Homosexuality, The Bible, and Soulforce
Not to long ago I had a long Facebook discussion about the issue of homosexuality. That particular discussion was more political in nature and did not address (at least not in depth) what the Bible has to say on the issue. An organization called Soulforce has, as one of its resources, an online article that addresses what the Bible says about this issue. I might point out that according to their web site Soulforce does not claim to be a faith based organization. Still, the arguments used are the typical arguments used by those in the homosexual community. It is for that reason I will be addressing these arguments over the next several weeks. Their article can be found here. Well, here it goes.
There are a couple of things I noticed about the introduction to this article that were bothersome to me. The author does not reveal who they are. I looked for a by line at the beginning and the end of the article and did not see one. Second, it was also bothersome to me that this person claims to have studied at a conservative seminary, but does not say which one. The identity of this person and the identity of the seminary do not change the validity of the arguments presented, but I find it odd.
The author has 8 premises and the first one is this, “Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the biblical texts often used to condemn God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children.”
There is probably some truth to this statement. Most people are not pastors and have not learned the skills necessary to study these things on a scholarly level. Most people probably haven’t taken the time to read a book or look up all the passages in Scripture that deal with homosexuality. The assumption in this statement is that if they had carefully studied this issue they would come to a pro-homosexual position. Just because most people haven’t studied it, that doesn’t mean that all of those who believe the message of scripture speaks of homosexuality as a sin have not studied it. As a matter of fact many who continue to speak against homosexuality have studied this issue very carefully.
The author spends time in the introduction talking about the importance of “rightly dividing the word of truth” and then under the first premise this person speaks about Biblical ignorance. This person then lists three things about the Bible which they believe most Christians do not know. Those things are:
- Jesus says nothing about same-sex behavior. (true, but Jesus does talk about marriage)
- The Jewish prophets are silent about homosexuality. (again true)
- Only six or seven of the Bible’s one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way — and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it’s understood today. (This statement is not true)
This last statement is disturbing. For a person who claims to have 50+ years of studying the Bible and claims ignorance on the part of others, it amazes me that they would think there are one million verses in the Bible. There aren’t even one million words in the bible and there are approximately 30,000 verses in the Bible (Check this here).
I realize we have not yet started to deal with Scripture itself, but we will begin to do that next week as we deal with the next two premises the author presents. They are:
“Historically, people’s misinterpretation of the Bible has left a trail of suffering, bloodshed, and death.”
and
“We must be open to new truth from Scripture.”
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