's an assumption that what's happening at the jerusalem council by waiving circumcision you don't have to be circumcised to belong to the people of god to belong to the church believing in jesus and baptism is enough one of the assumptions that well the whole law is just being set aside the whole old testament law has just been set aside at this point and it no longer applies to those gentiles so why not just do the same with government of marriage and same-sex you and just set the law aside in here right whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa we got to read the whole story right and read the whole jerusalem council they've not just decided that yes we could admit gentiles for baptism without circumcision and that they would be fully included in that way in the church but then there was a a decision made that would that enjoined these gentile believers who were being baptized believing in jesus being baptized and joined them to follow certain laws and they're spelled out there in what's sometimes called the apostolic decree and one of those laws is no porneia which is a word we encountered earlier yeah and that's just the word you shall abstain from pornea abstain from sexual immorality and it's quite general and quite um unconditional um and that term pornea um and when you look at the diff the laws it's also that are also cited there about not eating meat with blood um and so on and not worshipping idols doing with idolatry and not worshiping meat sacrifice to idols and meet with blood and so on that this is a list of prohibitions that is probably derived from leviticus 18 uh which were laws that were given for non-non-israelite residents of israel so these were not descendants of jacob they had not covenanted with israel but they were non they were foreign residents foreign alien residents or whatever lived in israel but were not had not become israelites they had not converted but they had to follow laws too to keep the land holy and that included all these laws about sex and so on uh which includes in one of in the list no same-sex intercourse right and um and so probably this list borrows that the jerusalem council is borrows from that and there's a long history here we could go into why they would have done that yeah um but there it is in the export of the expectations for these gentile believers that they will follow certain laws laws that god had given in the torah in scripture in biblical law that's right four gentiles living in israel to follow they are to follow those laws the law is not set aside the question rather is which laws are appropriate for these gentile believers to be observant they don't have to observe the whole law if you were jewish yes you still observe the whole law but for these gentile believers no what's appropriate for them is to observe those laws that god had already given for gentiles and they're provided for their in leviticus and in a few other places too um and uh and so that's what's going on there it's not just a free pass on the law for these gentile believers but they're being enjoined to follow these these laws that god had already provided and eucatrace had always been taught in synagogues up to that point as being god's law for the gentiles um and so this is nothing new this was not an innovation this was borrowing deeply on tradition a tradition stemming from scripture um to put and so probably what's included there is in terms of no sexual immoralities no adultery no incest no bestiality uh none of these other kinds of things and no same-sex intercourse that would almost assure they have been understood as part of that package this response is very helpful because the question is not if the law applies but what part of the law applies and how does it apply when gentiles are included and acts 15 makes it very clear that this includes sexual immorality as something believing gentiles are not to do and of course right that law abstained from the abstain from sexual immorality is repeated multiple times across the new testament and heated dozens of times across the early church in various kinds of documents and it's usually included along with sort of a list of other things and what's amazing is that in paul when you look at how paul uses that term um especially in first corinthians six it was abstained from sexual immorality flee sexual immorality and other places you realize that when paul's doing that he can he condenses all the varieties of sexual immorality that could have been named and he can get strained down into that one term and that's how he uses it and i think that's how it is being used in the in the apostolic decree there from the jerusalem uh jerusalem council when it says that these gentile believers then are to abstain from sexual immorality good now for for sake of time this this the question of eunuchs is often raised that they're a kind of sexual minority that we're not allowed in the old testament but permitted in the new let's just give kind of one or two quick responses to this but to me one of the differences is yes eunuchs were not allowed as were people like men whose you know testicles were crushed because of the holiness of god and purity in the temple as jesus comes down and we're filled with the holy spirit and those barriers are broken there's no longer that resistance coming directly to god so eunuchs are welcomed as well as others but even when they're welcomed the acts 15 jerusalem council still applies that they're welcomed into knowing jesus loving jesus but still being faithful to the call of scripture and design of marriage so one thing has changed but nothing as it relates to the morality of same-sex sexual behavior or same-sex unions correct i think that's that's exactly right now the inclusion of eunuchs you know we have that in acts chapter eight you know uh philip and the ethiopian eunuch is kind of this exemplary story that's that's remembered and and held up as i think as indicative of of others it's also fulfillment of a prophecy same as the inclusion of gentiles that's right right back there in isaiah um and uh in which it's it's a also they're probably in some speculative even daniel and his companions have been unikized in the courts of babylon oh yeah if you wanted to serve in the inner courts close to the close to the king you uh you may well have been required to be have been unicised now that's a speculation but certainly there were some israelites who were in those roles who were unikized and they were coming back and what about them and they're coming back from exile and what about them um and and this prophecy in isaiah promises a place for eunuchs in god's house whereas before they have a name a lasting name for you will be there and so on and so on so there's promises there that don't depend upon that are part of god's people that seem to surpass those those or qualify those laws previously um and and also promise a place to those who then you know if they've been unified they can't come back and start families they might have dreamed of wanting to do that to come back to get married and to start a family back home back in the homeland right but they can't do that because they've been utilized and so but is there is there a future for me not through descendants but will my name be preserved and there's a promise there to those eunuchs that even though you won't be your name won't be preserved in israel by way of your descendants there's a place for you in god's house and god is offering welcoming you back and so you can see what's happening near the church with the inclusion of eunuchs as kind of a fulfillment of this but at the same time it's like well what's happening and what's not happening and this doesn't change there's no indication that the welcoming of eunuchs changed the understanding of that marriage as men and women or that sex belongs only in marriage those kind of sexual uh standards around sex and marriage kind of remain constant there's no indication that anything has shifted in those ways it's kind of in that way it's kind of a non-sequitur it just doesn't follow from that inclusion that somehow um that this was a an allowance of that the eunuchs then were allowed to be promiscuous or were allowed to engage in sexual partnerships or activities that were otherwise previously been forbidden there's no there's no indication of that and instead again it's the application of these um uh laws for non-resident um those of us that repeatedly get applied and and so on as well that and that continues the standard teaching that i've been there all along in israel and so on so i don't i just i i think it's important um to have uh to think about that and to think about signatures of what happens then what is happening but also to make it with the occlusion of of unix but also to bear in mind what's not happening keep our minds clear about that good good okay let's move to one that's become increasingly popular at least in terms of emails and connections and blogs that i've seen it's the idea that paul would have allowed a concession for same-sex unions since in first corinthians 7 he makes a claim if they are not practicing self-control they should marry now the way this often goes is basically paul is saying if people can't have self-control they shouldn't be expected to have self-control they should therefore marry but what about people who have same sex attraction who can't practice self-control they can't be expected to marry somebody of the opposite sex we should give a concession to allow them to marry the same sex now one pushback i would have in the way that that is framed is paul is not saying that there are certain christians who simply cannot practice self-control there's no way i'm going to believe through the spiritual disciplines filling of the holy spirit strength in the body of christ that paul is going to say well some people just don't have self-control i think what he's saying is shifting the value of the goods saying well it's better to get married than to be non-married and be practicing this kind of sexual unfaithfulness that doesn't imply that they couldn't have self-control and that the only option is to get married now a lot more can be said about this but why shouldn't we allow scripturally speaking same-sex unions as a kind of concession because paul says some people are struggling with self-control in the area of sexuality right and i think the this yeah so this is a is kind of sort of thing as kind of a it's kind of a pastoral argument uh extension of pastoral compassion and so on and providing for the needs of everyone in the in the in the congregation kind of thing and thinking about and so on and um so it's it's heart i i i want to sort of respect the the the heart of the argument in that sense of of of taking into consideration the real struggles that that people have and not and then not just necessarily people are same sex attractive you're gay but people who are long-term single and perhaps without wanting to be um and um and you also then also then struggle to remain to remain chaste um at the same time i think your your your assessment is quite accurate i mean paul the word paul uses encretia um uh about self-control and he lists that as one of the fruits of the spirit in in galatians 5 right and and so and paul values this right and in that context you look at that list of the fruits of spirits you look at the wider context go above and below it and you realize one of the issues of course is sexual immorality and that the fruits of the spirit produce self-control is something enables us to indeed resist temptations and to um uh and to conform our lives to a standard of holiness and and chastity and so on so when paul says people you know lack or lacking self-control or failing to practice self-control he's not just observing a fact he's absurd observing must be and i don't delve deeply into this and maybe i should have in the book about what paul must be talking about here but you could cash it out as you talk about a spiritual deficiency that somehow these people are not living fully the life of the spirit um or is he talking about here a moral failing a moral failure um and uh that that people could and they just don't uh could exercise self-control um he i don't think what he's talking about is just some people some people have a natural gift for self-control and other people don't right and i'm just not gifted in the same way you are sean and so i i can't be held to the same standard or something like this so there should be a special concession for me because i just don't have that natural gift of this and that and i don't think that's what paul is talking about i think paul is talking about something that everybody could do at the same time the way i deal with the argument respond to it in the book is to sort of well let's take it at its face and and see and and try to make sense of this on paul's terms and well first of all the the marriage that he has just a few verses before that approved as an alternative to sexual immorality is man woman conjugality men man and woman monogamy uh man and woman so we have to this has got to be already an exception whatever what the marriage that paul is conceding here as a as a chaste and approved acceptable alternative to promiscuity uh is man woman marriage that's i think that's the we have to sort of start with so we're talking already talking about an exception to the to the concession it's not just a straightforward application of it it's an exception and then it's a conditional one it's only for those you are seemingly incapable of and again how do we understand that as a spiritual incapability as a moral failure whatever yeah uh i don't know that we have to sort of pin that down okay but then it's only it's not just a wide open concession it would have to be a discerned thing for only those who fit that description who are not practicing and cannot practice or cannot practice or whatever self-control can't for whom you might put it this way for whom celibacy is not is not doable or seen viable for a lifetime nor is a a a an opposite sex marriage does that seem doable um say a kind of mixed orientation marriage or something like that so once you get those that exception in those conditions then you're left with okay there might be some pastoral cases then left to deal with to whom this might okay but we have to sort of think you know paul is recommending this as a good marriage for paul is a good right that's right and and and and he's affirming that as a good right uh against perhaps those in the church excellencies of court that might have sought either as a second place good or just as a necessary evil or something else or not it's not entirely clear what that view of quarantine was responding to but um he's affirming it as a good and this what he's conceding here is this marriage if you can't marry if you can't you know keep self-control it's better to marry than to burn with passion well that what he's recommending there that marriage is a good a moral good and so we have to look at this if we're going to make this concession argument around 16 we have to look at this as a conceiting a moral good on a par with marriage and here we are back to the question of what is marriage and whether same-sex union can be a marriage um yeah and one might and one might say okay but look isn't it better to be faithful to a partner in a same-sex union than to be promiscuous with all these other partners out here just like with it's better to be faithful with an opposite sex partner than to be promiscuous with the prostitutes and the slaves or whatever um but then we have to sort of stop and say well faithful in what exactly here you know uh i draw here off of uh augustine's work in this classic work the good of marriage and i do that in part because one of the proponents of this argument who's a personal friend of mine is an augustinian scholar and and has used appeal to augustine's work on the good of marriage as a template for making a case for same-sex marriage and in the context and this is appeal to paul here as part of this um and say well wait a minute what would let's think about fidelity and what well if it you're an augustine to address this consider a couple who is someone who's married who then has a lover on the side they might be faithful in that adultery with the lover but they said but they're being but that's a fidelity in the society of sin that's at best is a is a distorted and deficient virtue right um and and it's not it's not the true good of marriage right instead it's a this actually involves a violation of marriage and it can't be considered we can't call that good fidelity in the society of sin just like two uh uh example of say two robbers who uh remain faithful to each other in a plan to commit robbery and share the goods right okay there's a fidelity in the society of sin even if they're fair and faithful with each other yeah that's those are tainted virtues fairness and crime and fidelity and crime is a tainted fairness and fidelity similarly you'd say with that you may be faithful in with your with your lover but you're being unfaithful with your spouse and so even if these two you know if it it's a tainted fidelity so so we have to come back then and say well then what do we think about a same-sex partnership can it be can we look at this as the same way morally speaking as a marriage and so we come back to this question of what is marriage as well as in tandem this question of well how then do we assess the ethics of same-sex uh same-sex relationships and what else paul has to say about that and given what else paul has to say it seems doubtful that paul would have seen those two things on a par and seen you know the concession then to one to the uh to someone to enter opposite sex marriage as an alternative to prosperous security oh that's just on a moral par with someone entering a same-sex union as an alternative i think that's just implausible that paul would have said sure um given what else he has to say about marriage and also about same-sex intercourse so i already talked i don't think the argument is terribly compelling even though i think the pastoral heart of it i think is important because this the real life struggles of not just uh not just those who are same-sex attracted or identified as gay but also people who are prolongedly single and don't wish to be and there's a lot of people in our congregations that are single much farther into their lives than they had ever expected to be and want to be um and and face real struggles there about well if i can't find someone to marry me and i instead of you know what do what do i do right and you know in terms of uh in terms of um my own needs for intimacy and so on so i think that pastoral question is important at the same time i think the argument doesn't accomplish what it sets out to do i think that's well said especially how much paul lists sexual immorality in every vice list he gives makes it seem hard for me to believe he would accept that as a part of a concession now let's move to the last question i'll have a personal one for you at the end is this is more of kind of a strategic cultural argument in the sense that people will often say the church's teaching about natural marriage just makes the christian life implausible to not only non-believers but lgbtq people and the community it's called the plausibility problem what are your thoughts on that should we be tempted to shift our theology to make it more plausible isn't it all about jesus these are the ways i hear this kind of cashed out give me your thoughts on the plausibility problem challenge yeah so this sense here is that just is this just as incredible um both in terms of our culture which is highly sexualized and secularized and in which refraining from sexual activity for the sake of chastity the forsaken fidelity to jesus christ and to god justice like really you expect me to do that when when the culture lifts up sexual expression and sexual satisfaction as as necessary goods to human fulfillment um and and and whether in marriage or out of marriage or however that um that giving this idea of giving that up either because i simply happen to still be single after all these years or because i'm sam six attracted and i'm not i don't feel called to uh mixed orientation marriage and and so i'm looking at celibacy for a lifetime and and the culture holds out something else a promise of fulfillment satisfaction and now i'm to follow a path of chastity of discipline and self-discipline and so forth that does not look like happiness that does not look like something good for me that really is for my fulfillment as a human being so that's there's that aspect of it and then there's also the aspect for those who are within the church who look within church and see just a huge burden that they're going to have to bear for uh for their whole life and a burden that doesn't seem to be born by others um and this has to do with you know whether we have sort of double standards implicitly teaching double standards one standard for straight christians one for for gay christians and some and we have higher expectations for gay christians and we allow some you know sexual promiscuity on the part of you cohabitation pre-marital sex pornography or whatever and we're kind of lacks on those things but when it comes to you know same-sex attracting gay christians like no no we're just harshly no no no no no and um and that just seems a bit put a huge burden on like i can't bear that burden i can't you know and so on and that's just implausible that i'm expected then to carry on uh joyfully and fruitfully as a christian in that way that just doesn't look like a joyful and fruitful path of of of life as a christian so even for believers it can seem implausible and so this the response my sense of the prop the proper primary response for is not the kind of response that you and i have been working with for the past three hours now which is carefully analyzing arguments thinking theologically interpreting scripture carefully and so on and so forth but this is a practical problem and it needs a practical response it needs the commitment of our congregations one by one by one by one to commit themselves as a whole to this vision of marriage and this vision of chastity and that the christian that the biblical vision presents and and that that the church tradition has upheld all these centuries to commit to that wholeheartedly and consistently for everyone and not make this just about okay you single people married people get to have sex there are these single people well you're just in a different category and you just bear it just just that's the cross you've got to bear that kind of thing whether they're straight or gay or whatever you know that that's that's your situation we have to sort of see this as um as something we are all committed to and that we are committed to each other in this commitment to this to this vision and that we will prop create in very practical terms minister to each other and help to meet each other's needs and this calls us to think outside the box right outside the box of of just churches say just a collection of biological families and and others there is my wife at one point back as a young adult was involved in a sunday school class at her church that was titled pears and spares all right wow ooh ouch total ouch and at the time she was a spare right and oh it's terrible just that language it's just like what does that say to single people you're lesser than you're other than you're not real christians you're just a you're just despair and waiting for a pair that's and you're totally deficient that's just how do we say that when we worship and follow a lord who himself was a spare you know jesus was single with celibate and and and and how do we then make and sometimes make marriage into and family into an idol that's almost kind of worshipped in here we can't do that right we need to take the family of believers as our orienting family structure and that includes everyone whether you're married or not married whether you're man or woman whether you're gay or straight all part of the one family and then we've got to think about how this family's going to function together in very practical ways so that everyone's needs for intimacy to for love to give love and receive love in in committed context and so on that all of this that these needs are met and that we can minister to each other and that we together can provide a witness to the world that indeed this is not some ugly and burdensome thing but that this is a beautiful and life-giving thing that that we have that the church has that's a gift that it can offer to the world for the life of the world um and but we have to start at home uh in the church in addressing this problem and you know your wesley hill has written well on this eve has written well on this um um yes christopher yuan and um the who what the guy who wrote the original book the plausibility problem in england that's a very good book and i think it's called same-sex attraction in the church the title in north america that's a very good book so they're good resources by people who are living this um and and so on to offer us challenge and encouragement to take this seriously and to think about the ways in which the church very practically needs to rethink itself around the structure of the family of believers in which everyone is included and everyone has a place at the table uh the the dinner table because we have a place at the communion table but we need to each have a place at the dinner table too um and in other contexts in which we share life together that we aren't just bifurcated into pairs and spares that's just it just makes me want to you know try um to think about that and or scream and and we need to do as a church i think much much better and be much more intentional about that in addressing that in very practical ways that's a great way to end because we spent a lot of time on scripture and theology and unpacking what the bible says and doesn't say about this but our most powerful apologetic for example absolutely and commandment is to live this out in relationship and that's something we can do much better we still have the we still have the mission to be a light to the nations and this is one way in which we could be shining a bright light in the midst of a lot of darkness good good word well i want to encourage our viewers again to pick up your book marriage scripture and the church uh this video is entitled everything on same-sex unions but really we didn't get to everything got it as much as we could in three hours plus but there's probably four or five times as much in depth maybe more in the book so it's academic but it's very readable even to people who maybe don't know greek or don't have a doctrine philosophy if you're willing to study and read and think about it you can get a ton out of this let me remind viewers that next friday we're going to come back on live and take the questions the best questions from this three hours that affirming non-firming christian non-christian ask related to scripture so obviously in issues like this if there's personal attacks we're not going to address those the question is what does scripture say about this so if there's an objection you've heard that we didn't address if you disagree with one of our responses please state it succinctly and clearly and we will pick these out we're coming back next friday june 4th at 12 o'clock pacific standard time to take the best questions in the comments and then if we have time take some live ones too so make sure you mark your calendars and join us then

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

Views: 41,413

Keywords: Bible, Scripture, same-sex unions, marriage, theology, bible, biblical, LGBTQ, affirming, non-affirming, revisionist, innovationist, Side A, Side B, homosexuality, homosexual, gay, lesbian, Christian, faith

Id: ogXQUY-0Rgg

Length: 215min 54sec (12954 seconds)

Published: Fri May 28 2021