What does the Bible say about same sex attraction? with Dr. Christopher Yuan - Podcast Episode 63

[Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the got questions podcast in our 20-year history one of the most common questions or maybe not one of the some of the most common questions we receive are have always been related to homosexuality same-sex attraction transgenderism especially in recent months recent years have been becoming more and more common so on today's episode i with me dr christopher yuan and i'll allow him to do introduce himself more but christopher um welcome to the show yeah thank you so much for having me on shay it really is an honor thank you for using technology uh to spread uh the gospel and god's truth and in all all that you do shay so um your book holy sexuality and um very valuable book i've recommended it to several people and they found it extremely encouraging helping to understand some of these issues but before we jump into some of the most frequent last questions that we're asked i want to give the opportunity because your testimony it's it's powerful it was very encouraging to me tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and um the journey that god has brought you through yeah definitely you know i wasn't raised in a christian home uh wrestled with my sexuality actually from a young age i came across pornography like when i was nine and that was the first time that i recognized i had these attractions toward the same sex didn't tell anyone i'm from chicago and then i moved to louisville kentucky where i was pursuing my doctorate to dentistry and it was then in my early twenties that i came out told my parents through that crisis my mom came to faith because we weren't christian uh that my father came to faith i went the total opposite direction while in dental school i was just just living as i don't know as most non-christians would would be have fun um party and i was drinking and going after the bars and clubs on the weekends i started doing drugs i started selling drugs eventually i was actually expelled from dental school just three months before receiving my doctorate moved from louisville to atlanta georgia further away from my parents and i just kept doing what i knew how to do best which is have fun you know um if there's no god then you might as well live it up uh my parents had no clue that i was doing drugs but they knew that i need to know jesus christ so they tried to reach out to me with the love of christ they knew my biggest sin was not being in same-sex relationships but that my biggest sin was unbelief so they tried to continue to have that relationship with me i pushed them away they came to visit me one time in atlanta i told them to get out and you know the funny thing shay was they weren't preaching at me they weren't telling me i was living in sin as you know oftentimes you know we hear that that's kind of the narrative uh christian parents cannot love their gay children they weren't doing any of that but just the fact that god had so transformed their lives that they radiated christ actually that was offensive to me told me to leave before my dad left he gave me his bible i told my dad i don't want your bible gave it to me anyway walked out i took my dad's bible and i threw in the trash you know and it's again this narrative that we hear from the world that christian parents who actually believe in the bible have to throw the bible away themselves they have to actually you know get rid of all that uh you know that ancient teaching to love their gay children i had the exact opposite experience my parents weren't christian they essentially rejected me they became followers of christ and they knew that they could do nothing other than to love me as god loved them while they were cylinders while they were still powerless while they were even enemies so my dad gave me the bible i threw in the trash can my dad my parents they just knew that i was just hopeless but they committed not to focus upon hopelessness but upon the promise of god and they enlisted over a hundred people from their church from their bible study fellowship group they began to cry out to god for me my mom began to pray a bold prayer god do whatever it takes it's a bold prayer for a mom to make do whatever it takes she fasted every monday for seven years once fasted 39 days on my behalf because she knew that it was going to take a miracle for me to for me to come know christ so that miracle came with a bang on my door open up my door on my doorstep 12 federal drug enforcement agents atlanta police two big german shepherd dogs they confiscated my money my drugs and um i was charged with the equivalent of 9.1 tons of marijuana so i was facing 10 years to life so i found myself in jail and i called home you know i mean who who wants to call home from jail and i was just thinking i'm going to get an earful my mom's first words were son are you okay no condemnation just words of unconditional love and grace i just i love how paul says in romans uh that it's god's kindness that leads us leads us to repentance romans 2 20. it's not god's wrath but god's kindness and god used those words to draw me to himself well a few days after that i was walking around the cell block passed by this garbage can and i'm like that's my life i was about to pass it by there was something on top of the trash picked it up it was a gideon's new testament took it back to my cell open up the book and i began i read through entire gospel of mark that night and i'm like you know this is supposed to be good news but i was like i'm a sinner things weren't getting any better it was they were getting more bleak well things got worse called to the nurse's office and i got the news that i was hiv positive a couple weeks later called to the nurse's office uh after i was called to the nurse's office i was sitting in my bunk and i looked up at the cold metal bunk above me somebody scribbled something and it read if you're bored read jeremiah 29 11. forgot for i know the plans that i have for you plans to prosper you not to harm you plans to give you hope in the future i mean it could have been any verse but god used those words written to a rebellious nation israel to tell me that if god could have a plan for israel in rebellion he could even have a plan for me in prison i don't know what that plan what could have looked like but god just simply gave me enough faith enough strength to do that one day the next and the next so my transformation was gradual god was convicting my idols obviously drugs but within a few months he delivered me from that addiction but there was just this one thing that i felt like i just couldn't let go of my sexuality went to a chaplain and he actually told me the bible doesn't condemn homosexuality he even gave me a book and i'm like great i can have my cake and eat it too so i had that book in one hand the bible in the other and you know shay everything inside of me wanted to affirm what that book is claiming to justify the way i had been living but i know now that it was god's indwelling holy spirit that convicted me that those assertions were a clear distortion of god in his word i couldn't even finish that book gave it back to the chaplain so i turned to the bible alone i went through every verse every chapter looking for justification and i couldn't find any which meant i was at this turning point either abandon god in his word live as a gay man pursue a monogamous same-sex relationship by allowing my attractions to dictate not only who i was but also how i lived or abandoned pursuing a monogamous same-sex relationship by freeing myself from my sexuality by not allowing my desires to control who i am and live as a follower of jesus christ by god's grace i followed jesus so the days and the months of abstinence passed and i knew that actually my sexuality doesn't have to be the core of who i am i told myself before god loves me unconditionally but as i read the bible and so i thought so god doesn't want me to change right we hear that a lot from people god doesn't want me to change but i realize after reading the bible that unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior because my identity shouldn't be grounded my desires or my sexuality my identity shouldn't be grounded in my sexuality my identity isn't gay it's not ex-gay and it's not even heterosexual for that matter because my identity as a child of living god has to be in jesus christ alone god says be holy for i am holy you know i used to think if i were to become a christian i had to become heterostructural what does that mean i need to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex i even thought that the more sexually attracted i were to women the more of a christian man i would be but we look at scripture and i realize that even if i had opposite sex attractions i would still need to flee temptation and resist sin so actually heterosexuality that's not the right goal correct direction but not the right correct goal if you think so actually the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality but the opposite of homosexuality is holiness as a matter of fact the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness i don't just because change isn't the absence of temptations but change is the spirit right ability to be holy even in the midst of temptations we we often define change according to freud according to our sexual desires god doesn't do that he defines change according to holiness according to sanctification and so change isn't the absence of temptations but change is actually the spirit rod ability to be holy even in the midst of temptations as we avoid desires as we avoid sinful behavior so as god kind of uh helped me to realize that he called me he showed me his plan for me he called me the full-time vocational ministry while i was in prison um and um so with that change of heart god did another another miracle showed my sentence from six years to three years um i got out of prison uh went on to get uh went on to moody and then went on my masters and next to jesus my doctor to ministry and then co-authored a book with my mother out of our country and then it was then that i introduced this concept of holy sexuality which i knew i'd need to kind of flesh that out um and uh so my newest book holy spelling the gospel sex desire relationships shaped by god's grand story actually it was named 2020 book of the year for social issues by outreach magazine kind of helping us to understand not only what not to do but more importantly what is god's yes but because we just can't build a christian life on god's no so christopher thank you for sharing that it's such a powerful testimony in so many different facets um i find you're um you're refreshing to listen to and that often on these issues you hear the stuff from the extremes and i think the balance your focus on singleness that um at least to this point god is not um for lack of a better term like transformed you into a normal heterosexual male um but you're living a life of committed selflessly focusing on living a holy life for god as a single man i think that's so honorable and powerful and something people need to hear more of and not just people who are struggling with same-sex attraction but not every um heterosexual is called to be married there are heterosexual called to remain celibate remain single in their lives and to live a life dedicated to god and they need to hear messages like this i have several friends who are um who are still single and the way the church communicates them and unless you're married you're not a complete christian and that is the complete wrong attitude to have so your your testimony your story your emphasis in holy sexuality is refreshing on so many different levels just to let our listeners know i'll include some links to where you can learn more about dr yuan's with his ministry and holy sexuality on the show notes on the youtube description and also at that podcast.gotquestions.org so don't worry we'll give you plenty of links so you can learn more but what i'd really like to ask you is that some of the questions that we receive at got questions somewhat related these issues that you cover to a certain extent in the book because i am confident that after listening to you i'm gonna have some tweaks to make some of our articles so first question i want to ask you how should we as christians respond to someone who says that i was born gay and therefore god doesn't judge me for that well i mean i think it how i would answer would depend on does this person um have any bible knowledge uh is that their authority or not you know if there's if this was a christian and um or you know they they they claim uh you know faith uh they believe in god and they look to the bible as an authority um i i would start there uh in scripture and and you know there's a statement that i make uh regarding human sexuality and it's this that we can't begin to understand human sexuality without beginning with theological anthropology and i know that that's that can seem like a pretty um deep uh meaning a phrase but if we just break it down it's actually quite simple um human sexuality obviously we're focusing upon sexuality uh for human beings so if we want to better understand sexuality and human sexuality well we need to better understand humanity and the study of humanity is actually anthropology but that discipline is often begins with this premise that there is no god so there's not a lot of talk about god at all but as we know and as many of their formers talked about that to understand humans we need to begin with god why because if for understand humanity we need to kind of at least consider the origins of humanity and and look at that not just kind of the past several hundred years but look at the origins and and of course development from there that would be obviously what i would see the importance of studying humanity and so origins well humanity as we know from scriptures that were created in god's image that god created us so if god created us and we therefore have purpose because god created us then it's important just begin with god so theological anthropology is the study of humanity through god's eyes but it's not just that we're creating god's image genesis 3 comes along and we're all fallen because of adam's rebellion we all sinned in adam so when people say well i'm born this way and as a christian i would ask them well you know we're actually all born with a sin nature but being born of the sin nature doesn't make then sin right um and so i think it's helping people understand that regardless of how we feel like we're born as many people would say i'm i'm born you know you know i'm born this way i'm born an alcoholic or whatever you know we're still responsible for our actions and more importantly we're called to see christ so that we can have um you know our sin nature has that solution it is through christ that we are empowered not only to be reconciled to god and be redeemed but then we have through the holy spirit able to be sanctified even though we are still living on this side of glory with a sin nature now if he was unbeliever i would obviously not be able to cite the our authority which is god's word but i would kind of discuss uh sort of the the science and the research around that and and show that it's it's inconclusive as of yet even the most recent study 2019 came out and they look at all the study and they were specifically looking at genetics uh nothing's conclusive there's a lot of studies around hormones and by the way even that study on in 2019 they they looked it's that's the largest study ever ever done and they were only able to find five dna markers not five genes but markers and even that just was supposed to be less than one percent of uh the influence for the development of sexual orientation so though genetics might play a role it's it's actually quite small so having that you know just to show that we to date don't even have any any replicated studies to show conclusively what are the causes or even influences and so therefore we don't really know i would even point people to some of the most recent literature and research um one in particular dr lisa dimon she's not a christian she is a feminist scholar she's very open about being lesbian and she shows that actually sexuality is quite fluid uh and and she's even has extensive research showing that this is not something that is innate even though that's what we see a lot of activists showing so you know i i think that's what i would go to just the research that is inclusive there's actually no replicated studies that has shown that that people are born this way uh but then i would hope to be able to share a bit of gospel truth and it's this that actually all of humanity that were born imperfect uh we know not all of us have kind of missed the mark i always want to bring it back to the gospel any question that i have with an unbeliever because that's the most important thing absolutely even my story um i i tell people my testimony is not about a person who used to you know identify as a gay man and now i'm a christian and now i'm no longer you know gay or whatever that's not my testimony my testimony is this i once was lost and now i'm found i once did not believe and now i believe the only person who is who is jesus christ as lord and savior and so that's why it's key you know i don't identify as this way because my whole identity has changed now do i believe he can change my desires of course he can but the key is that our the change is about going from death to life change is going from unbelief to belief not from i had a certain desire and now i have another desire because that's really um limiting the the the extent of change to just our desires where god his change is completely for the whole person a new creation entire man the old is gone the new has come amen so question number two um this is probably the most frequent one we've been receiving recently the question is so same-sex activity is sinful biblically speaking but what about same-sex attraction and i remember um the youth pastor who discipled me after i came to faith in christ in my teens um used to use this phrase if it's wrong to do it it's wrong to want to do it and so that kind of plays together how do you address the question of whether is same-sex attraction itself sinful or is it only the activity yeah you know uh so early on i've i i i'll have to admit i i changed in some of my position on this and then i realized because if you look and even online there's a lot of discussion about you know same-sex attractions are sinful same-sex attractions are not sinful the action is i think you know at least those who hold to biblical sexuality that marriage is being a man or woman would say the the the behavior is wrong the action the relationships are are sinful but then there's this discussion about no same-sex attractions our sinful same-sex attractions are not um and as i wrote holy situation of the gospel i i studied a lot of this because i i wanted to hear both sides um i always want to say what scripture says so then i looked into just let's look at attractions in scripture well attraction the word is not found in the bible so that that isn't enough to say well you know well then let's not use it i mean trinity is not a word that's not you know we don't find that word in the bible the concept is so is the concept of attraction in the bible well that depends on how you define it because as i look at these debates i see people conflating attraction with temptation now i think attraction could be um you know a temptation could be an attraction but then others uh seeing that maybe you know define it as desire or lust uh as attraction well could um attraction mean desire lust yes so this is where it gets a little bit cloudy where people aren't clear with their definitions and and as you read shay in my book what i did was i i always want to kind of do away with the chaff because even as christians we begin mudding the waters and if you remember shae the cover of my book is black and white i know that sounds maybe pretty monotonous or kind of boring i was very intentional that i wanted my my cover to be black and white because there's so much gray i mean isn't we're living in a world of infinite shades of grey not just 50 and i wanted to communicate that actually god's truth is not really gray it's black and white and so when it comes to attraction and we're talking about is it right or wrong in god's eyes i just prefer to use biblical terminology and so therefore i stick to temptations and desires so our temptations to sin sin well we have the passage in hebrews the book of hebrews where jesus was tempted in every way but he was without sin so we find that temptations in and of itself are not sinful they can quickly lead into sin actually you know biblical writers are clear in the new testament talking about don't be tempted but don't fall into sin there's there's quite dif the difference so um temptations to sin are not sinful but they're not good either so we shouldn't be toying with them or playing with them so we need to be quick to uh to resist those but what about desires um can desires turn into lust you know just make sure you have you can have a desire but just don't as long as it doesn't turn into lust the interesting thing is the word in the greek new testament for desire epithumia or the verb epithel um is actually the same word that we translate lust so it depends on context how we translate it is it a wrongly ordered desire and there's i have a section in my in um holy situation in the gospel where i talk about how all desires have an end um kind of the theological term is it's teleological meaning that um there has its objective meaning our desire has an object but also there's a purpose to our desire what do we want and what what do we want to do with it so your youth pastor is right in the sense that if we have a desire to do something wrong that action is wrong and that actual desire is wrong but the temptation to do that that initial split second temptation isn't sinful i you know if a man a pretty woman walks across you know the street and he happens to see her well he can't help that he saw her that temptation but then if he begins sinning in his mind and fantasizing and thinking about it that is sin so that's where i make the distinction because so i want to clarify because same-sex sexual and romantic temptations are not sin but same-sex sexual romantic desires and behaviors are sinful that's very helpful and um i don't know how to say it but the way you described it and even even more in depth in holy sexuality um it was very helpful for me and just knowing how to better explain that to people and that segues very nicely into the next question i want to ask you so many the first two questions are questions that we were typically asked by people who are struggling or experiencing same-sex attraction or i've already embraced it or so forth but this question comes more often from people who know someone whether it's a child a loved one a friend who has either gone that direction or is considering it or beginning to experience whatever we want to describe it but the question is something along the lines of how can i speak the truth and love to those who are experiencing same-sex attraction some people they feel like it's like walking on eggshells you don't want to say something wrong use the wrong term so give us some some pointers on um we love these people who are experiencing these issues we don't view it as any more sinful than any other struggle but culturally it's such a hot topic that you feel like you say anything about it and you instantly get in trouble so how can we as christians again speak the truth and love to those who are experiencing same-sex attraction yeah i think that's um that is often the struggle as christians and um you know i think as as humans we have this tendency to be like a pendulum uh we're either on one side of the extreme or the other you know on one side you have people that are just so fearful that they maybe don't say anything or they are graced at the expense of truth and then others will you know be like just all truth at the expense of grace meaning um i need to tell them you need to repent um do they need to repent of course they do but it's how we're doing it yeah you know i love the example of dwight lyman moody one of the greatest uh evangelists of you know the early 20th century where they said only he um only he was really qualified to preach on hell and you know why because he did it with tears i think too many people almost do it with glee and um or of um uh self-pride uh you know i'm doing my job and and that's it our goal is our hope is that people will come to know jesus again romans 2 20. you know it's it's the kindness of god that leads to repentance but then we have the other side that then are just they don't do anything uh and then sometimes people are stuck in the middle like i don't know what to do and so that's where maybe a lot of people are stuck i don't know what to do but then that ends up being essentially we're not doing anything so i i think it's a good reminder that we need to approach this with care not that we don't want to say anything but i'll use an example that i often do is there's a good comparison as we want to share christ with those in the gay community a good comparison with how we do with it with our method is sharing the gospel with our muslim friends or if we want to be very specific like we're going into the middle east to share the gospel would we go up to a muslim in iran and say you need to repent i mean maybe you would but your ministry would be very short-lived very likely so yes very very and maybe your life would be short-lived um now of course i mean if if god is really calling you to be a jonah and do that uh then go because if it really is god's will he's going to protect you um or um you know your martyrdom will be a testimony of of god's glory but as we see the many ministry uh missionaries that often um we are supporting that are going to the middle east in these closed countries they're not going up to every muslim and say you need to repent you need to repent you know [Music] you know whatever it is you know muhammad is you know whatever you might say that could be true but that's not effective so how do we do that with uh in the middle east there's a lot of relational you're preparing the soil and why do we do that because of all this misperception about christians that how muslims misperceive christians they think that it's all political they think that they're they're they're you know even though it's several thousand several hundred years ago maybe a thousand years ago you know the crusades that's still very fresh for them and so they think christians are all like that we hate them we see them as our enemies so therefore it takes time to lay the groundwork and do a little bit of pre-evangelism in the same way the reason why i believe that method we need to apply to the gay community is right now in where we live right now in the west the gay community believe that christians have been on a crusade against the gay community and that we see them as the enemy and we even hate them so therefore it's not that we're drawing trying to avoid and not speak truth absolutely not we unfortunately have given the wrong message and we have to do some groundwork you know like the the parable of the soil we have to be picking away the weeds and the rocks and stuff like that and it takes time with that being said um i think before you know so what do we say a lot of times when when you know how do i broach this topic it's often about uh the underlying presupposition is this that i need to be able to tell people of their sinful behavior and what i want to do and what i think i've tried to do with even holy sexuality is [Music] not so much even answering the question but actually revealing that actually our question is actually not the right question that we have to look at our presupposition our foundation because is you know is this sinful behavior yes but is that the correct approach because it's not how do i bring this up or how do i talk about it and convince them this is sinful behavior i think before we even get to that we need to do some kind of pre-evangelism prepare the soil build some trust uh but i think more importantly though if i was if i wish that christians would realize one thing and the one error that we're making and our approach in sharing the gospel with those in the lgbt community it's this the world and even christians have conflated sexuality with personhood sexuality is no longer what i feel what i do sexuality has become who i am i mean shea i'm sure you have friends maybe neighbors loved ones that you know who say i'm gay if you were to ask them what do you mean i mean obviously you could say i know what that means but you could say i want to hear you articulate define what you mean when you say i am gay they won't say when i say i am gay i mean this is what i do right i mean that would be almost ludicrous no one says that anymore when i say i'm lesbian i mean this is what i feel what people say today is when i say i am gay i mean this is who i am so the shift from what to who has created this radically disorder view of personhood to the point where it's become the core of who i am not the core of my experience that i can i i can understand for many sexuality their desires their desire for relationship is a huge aspect of their daily weekly experience but experience should never be who we are it's how we are so if we can get that and and instead of having conversations about what is right or wrong um what is you know sinful behavior and what is not i think those can be conversations later i think it's even talking about who are we and should any desire what even if it's unchosen or strong should it ever be who we are because ultimately christians we have that answer i don't think unbelievers have that answer and i'm not even talking about people who i identify as gay and so that's kind of where i would start um having those conversations of you know you know should any attractions as strong as it is as even unchosen as it is as enduring as it is ever be who we are that's that's a that's a way that we don't have to tip toe around or feel like we're walking on eggshells that's that's a conversation that like um you know anyone can have at any time without feeling like we're gonna have to have an argument yeah so even when i was kind of introducing this question i found myself going back to this and it's a method that i've heard many times when you address it in your book and i really loved how you explained it so often i will hear and again i've done this before when trying to share the gospel with someone who's gay will say something well being gay is no different than any other sin and then go on to list some other standards and usually it's some pretty bad ones it's different than being a a murderer or adulterer or whatever and definitely not an effective way to share the gospel but just explain briefly why should even that line of reasoning be avoided when trying to share the gospel with someone who is gay yes and it is a true statement christians we know that um you know my sin of hate is jesus compares that with murder um a man lusting for a woman even though he's never spoken to her or anything uh that desire that we have in our heart and our mind that jesus even says matthew 5 so around the mountain that's equivalent to actually committing adultery so that is a true statement it makes sense for us but it doesn't make sense for the unbeliever especially the the person who identifies as gay why comes back to kind of what i was saying before that's right this is a great segue because i'll just make it really real and personal when i before my conversion before i you know god gave me a new my identity um that was my whole world my my whole world was gay that was everything that was my core existence that was my core identity everything that's why it's so important i i when i tell christians it's i don't it's not helpful to to take on that label i know many people be labor and try to you know they they will use the term but belabor and use a lot of time to emphasize you know while i don't mean this is who i am unfortunately in in our common vernacular gay lesbian no longer means this is what i feel it really has become who i am and therefore i think it's important for us to make that distinction um so you know i think it's uh you know having this uh you know this understanding that that not comparing this first and foremost uh with sinful behavior you know the murder or even if we say something like um you know it's nothing you know it's no different than lying the problem is we we will all kind of agree that you know you know lying isn't uh you know lying is wrong lying is a sin however people who identify as gay they don't view this as you know sin they don't view this as something that is wrong at all they view this as who they are for example when you uh even the statement you know homosexuality is sin you know which by the way even avoiding that term homosexuality is um uh is helpful when we're engaging with those in the gay community because even the gay community they don't like that term anymore and it's not that i'm always trying to kind of you know be so careful about you know every single word we use but if i can not use a word for the sake of kind of you know winning someone for christ i'm i'm willing to do that and um so i you know i'm but like even that term homosexuality is sin that we you know we see that they don't hear us saying oh what you what you're doing is sinful they hear us saying your whole person is reprehensible to god and so that's tough that's tough and that's why it's so personal um and even offensive to some people um and so that's why i think it's important like let's talk about this identity aspect is this really who we are because then we're able to separate our behavior our desires from who we are and then address that as opposed to making it personal therefore you know rosario butterfield a good friend of mine she's she's so keen to say i'm able to hate my sin without hating myself unbelievers can't do that they're not able to hate their sin without hating themselves they can't separate the two so that's why it's it's just better not to kind of make those comparisons and um maybe not even use the word sin i mean sin in the old testament is talking about missing the mark i think that's that's a good accurate way to um we're not avoiding to talk about sin but missing the mark that's that's actually precisely what what sin means that makes more sense for the unbeliever and so using these these terms that makes sense for unbelievers for the sake of sharing the gospel and winning them to christ yeah so christopher i mean thank you for being on the show i love how you explain these things and again i highly recommend his book holy sexuality and we'll include links to that book and also to more about dr yuan and his ministry in in the show notes at podcast.gotquestions.org and also at the description on our youtube channel when this video goes live so christopher thank you for being on the show thanks for having me on shay god bless you and god bless you as well this has been the got questions podcast got questions bible has answers [Music] you

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Length: 39min 13sec (2353 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022