I learned in the past few days of an additional extended family member who is gay, and the following is the biblical presentation I am sending to both families involved. I only address the New Covenant verses that apply to the New Covenant believers, Christians. My notes are not new, but trying to assemble them in a reasonable size document took time, and I give them here for all in the thread to read, not just Barney.
Paul's date of writing the 3 books where he speaks of the sin of men going after men sexually:
1 Timothy, 64 AD; 1 Corinthians, 53-57 AD; Romans, 56 AD
Paul was not writing in a vacuum, his writings have a context of culture and history. The philosopher below was a young man when Paul was writing, and we see his observations in the times in which they lived. We NEVER use culture or history to contradict scripture, but it can give clarification and more detail to the biblical writings. No doubt Paul in all 3 books was referring to the same sort of men, and Dio Chrysostom living in Paul's day wrote of these same men as follows.
Dio Chrysostom (40-110 AD)
Sentences lifted from text numbered 133 through 152
"In dealing with brothel-keepers and their trade we must certainly betray no weakness as though something were to be said on both sides, but must sternly forbid them...Such men bring individuals together in union without love and intercourse without affection, and all for the sake of filthy lucre...For evils are never wont to remain as they are; they are ever active and advancing to greater wantonness if they meet no compelling check...Indeed, beginning with practices and habits that seem trivial and allowable, it acquires a strength and force that are uncontrollable, and no longer stops at anything...Now at this point we must assuredly remember that this adultery committed with outcasts, so evident in our midst and becoming so brazen and unchecked, is to a very great extent paving the way to hidden and secret assaults upon the chastity of women and boys of good family...
The man whose appetite is insatiate in such things, when he finds there is no scarcity, no resistance, in this field, will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn
for a woman's love, as a thing too readily given — in fact, too utterly feminine — and will turn his assault against the male quarters, eager to befoul the youth who will very soon be magistrates and judges and generals, believing that in them he will find a kind of pleasure difficult and hard to procure. His state is like that of men who are addicted to drinking and wine-bibbing, who after long and steady drinking of unmixed wine, often lose their taste for it and create an artificial thirst by the stimulus of sweatings, salted foods, and condiments."
demonax.info
"...and likewise also the men, leaving(RSV 'gave up'; YLT 'having left'; 'have forsaken' Williams NT) the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust(RSV/NRSV 'were consumed with passion') one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due."
(Rom 1:27 ASV)*The Greek reads "males" in place of "men" in all 3 places, with emphasis on sex.
Notice, where Paul said these males were "consumed in lust", Dio Chrysostom said their "appetite is insatiate"; and where Paul wrote that these males were "leaving" and "forsaking" the females, the philosopher said he "turns his assault against the male quarters", turning from females to males. The two Greek words Paul used in this verse for "burned" and "lust", are found only here in the NT. That indicates just how extreme these males were in their lust. How has the church historically understood this verse, when presented in detailed study:
St. John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) in his homily on this wrote on leaving "For
the changing implies possession. Which also when discoursing upon the doctrines he said, They changed the truth of God for a lie. And with regard to the men again, he shows the same thing by saying,
Leaving the natural use of the woman." and again on that particular lust - "For he does not say that they were enamoured of, and lusted after one another, but, they burned in their lust one toward another. You see that
the whole of desire comes of an exorbitancy which endures not to abide within its proper limits."
Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more.
www.newadvent.org
St. John C. here points out the fact they were in man-woman relationships engaging in the 'created order' sexual conduct, and then because of the lust here described as "an exorbitancy" they left the females.
It is clear that the wickedness here is the extreme lust that caused these males to leave women to go to men. This verse cannot be twisted to condemn simple sexual relations between two males; there has to be more to the story for it to be a sin.
The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary published in 1871 reads on this verse with similar understanding: "Observe how, in the retributive judgment of God, vice is here seen consuming and exhausting itself. When the
passions, scourged by violent and continued indulgence in natural vices, became impotent to yield the craved enjoyment, resort was had to artificial stimulants by the practice of unnatural and monstrous vices."
Romans 1, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Unabridged Commentary is a comprehensive resource, offering critical and explanatory insights into the entire Bible.
www.studylight.org
Here the JFB again emphasizes the extreme nature of their lust, "passions, scourged", then they left the females, and resorted to sex with other males instead of females. Their extreme lust is the sin in this passage and it is not about simple male to male sex. Paul writes again of these very same males, in 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10. There we find further description of the sin described, and the study will look at the word used in both verses,
arsenokoites. The word "effeminate(
malakos) found in 1 Cor. 6:9 will be examined after
arsenokoites.
"Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men(
arsenokoites)," (1Cor 6:9 ASV)
"...for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men(
aresenokoites), for menstealers, for liars, for false swearers, and if there be any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine;" (1Tim 1:10 ASV)
Continued in next reply/post -
