HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE
BIBLE STUDY
21
What do you believe God thinks about sexuality? Of course, we all realize that sexual intercourse is necessary for procreation–for the continued propagation of humankind, but does sex have a calling other than just for propagation? What can the bible teach us about human sexuality in relationship to God? Does God have a gender, and what does that gender have to say to you and me about our gender roles?
Do know that these questions are so deep and so all-encompassing that the scope of this study won’t even begin to scratch the surface. My purpose and intent for even bringing it up is to challenge your paradigms, and encourage you, the reader, to research the various facets of sexuality and educate yourself more fully in those areas which are pertinent to your life and those of your loved ones, as well as those areas that you might find interesting.
Don’t take my word for anything–don’t ever take anyone’s word for anything, especially in matters as important as your sexuality and your spirituality. Don’t allow anyone to try to force you into one way of thinking, but research with an open mind and heart, asking and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you into all the truth. Remember that God does not save souls in pairs. If you would know what God desires for you and from you, remember Jesus’ instruction to “…Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; they who seek find; and to those who knock the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:9, 10) Notice that Jesus’ instructions require action on your part. You must ask! You must seek! You must knock! Learn from everyone and from everywhere you can, but ask the Spirit to help you with a spirit of discernment, to separate the wheat from the chaff, so that you may find out what is important for you to know for your life.
What does God think about sex and sexuality? Genesis 1:27 and 28 tells us that God created humanity in God’s own image, blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:31a tells us that God saw all that God had made, and it was very good! Imagine God’s JOY implicit in these words–God’s invitation to humanity to become co-creators with God in every aspect of creation!
This invitation to humanity to become co-creators with God sets Israel’s God apart from the other gods of the ancient Near East. Israel’s God creates the world by speaking, i.e. …And God said…, (Gen. 1:3ff) not by sexual intercourse with “divine” consorts, which was the tradition of most, if not all of the others. Israel is seen in the Hebrew canon as the Bride of God described in the Song of Songs (or Canticles, depending on which translation you are using), and in the Christian community, the Church becomes identified as the Bride of Christ.
God needs only to speak to create. To enable humanity to be fully creative, God blessed us with the a need and desire for others. Genesis 1:18: God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone. I will make a suitable helper.” Thus God called into being companionship and intimacy. Sexual expression becomes not only the vehicle for the propagation of the race, but the means of intimate, experiential communication of love and trust. That God intended the sexual union to be a spiritual as well as physical union can be deduced from the concept expressed in Genesis 2:24: For this reason a person will leave parents and be united with a spouse, and they will become one flesh. It should be noted that this particular passage, located in this particular place in Genesis, is really misplaced–if God created Adam and Eve, they had no parents, other than God. Be that as it may, the point is well taken that sexual union is integral to the bonding experience gifted to humanity by God.
What can the bible teach us about human sexuality in relationship to God? The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Vol. 4, pp. 429, 431) states:
“Issues of sex and sexuality pervade ever part of biblical literature. The Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) regulates sexual activity and establishes sexual roles. Prophetic literature uses sexual metaphors in its announcement of God’s judgment on covenant unfaithfulness. Wisdom literature distinguishes wise sexual conduct from foolish and uses sexual imagery to characterize wisdom.
The Gospels use the memory of Jesus’ words and deeds to shape the sexual conduct and dispositions of His followers. The Epistles deal with concrete questions of sexual conduct. Revelations contains sexual imagery and instruction.”
“The pervasiveness of sexual imagery and instruction (in the bible) is not surprising, for sexuality was a fundamental issue for personal identity and communal life in biblical times even as it is today. The biblical materials, however, often reflect convictions about sex that arise out of their cultural context, and they can be little understood or appreciated without some awareness of that context.”
“In the Judaism of the first century C.E. (for example) men were expected to learn and keep the Torah. Among other things, this meant that men had a duty in obedience to Gen. 1:28 to marry and to have children.”
It is interesting to note that at the same time, women were expected neither to learn nor to keep the law, though some did. In this patriarchal culture, women were considered property, their primary duty was to have and raise children. If they failed to do so, they could be divorced by their husband, though wives, in turn had no such prerogative to divorce husbands for any reason.
The coming of Jesus turned the patriarchal dynamic upside down. Jesus, by his deeds, rejected the traditional role of women and made them equals. The Samaritan woman at the well became Jesus’ first evangelist (John 4). He taught women (Luke 10:39), allowed them to follow Him along with the male disciples (Luke 8:1-3); and after the Resurrection, revealed Himself first to Mary Magdalene (John 20:14-18).
When Jesus taught that in the realm of God there would not be marriage (Mark 12:18-25), Jesus not only departed from the traditional assignment of women’s roles, but together with His teaching in Matthew 19:11, 12 on eunuchs, He also departed from the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1:28. Marriage would no longer be a religious duty and the only definition of fruitfulness, and remaining single, as indeed Jesus was, would become an option for those whom God had blessed and oriented to accept it (Matthew 19:12).
Paul picked up the banner, not only of gender equality, but also of racial, national and economic equality in Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul further emphasized gender equality in marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, where he instructs that the husband should fulfill his marital duty to the wife, as she should do the same for him, because not only does the wife’s body belong to the husband, but the husband’s body belongs to the wife. No longer is the wife merely the property of the man, but they share equally their marital right to access of the other.
Does God have a gender, and what does that gender have to say to you and me about our gender roles? Genesis 1:28 answers the first part of the question: So God created humanity in God’s own image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them. If we, all of us, both male and female, are created in God’s own image, that has to mean that God embodies aspects of both genders.
As mentioned above, in both Hebrew and Christian interpretations, the Bridegroom in the Song of Songs is God, and repeatedly throughout scripture God is variously described and addressed using masculine imagery. Indeed, Jesus, when asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray, begins with the appellation, Abba, which is a term of intimate affection, akin to Daddy. However, God is also described using feminine imagery. Deuteronomy 32:11 offers the image of God as an eagle protecting her young; Isaiah 42:14 offers God as a woman in childbirth; while Isaiah 66:13 shows us God as a woman comforting her child, just to name a few.
What does God’s gender have to say to you and me
about our gender roles? We in the UFMCC sing a song which says,
When Israel camped in Sinai, God spoke and Moses heard,
“This message tell the people, and give them this My word;
From Egypt I was with you and carried on My Wing,
The whole of your great nation, From slavery I did bring.
Just as a mother eagle who helps her young to fly;
I am a mother to you, your needs I will supply,
And you are as My children, My own who hear My voice,
I am a Mother to you–the people of My choice.”
If God is like an eagle who helps her young to fly,
And God is also Father, then what of you and I?
We have no fear of labels, we have no fear of roles,
If God’s own being blends them, we seek the self-same goals.
Our God is not a Woman, our God is not a Man,
Our God is both and neither, our God is I Who Am;
From all the roles that bind us, our God has set us free.
What freedom does God give us? The freedom just to be!”
What does God think about sex and sexuality? Your sexuality is God’s gift to you–what you make of that gift is your gift back to God. Remember that God doesn’t make mistakes. You, regardless of your sexuality, are no mistake. God calls us to be fruitful, but what does that mean?
In Luke 11:27-28, a woman in the crowd to whom Jesus was speaking called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Jesus here rejects the cultural role assigned to women. Instead he invites them to come and be taught, so that they too, might be fruitful, not just as baby-makers, but as doers of the word. Jesus invites them to equality, and to wholeness.
In Matthew 5:48, Jesus tells us “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Parent is perfect.” The word translated perfect in the original language was teleios, and means to be complete. In order to be complete–to be whole, we must honor all that we are as God’s perfect creation. Perfection requires us to be truthful in the innermost parts of ourselves. If we are God’s perfect creation, then we have nothing to be ashamed of when we seek to live in truth. God calls us to honesty and truthfulness–with ourselves and with God. We don’t owe anyone else any explanations, but that which we choose freely to offer.
You have often heard the admonition: Do not judge, or you, too, will be judged (Matt. 7:1). Remember that just as you ought not to judge others, no one else has a right to judge you, or your sexuality either. So long as we practice the Law of Love (love God, love neighbor, love of self) in all our dealings with God and each other, we will never go wrong. And so we let it be. Amen.
This ends our study.
1 Samuel 8:15: “(The King) will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials (sarisiv–eunuchs) and attendants.”
1 Kings 22:9: So the king of Israel called one of his officials (sarisiv–eunuchs) and said, “Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once.”
2 Kings 8:6: Then the king assigned an official (saris) to the woman’s case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”
2 Kings 18:17a: The king of Assyria sent his (saris) supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem.
2 Kings 20:18: (The prophet, Isaiah, speaking to King Hezekiah says) “…and some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs (sarisim) in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (This passage is repeated in Isaiah 39:7)
2 Kings 23:11: He (King Josiah) removed from the entrance to the temple of God the horses that the kings of Juday had dedicated to the sun. There were in the court near the room of an official (saris) named Nathan-Melech. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
2 Kings 24:12a, 15: Jehoiachin, king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials (sarisiv) all surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar…Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials (sarisiv) and the leading men of the land.
2 Kings 25:19a: Of those still in the city he took the (saris) in charge of the fighting men and five royal advisors.
1 Chronicles 28:1: David summoned all the officials of Israel to assemble at Jerusalem: the officers over the tribes, the commanders of the divisions in the service of the king, the commanders of thousands, and the commanders of hundreds, and the officials in charge of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, together with the palace officials (sarisim), the mighty men and all the brave warriors.
2 Chronicles 18:8: So the king of Israel called one of his officials (sarisim) and said, “Bring Micaiah, son of Imlah at once.”
Isaiah 39:7: (Isaiah, speaking to King Hezekiah, says) “And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs (sarisim) in the palace of the king of Babylon.”