Open & Affirming

This story was about gang rape! What’s more,  The “men” that all the people of Sodom wanted to gang rape were not humans, but angels! (Genesis 19:1) Furthermore, in over 40 references to Sodom in the Scriptures, not one of these makes reference to homosexuality. God inspired the Prophet Ezekiel to make clear what was the sin of Sodom. Ezekiel 16:49,50 says, “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen” (NIV). If homosexuality was the reason God destroyed Sodom, this was the prophet’s perfect opportunity to declare that fact and he missed it!

As already pointed out, the words “homosexual” or “homosexuality” did not exist in the original Greek and Aramaic languages of the New Testament. There are four N.T. passages used against GLBT people:

Romans 1. Here, we have a very specific list of characteristics describing those in question: He describes them as those who once knew God, but who chose not to honor God as God. Instead, they worshiped material images of human beings, birds, animals, and reptiles as objects of worship rather than the One True Living God. We are told that they were filled with EVERY kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice. They were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, rudeness, haughtiness, and boastfulness. They were inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. (NRSV) These murderous, malicious people, who worshiped idols and hated God after once knowing Him, have NOTHING to do with people who have a sincere desire to love and worship the Lord Jesus Christ and who happen to be homosexual. Today, there are multitudes of homosexual people who are yearning to be a part of the Church so that they can WORSHIP the One True Living God and profess Jesus as their Savior. Anyone who can possibly equate the hateful, murderous people of Romans 1 to modern-day gay and lesbian people – ones who reach out to humanity, love and respect their parents, and who have been expelled from the church they love, just for being homosexual, is choosing to believe a lie. Like those religious leaders who scorned Jesus, they have chosen to believe lies founded on their traditions. (Mark 7:6-9)

1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, use two Greek words, malakoi and arsenokoitai. There are many good dissertations on the translations of these words, which are available in bookstores and libraries. For the purpose of this pamphlet, suffice it to say that over the centuries, malakoi has been translated and interpreted in every possible way, from “morally weak,” to the general term “pervert” to the more specific term, “sexual pervert” to the very specific term, “male prostitute,” etc, etc, etc. The Greek Interlinear Bible translates this word “voluptuous person.” In Matthew 11:8, Jesus uses this same Greek word, malakoi, in reference to soft clothing! Only since 1940 has the term been translated “homosexual,” which is a serious violation of Biblical exegesis.

The final New Testament Bible passage used against LGBT people is found in Jude verses 5-7. This passage is so ambiguous that even the ancient manuscripts differ, where some make reference to “strange flesh” (e.g. KJV, NKJV) and others do not. This reference to “strange flesh” most likely refers to humans having sex with angelic beings. (Cf. Gen. 6:2-4) The inference is that the sexual immorality and perversion that took place in Sodom and Gomorrah was deemed as such because the men attempted to have nonconsensual sex with the angelic beings who came to rescue Lot’s family. (Gen. 19:1)