Why is being homosexual a sin?

Biblically Speaking

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Okay. Hello. Hello. Welcome everybody to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino and I'm your host.

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And today I'm honored to welcome a new guest, Dr. Tim Yontz. We didn't go over your bio, but I did bring up one of your

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Standing for Freedom intros. And according to the internet, you are an adjunct professor at Liberty University.

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You teach courses in ethics, theology, apologetics, and worldview. You have a master's of divinity from Liberty Baptist Theology Seminary and a

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PhD in theology studies on Christian ethics from South... I literally had to take a breath.

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This is so many credentials from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. So you have a lot of specialties and you also are a chaplain.

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You also served as a chaplain assistant for the U .S. Army National Guard. You're a writer, you're a contributor, and you're also a podcast host, which is how we got connected through Psych and Theo because Sam Landa reached out to me and came on some of my lives.

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And he's actually going to be on a podcast episode coming up, but glad to be connected, Tim. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.

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Great to be here. Yeah. The brand new baby podcast called Psych and Theo, me and Sam tackling cultural issues from the perspective of psychology and theology together.

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So I'm the theologian. He's the professional mental health or mental health professional, I should say.

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And so we'll tackle issues together from those two angles. So we cover all kinds of different issues.

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That's amazing. I sometimes wish we had that in church of like somebody to be like, this is your attachment theory to Jesus and this is what scripture says about it.

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Like that would be phenomenal. Yeah. I mean, well, that's one of the episode topics that we did early on was we ask a question, is it a sin to go to therapy?

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Because a lot of people think that the only form of counseling that's right is quote unquote biblical counseling or what's called newthetic counseling.

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And Sam can talk about that when he comes on and does his episode. I'm sure he'll get into that a little bit.

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Oh yeah. But yeah, we tackle that issue because a lot of Christians, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what counseling is and what mental health is.

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Some people would tend to over -spiritualize it all. And some people tend to just ignore the spiritual completely.

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And so we ignore neither. We cover all the bases. Yeah. So when did you guys start that?

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Our first episode released in the spring. I think we're up to like 20 or 21 episodes now and we try to release once a week.

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We're taking a little break right now just because of our schedules not lining up. We've both been doing a lot of traveling, but we're about to start season two coming up.

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And season two is starting with a bang. We're going to be blowing up the myth of the alpha male.

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You teased that in one of the episodes and I was like, where is that? It's coming. It's coming. Yeah. We're going to take on this alpha beta paradigm that the manosphere says men have to be an alpha and no one wants to be a beta.

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No one wants to be a beta whatsoever. You can't be a beta. That's the worst thing ever. So we're just going to blow up that paradigm.

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And then we actually are interviewing some other men and we're calling this gentle, dangerous men.

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Men who model what it means to live for Christ, but are quite dangerous in themselves.

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And so it's a series of interviews that we're doing on that topic. Or is it just random guys off the street you're pulling in or like specific?

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Yeah. Yeah. We see it. Hey, you want to be on a podcast? It's like Dumb and Dumber. You've seen

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Dumb and Dumber when they're driving down the road. It's like, hey, there's some people, pick them up. I can't wait to hear that. That's going to be a great episode.

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Yeah. The first two are military veterans. One is an associate dean here at Liberty University where I work.

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And then another is a personal friend of ours who's a former Marine and involved in politics.

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And both those guys are like really kind, gentle people. You wouldn't guess that there are deadly killers from the outside.

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And then another one that I was supposed to talk to him yesterday, but we had to cancel or postpone it.

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So I'll get to him later. But he's the founder of a orphan ministry in a country that I won't name because it's a closed country, but he has endured lots of persecution and even threats and assassination attempts on his life.

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But his work is adopting hundreds or tens of thousands of orphans off the street and training a lot of them, those who want to be trained in the

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Bible, and then commissioning them as pastors to go out and plant churches as well. So that's been his lifelong ministry.

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So he's a gentle, he's a giant, but he is quite dangerous in his own respect. Yeah. They all sound pretty alpha to me.

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Yeah. But they don't beat their chest. The manosphere says the alpha has to be like a

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Chad King. If you know those, if you're familiar with those terms. Yeah. That's exciting.

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I can't wait to hear it when it comes out. When does season two start? You know, I'm going to punt and defer to Sam on that because Sam is running the technicals.

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I think I should know this. I should be ready for these questions, but I'm not. I'm such an amateur when it comes to podcasting.

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So it'll be out in a couple of weeks, I think. Okay. You guys are ahead of me. To me, I'm like, it's just a really long season one.

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It's a never ending story. It just keeps going. Yeah. Just keep going. I think we're on episode 25. It's like Grey's Anatomy.

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It's just going and going. Like 15 seasons or something. Exactly. Yeah. But it's episodes.

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It's just so long. This topic is super sensitive. So I just want to come out of the gate right away and talk about it in a sensitive matter that it's probably not safe for younger ears.

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If you do listen to this podcast as a family with children around, we're going to be talking about some pretty graphic Bible verses and just more sensitive topics on the topic of same -sex attraction and homosexuality from the biblical perspective.

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But I think, Tim, you did a really good job in the episode at Psych and Theo when you talked about this, that you're not trying to talk about this in a judgmental or a negative way.

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You're simply just reflecting on the idea of homosexuality and what the Bible says about it. And in no way, shape, or form is this supposed to be a shameful or finger -pointing episode of who is right and who is wrong?

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Yeah. When Sam and I were dealing with that subject, one thing that's really important, and I think everyone needs to put this into practice, but it's something that was ingrained in me going through my studies in apologetics, which is a defense of the

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Christian faith, any sort of philosophy classes. You're trained to steel man the other argument.

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So that way, the opposite of that is a straw man, where you're setting up a weak version of your opponent's argument. And so you can easily knock it down and maybe sell some books, but you can easily get exposed if someone comes along and says,

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Hey, that's not what we actually believe. And you are misrepresenting our argument. So you want to do the opposite of that.

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And you want to steel man another, your opponent's argument. So that way you present them in the strongest, best, and most charitable light possible, and then refute that in a way that's professional, factual, and that doesn't alienate them.

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We can get into some of the issues of like, is it hateful just to disagree with someone?

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That comes up in this topic a lot, but I would say no, we shouldn't be conflating disagreement with hate.

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Those are two different things. But yeah, we can disagree respectfully and be firm in our positions and be informed, but it's important to be calm, cool, and measured when we do.

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Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of scared to talk about this topic, but with somebody who is so experienced and eloquent in the topic, of course we had to have the conversation.

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I'm not going to gerrymander around different scriptures in the Bible just because some are more sensitive than others. I don't think the

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Bible is really here to keep us content. Yeah. Gerrymandering. That's a good word. Thank you.

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Hot topic these days. Okay. So getting into it, I mean, we were talking so much before this episode and I feel like I was just about to get you to talk about the meat of it, but is there a way that you like to preface this topic?

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Because I have tons of questions. I think that I'm going into this with being a part of this world and unsure how to love my friends that, you know, support same -sex attraction, who might be homosexual.

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Obviously I love them. Obviously I want what's best for them, but I also want to abide in the Bible. I want to be set apart.

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So am I wrong? How do I love them? I don't want them to be wrong, but I also want us all to be encouraged, but I also,

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I I'm spiraling, you know, like, how do you go about this? So this is the way

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I frame it to my students. And what I like to do with my students is I like to give them contemporary stories or news, news stories, anything that's happening in their world to say,

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Hey, look, you're going to be dealing with this. And so you need to be ready. You know, our culture is shifting.

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The reason we're doing episodes on LGBT type issues is because our culture is moving in such a way that these are becoming celebratory in our culture.

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You notice that we, we don't typically talk like in podcasts and Christian conferences or whatever.

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We're not dedicating a lot of time to alcoholism or drug addiction. Like, is it wrong to be addicted to drugs?

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Or is it wrong to be an alcoholic? We kind of know those, those are destructive to us.

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Our culture is celebrating this form of sexuality as good. It's calling it good.

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It's calling it brave and courageous and virtuous and things like that. And so because the culture has shifted, we now must address what the culture is saying as Christians, because we're called to be salt and light in the culture.

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So we need to figure out how to do that in a way that is a judicious and prudent. I think there's a lot of, you know, trauma embedded within that community.

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And I think that trauma is a very complicated topic and, you know, it's hard to control yourself when you feel hurt or abused or anything.

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But I think I'm more so curious when it's in the Bible, it feels like homosexuality.

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Like, why does it feel worse than sex before marriage? Like why maybe biblically, we are in church and we're like, don't have sex before marriage.

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But if you're gay, you're like, not even allowed on the front doors. It feels, I'm not saying that's the rule. I'm just saying, we've heard of it.

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We had a friend that happened to, they feel unwelcome. But I would say a lot of people have had sex before marriage and they still go to church.

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They still make friends. They still find a place. So is there a biblical basis for that? Sort of, you know, yes and no.

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There's the way that some Christians talk about this, I think lacks clarity. And so I think maybe we can get into this, into the episode, how all sin is sin.

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All sin alienates us from God, from lying to all the way to murder and everything in between.

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All sin separates us from God. However, the Bible does treat some forms of sin in a different way because of either because of how they start or because of the consequences that follow from them, even the natural consequences.

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So like, here's an example, like let's say a young person who's kind of being dishonest and being kind of an unruly young person, you're supposed to discipline them.

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It's kind of, there's a known, that's a typical thing for teenagers to kind of be that way.

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But something like murder, okay, that's a much more severe thing that the

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Bible speaks of because there's serious moral violations there and serious consequences that follow from that.

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Right. Yeah. So there seems to be in scripture scale where someone can slide and get into worse and of sin to the point where it completely destroys their life.

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I mean, James talks about this, that there's sins that lead to death and destruction and that we need to turn our brothers and sisters away from those things.

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Yeah. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So would you say then with sex before marriage, the sliding is single motherhood and a child, like that's kind of the next step versus with same sex attraction, it could become more perverse is that what you're trying to say here?

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Okay. Yeah. With the difference between something like heterosexual relations before marriage versus something like homosexuality, the

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Bible seems to treat them both pretty harshly in the sense that they're both really severe sins.

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In general, sexual sin throughout the Bible is a pretty serious matter because it's part of like sex is a really, really important part of human nature.

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And it helps like a, it's reserved for the marriage covenant between the man and the woman. And we can kind of get into like, what's the, this is how

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I kind of usually start this subject is before we talk about like, what's wrong. We need to look at what the

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Bible says is right. Or the picture of sexuality that the Bible paints, but. Let's get into it. Yeah.

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Yeah. But yeah, in terms of like, which, which of those sins is worse. I think that the scriptures would say that both of them are, are pretty severe that if we're, if we're wondering which one is worse, we're probably starting out with the wrong question.

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You know, I'm not saying you're starting out with the wrong question, but if Christians are like, well, that one's worse than this one, they're both pretty severe sins.

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You know, that's really interesting. Okay. Yeah. Then what does the Bible say is good then?

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Let's get into that. Yeah. So, so typically on this subject, if we're talking with Christians and there's some

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Christians who they love the Lord, but they are maybe wondering, does the Bible actually prohibit same sex romantic relationships as we see in our culture today?

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Does the Bible actually call that sin? So some Christians are really wondering that they hear what seemed like persuasive arguments to that effect.

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So we need to deal with how does the Bible say that this is actually sin? Okay. What's helpful first is to see what the

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Bible says about sex in general, how the Bible portrays and frames the sexual relationship between human beings and universally throughout the scriptures from beginning to end.

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Sex is portrayed as a loving physical union between a man and a woman in marriage.

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It's a heterosexual union between a man and a woman. I won't get into the polygamy issue because there's, you know, instances of polygamy in the scriptures.

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We don't have to get into that issue, but at the bare minimum, if we're just making a minimum case, the Bible reserves sex for the heterosexual marriage union between the man and woman.

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And marriage, the reasons in marriage is because marriage is a covenant and a commitment that is supposed to model

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God's relationship to humanity. And as we see in the New Testament, Christ's relationship to his church.

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So there's this imagery going on in scripture where as in heaven, so on earth.

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The things in earth are supposed to mirror the things in heaven. And marriage is one of those pictures of the man and the woman mirror

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Christ and his church on earth. But from the beginning, and Jesus says this, from the beginning in Genesis 1 and 2, a man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife, and the two of them become one.

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And that is the picture that we see throughout scripture. So anything sexual relationship outside of that is considered sin.

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It's considered outside of what the Bible would say is good. That includes heterosexual relationships outside of marriage, that includes bestiality, includes homosexuality, that includes lust and pornography.

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It includes OnlyFans. That's a whole other topic that's come up in our culture now. Anything like that, any form of sexuality outside of the marriage union, the

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Bible says is wrong, and we're not supposed to do it. Okay, so it kind of isolates. It's not just about homosexuality.

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It's really just the marriage covenant. And that's where you end and where you begin. And there's not really anything else that you can get to focus on.

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But I was curious, I mean, if we're looking at what's natural, and I think, you know, what's natural is a man and a woman, our reproductive organs are literally made for each other.

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What can we do about, like, instances of, like, homosexuality in, like, animals, you know, where we see it, like, in the natural world that isn't influenced by culture or whatever it might be?

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Is that something where we're like, look, God was actually lying, and I was wrong?

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Or is that something where it's just like, that's a completely different set of rules, and we can't apply that to the human nature?

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Yeah, I would say that's exactly what you just said there. It's a non sequitur, which means it doesn't follow.

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If someone points to the animal kingdom and says, look, animals do this, therefore it's okay for humans.

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That's a non sequitur. It's called, in the ethics world, we call this the naturalistic fallacy, because it's pointing to nature and something is this way, therefore it ought to be.

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It's called the is -ought fallacy or the naturalistic fallacy. So it's saying something is this way, therefore it ought to be this way.

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But we can see what's wrong there, because there's all kinds of things that happen in nature that ought not to be.

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In the animal kingdom, there's predation in nature. Animals prey on one another. They kill one another.

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Animals sexually abuse one another. And we would say, well, we probably shouldn't do that, right?

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So there's all kinds of things that animals do that we would not apply to ourselves. We have, at least at the bare minimum, we have moral inclinations and intuitions that lead us to think these things are wrong.

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Sexual abuse is wrong. Sexual coercion is wrong. Animals don't seem to mind when they do those things.

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They're literally governed. Murder is wrong. Just killing wantonly. Cannibalism, animals eat each other.

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So there's all kinds of things that happen in nature that we do not apply to ourselves. Now, someone might say, well, it's just evolutionary biology and evolutionary ethics.

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We don't have to get into refuting evolutionary psychology, I should say, and morality.

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But that's something that in the ethics world we deal with, in the Christian apologetics world, is where does morality come from?

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But at the bare minimum, if someone is making a case saying, look at nature, there's same -sex relationships in nature.

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Therefore, we're natural beings too. Why can't we have it this way? Well, that's a non sequitur.

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That's not a valid argument on its face. Okay. Thanks for addressing that. Getting back to the

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Bible, you mentioned that the biblical depiction of a marriage is two people that are loving.

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And I would argue that a lot of people today who are in same -sex relationships love each other.

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They're happy. They're gentle with one another. Is there a difference between how same -sex relationships and marriages, how they are depicted today, and what people are defending passionately because they love their husband or wife?

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Is that the same case as it was biblically? Was it just written at a different time and it was a different culture?

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I don't know. Is it apples to apples is what I'm saying. That's the key objection that you're bringing up. This is the number one way that, let's just say a pro -LGBT position, or maybe

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I'll say that a gay Christian position would be, because there are organizations that claim to be

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Christian and pro -LGBT or gay. Gay Christians will make these kinds of arguments. But that's the number one objection.

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If I were to argue and say the Bible says this kind of sexual relationship is wrong, they would say, well, it's apples and oranges.

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You're comparing the Bible's talking about some sort of sexual relationship that's not equivalent to what we see in our culture today.

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So what I have to do now, again, to steel man the argument is to address that specific argument head on.

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And we need to look at the background literature in the Bible to really figure out, is the same -sex relationships that the

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Bible is addressing, are they really that different than what the culture is celebrating today?

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And I would say, no, they're not actually that different. There are different forms of the Bible addresses, but what's included in that are the romantic relationships between same -sex couples, even today.

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Let's get into it. I mean, I feel like in Genesis, we kind of see it right off the bat, as far as like, as early as Sodom and Gomorrah and with the angels that tried, you know, having lots of children and that, or his guests, sorry, the angels that visited him.

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But even, and I was listening to your episode with Theo and Syke, and you guys talk about the Nephilim.

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So I'm really, I'm really eager to jump into the scripture here, starting chronologically in Genesis.

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So what scripture do you see that kind of supports that biblically the context of same -sex relationships is very different from what we see today and how there's,

20:07

I guess, harm in it? Yeah. Well, podcast rule number one, if you mention Nephilim, you're going to get a 20 % bump in your viewership.

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The SEO goes off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, just put it in the description title, like Nephilim?

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And yeah, you'll get. All right. So yeah, chronologically,

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I want to open up by saying I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I'm a philosopher and an ethicist by training.

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But as my teachers taught me, ethicists, we have to be versant in a lot of different subjects.

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And we have to sometimes rely on guys who are deeper authorities on those subjects than we are. But we have to be really versant in a lot of different things.

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So I'll say that by saying if there's a Hebrew scholar or a Greek scholar who's listening, they're going to know a little bit more about Greek syntax or Hebrew root words than I would.

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But I might know more about this topic than they do. So okay. So we'll just leave it at that. So as we walk through Genesis, I think it's important for our readers or listeners to remember that Genesis, as a conservative evangelical,

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I take the view that Genesis was written by a single author, maybe with later editors kind of tidying things up.

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But I take the view that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. That's not a controversial view.

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Conservative evangelical scholars hold that view, and it can be defended. With that in mind, then it does help to understand the connection between the stories in Genesis, the law in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy, and then how that later connects to the other stories in the

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Bible that talk about these kinds of sexual issues. So right away, chronologically, Genesis 1 and 2 opens up.

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Man and woman are created. That's the first marriage union. That's the famous passage where it says, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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And they become the parents of living human beings.

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We see the first instance of a violation of that sexual boundary in Genesis.

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Now, I take the supernatural view of Genesis 6, so here's the Nephilim subject. What do you mean by supernatural, like not literal?

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So there's a natural view of Genesis 6, which is sometimes called the Sethite view, that the sons of God in Genesis 6 refer to the line of Seth and the daughters of men refer to the line of Cain.

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And so the sin there was an ungodly mixing of righteous people and unrighteous people, sort of like being unequally yoked together.

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I don't think that makes much sense, given the context. There's a scholar by the name of Michael Heiser.

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He's passed away now, but he's credited with really putting forward a really good defense of the supernatural view, which is that the sons of God in Genesis 6, 1 through 4 are angelic beings that break, they cross over and they transgress a boundary and engage in some sort of sexual relationship with human women.

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And from that come the Nephilim in some way. Now, there's some views of like, were they already fallen angels that possessed human men and then they copulated with women and that's how it happened?

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Or did these angels take on corporeal form, like actual body form and do this?

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There's some theories about that, but that's the first instance of the violation of the sexual boundary.

23:41

Before that, you see some instances like, I think it's, who is it, Lamech? One of the sons of Cain takes two wives.

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So you see, that's the first instance of polygamy that occurs. So Genesis 6 is the first kind of real serious sexual violation, and that's a prelude to the flood.

23:57

After the flood - I'm sorry, when you're talking about like the first sexual violation, maybe like, was there not homosexuality or just saying just like the open -

24:07

What's recorded, yeah. Before that, there's no mention of like a serious transgression, sexual transgression.

24:15

Oh, just the sexual transgression. It's just sex openly. Well, I wouldn't say that.

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It's just, it's not, Genesis 1 through 5 isn't addressing the sexual issues yet.

24:26

I see. Okay. So Genesis, I see. So it's just saying this is the first time that inappropriate unions between beings, because it's from angels that crossed over versus the same species.

24:39

Yeah, yeah. At least that's the first, it's the first mention, like the first problem, okay, in the story, let's say.

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That makes it way less like clickbaity, in my opinion. I feel like whenever I like see about the

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Nephilim online, it's like giants that are like ravaging women. And it's like, that's not at all what you just said.

24:59

Well, actually, that follows. The Nephilim are the - I should have kept going. So the Nephilim in the supernatural view, the

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Nephilim are the offspring of this union. And they are, the scriptures call them, they were the mighty men of renown.

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And so these were these mythical or ancient guys who were basically destroying the earth.

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But the scriptures don't, don't, what's the word I'm looking for? They don't exonerate human beings from this. Like, this rebellion that takes place is a rebellion of both human and angelic rebellion.

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So because God says in Genesis 6, 5, all human flesh is corrupted in this.

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But Noah, Genesis 6, 8, but Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. So it was a pretty bad situation.

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And so any, anytime you see like an angelic rebellion in scripture, there's always a human side to it as well.

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So humans are not exonerated from, we can't just blame everything on the devil, basically. Like we're guilty too of these things.

25:56

So anyway, I digress. But it's important to kind of keep this in mind, keep that story in mind, because later on after the flood,

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Ham, he does something very bad to his father, Noah. The passage says he uncovers

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Noah's nakedness. And that could, go ahead. That verse always confused me.

26:15

I was like, what's the big deal? Aren't they like related? What's wrong with like seeing your brother or dad undressed?

26:20

Yeah. So that's a, that's, it's a Hebrew euphemism. The uncover, uncovering one's nakedness is a, is a euphemism.

26:27

Now there's two prominent theories to that passage. One theory is that Ham, he basically has incestuous relationships with his mother.

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And that, and that's where Cain, his son Cain, Cainan comes from. And that's why

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Noah curses Cainan. Or the other one, the other prominent theory is that Ham actually, because Noah's passed out drunk and Ham actually has, he basically sexually abuses his own father.

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And you might be wondering, why would, why would someone do that? Well, this is something that in the ancient near East cultures to do something like that would be basically to exert dominance and to say,

27:05

I'm now the one in charge. Yeah. It, you know, the scriptures don't shy away from these things. They, they, they speak in euphemisms, but they're painting a picture.

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That's, this is how bad things get, you know, at times, like we know the story of Lot and his daughters after the, after Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, that these things can happen.

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The scriptures don't ignore them. So Ham does something really wrong. And so there's, there's the,

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I think the stronger theory is that Ham actually sexually abuses Noah because. Versus like just seeing him naked.

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Like, it sounds like that's the only solution if that's a Hebrew euphemism. Well, it's, it's either one, it's either he sexually abuses his father or he has some sort of relationships with his, with his own mother.

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It's basically takes Noah's wife. So he's, he's, he's exerting some sort of dominance over, over Noah.

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Because again, Noah has three sons and Ham wants to be in charge. So that's what part of Ham's curse and the curse of Canaan is that he will serve the other brothers.

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So he's going to be the lowest. Yeah. I mean, if there's only like five people left on it, I can imagine the stakes are pretty high.

28:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the stronger theory is that he actually does abuse Noah because the other two sons are mortified by what's happened and they, they cover over, you know, his, their father, they put a blanket over him and cover him up and kind of take care of him until he wakes up and realizes what happened.

28:27

But yeah, it's a pretty dark story. So fast forwarding, once we get the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that's the really famous proof text that people will point to for homosexuality.

28:38

So we've come full circle now. Okay. Yeah. And we're like, what are we 35 minutes in? We're already just getting started.

28:43

I'm sorry. I'm a teacher and I'm long winded. So when you get to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the story goes that three, three angels or divine beings come and visit

28:54

Abraham. One of them is Yahweh in bodily form. The other two are angels in bodily form. Yahweh sends those two angels on ahead to go to Sodom and Gomorrah and he's going to judge the city.

29:05

Once they get to the city, they are going to sleep in the middle of the city and they know Lot is there, Abraham's nephew.

29:12

Lot sees them and he recognizes them as they're coming into the city. He knows that they're sleeping.

29:18

And so he says, you can't stay in the middle of the city. This is too dangerous. Come stay with me in my house. And the story goes that the men of Sodom, they come to Lot's house and they say,

29:27

Hey, who are these two guys with you? Who are these two men? So that is kind of a clue that these angels are appearing like men, like they see them as men.

29:35

That's like, bring them out here so we can know them. And that's another euphemism for know them sexually.

29:41

And this seems to be a pretty clear indication of, of, uh, sexual dominance. They were basically going to, going to rape these, these two angels, whether they knew they were angels or not.

29:51

I don't know. But, but again, this is, there's a, there seems to be some sort of illusion here to Genesis six in some way, but Lot's like, don't do this detestable thing.

30:00

I just have a quick question. Like was, I'm just trying to understand the context of it here.

30:07

Was same sex always, um, a very aggressive, like power dominance type of relationship or was like, for me,

30:15

Sodom and Gomorrah was the type of city where it was like very open and like, kind of like today, like celebratory enjoying pleasurable hedonistic.

30:22

Is that the vibe of Sodom and Gomorrah? Or was it like, I only had a same sex relation in the instance of putting dominance on another?

30:30

So this is where, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to summarize, but I will defer to my Hebrew scholar brothers on, on this one.

30:37

They're ancient near East scholars, but essentially it wasn't like, like the relationships we would think of today, because it was a shameful thing for a man to take on the quote unquote feminine role.

30:49

And if you, if you know what I mean, uh, it was, uh, it was accepted in that society.

30:55

It was like, it was very detestable and gross. Uh, interesting. They had, they had terms for people like that.

31:02

Now there were even in like Syrian culture, there were people that performed that role in these sort of relationships, but it was not seen as something honorable or basically you didn't want to, you didn't want to be that thing.

31:17

Yeah. It was something that they like served us, but it wasn't like an openly proud position in the relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And in the

31:24

Hebrew and the Hebrew world, I guess this is true in the ancient near East as well, to treat a man as though he is a woman was a, was a bad thing.

31:34

Yeah. The scriptures paint this as, so in the story of, of lot and these two angels lot offers up his daughters, look at that through 21st century eyes were like, how could you do that?

31:45

Yeah. But in the count, in the moral calculus of lot in the ancient near East, all like sexual violence is all sexual violence was wrong to the people of God.

31:54

Like the scriptures don't paint sexual violence in any way as good, but in lots moral calculus, it was worse for them to treat men as women.

32:04

Like that's to commit sexual violence in that way to a, to a man to basically, um, I'm sorry for the graphic language, but to penetrate for one man to penetrate, sexually penetrate another man to treat him as though he were a woman was the, the scriptures call that detestable thing.

32:20

So lot was essentially saying, look, treat, here's, here's two women. Like, if you're going to do this, here's two women.

32:28

I see. Yeah. That's the calculus. It's the lesser of two evils. Yeah. Essentially the lesser of two evils is what lot is trying to get them to, to see, but they, they say no, like give us these two guys.

32:39

And then it turns into this whole struggle and then angels wasn't like a less type of thing. It was a power struggle type of thing.

32:46

It seemed to be common in Sodom and Gomorrah to do this to strangers that would come into the town.

32:52

So what I want to caution my conservative evangelical brothers and sisters against is just pointing to the

32:58

Sodom and Gomorrah as though that's proof that homosexuality is seen as sin in the scriptures.

33:05

It certainly is. It's certainly, uh, suggesting that, but it's, we need more to our argument than just that, if you know what

33:12

I mean, because the pro LGBT side will point to that story and say, well, that's sexual violence.

33:18

Okay. That's not the same thing as a loving relationship and they are right in a sense. So we, we need to kind of, um, add, add some things to our argument, not just the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

33:30

Um, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That was like the conclusion I was drawing. So thanks for pointing that out.

33:36

Yeah. Now Jude. Now, if we fast forward into the new Testament, the epistle of Jude does mention, it links

33:44

Sodom and Gomorrah, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah as sexual sin, uh, akin to the, the sin of the angels in Genesis six, and then it links it also.

33:57

So I can just, uh, well, I don't have this, the passage pulled up in front of me, but basically Jude is addressing false teachers in the church.

34:03

And he says, Hey, these false teachers, just as Sodom and Gomorrah, just as they were engaged in sexual perversion, they did unnatural things that did really detestable things.

34:12

And just as the angels who are now locked up in chains of darkness, they, they left their proper dwelling.

34:18

They, they transgressed and did detestable sexual perverted things. So these false teachers are doing the same thing.

34:24

They defile their flesh. That's what he's saying. So he's, he's linking like sexual immorality is a common.

34:31

Right. It's not just a same sex issue. It's defiling of the flesh and working outside and sexuality in those harmful ways.

34:40

Yeah. Yeah. But, but Jude is saying that what's what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah was a, was a severe kind of sexual perversion.

34:48

So there is something to this besides just, you know, loving, loving, uh, relationships.

34:54

Yeah. I mean, it sounds like violence just all around. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we've hit any instance in the

34:59

Bible so far of two people loving each other like this, like in the way that we do in today's context.

35:04

Yeah. I'd say, well, the Bible doesn't actually provide an example like that because it doesn't, it doesn't think that that's okay. You won't find a positive portrayal of same sex attraction or, or relationships in the

35:15

Bible because that's the Bible's not going to say that's okay. Again, how does the Bible portray sexual relationships in a good way in the monogamous or I shouldn't say monogamous in a heterosexual marriage union?

35:28

Why not monogamous? Just because it's, well, because there are instances of like the patriarchs having multiple wives,

35:34

David, Solomon having multiple wives. It doesn't ever like say, Hey, polygamy is great. But it does, it does recognize that that was a practice, you know, back then.

35:42

Got it. Yeah. Now in the new Testament, it says, Hey, elders of a church, husband of one wife, deacons, husband of one wife.

35:48

So it's pushing, it's pushing the people of God back to the Genesis one and two ideal.

35:54

Got it. Got it. Yeah. But yeah, you won't find same sex couples in any sense portrayed well in the scriptures.

36:02

Yeah. The scriptures are always linking it to really severe sexual perversion, sometimes idolatry.

36:08

Like there's a link between same sex relations and idolatry. A lot of times our cult practices, but yeah.

36:14

So sometimes people will say, well, Solomon and Gomorrah were judged for their inhospitality, not sexual relationships.

36:21

And they get that from two passages. Let me scroll down on my notes here so I don't get them wrong.

36:27

And our listeners can, Ezekiel 16, 49 to 50, and then Isaiah 1, 7 through 17.

36:34

These two passages refer to the sins of Solomon and Gomorrah. And it mentions they were inhospitable, they were overfed and they were unconcerned for the poor.

36:44

They didn't help the poor and the needy. They were proud. And then it says, and then they did detestable things.

36:50

So it kind of throws it in there. Yeah. It's all together. And if you read them closely, it's showing a progression.

36:56

They started out arrogant and haughty, decadent, didn't care to do the real kind of justice that the

37:04

Bible tells us to do. And then they move into sexual perversion. So there's this progression downward.

37:11

There's a degression down into immorality. I'm just trying to speak for both sides.

37:17

And again, like Steelman, the argument, do you feel like maybe somebody listening in a same sex relationship who is Christian is thinking like, listen,

37:23

I'm sure there were some good cases of loving people. I doubt every, you know, I'm sure not every same sex relationship was, you know, one of sexual violence and abuse.

37:33

I'm sure there's some men and women out there that truly loved each other. Do you still think the contextual, like the dominance factor of like, to be in that feminine role overrules that possibility?

37:44

One of the reasons I wanted to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah in that context is to set up the understanding that I'm aware, like where I'm of the counterarguments, but Sodom and Gomorrah is not all the scripture has to say about it, about the subject, you know?

37:57

So I was worried it was the only thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's just the proof texts that people run to a lot of times.

38:04

As I'm doing right now. So educate me, please. So let's get into some of these other things so we can build our case.

38:11

The mosaic law talks about same sex relations, not just sexual violence. It talks about the act of same sex relationships, man lying with man, and it calls this an abomination.

38:26

This is in the Leviticus 18 to 22, and then chapter 20, verse 13.

38:32

The reason, now some people will say, well, in the law, you know, there's all kinds of things that are prohibited that we don't prohibit today, like mixing different kinds of fabric or eating different kinds of food.

38:42

The problem with that kind of argument is that there are some, some things are clearly ritualistic, like for the religious rituals that the

38:51

Jews were, or the Hebrews were doing. Others were related to their, like cleansing and cleanliness laws.

38:57

But there are some, and this, these, the instances where it's talking about sexual morality that are related to universal nature, natural order.

39:05

And the passages that address same sex activity, same sex relations are in the context where it also addresses bestiality and other such things.

39:15

And the reason it's, it's addressing these things is because these were practices of the, of the

39:20

Canaanite cultures around the Hebrews when they were going into the land of Canaan. The Canaanite cultures were practicing these things.

39:27

And so, the, the Hebrews were supposed to be completely distinct from that. The Israelites were supposed to be, we are the people of God, we don't do these things.

39:37

So, these things were considered abominations or they're violations of the natural order that God put in creation for man and woman to be together.

39:45

As I sometimes, Satan, our enemy, if he can destroy the sexual order of human beings, he can destroy us completely.

39:54

It's, I mean, that is, it's that fundamental to our nature, how we relate to one another. Yeah. So, the

40:00

Mosaic law deals with this subject and that's, those are clear, two clear prohibitions in the Old Testament law.

40:06

Now, we're not to the New Testament yet, but it's, it's there in the Old Testament. So, the Israelites did not practice this at all.

40:11

Now, when they, when they eventually engage in idolatry, when Israel falls into idolatry at different points in their history, they do have cultic prostitution.

40:20

And including in that is cultic homosexual prostitution. Yeah. There's, there's a word, it's called the Kedessim. Kedess is the

40:27

Hebrew word. And it refers to these like homosexual cultic prostitutes. And those were oftentimes at play in Israelite culture.

40:37

And some of the righteous kings get rid of these cults. So, they, they exterminate them, you know, destroy their altars and things like that.

40:45

So, this, all this behavior is linked to Canaanite religion and idolatry and abomination. So, God's saying, all this is sin.

40:52

It's sin. I have a quick question on the Leviticus quote, just because again, like I'm coming from this with just like non -educated or informed from like a scholar's standpoint, just what

41:04

I've heard and you know, the internet, but I've heard, TikTok told me, I'm just kidding.

41:09

The Leviticus quote was a loose translation that wasn't translated into like the fifties by a

41:16

German who wanted to take the original translation that was originally referring to pedophilia.

41:22

And then he changed it to homosexuality. And at the end of the day, that quote in Leviticus is actually referring to, you know, men should never lie with another boy.

41:31

That was the original Hebrew translation. So, they're actually not saying homosexuality. They're actually referring to pedophilia, which is absolutely wrong.

41:39

Do you have more data on that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It sounds like that person,

41:44

I don't know who that person was. It sounds like they're actually mixing two things because that's typically the argument that people will use when countering

41:52

Paul's references to homosexuality in the New Testament. They might be talking about the Greek Septuagint because that's the

41:58

Greek translation of the Old Testament. I don't know what German scholar they're referring to in the fifties or 1800s that might've been dealing with this.

42:06

But yeah, so we can kind of, I'll speed up so we can get to the New Testament. And as I mentioned, the Kedosim and the cult practices.

42:13

There's one other really, really important story in the Old Testament. That's Judges 19, where a Levite priest, he goes to the town of Gibeah, which is in the tribe of Benjamin.

42:22

And it's a similar story. It's a parallel to Sodom and Gomorrah. And it shows how much Israel had fallen into sexual immorality.

42:30

That's the point of this story is to show how dark things were before the kings of Israel came about. Is that the

42:35

Levitical priest, he's there and he's with his concubine and they're about to stay in the middle of the city in the town square.

42:43

And someone, this man says, don't stay there. You come stay with me. It's not safe. You see the parallel with Lot?

42:50

And then the men of Gibeah come to this guy's house and say, we see you have a Levite priest with you.

42:55

Send him out here so we can know him. And how many years later is this? Oh, this is hundreds, hundreds of years, several hundred years later.

43:03

And maybe I'm fuzzy on my Old Testament timeline, but it's a long, long time. Well, then the owner of this house, what is, or so the

43:11

Levite, what does he do? Well, the owner of the house and the Levite offer up the concubine because they say, don't do this detestable thing by treating the

43:18

Levite priest as you would a woman. So again, there's that moral calculus. It's the lesser of two evils.

43:25

It's not calling. It's tough in the 21st century for us to read those stories and see like how the woman was treated because they eventually kill her.

43:32

I mean, they, she's left for dead. It's a really dark story, but she's left for dead. She, she kind of crawls her way back to the house where she dies on the, on the, basically the front steps of this house and the

43:43

Levite priest finds her in the morning. Yeah, well, it gets really dark, but eventually it leads to almost to the near extermination of the tribe of Benjamin because all the other

43:55

Israelite tribes are basically like, all right, we're going to wipe this out because this is evil. So what's, what it's showing is that even the

44:02

Israelites had stooped to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah at that point, at least the tribe of Benjamin had in the middle of Gibeah.

44:08

Yeah. So, but what, but what's important for this is this is after the, they have the law, they have the

44:14

Mosaic law. And so these detestable things, what the scripture calls detestable, it's linking it now back to the law as well.

44:22

So it wasn't just human nature, what was accepted now, this is an established law that they have to abide by. Yeah. Yeah.

44:30

Okay. So a lot of darkness in the old Testament, it's heavy stuff, heavy stuff. Sometimes people will point to the stories of Jonathan and David in the old

44:38

Testament to say, well, look, David says in first Samuel or second Samuel one, that his love,

44:44

Jonathan's love for him surpassed that of a woman. That's David is singing this lament when Jonathan is dead.

44:50

And he sings this lament over Jonathan. He says, your love for me surpassed that of a woman. And some people will look at that and say, well, that's clearly gay.

44:57

It's one of these texts where they have to stretch it to mean something that it doesn't mean.

45:03

Basically, David is saying, Jonathan risks his life for David. He gives up his royal, his claim to the throne for David.

45:10

He gives him his armor, his royal robe. Jonathan basically gives his whole life to David. And that's the kind of love that David is talking about in this passage is that.

45:20

But wouldn't that allude to like a much deeper than friendship love if you're giving your very good friend, your robe and your title to the crown?

45:28

Yeah. So Jonathan is, is juxtaposed to his dad, Saul. So Saul is rejecting

45:33

David's anointing, anointing as king. Jonathan recognizes God's anointing on David as king.

45:40

And so Jonathan is righteous and he's, and he's good friends with David. And so he's giving all these things to David and saying, like,

45:47

I love you. I love you like as my friend. And you have these things. It's, it's a, it would be what we would call an anachronism.

45:55

Anachronism is a fallacy where we read our cultural connotations back into the text.

46:02

And a lot of people will do that with this story. They'll say, oh, well, like, wow, a love that surpasses that of a woman must be gay.

46:09

That's not what, that's not what that text is doing. That's Hebrew poetry, especially laments and Psalms often use hyperbole in a way.

46:19

What David is saying is like, even, even the most rapturous love that he could experience with a woman, Jonathan's devotion to him, his giving up his life, his royal crown, everything that kind of love surpasses that.

46:31

I see. Yeah. So there's no, there's no clear connection there with like sexual, there's no sexual connotation there.

46:38

People really have to stretch the text to mean that. I see. And without that, it's pretty far to assume that there was when it doesn't allude to it whatsoever.

46:46

Yeah. Especially when all the evidence points to David being a quite, quite heterosexual guy throughout his life.

46:53

Yes. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Again, again, anachronism people say, well, he was maybe in the closet or something.

46:59

It's like, that's just an anachronism. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So let's jump to the new

47:05

Testament. All right. By the time we get to the new Testament, there's a few important things we need. So sometimes people will say that, well, okay, there's passages, clearly there's passages in the new

47:14

Testament that are really famous for this topic, but Jesus doesn't say anything. Paul's the one that talks about this subject.

47:21

Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Let's deal with that in two ways.

47:27

First, that's a fallacious argument from silence because there's a lot of things that Jesus didn't say.

47:34

Okay. As one of my professors said, Jesus never said punching babies in the face was wrong.

47:39

Okay. But we know that that's wrong. Okay. So someone's gonna be like, wow, you're so, you're so insensitive.

47:46

But there's a lot of things that Jesus doesn't address. Okay. That doesn't mean that we can't address them.

47:53

That's number one. Number two, Jesus does address this indirectly. When he's teaching on the subject of divorce, because the

48:01

Jews come to him and they're like, hey, who's, which rabbi's right? Can we get divorced for any reason? Or can we get only for adultery?

48:07

And Jesus is answering them. He says, Moses gave you this letter. He allowed you to have letters of divorce because of the hardness of your heart.

48:15

Because if you didn't, you'd probably kill your wife. He's really, I mean, Jesus is kind of spicy with the Pharisees.

48:21

He's so spicy. Yeah. But he says, from the beginning, this was not so, meaning divorce.

48:28

From the beginning, this was not so. And then he quotes Genesis one, or Genesis two, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife.

48:40

And the two shall become one flesh. So Jesus is going all the way back to the created order saying from the beginning, this was the model of marriage.

48:50

Yeah. He's not saying like two people that love each other can bind and become one flesh.

48:56

He would have, if that was an option, I think he would have included it. Maybe, maybe. Now, again,

49:02

I'm also making an argument from silence because Jesus doesn't address this, but I think my argument from silence is valid.

49:07

The other one is not, you know, like just because Jesus doesn't say something doesn't mean he condones it.

49:13

Whereas I can say he's clearly condoning heterosexual marriage as the thing

49:19

God created. He's clearly pointing to that as God's creation. That's true. Yeah. Okay.

49:24

So that's, that's what we'll say about Jesus. The famous passages in the

49:30

New Testament, or maybe we shall say infamous, Paul in Romans one, the apostle Paul, his letter to the

49:36

Romans, Romans one, 24 to 27, Paul describes, he's dealing with all humanity being condemned and under the wages of sin and therefore like receiving death because of sin.

49:51

And he's, he describes a society or people that reject

49:56

God. They reject belief in God first. And then because of that belief in God, they exchange the truth of God for a lie and they worship the creature rather than the creator.

50:06

So they go from worship of God to idolatry. That's the first step. And then the second step is that God, because they've given themselves over to this absurd belief that the creation should be worshiped rather than the creator,

50:19

God gives them over to their choices and then they become further darkened in their minds. And they, since they've flipped the created order on its head already, they now reverse the created order in sexual relationships.

50:32

And he says men lying with women, sorry, women exchanging the natural, their natural affection for men to be with each other.

50:39

And then of course, men exchanging the natural use of the woman to burn in their passions for one another.

50:45

So Paul is talking about both men and women and men and men together. And that's, so he's kind of catching everyone together.

50:53

Now, some people will get into the pederasty argument here in a minute, but that's a famous, really famous passage where Paul is addressing basically a general society that gives itself over to idolatry first, darkened minds, and then they engage in sexual perversion along the way.

51:12

Yeah. And then two other really important passages, Paul addresses 1

51:17

Corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10, where Paul lists homosexuality among those sins that are not consistent with the

51:25

Christian life. He says people who practice these things, they don't, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Paul says, such were some of you guys, but you're not, now you're washed, you can come out of these things.

51:35

So 1 Corinthians 6 and then 1 Timothy 1, 8 and 10. Paul makes almost an identical argument there that this sin of homosexuality is among a vice list of things that are not consistent with the people of God.

51:50

They shouldn't be practicing those things. Yeah. So where, where do we get this argument that, well, Paul and the

51:55

Bible is just dealing with older men with younger boys, as you mentioned, the pederasty argument.

52:01

Okay. This is where this comes in. They'll argue that the dominant or the prominent form of same -sex relations in the

52:08

Greco -Roman world was pederasty, which is where an older man is quote -unquote mentoring a younger man in life.

52:15

And they have sexual relations along the way and they develop this mutual loving bond for one another.

52:21

So Paul's really just dealing with that, or he's dealing with temple prostitution or sexual violence as well.

52:28

So he's, he's not dealing with unloving or he's not dealing with the loving romantic unions that we see today.

52:34

This is the argument that's, that's being made. The problem with that, let me give you the

52:39

Greek first and we'll address that. And then I'll, there's a cultural argument I'll bring for some evidence we'll bring forward.

52:46

In the passage, 1 Corinthians passage and the 1 Timothy passage, when he's lists homosexuality as one of these sins, he uses a word, it's a, it's a

52:55

Greek compound word. It's from two words, arson and koita.

53:02

Arson means it's A -R -S -E -N, if you're transliterating it, that means like with males, it's like a, to do something with men or with males and koita means intercourse.

53:14

So if you connect that together, it's intercourse with males. Okay. So he's, he is catching, not just older men with younger boys, but basically the whole range.

53:26

If he had wanted to use, if he had wanted to single out pederasty, he could have used a more specific term like pederastes in Greek, or I'm going to, my

53:37

Greek is so rusty here, but paidophthoros is the

53:43

Greek word. Both of those words were more precise to refer to this pederastic relationship.

53:48

He doesn't use those words. He uses a much more general, any same sex relationship of like, you know, men engaged with one another.

53:58

Another word he'll, yeah. Another word he'll use is a malakoi, which just means softer, feminine.

54:07

It's the only place that's used in the Bible, but in Greek literature, it refers to someone who takes that female role in the relationship.

54:16

I see. Yeah. So he's using broad terms to describe an activity that's not limited to just pederasty.

54:25

I see. So even if it was referring to, you know, somebody that takes on a feminine role in like a pedophilia type of relationship, like a child, like a victim in that, it's still not referring to that because if it was, it would have used that specific word for pedophilia.

54:40

Yeah. Paul could have been much more specific in his language. I see. So we've got broad, we've got a broad prohibition in Romans 1, men and men and women and women together.

54:50

Paul says that's an indication of a society that has completely broken down morally. And then in these other passages, 1

54:57

Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1, Paul is using a very broad term as well to refer to same sex relationships.

55:03

Now a cultural backgrounds argument that we could also bring forward is this. Some people will say, well,

55:10

Paul wasn't a, since the pederasty was the dominant form, that's the only thing that Paul would have been aware of in his context.

55:19

He wouldn't have been aware of like the loving unions that we see today. That just wasn't in his category of thinking, but that's actually false because in the

55:27

Greek, you have to go to some Greek literature. And let me, let me refer the audience to a book.

55:33

This is a really good book that they, if you want to learn more about this, it's called the Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert Gagnon.

55:40

I'll just leave that up on the screen for anyone who wants to see that. He's one of the foremost evangelical scholars on this subject.

55:47

You can see how thick this book is. It's a mammoth of a book. And he deals with all these background issues.

55:54

Long story short, you can find in Greek literature, ancient Greek literature, the classical

56:01

Greek, and then the documents swirling in the first century, references to all kinds of same -sex sexual relationships, not just pederasty, but all different kinds of ages, bisexual, homosexual, lesbian, couples.

56:16

You can find references to these things spoken of in a positive manner. This is within the

56:21

Bible. Not within the Bible, but within the wider Greek, Greco -Roman world. Got it.

56:27

Especially in the ancient Greek literature. By the time we get to the first century, pederasty is no longer the dominant form of same -sex sexual relationships,

56:37

I should say. I see. Paul would have been aware of all of these things. Paul's a highly educated person. He would have been aware of all of these other things.

56:45

So if he wanted to limit to just pederasty, he could have been way more specific, but he's not.

56:52

I see. Okay. That makes a lot more sense that when he kind of grouped them women and women and men and men, he was including all those forms, not just pedophilia.

57:00

Yeah. That's good to know as far as a historical and awareness. I mean, who are we to know what they knew at that time?

57:07

Yeah. Well, I mean, we can know a lot about what they knew, but the pro -LGBT arguments typically get some of the background literature wrong, or they just misrepresent it, where they say, well,

57:18

Paul didn't know these things. Actually, he did. Or he's only referring to one specific kind of same -sex sexual relationship.

57:24

It's like, no, he's actually being much broader. If he wanted to refer to that specific kind, he could have been much more narrow in his prohibitions.

57:31

Yeah. I see. Yeah. Well, I mean, we could get into some of the theological things, just some more broad things.

57:38

I mentioned before, oftentimes the Bible links sexual perversion, but especially bestiality and same -sex relationships to idolatry.

57:48

It oftentimes links these. Not always, but there's a link there. What are we idolizing in bestiality? Well, the creature, the creation.

57:56

Yeah. Okay. It's a form of... Idolatry usually comes first, so people give themselves over to the worship of the creatures and the creation, and then that leads to a darkened mind where they're rejecting

58:10

God's revelation. If they reject God's revelation about who's in charge, then they'll also reject

58:18

God's revelation about what they ought to do in this world and how they ought to relate to one another, even sexually.

58:24

They give themselves over to the passions of their flesh. Interesting.

58:30

Now, the New Testament tells us, as Christians, we have to put the flesh to death. We mortify the flesh in order to live as Christians.

58:42

At this point in the conversation, when I'm talking with students, I deal with the question of, what about Christians who struggle with same -sex attraction?

58:52

How do we make sense of that? If the Bible says that same -sex relations are sinful, just like any sex outside of marriage, how do we deal with this?

59:02

How do we talk to a Christian who's like, look, I'm convinced that Jesus is the Savior of the world. He's the Son of God. He died for my sins, but I have same -sex attraction.

59:11

What do I do? Okay. This is more a pastoral conversation, theological, but how do we make...

59:16

I can make sense of it theologically for this episode. We can recognize, one, that the fall affects every aspect of our being.

59:26

It affects us physically, mentally, spiritually. So sometimes people are born with physical maladies.

59:31

They might be born crippled. They might be born with an autoimmune disease. Sometimes people are born with mental, psychological maladies.

59:38

There are Christians who will struggle their whole life and do struggle their whole life with depression because it's something that's physiological.

59:44

It's not just like something that can be cured easily. Sometimes Christians will deal with psychosis and schizophrenia because of what's happened, like something's gone wrong in the brain and the wiring of the brain.

59:56

I was having a conversation just the other day with a deliverance minister, and he was dealing with a person who was hearing voices, the symptoms of psychosis.

01:00:04

They were hearing voices, they were seeing things, and they were convinced it was demonic. And he deals with deliverance and exorcism a lot.

01:00:11

He said, okay, we'll go through this deliverance, but I can't guarantee that this is demonic.

01:00:21

This may be a flesh issue. They went through the deliverance process, and at the end of it, the person was still hearing voices and things like that.

01:00:31

He's a professional counselor. He's been a counselor for 30 years, so he knows mental health. He's an expert in mental health as well.

01:00:36

And he concluded from that, he said, this seems like this is a problem of the flesh, and you're going to need to stay on your medication and follow the protocols that medical professionals have for you because that will help you.

01:00:51

But this is something in the flesh that you're going to have to deal with. So we need to recognize that, that even people who struggle, who have a predisposition, let's say, to same -sex attraction, it can be a thing of the flesh that they must deal with.

01:01:04

As a Christian, we're called to deal with those things in our flesh. Now, same -sex attraction oftentimes is connected to something in nurture and upbringing.

01:01:14

There could be natural predispositions. There hasn't been any science to prove, like, there's a gene where you're born gay, and you can't do anything about it.

01:01:23

There's nothing that has proven that outright. But there seems to be some genetic predispositions that when put into the right environmental circumstances, like someone experiences abandonment or abuse or something like that, it can trigger same -sex attraction, and someone can develop that.

01:01:39

So we just need to recognize that. And my colleague, Sam, he goes into this in our...

01:01:45

We did some episodes on this topic, and he goes into that somewhat. We just need to recognize that the fall affects these things.

01:01:52

It affects all of our being. And to be tempted with that kind of attraction, just like as a heterosexual man, to be tempted with lust for a woman, the temptation itself is not a sin.

01:02:04

If I give over to that temptation, if I indulge in that temptation, then it becomes sin. But just to be presented with that struggle or with that temptation,

01:02:12

I have a choice to make. I can act upon it, or I can go the other way. And God says there's always another way out.

01:02:19

I see. But that's tough. You've got to admit to have a switch or be born or however it comes about.

01:02:28

I'm not gay, so I wouldn't know. But to say, this is who I love. How are you to tell me to reject that?

01:02:34

That is heartbreaking. Yeah. I would say this. Let me go off on a tangent a little bit with missions, the topic of missions.

01:02:44

Jesus says in the New Testament, you know, to follow me, you must hate your brother.

01:02:51

You must hate your father and your mother and love me. And we read that, we're like, wow, that's harsh.

01:02:57

Why would we? Jesus told us to hate people. I'm not too familiar with that Jesus. Yeah. But the language there is not a visceral hatred of someone.

01:03:06

Like, oh, like I'm so in love with Jesus and I hate my parents. Like, not like that. It's a language of choosing and adoption.

01:03:14

Just like when God says, Jacob, have I loved Esau, have I hated? God's not saying, man, I hate that Esau guy.

01:03:20

He really just grinds my gears. He's saying, no, I've chosen

01:03:25

Jacob to be the father of Israel. I've not chosen Esau. And Jesus is saying, in order to love me, to follow me, to bear your cross, you may have to decide between me and your family.

01:03:37

Okay. In the missions, in some cultures, I'll get back around to your question. But sometimes when we, in other cultures where family is paramount and you're trying to evangelize people, they will say, well,

01:03:50

I love my family. I could never, like we're Hindus or we're Muslims. I could never abandon my family like this.

01:03:58

And Christ calls us to follow him first and pray for our family members.

01:04:04

But if we're presented with the gospel, we're called to follow him first. And in that sense, we choose him over family.

01:04:11

Okay. So in the same sense with someone who's dealing with same -sex attraction, and they have maybe a romantic partner, or maybe they have someone they care deeply about,

01:04:20

Christ is calling you to follow him first. And then from that, you choose to love

01:04:27

Christ and what he has for your life first. And you mortify the flesh.

01:04:33

And I know that's tough. That's so tough. That is tough. I mean, there are people who,

01:04:38

Jesus says, some people are called to be eunuchs for the kingdom, and some have been made eunuchs for the kingdom.

01:04:43

Now, he might be talking about physical eunuchs, or some, just because of circumstances in their life, they've been made eunuchs.

01:04:50

And the Old Testament was likely a eunuch, because he went into Babylonian captivity, and typically they would make those guys eunuchs.

01:04:58

There's no record of Daniel being married. So it's likely. Now, a Hebrew scholar might come along and say,

01:05:04

Tim, you're wrong. There's some good evidence that Daniel was like, I mean, yeah. God says to, it's a passage in Isaiah, I'm drawing a blank on where it is, but just to encourage people,

01:05:15

God is talking, he's talking directly to eunuchs in this passage. And he says to the eunuchs,

01:05:22

I will give them a name greater than children in the kingdom. I can't remember the passage right now, but he's promising to the eunuchs who follow me,

01:05:31

I will give them a name greater than children, because children were the greatest thing you could have in the ancient world.

01:05:36

I mean, you needed children, but eunuchs had no hope of that. And sometimes people with same -sex attraction, and they're not attracted to someone of the opposite sex, they kind of feel hopeless, like,

01:05:46

I'll never find that romantic love in this life if I'm a Christian and I follow what I think the

01:05:51

Bible is saying. I'm kind of like facing a choice of following Christ and resigning myself to not having that romantic partner in life, or having my romantic partner and not following Christ.

01:06:04

And God is promising to those people who follow him, I will give you a name greater than that.

01:06:11

I will give you a name greater than children. You know, that is pretty, I would say that even to the transgender people too, who have even mutilated themselves, you know, and gone through those kinds of surgeries and things like that, that promises to them too.

01:06:25

If you follow Christ, he will give you a name greater than what the world can give you. I mean, that's a good place to end, is with encouragement.

01:06:33

And I think you've brought up a pretty solid defense, Tim, as far as what people may say against homosexuality and what clearly the

01:06:40

Bible says, and that this call to follow Christ will be rewarded. I think that's the main takeaway of this conversation, that God loves you and he wants what's best for you.

01:06:48

And all of us are victims of the fall, but we need to succeed that and still follow him above all else.

01:06:56

Now, I think that this is a pretty awakening as far as like, is it right? Is it wrong? You've made a very clear argument that like the

01:07:02

Bible does not agree with this. And these are all the facts. There's really, it's very foolproof and bulletproof, but as like a

01:07:08

Christian woman with some friends that are homosexual, I don't want to hate them. I don't want them to feel bad.

01:07:13

I don't want them to feel like they're doing anything wrong because they sin, I sin, you know, how, who am I? How, what is the best route forward here?

01:07:21

How do we love them? And I hope you don't give me the, well, we pray for them, but like what else?

01:07:28

How do we love them and encourage them? So there's no foolproof answer here.

01:07:37

There's no easy answer. Some people, if I'm talking to Christians, okay, who are dealing with friends or family members who are involved in homosexual or LGBT lifestyles,

01:07:49

I'll just say this, that sometimes people might reject you. You could, you could be as loving and clear as you can be.

01:07:58

And you still might get rejected. They still might say, you hate me. You won't accept me. Again, there's a conflation there between disagreement and hate.

01:08:06

Hate is a moral category of, I'm casting a moral judgment on you as a person and condemning you. And I'm not going to associate with you at all versus I'm disagreeing with your argument or I'm disagreeing with this lifestyle because I think it's not just wrong, but it's harming you.

01:08:19

It's destructive. You know, God wants something different for you. Some people are just going to reject you. So I, as a

01:08:24

Christian, just to encourage you that trust the Lord with the truth. You know,

01:08:30

I have, I think it was Jordan Peterson has said this, like when you, when you speak the truth, it's the greatest adventure that you'll go on because you don't know what's going to happen.

01:08:38

Okay. But you have to speak the truth in love. Okay. And I know that's cliche. Christians say it all the time, speak the truth in love.

01:08:46

We need to practice empathy. And that means sitting down with someone,

01:08:52

Hey, look, and saying, Hey, I can't put myself in your shoes of knowing what it's like to experience same -sex attraction in the way that you do.

01:09:01

And so I won't pretend that your, your road is easy to walk. And so don't presume and just don't give easy, like pat answers.

01:09:08

I think it might take many, many conversations of talking with someone and saying, Hey, this is what the

01:09:14

Bible says. God wants something better for you. This lifestyle is ultimately going to lead to destruction.

01:09:20

It might be good now, but statistically this bears out too, but God wants something better for you.

01:09:28

And he's promising something better for you. If you follow him and trust him, but that means sacrifice as well.

01:09:35

You know, we all have to sacrifice things. I was about to say, it's not just anybody who's in same -sex attraction.

01:09:40

That's like, well, am I screwed then because of the situation? I think this goes for all of us. I struggle with my own sins and I have to choose

01:09:48

God through those. Oh, okay. So let me give you, let me give you an encouraging story. Please. So I've had friends, so discouraging.

01:09:55

I have had friends, even at Liberty, former Liberty students, doormates of mine who they, they seemed like they were like a normal heterosexual guys.

01:10:06

They got married even, and some of them had children. And then all of a sudden they left their wives in for another man, and then they kind of destroyed their marriage and all that stuff.

01:10:15

And that's been really hard because some of them have attacked me as well, personally, you know, they've just become very anti -Christian in a way.

01:10:22

I have had some, a few personal examples of that, but one, one story in particular, that's encouraging.

01:10:28

I was at a birthday party many years ago and I heard these two guys who were atheists, former Christians, really like, kind of like rabid atheists, like really angry, love to argue with people.

01:10:38

And they were picking on this one guy who was a Christian. And he wasn't like trained philosophically or anything like that.

01:10:44

So I kind of felt bad for him because he was kind of getting, he was getting bested by these two atheists. So I decided to like,

01:10:49

I'll just like join this conversation. And, and one, since it was a mistake because it turned into like a three hour,

01:10:55

I was stuck for like three hours with these guys. So we went round and around for three hours about all kinds of stuff, not, not homosexuality, but like creation, the existence of God, the resurrection, all that stuff.

01:11:06

And at the end of the three hours, I'm like, wow, I just spent the whole, this whole birthday party, like talking to these guys and now it's time to leave.

01:11:13

And as I was about to leave this one guy, he said, Hey, it was good to meet you. You know, he was the brother of one of these two atheists.

01:11:20

And he, he had just been sitting there the whole time, listening. I didn't know who he was, never met him at all, but he had listened the whole time to this conversation.

01:11:28

And he said, Hey, I want to thank you for what you said, you know? And I was like, okay. He's like, I've never heard, I've never heard anyone like describe, like defend like their views that way before, which again,

01:11:38

Christians like know, like know your stuff and just be able to talk about it. I'm trying

01:11:44

Tim. That's why you're here. I have had a lot of training, so that's, I do have that advantage, but, but you do the work, you know, there's apologetics classes, you know, that people can take a lot of great online resources.

01:11:58

Anyway, I digress. Years later, I see this guy in the gym. Okay. And I hadn't seen him since that birthday party.

01:12:04

And he comes up to me and he says, Hey, you remember me? And I was like, I think so. And he's like, yeah, we're at the, at the birthday party.

01:12:10

And I'm like, Oh yeah. He's like, Hey, I just want to tell you that I want to thank you for that conversation because I'm a

01:12:16

Christian now. And I was like, Oh, he said, yeah, I recently became a

01:12:21

Christian a few months ago. And he's like, I, and I was gay too. And I'm no longer gay. And I'm a

01:12:26

Christian. And he's like, and that conversation you had with my brother and his friend, that was the first seeds of my journey to kind of come to faith.

01:12:36

So it was like, I didn't, I wasn't some winsome evangelist that gave him the Romans road. And he's like, wow, like I'll accept Christ right now.

01:12:42

You know, it wasn't that it was a long road for him, but I didn't realize that three hour conversation, that frustrating three hour conversation was planting a seed in someone that I wasn't even intending to plant a seed into.

01:12:54

And then that germinated into a full -blown, you know, faith and coming out of gay lifestyle.

01:13:00

Yeah. That's amazing, Tim. That's phenomenal. I mean, I think at the end of the day,

01:13:06

I look at Jesus and like, maybe this is more of a passive look on it, but until I am thoroughly trained and feel confident in it, because I don't want to misrepresent the faith,

01:13:14

I believe that God is a product that works. You know, God is a product that if I knock on a doorstep, it's going to sell itself and planting those seeds.

01:13:21

You didn't have to follow up with him every month. You didn't have to call him and take him to church. Like God did the work.

01:13:27

And that's what I hope to do with these conversations by sharing them publicly. The point of this whole thing was for me to learn, but I think a lot more people needed to hear it because I'm probably not the only one of these shoes, but at the end of the day, especially for a topic that's sensitive, which is why

01:13:41

I say this, it's not to say we're right. You're wrong. It's to think about these things and maybe something will come out of it and to at least consider it.

01:13:49

So thank you for, you know, treading lightly and sensitively and very well -spoken. I mean,

01:13:54

I, they definitely don't talk to this depth in church. So it's truly a privilege to get it.

01:14:01

Yeah. I mean, when you bring up the Nephilim from the pulpit, it's just things get crazy. Well, that's why

01:14:07

I had to bring it up right at the beginning. No, but truly, I don't, it's, it's such an honest conversation and it's so well -educated.

01:14:15

So just the privilege of being able to have this type of information and to share it, you don't get this without it becoming some sort of aggressive conversation or demeaning or accusatory.

01:14:24

So thank you. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. We're way over time, but I still have a feeling that there's more to be said.

01:14:32

So we'll save that for another episode. If you've got the time, I'd like to end, what can you plug? Do you have classes?

01:14:37

Do you have books? Do you have speaking events? How do people hear more if they love this? Oh man, this is now I'm convicted because I was supposed to work on my dissertation to make it into a book and I haven't.

01:14:46

So I missed out on some sales, I guess, but I will plug the podcast Psych and Theo. Again, it's pretty new, just about four months, but give it a listen.

01:14:55

We tackle all kinds of subjects from, we did a, we did a trilogy on this subject of LGBT issues.

01:15:02

We did a four part series on spiritual warfare where we talk about the Nephilim and mental illness and demon possession.

01:15:09

We talk about mental illness and demon possession, how to discern between those two things. We deal with manhood and womanhood and all kinds of mental or therapy.

01:15:17

So we deal with all kinds of issues. So I'd say give us a listen. We're trying to grow. We're a little baby podcast, but hopefully people enjoy it.

01:15:25

Each episode is about an hour long. Yeah. And some are shorter as well. Yeah.

01:15:30

Yeah. We have a few at the beginning that are kind of like getting to know us episodes. Some of your favorite movies.

01:15:37

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, don't get me started on that. No, we're already out of time. No, that's amazing. And I just remember that you are coming back.

01:15:44

I already have you on schedule. We'll, we'll coordinate the details another time, but to talk about transgenderism, which

01:15:49

I think, again, I'm terrified to talk about this, but again, I'm uninformed. So we have to talk about this, especially from the biblical perspective.

01:15:56

And if you're a Christian, I think we should also be informed of that. So excited to get you back on. I'll follow up on a good date and time as the, the summer kind of nears its last month, but thank you again.

01:16:06

I really appreciate all the time and committing to such a late call, especially for you. Oh, it's all good.

01:16:12

You know, it's five minutes to my bedtime, so I'm going to hurry home and get in bed. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thanks so much.

01:16:18

It's early for you. It's like what, four o 'clock or something at your time? Oh yeah. I'm just like starting my day. Wow. Just, just suffering in Hawaii.

01:16:26

Man. It's so rough. The sun's going to go down soon. Can't surf anymore. Man. Wow. Just bearing your cross.

01:16:32

Just bearing your cross. Take it up every day. All right.