09WK21- SEXUAL PERVERSION -1. WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL VIEW?

Week 21
SEXUAL PERVERSION – I WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL VIEW?

KEY VERSE: Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah – from the LORD out of the heavens GENESIS 19:24

SCRIPTURE LESSON: GENESIS 19:1-25
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
2 “My lords,” he said,” please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom – both young and old – surrounded the house.
5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing
8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.
11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here – sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,
13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry of the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.
17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please!
19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I cant flee to the mountains, this disaster will overtake me, and I’II die.
20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it -- it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it. “(That is why the town was called Zoar.)
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.
24Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah---from the LORD out of the heavens.
25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--- and also the vegetation in the land.


INTRODUCTION
Homosexuality is one of the major ethical issues facing Christians today. It is one of the major factors for division in the church in the Western world. There are homosexuals in the church who are seeking approvals for same-sex marriages and sexual lifestyles, in spite of what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. Some people in the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement argue that a heterosexual marriage and a homosexual partnership are ‘two equally valid alternatives’, being equally ‘tender, mature and faithful’. In May 1989, Denmark became the first country to legalize homosexual marriages. A year before that, Bishop John S. Spong of Newark, New Jersey, urged the Episcopal Church ‘to bless and affirm the love that binds two persons of the same gender into relationship mutual commitment’.
The late Derrick Sherwin Bailey was the first Christian theologian to re-evaluate the traditional understanding of the Biblical prohibitions in his famous book: Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (1995). This work has generated a lot of controversy among Western Christians concerning sexual morality. The expositions that follow are intended to explain the traditional Christian thinking about homosexuality in spite of what scientists and psychologists say.

EXPOSITION
Science and Homosexual Behaviour
Homosexuality is a term with two meanings. It may be applied to people who are sexually attracted to members of their own sex or to same-sex genital acts. It comprises both men and women. Lesbianism is the word normally used to distinguish female homosexuality.

The difference between personal orientation and behaviour is to be noted. Studies show that some people with a homosexual orientation may never put their desires into practice; while others whose attraction is primarily heterosexual engage in homosexual acts occasionally.

There is no consensus about the causation of same-sex desires. Some trace the orientation to genetic or biochemical sources (not as yet discovered). Others point to psychological factors. An American Psychologist, Elizabeth Moberly argues that a homosexual condition in adulthood may arise from an “unresolved relational deficit with the parent of the same sex during childhood”. One point on which many of such experts agree is that “a homosexual orientation is discovered, not chosen”.

Nature and Creation: Is homosexual behaviour natural?
According to Kinsey’s survey, the homosexual behaviour of some people is natural. However, many Christian theologians, from Thomas Aquinas to Karl Barth, have questioned that idea and direct Christians to relate their understanding of nature to the doctrine of creation. To ask whether homosexuality is natural is to ask whether God made it. The answer to that is simply: no! Karl Barth refers to the Bible’s account of creation and points to how the male and female complement each other as people created in the image and likeness of God. Homosexual union effectively denies the ‘otherness’ of the one flesh relationship which the creator initiated between man and woman.

Thomas Aquinas stresses the procreative end of heterosexual intercourse. To be natural, he argues, an act must serve the ends which are natural to it. Homosexual intercourse is by definition non-procreative in intention and act. It is therefore immoral, because it cannot lead to full, secure family life.


What the Church Fathers and Reformers Say
The early church condemned the homosexual life-style as contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. Such practices were denounced mainly on the grounds that “they are in themselves unnatural.” Tertullian wrote: “all other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature are impious towards both human bodies and sexes. We banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.”


John Chrysostom denounced homosexual practices as unnatural. In his commentary on Romans 1:26-27, he observed that “the delights of sodomy are an unpardonable insult to nature. .. Such immoralities are doubly destructive: (1) they jeopardize the race by deflecting the sexual organs from their primary procreative purpose; (2) they sow disharmony and strife between man and woman, who are no longer impelled by their physical desires to live together peaceably”.

With reference to Genesis 19, St Augustine wrote of ‘‘‘those shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would {equally} be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God which has not so made men that they should use another in this way..

The medieval church was pastorally sensitive to the problems of those involved in homosexual practices; however it remained uncompromisingly opposed to the practices themselves. Since homosexual acts could not lead to procreation, they moved beyond the limits form sexual behaviour. Thomas Aquinas considered them sins against nature, the most serious genus of sins of lust, less grievous than bestiality.

The major Reformers maintained the same resistance to homosexual practices as the early Christians. Luther considered the presence and toleration of homosexual activity among the clergy as one of the worst symptoms of decay in the church, a product of human failure to know and honour the true God.



Homosexuality in the Bible
The Bible says nothing about the homosexual orientation, but it does condemn homosexual behaviour forthrightly. Sodom suffered God’s judgment for threatened homosexual rape (Ge 19:1-25; cf. jdg 19:11 – 20:48.) In the Old Testament (OT) the Holiness Code of Leviticus labeled male homosexuals as ‘detestable’ and prescribed the death penalty for convicted offenders (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; cf. I Ki. 14:24; 15:12:46). In the New Testament (NT) Paul condemns homosexual practice (including lesbianism) as unnatural, incompatible with lifestyle of God’s kingdom and an affront to God’s law and gospel (Ro. 1:18-27; 1 Co. 6:9-11; 1 Ti 1:8-11).

The two texts in Leviticus (Lev. 18:22; 20:13) are part of the Holiness Code which is the heart of the book. It challenges the people of God to follow his laws and not to copy the practices either of Egypt (where they used to live) or of Canaan (to which he was bringing them). These practices included forbidden sexual practices of various kinds. This is the context for the prohibition:
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable (18;22)

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads (20:13).

These prohibitions are not mere religious taboos as some scholars have regarded them. They are connected with the prohibition in Deuteronomy 23:17: No Israelite man or woman is to become a temple prostitute. The fertility cult of the Canaanites included temple prostitution which promoted homosexuality. The evil Kings of Israel and Judah were constantly introducing them into the religion of Israel, and the righteous kings were constantly abolishing them. Although some homosexual scholars in the Western church today try to explain away these prohibitions, the plain and natural interpretation of the above verses is that they forbid homosexual act of every kind. The death penalty prescribed for the Israelites shows extreme seriousness with which homosexual practices were viewed.

In the New Testament, Paul’s teaching in Romans 1:18-27 describes the idolatrous pagans in the Greco-Roman world of his day. They had a certain knowledge of God through the created universe (verses 19-20) and their own moral sense (verse 32), yet they ignored the truth in order to practice wickedness. Instead of giving to God the honour due him, they rather turned to idols, confusing the Creator with the creatures. In judgment God gave them over to their depraved mind and decadent practices (verses 24, 26, 28), including unnatural sex – men inflamed with lust for one another. … Men committed indecent acts with other men. . The passage is a definite condemnation of homosexual behaviour.

Other Pauline Texts
In I Corinthians 6:9-10 and I Timothy 1:9-10 Paul provides us with two ugly lists of sins which are incompatible firstly, with the Kingdom of God and secondly with either the law or the gospel. Taken together, St. Paul’s writings condemn homosexual behaviour as a vice of the Gentiles in Romans, as a bar to the Kingdom in Corinthians, and as an offence to be repudiated by the moral law in I Timothy. All the 10 categories listed in I Corinthians 6:9-10 denote people who have offended by their actions.

Why Homosexual Marriage is not Biblical
The prohibitions against homosexual practices in Scripture make sense only in the light of its positive teaching in Genesis 1 and 2 about human sexuality and heterosexual marriage. Since members of the lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in the Western world deliberately draw a parallel between heterosexual marriages and homosexual partnerships, it is necessary to take a second look at marriage in the Bible.

Genesis 2 particularly affirms the complimentarity of the sexes, which constitutes the basis for heterosexual marriage. In Genesis 2:18 the human need for companionship is expressed: ‘It is not good for a man to be alone.’ Genesis 2 again reveals the divine provision to meet this human need. A special work of divine creation took place. God created the woman out of the man and brought her to him in a kind of divine marriage ceremony. In appreciation of God’s gift to him, Adam composed the first love poem in history:
This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called ‘Woman’
For she was taken out of man.

The concluding comment is Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

The image of woman, taken from man’s flesh and becoming one flesh again with him in sexual union and marriage, is meaningless when applied to homosexual relationships.

Marriage in the Teaching of Jesus
It is important to note that in Matthew 19:4-6 Jesus himself endorsed the Old Testament definition of marriage. In doing so he emphasized the heterosexual nature of marriage with words from Genesis 1:27 (that the Creator made them male and female). The three truths about marriage affirmed by Jesus are as follows:
Heterosexual gender (male and female) is a divine creation;
Heterosexual marriage is a divine institution; and
Heterosexual fidelity is a divine intention
A homosexual affair is a breach of all these three divine purposes for marriage. An important facet of theology expressed by the ban on homosexual acts by the OT law is the ‘one flesh’ pattern of heterosexual marriage in Genesis. That is the reason why Paul bracketed homosexual behaviour with adultery in his updated application of the Ten Commandments in I Timothy. He follows the same pattern in Romans, where the ban on homosexual acts is based on the doctrine of creation.

THE LOVE FACTOR
People who support situation ethics use love to justify homosexual acts. To them, God’s purpose for humans is that we should realize our humanity as lovers. Since homosexuals contribute to the realization of love among humans they should be encouraged. The faulty nature of this position is seen in its foundational premise. God’s purpose for human fulfillment is not only that we love each other, but also that we love God. Any teaching that puts the two facets of God ‘s purpose against each other cannot be of him. God cannot in one breath forbid homosexual behaviour and in the next permit it because it promotes human love.

THE WORD IN OUR LIVES
Many of us in these Bible studies may say homosexuality is not our problem but we must realize that sexually we are all sinners. First, we are all human beings or persons made in the image and likeness of God, yet fallen. Secondly, we are all sexual beings. Our sexuality is basic to our humanness. When God made mankind he made us male and female. So the talk about sex relates to the centre of our personality. The subject therefore demands an unusual degree of sensitivity. Thirdly, we are all sinners. In God’s view we are all sexual sinners – sexual deviants. John Stott admits: “I doubt if there is anyone who has not had a lustful thought that deviated from God’s perfect ideal of sexuality. With exception of Jesus, nobody has been sexually sinless. Therefore we must not come to the study of homosexuality with an attitude of moral superiority. Homosexuals also are human beings who need to be loved – back to Christ.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What makes homosexual behaviour unnatural?
2. Why should acceptable marriage be heterosexual?
3. Why is the ordination of practicing homosexuals as priests a danger to the church?
4. Discuss ways in which a homosexual may be helped to become ‘straight change his/her sexual behaviour.
5. How will you tackle personal evangelism to a homosexual in an effective way?

BIBLE LESSON APPLICATION
This week, spend each day praying for homosexuals. Befriend any if you can, and share faith in Christ with him/her.

DAILY BIBLE READINGS
Monday Genesis 18:16-33 Homosexuals may be saved
Tuesday Genesis 19:1-25 Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed
Because of sexual perversion
Wednesday Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 Law against homosexuality
Thursday Genesis 2:18-25 God institutes heterosexual
Marriages
Friday Judges 19:16-26 Sexual perversion in Gibeah
Saturday I Kings 14:21-24 Male shrine prostitution in Israel