The Sean McDowell Show - Has God Changed his Mind on Same Sex Relationships?

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

A new book called The Widening Of God's Mercy believes that the Bible narrative points to the full inclusion of LGBTQ. Today I will analyze this book with Rebecca McLaughlin and the associated biblical passages to see if their argument holds up. READ: Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and Sexuality (https://a.co/d/iJp0pru) WATCH: Same-Sex Unions: Everything the Bible Says About It (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogXQUY-0Rgg&t=21s) Make sure to subscribe and check out some of my other videos for more on Christianity, Theology and other aspects of culture! *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:43 Chapter 1 of her book 6:25 Why can't the Bible be "inclusive" 11:11 Christians should just focus on God's love 15:16 Jesus was silent on Same Sex relationships 19:17 God's Judgment on Sodom 23:20 We can't follow Old Testament rules 28:35 Paul condemns certain Same Sex relationships 34:29 Paul condemns lust not Same Sex relationships 39:02 Homosexual in the Bible was misinterpreted 43:23 Bible condemns slavery not Same Sex behavior 49:19 Unchosen celibacy yields bad fruit 58:21 God of love can't be against relationships of love 1:02:38 Advice to Christians with Same Sex Attraction 1:07:30 Ending Message

Has God changed his mind about same-sex unions? Should we widen God's mercy to include LGBTQ relationships and identities? According to the new book, The Widening of God's Mercy by Richard and Christopher Hayes, the answer to these questions is yes. Here to discuss the book and their arguments is my friend, Dr. Rebecca McLaughlin, author of Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? Rebecca, thanks for coming back again to discuss this. I want to jump right in because so much is at stake with this book. I'm really curious, when you hear a book coming out by somebody as prominent and influential as Richard Hayes and his son is a respectable Old Testament

scholar. What are your initial thoughts when you hear a book coming out like this and a scholar like this changing or shifting his views? Yeah. So I found out about this book after I'd already submitted the manuscript for the little book I read that you mentioned, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? And in that book, I'd looked at what seemed to me to be the 10 most common arguments that people make in favor of same-sex marriage for christians and why none of them actually holds water when you look more closely and there's a piece of me that thought oh you know this is interesting two well-known scholars one new testament one old testament are coming out with what what is claimed to be a sort of fresh

approach a new way of thinking a sort of fresh approach, a new way of thinking, a set of new arguments when it comes to these questions. And I thought, I wonder if I missed something. Maybe they're going to uncover something, they're going to turn over a sort of stone that I hadn't looked at or bring fresh historical insight to some of the points that I've been making that I thought I'd done due diligence on. So seeing that kind of headline, I thought, oh, interesting. You know, I kind of wish I'd been able to read this book before I write mine to see if there's anything that I've missed.

Honestly, though, when I first read the blurb that described more of the central argument they would make in the book, I thought, oh, no, actually, according to the blurb, their central argument was not a new one at all. It was dependent on the idea of the Gentiles being included being a kind of parallel for the quote, full inclusion of LGBT people today. And that was an argument I addressed in my book because it's been around for quite some time at this point. And when I started to read this book, I realized that the novel arguments that they were making

weren't actually arguments in the realm of conversations about biblical sexuality, but were actually arguments, sort of broad-reaching arguments about the character and nature of God to where the theological distance between where they are and where I am is actually a pretty vast chasm. It's not that, you know, we're both sitting alongside one another looking at the same text through a sort of similar lens and drawing different conclusions. They actually are coming from an extraordinarily different standpoint than anyone who would identify as not only evangelical Christians, but actually sort of Orthodox, historic Christian faith on

a number of points. I think that's right. Now, I did wonder what arguments they were going to make. I had a little bit of a different take. I've studied this for two decades, and probably the first decade plus, when books like this would come out, I thought, gosh, maybe I missed something. Maybe I've got to rethink this and shift my position. And some people don't believe me on this, but I've worked hard to say, I will follow the evidence where it leads on this issue and others because too much is at stake to not do so. When I heard about this book,

I thought, you know what? I really doubt they're going to trod any new ground. I've heard it before. I've studied this for so long. I'm just skeptical. And there's really no new arguments here. There's a couple fresh wrinkles that are interesting, but they say twice in the book, we're not making any new arguments. And so in some ways, I didn't expect, some ways I think this book is to the point where they're, we're going to come back to this where they say, we don't want to argue these six passages anymore. It's almost like we're just conceding that the Bible taken on its own merits is not an affirming book. And that doesn't surprise me because for two decades, I've been reading

everything, dozens and dozens and dozens of books on this, and I don't think you can get there. And so I just wasn't surprised that they kind of conceded those arguments, but that's just me. Now, before we jump into some of the arguments, you agreed to come on and talk about this. Why? And what would you hope to get out of reviewing a book like this for people? Yeah, this is a question that I come to not only sort of as a Christian with concern about sexual ethics, but in particular as somebody who myself, I've always had a history of same-sex attraction. And so if I, certainly at one point in my life, if I had found a way of reading the Bible that did allow for same-sex marriage, I most likely would have followed that route. So this is a sort of a whole area of discussion that I come to with quite a bit of skin in the game. And I have many friends who similarly to

me, whether they're not Christians or if they could understand the Bible a different way, might well have found themselves in same-sex relationships rather than either faithfully single or in opposite-sex marriages. And so I think I come to a book like this, especially one which at multiple points flags the ways in which Christians have been historically and in many contexts today, actually like really unkind, cruel, sort of hateful toward people who identify as LGBT. I sort of sit alongside Christopher and Richard with that concern to say, you know what, like that's actually sinful behavior on the part of Christians. Like anytime Christians are being genuinely hateful or unloving toward people who identify as gay or lesbian, that's falling short of what Jesus calls us to in terms of loving our neighbor, loving our enemies, loving all of those around us. But I think I found some of the conclusions that they drew from that or the assumption that holding to historic biblical beliefs on these questions, as I do, is necessarily sort of part and parcel with being a hateful person toward those who identify as LGBT.

I found that very concerning because that's certainly not where I sit. It's not where the large majority of Christians I know sit and I feel like it actually um does a disservice to the arguments to sort of unnecessarily hook a an understanding of what the Bible says when it comes to same-sex sexual relationships um to a a hateful approach and attitude toward people um who might be pursuing a same-sex sexual relationship outside the church? I have a couple things with this. For me, sometimes I get criticism from people, why do you keep speaking on this issue? And my answer is, I'm kind of playing defense.

As long as people keep arguing publicly that the Bible affirms same-sex relationships and beyond and using the Bible to do so, I'm going to push back on that, and hopefully do in a gracious, kind manner. But this issue matters. I'd rather talk about other stuff. But I reached out to Christopher directly. I'm a professor at Talbot School of Theology. He's probably an hour away, depending on traffic, at Fuller Theological Seminary. We've both written on this. We both have fathers who've written on the issue of sexuality. And so I just invited him into a conversation, not even a formal debate. In fact, I asked Justin Briley, I said, we just kind of moderate a

conversation to make sure it's totally fair and cordial. And he wrote back, which I appreciate, and just said he's too busy, has too many things going on. So I have a lot of people get upset with me for not having the kinds of conversations they want me to have. And I have to pick and choose. I turn down more than I can do. So I have some, I have grace for that. And I don't know the details of his life. I just think people deserve this kind of relationship. And he and I talking this through and pushing back would benefit a lot of people. So I just want people watching this, knowing that I reached out,

put that on the table. In fact, I get criticized sometimes for not pushing back enough on people, and that's a separate issue. And so maybe sometime that someday that conversation will happen. Tell me really quick before we jump in to offer criticisms, anything positive from the book that jumped out to you? I mean, clearly both of these guys, Richard and Christopher Hayes, are experts in their fields. You know, for sure, they both know more than I do. When it comes to the Greek and Hebrew, the New Testament and

the Old Testament, when it comes to the sort of state of the academic research on various questions. And so as I was working through this book and I was actually wrote a review of it for the Gospel Coalition, and one of the things that I did after writing my review is I sent it to a friend who is an Old Testament scholar because I was like, maybe I'm making stupid mistakes here. For sure, these guys have more credentials, more expertise than I do when it comes to the academic sort of study of the Old and New Testament. And I think some of that comes through and there are things that I learned. So I guess I'll stop there because that's the positive that I can say.

I think I had concerns in almost every other respect, whether it was argument, theology, or even tone of the book. Fair enough. I agree with that. They're obviously just brilliant scholars in their fields. I think they do have a heart for LGBTQ people. There's no doubt about that. You and I differ strongly on what that looks like, but that comes through page after page. I think they're also wise to say, rather than just looking at individual verses as important as they are, let's look at the wide scope and trajectory of scripture. I think that's a helpful corrective, even though the

particulars matter, the whole matters as well. And I think N.T. Wright has emphasized that as well. I think they said, let me see, some positives here. They say the story of God and humanity is meant to be one of ever-expanding grace. Insofar as that goes, I agree with that point, that God has grace for communities in the Old Testament that were maybe not as accessible and kept in as in the past. They make a statement here that jumped out. They said the future and flourishing of the church are at stake. I agree 100%. That is true. We differ over what that looks like, but we agree in terms of how profoundly this issue, what's at stake here.

And then there's a statement that says the future will have no patience with debates over human rights for those whose sexual orientation does not conform to traditional standards. I think they're right about that. There's going to be increased, I hesitate to use the term, but resistance and a kind of persecution and pushback and lack of patience for those. So at this point I say, yeah, they're right. That's why we need to know what we believe, why we believe it, be motivated with convictions grounded in scripture,

but culture is largely moving that direction. So there's other things that they said that I thought were positive that I could point out, but I always want to highlight that as we jump in. All right, let's talk about the heart of their argument and then offer critique. And by the way, we're not going to come close to covering everything that they point out here. We'll link to your review. There's some other helpful reviews I'll put below for people who want to take a look at this. But let me put it in their own words, and then you can kind of add or tweak anything that you think is necessary to get to the heart of their argument. So at the end of the book, here's what they write. And so here is the proposal we offer in this book.

The many biblical stories of God's widening mercy, Old Testament and New Testament, invite us to re-envision how God means us to think and act today with regard to human sexuality. The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and New Testament trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as, quote, strangers and aliens, but as, quote, fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. They say this debate should no longer focus on the endlessly repeated exegetical arguments. About half a dozen isolated texts they point towards Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18 and 20, the passages in the Levitical Code, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, and Romans 1.

In this book, we've not revisited them. So the argument is kind of this widening scope of God's mercy, and we see God changing his mind. We see laws being overturned, and we see this trajectory of this expanding grace towards those who were not a part of the covenant, we should expand that to sexual minorities. Of course, they give other arguments to support that, but that's kind of the heart of what they're arguing. Is that how you see it? Would you add or amend anything to that?

Yes, I think that's a fair summary, and it's worth just drawing out that last point that you made which is not only are they saying we see in the bible a um an ever-widening sort of expanse of of god's mercy but that they they position this as god changing his mind not as god always planned from the first for example the inclusion of the Gentiles, but that God has actually thought better of some of the things that he previously said. And this is one of the main respects in which I actually think the understanding of who God is that's presented in this book is outside the bounds of classical Christian orthodoxy. I mean, this is actually, I don't think what the descriptions of God that

they give us, the claims about God they make are consistent with theism, which is kind of striking when with a book that's claiming to position sexuality within the biblical story and to offer a sort of profoundly biblical account of these questions. I mean, one of the things they're saying is not only have Christians throughout the centuries got it wrong when it comes to sexual ethics, but we actually got it wrong when it comes to the basics of our theology of God, like our understanding of who God is. Now, they say this very clearly. I was trying to pull up the page where they make a reference to that this is really a debate and a difference over the character of god do you want to make your distinction now or do you want to come back to

as we start walking through some of the some of the critique yeah i mean i'm happy to just sort of kick off that conversation one of the um like their main sort of introductory points is that God changes his mind. And they look at a particular Hebrew word, narkam, which can be translated as change your mind or sort of have regret or sort of feel something deeply in a sense of sort of sorrow about it. And they cite certain texts where that word is used in other texts where that word is not used to say we have traditionally believed you know christians have traditionally believed that god doesn't change his mind that god's will is sort of eternal and um in actual fact when we look at the biblical stories we'll find that frequently he does um and i think it's important

for us to look at the specifics of their argument there you know one one of the most striking um examples they give is they claim that god changed his mind when it came to child sacrifice in the old testament in fact what they claim is that god originally commanded child sacrifice and then he changed his mind and then he lied about the fact that he had ever commanded it in the first place. So, I mean, just to get out there in terms of how far from a classical kind of understanding of God this is. And honestly, when I first read that chapter, I thought, gosh, I've never investigated this claim. Is this true? Did God originally command child sacrifice, even though there were so many places in the Old Testament

when he specifically bans child sacrifice? Have I misunderstood something here? And as I looked into the details of their argument, it became less and less compelling. I don't think it actually accounts for what the scriptures are telling us remotely, but that's the level of claim that they're making about the character of God okay that's that's that's helpful we'll jump into some of those specifics I think from a 30,000 foot view that you know the title is the widening of God's mercy there's a tension in the scriptures

between mercy and between justice and both are at play. Now, sometimes more fundamentalist strains will emphasize the justice and totally downplay mercy. That's out of balance. It's also out of balance to raise up mercy at the expense of a biblical view of justice. You might say conservatives err on the side of justice and lack compassion, and liberals err on the side of compassion and lack justice. That's a simplification, but oftentimes how it's cashed out. And I think they strongly swing too far to the side of mercy at the expense of justice, where when we look at the person of justice, where when we look at the person of Jesus, clearly he upholds and even

gets more conservative on issues of sexuality and holds up justice, calls people to repent, turn from their sins, talks about hell, and yet has profound compassion and love and grace for people that typically are not valued within that society. So when it comes to the character of God, I think they go way too far on the side of mercy at the expense of justice, just like some people can make the other mistake. The Bible holds the two in tension. That's my kind of 30,000 foot view, but go ahead. Yeah. And I think just to build on that, I think the Bible does hold the two in tension and then it resolves that tension at the cross.

Amen. And it was striking to me again and again, as I read through the arguments of this book, that they actually miss the gospel. So for example, they're reflecting on the whole question of child sacrifice and they're saying, why on earth, like how on earth could god have asked abraham to sacrifice isaac even though at the last minute he intervenes and stops god sacrificing isaac like why is there even this sort of picture in the old testament of the sacrifice of a of a son and i'm thinking well have you read the new testament like are we are we i mean i don't i don't mean to be sort of flippant and snide there, but at the same time, it actually

all starts to make a whole lot more sense when you look at the Old Testament through the lens of the cross. Suddenly everything clicks into place. And what we have as followers of Jesus, we don't have a kind of, oh, well, there's this tension between God's justice and God's mercy, and we are flip-flopping between the two and never quite sure you know where god's going to land up which is honestly part of the picture that they paint of god is a god who's you know for example at the flood decides to wipe humanity out and then sort of changes his mind you know first he was changed his mind about having wanted to create humans in the first place you know why did i do that god wipes humans. And then he sort of changes his mind again.

No, I'm never going to send judgment like this again. The expression that they use at one point is a sort of picture of God learning on the job. And when you have this kind of flip-flopping understanding of God, part of you is left with like, well, how do we know? How do we know how God is relating to us now? If he's changing his mind constantly, going from justice to mercy, how do we know where we're going to land up? Well, actually, when you bring the cross into the conversation, when you put the gospel at the center of the story, which I profoundly believe the gospel is at the center of any genuinely biblical understanding of sexuality. And again, that's something they completely miss out. But we find that a number of the sort of tensions that they're flagging for us actually resolve. And when we leave the

cross out, we don't have a biblical understanding of sexuality, nevermind anything else. Sorry, I'm kind of passionate about this because it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to see people trying to advocate for God's mercy with an insufficient understanding of how the cross relates to that. You don't ever have to apologize for getting passionate about this topic or on my show. I do too, in a lot of different ways. So I appreciate you bringing that. We might be jumping ahead because we haven't really probed into their arguments yet, and we will. But it seems to me there's layers of questions here. Say we concede God changes his mind, which I don't fully concede, but say we do. It still remains the question, does God change his mind on the nature of marriage? And does God change his mind on sexuality? They just assume because God changes mind on one area, then it changes in the other area. That's a case that they don't make and

they ignore. But I think it also raises, I think, a troubling question. If you take their argument to its logical conclusion, what else could God change his mind about? So they hint at this on page 17. I thought they're aware of this problem where they said a word about application. They said, doesn't this reasoning lead to a slippery slope so that anything goes. Now, in part, if you're going to write a book and reframe how we think about sexuality, you've got to give some level of application of what this looks like to help people.

I think that's something you have to do, somewhat of a separate issue, but they're kind of saying, well, we're aware of this problem, and then their way out of it is we want to maintain a certain modesty about our work as biblical scholars. Others have more expertise in human sexuality, and we're confident, second, that these conversations will continue to unfold, and our own thinking might evolve as well. Now, I've had at least

two conversations I can think of on my channel with scholars who are affirming or pastors who are affirming, and I've asked them not as a gotcha question, but I say, if we take your reasoning seriously, and it's about widening grace, on what grounds would we say that incestual relationships or polyamorous relationships are out of bounds? And I'm not even making a comparison between same-sex unions and incest. It's a logical point. And I don't see how the argument that they're making here, especially as culture moves towards increasingly accepting those, that doesn't follow. And so if you don't want the part that follows, then maybe something's wrong with the root of the argument itself.

Anything you agree, disagree with that? Anything you want to add before we jump into their arguments themselves? Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think the problem is even broader than that, that with their methodology here, which, and again, as you've mentioned, Richard is clear about the fact that he hasn't actually changed his mind about the specific verses in the Bible that seem to say no to same-sex sexual relationships. But that since the closing of the canon, that God has changed his mind on these issues it seems to be where he's landing and if that is true then actually we could find that God has changed his mind on all sorts of questions you know to go back to our child sacrifice um understanding if if they're correct which I'm absolutely sure they're not but like let's go on

for a minute that they're correct that God originally commanded child sacrifice and then changed his mind how are we to know that God hasn't changed his mind back again we just the methodology leaves us actually with very little to to hold on to that's a good point uh all right I keep saying we're jumping into arguments but one of the things I've learned is there's so much assumptions people bring to these arguments that shape their conclusions, which is true for me as well. And as I'm reading this, I'm saying, what's their understanding of the Bible? And I just want to read what they say in a couple of places jumped out to me. Let me see if I can find this here. says some things have not changed uh this is this is chris's distinct story i remain committed to the unparalleled centrality of the bible for christian ethical discernment can i hear that i go okay what is what does centrality mean i want to argue

authority inspiration uh inerrancy. Now, he teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary that they have very different views and commitments. Not all people that are there. I know some evangelical conservative scholars who hold to inerrancy who teach there, but their seminary holds very different views as a whole about sexuality and inerrancy than where I teach. And so the centrality of the Bible is very different than the authority and inspiration of the Bible. And then at the end of this chapter, they say it's written by and for people who think it matters what the Bible says and who believe

that the best way to do it justice is to read it carefully. I mean, I think it matters what the Quran says for different reasons, but it matters what the Quran says. And so at the very end of their argument, they say our argument is in line with the authority of the Bible. They use that at the end after they think that they've made their argument. And I don't think it's persuasive, but I just think beneath this really are questions of biblical authority. Do we go to the Bible itself and conform our views and practices to what it teaches, or do we import other ideas in the Bible? And while I'm saying this, there's fear and trembling in me because I know in other areas, I'm fully capable of doing this. I'm aware of my own shortcomings, but this is the issue we're talking

about. And I think when it's all said and done, it really is a question about the inspiration and authority of the Bible on its own merits. That's how I tend to see it. Was that your take, or do you see it differently? Yeah, I think that's right. And I think one of the main ways in which that cashes out in terms of their argument is the fact that whereas they're claiming to situate sexuality within the biblical story, they're actually not. And let me explain what I mean by that. We might touch on this again later. But not only do they set aside the verses that speak specifically to same-sex sexual relationships, which is kind of a big a big jump to make when you're writing a book that is specifically on on these questions but like let's

sort of grant that for a minute sure they also in fact set aside everything the bible says about marriage um i mean i was it was stunning to me i had to go through the index at the end because I read through the book and I thought, okay, we haven't talked about Genesis 2 when God first institutes marriage and that says, therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, be united to his wife, and the two should become one flesh. Was there really no mention of that in the book? How about Matthew 19, Jesus's teachings on marriage? I couldn't quite trust myself that maybe I skipped a page, like maybe I missed it somewhere. But no, there's no engagement with Jesus' teaching on marriage. There's no engagement with Paul's teaching on marriage in Ephesians 5. And one of

the things that I'm kind of passionate about in my own ministry when it comes to these questions is noticing the ways in which the Bible actually links Christian marriage to the gospel. So we see it throughout the Old Testament as God is compared, you know, prophet after prophet compares God to a loving faithful husband in Israel to his often unfaithful wife. And then we see Jesus declaring that he's the bridegroom and sort of stepping into the shoes of the creator God in that marriage with God's people. We see Paul making clear in Ephesians 5 that Christian marriage is a sort of little scale model of Jesus' love for his people. We see that in the book of Revelation when it's pictured as the wedding of the lamb and God's people are pictured as Jesus' bride. We have this beautiful overarching story of what Christian

marriage is actually about. And all of that is completely left aside. It's a bit like I was thinking this morning, I was just sort of struck with the analogy. Like imagine, I'm a big Tolkien fan. And you know, imagine I said to you, Sean, I've written this great book. It's about kingship in the Lord of the Rings. And by the way, I haven't mentioned Aragorn once. I actually, I think we need to set Aragorn aside completely as we think about kingship in the Lord of the Rings. And you might say, well, wait a minute, isn't the third book in the trilogy called The Return

of the King? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think that's really about Aragorn. And you'd be like, well, okay. Like, how can we even have a conversation about kingship in the Lord of the Rings that leaves Aragorn out of the picture and yet essentially that's what's happened here we've we've we've left we've set aside everything the bible says about marriage including everything that says about sort of same-sex sexual relationships like you know for one piece of it we we've set that aside and we've said uh or the the authors have

said we can kind of re-envision an understanding of marriage that is aside from that i mean if that's not a deficient doctrine of the scriptures i i'm not really sure what is that. I think you hit on the heart of the question, what is marriage? What is it? Is it built into the fabric of creation that we discover and we can form our lives to? And is it a part of the large trajectory of scripture? And so the fact that they don't just want to focus on those six passages i agree insofar that it's not just those six passages it's the sweeping narrative of scripture as a whole but we must also include those six passages and this is where nt wright has been so helpful he's made the point the bible begins with a wedding and a marriage. It's all through the Old Testament. It's all through the New Testament.

In fact, unfaithfulness to God in the Old Testament is akin to a kind of spiritual adultery. The Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet thy neighbor's wife. Assume a certain nature of marriage built into it. Jesus talks about marriage, like he said, Matthew 19. Paul does, 1 Corinthians 7, Ephesians chapter 5. Revelation, it climaxes with a kind of marriage, of course, in the end of the book. And so if we want to take scripture as a whole like they want to, we have to ask, is there widening mercy in the sense of expanding or changing the nature of marriage itself?

That argument is completely absent from the book and enough for me to not take it seriously as making the biblical case. And so they write here, they write, you know, drawing conclusions based on these six passages alone would be like basing a biblical theology of slavery on Exodus 21 or 1 Peter 2.8 or, you know, immigration on Ezekiel 44.9. And I would say I agree insofar as it goes. We've got to take the whole of scripture, but at the heart of scripture is an understanding of what marriage is. And I think that's left out tragically. So I think we should – there's a mistake to just look at the whole and miss the parts. There's a mistake to focus on the parts and is the whole and the parts clearly argue that there's a certain design in our bodies for sex, a nature of marriage, and God can widen his grace and invite all people to the kingdom without changing that component.

Somehow Jesus holds those in tension, and I think they have a different view of God, like you said, which is why they come to a different conclusion at the end. Now, let me ask you one more last question, I promise. And I think this is illustrative of these kinds of where these conversations go. each of them, Richard and Chris. And by the way, I mean, I have a lot of compassion for writing a book with a father with a public platform and what that entails. I've written multiple books with my dad. So I'm sure there's just a backstory here that I would, you know, at some point would just be interested in hearing separately. But Richard tells this story. So they each say, here's my story. Here's my story. And Richard, of course, just a brilliant, influential New Testament scholar at Duke for years, he tells this story about his brother. Now, I can only imagine telling a story in a book that's public

about a family member you disagree with. There's something painful about doing that. I've shared stories in not a lot, but at times thought, you know what, I maybe shared a little more than I should have. I need to backtrack in this one. So I understand the dynamics here are sensitive, but I think the story's illustrative because he calls it the tipping point. So you have this New Testament scholar who holds a classic historic Christian view, shifts on this, and this is the tipping point that got him there. So I think it's important. He tells a story about his brother who told him he refused to attend their mother's funeral. Why? Because the funeral was being held at a

United Methodist Church that their mom formerly attended more than 30 years ago in their home city. And the brother declared this a deal breaker, even though there would have been no reference to the issue of same-sex relationships in the service, he felt he would publicly be endorsing the church's stand. Now, all we have is one side of this narrative told through the side of Richard. But if we have the right story here, I think two things are important to me. Number one, this is completely dying on the wrong hill. I would have no problem attending a funeral at a United Methodist Church. That's different than a wedding that is about the

union itself. I would have no problem attending a funeral there if that's where the mom went to the church. That doesn't imply any affirmation to me. So I think this example of dying on the wrong hill, but I also think it's interesting that it's this kind of experience that is what really shifts him. It's that this experience of Christians, conservatives, treating him poorly, treating gay people poorly, that tip the scale. So I have some thoughts about whether that should shift our minds or not. But insofar as we go, your thought on the story being the tipping point for him. And feel free to completely disagree with me on that take. Yeah, I mean, I, like you, would need to know a little bit more in terms of the specifics.

But I could also understand, I can actually understand where the brother's coming from in terms of and i think you and i agree that this is actually a break fellowship kind of issue rather than an agree to disagree kind of issue um you know i have an awful lot of space in in my heart and in my understanding of of god's word for fellowship with christians with whom i disagree on a whole host of of different um you know issues which wouldn't be kind of first order. And I think, I mean, even just this last weekend, I was in your current home state of California, and I intentionally took my daughter to a church, which I knew was just a bit different from the

church that we regularly attend here, sort of more on the charismatic end, because I thought it'd be great for her to experience a church that has, you know, just a little bit of a different view of things, a little bit of a different style on some points, because I don't want her to think that our church is the only way, you know, only people who worship exactly how we worship in our church are sort of Orthodox Christians. I want her to kind of have more of a expansive understanding of who is sort of authentically following Jesus. But because in the New Testament, the question of sexual immorality is actually like time and again framed as like a break fellowship issue, a sort of issue of first importance and not a kind of agree to disagree sort

of issue. And because I think the scriptures are very clear that same sex sexual relationships are sexual immorality, this then puts us into a place where somebody who's teaching that they're not is a false teacher. And so depending on, you know, who was celebrating the funeral, whatever, like I can kind of understand a circumstance under which that brother could legitimately say, do you know what? I love my mother so much and it breaks my heart to have to say this, but I don't think I can be part of this service.

Like I can understand. I can understand where he might have been coming from. You're right. There's a backstory in terms of how things are framed and the way it's presented that we're simply not given versus just renting the room itself and it has nothing to do. We don't have to die on that hill. Look, I went to the Reformation Project 10 years ago when Gushy first announced his change of mind about this. And every speaker got up there and they had a story of experience. It was my brother. It was my sister. It was my child. All of them led with that. And experience

can make us rethink things and look with fresh eyes, but we have to go back to the scriptures. In fact, Wayne Grudem on divorce of all scholars, in some ways, probably more conservative than you and I, I would guess, maybe. Friend of Viola, he's been on this show before, but very conservative on a lot of issues, which is fine. He shifted on divorce and it was his experience with divorced couples that made him go back to the scriptures and relook at it. So experience can get our attention, but it's the scripture themselves that has to make

the case. So maybe a lot of conservatives have not treated him fairly and justly and died on the wrong hills. Okay, but you still got to make your argument from scripture when it's all said and done. That's how I see it. Anything else you want to keep going to the arguments? Yeah, I mean, just to say one of the saddest moments

for me reading the book was hearing Richard talk about a friend of his who'd actually died some years ago who, like me, was someone who experienced same-sex attraction and who, like me, believe that the Bible said it very clearly, same-sex sexual relationships. And he talks about when he was first writing on these questions or sort of famously writing on them a couple of decades ago, he talked about his relationship with this friend being important to his own thinking and important to him recognizing that there can be faithful followers of Jesus for whom this is a real struggle and not getting sucked into a kind of demonizing view of anybody who maybe is a Christian who struggles

with same-sex attraction or maybe outside the church who pursues same-sex sexual relationships then I think I think honestly a lot ofians who were raised in church were raised with a non-biblical understanding of how like people who identify as gay or lesbian are sort of in all other respects sort of morally inferior to non-christians who might be in heterosexual um relationships or marriages and and i think often that's got um muddled up in people's minds with biblical clarity on on sexual ethics and so I can I think it's often important for people to sort of spend some time unpicking that and recognizing you know some of the attitudes I might have been raised with could be in fact completely wrong and my experience of getting to know somebody who maybe identifies as gay um could really unsettle those prejudices and I think it's

really important but what made me so sad was Richard saying you know about his friend who who died that he hoped that if he was alive today that this friend would agree with him and that even if he didn't agree with him he hoped that his friend would sort of um feel positively you know i forget exactly how he framed it but basically like understand where he'd come to and i thought to myself if i were your friend i would feel so betrayed to be honest um i would feel like you were cutting the news out from under me in my attempt to be faithful um and to follow jesus in the context of one particular area of temptation for me and so it just yeah it just made me really sad that's that's a really helpful uh corrective

and insight on this let's jump in now this is not central to their argument but a few times at least two or maybe three times it pops up in the book that there's the way this is kind of framed is that it's just cruel towards gay people to say they have to be single and celibate for their entire lives. This is unloving and this is nothing new. It's not the heart of their argument. I want to make sure, but it's an underlying piece of it. And they say on page nine, it followed that gay and lesbian Christians, while welcome to the church, were summoned to live lives of singleness and celibacy. And then sexuality is a fundamental part of our humanity. And while some people are called a celibacy, not all are. Is that the message you're giving and conservative Christians theologically are giving? So you have a same-sex attraction, you've got to be single and celibate,

and it's kind of the JV team, so to speak, in the way it's often framed. Is that cruel? I mean, number one, no, that's not what I would teach on these questions because firstly, there's actually no reason to say that you have to be single and celibate if you, like me, experience same-sex attraction. Actually, the large majority of people who experience same-sex attraction are also sometimes attracted to people of the opposite sex. For women, it's about 14% of women who report some degree of same-sex attraction and only about 1% who women who report some degree of same-sex attraction

and only about 1% who are only ever attracted to their same sex. For men, it's about 7% and 2% sort of respectively. So it's actually not uncommon for people who experience like significant same-sex attraction, perhaps even majority of the times they've been ever attracted to anybody that's been to somebody of the same sex. It's not uncommon for those folks to be married to somebody of the opposite sex. I'm one example of that sort of among many. And I think sometimes people get into almost a sort of odd mindset of saying, oh, it is a call to single, like by its very nature, if you are struggling with same sex attraction, that is a call to singleness by its very nature if you are struggling with same-sex attraction

that is a call to to singleness necessarily and i would say let's see like i don't know i don't know that's necessarily the case but then the the second part which is perhaps even more important to understand is this idea that um singleness and not engaging in sort of sexual relationships of any kind is in some sense a death sentence. I think that's a common understanding in our culture today, for sure, where sort of sexual romantic fulfillment is seen as the one thing none of us can really live without. And it would be kind of cruel and unnatural to expect somebody to say no to their sort of sexual desires or romantic um draws from from a christian perspective we want to say actually we're called to say no to

the vast majority of our sexual desires and romantic attractions um i mean that's that's true whether you're married or whether you're single you know you're called at most to be having a sexual relationship with one person to whom you're covenanted for life. So for most of us, that will mean saying no to sexual or romantic attractions outside of our marriage if we're married. And then this idea that being single implies being lonely and unfulfilled and all the sort of negative views that people have.

I think that that flows from a completely deficient understanding of of the christian family which we see in the new testament um because actually if you read through your new testament you'll find there are a handful of beautiful important verses that talk about marriage and help us understand how christian marriage is a signpost to jesus's love for his people but you'll find verse after verse after verse calling us to brotherly and sisterly love. And actually that is the sort of primary love category that we see in the New Testament. And that's a kind of love to which all of us, whether we're married or single, are called. And so again, this idea that singleness is some sort

of condemnation to loneliness for the rest of your life that's only true if we're not living into christian community ethics and we have big problems if we're not living into that that's well said i think your point that yourself as an example i think of others obviously rachel gilson uh christopher you on recently announcing as single with same-sex attraction, getting married, friend of mine, Jim Doman. I could go on and on with people who are public and have platforms and who don't. Now that's not to say God promises that all of us will find a spouse. And that's true for people with same-sex attraction and not with same-sex attraction.

I don't want to hold up marriage, like you said, as the fulfilling thing that gives our life meaning. That's not biblical. But it's also a mistake to go the direction they do and just say, well, you're just kind of condemned to this miserable single and celibate life because you're called to it. I think that's biblical, and I don't think it's true. That's a smaller point of their argument, but it's one thing that gives a little, it just comes up so often. Let's jump into the root of their argument here. On the question, does God change his mind? So again, in part, their argument from the Old Testament, we have a God who's changed his mind, changed his laws, therefore they somewhat jumped to, we should therefore

allow and change the laws and God has or would change his mind on sexual minorities. Now, step one of this is whether or not God really changes his mind. Now, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but one example they gave you hint at earlier, is the example of child sacrifice. And this is on page 62 of their book, where they refer to Exodus 22, where they say right here, I'm going to read it, 29b through 30. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen, with your sheep. Seven days it shall remain with its mother. On the eighth day you shall give it to me. And how did they give oxen and sheep to God?

By blood sacrifice. So they make the argument that God is commanding and allowing sacrifice of children. Well, I've heard this argument from Ezekiel, but not commonly from Exodus in the way they're arguing it here. So I pulled up a bunch of commentaries. Couldn't find any evangelical commentaries that took that. Now you might say, of course, three evangelicals. So I pulled up a Jewish commentary

and some non-evangelical commentaries, and I don't think the case is strong at all. Now we're not going to settle this here, but if a part of your argument is built on a very contested passage that there's good reasons to reject, that alone strikes me as a pretty weak place to start from. You have anything else on that sacrifice point that's been made? Yeah, and I think it's worth noting that their argument hinges on Exodus 22 being in a portion of Exodus that is, as they put it, generally taken to be the oldest legal code in the Bible. And I want to say,

okay, let's imagine that's true for a minute. So they're probably more current than I am on exactly where the state of scholarship is here. Let's say Exodus 22 proceeds in date Exodus 13, where it's actually made clear that the Israelites aren't to sacrifice their firstborns, but in you know, the Passover was God's active of protection on the Israelites' firstborns as the angel of death passed over. So if their argument is correct, what they would be left with saying is that God at the Exodus first protected the Israelites' firstborns at the Passover, and then immediately commanded them to sacrifice their firstborns once they were out of Egypt, which doesn't make any sense within the story of Exodus. And then if you look at the Ezekiel quote, which is another sort of

important strand in their arguments where they quote God saying that he'd given them statutes that were not good. What they're saying is God is reflecting on the fact that he originally gave them laws which told them to sacrifice their children, and then he changed his mind. He sort of recognized those were not good. But if you look at that chapter in Ezekiel, if you look at Ezekiel 20, you'll find that even in the sort of chronology of how God is recalling the history of Israel, it doesn't add up because he doesn't say, I gave you statutes that weren't good and then I changed to better ones. He talks about giving them statutes and then God's people rebelling. And then that verse actually kind of comes chronologically

after the Israelites had rebelled against his law and sort of worshipped idols, etc. So neither in the context of Exodus nor in the context of Ezekiel does their argument hold up. That's helpful to look not just at the word, but the flow as a whole of where it's going. I think that's sufficient pushback. Now, admittedly, there are tricky passages about God changing his mind, God having regret. And the question, of course, is how are we supposed to take these? This is nothing new. Theologians have been wrestling with this for a long time. And they kind of say, we shouldn't, you know, apologetically defend these passages. And of course, as an

apologist, I'm like, time out. We should try to make sense of these passages. Now, just one more really quickly, because they call it, they said, one of the clear statements that God changes his mind about the fate of nations is in Jeremiah 18, 17 through 10. So this is God changing his mind about the fate of nations. And it says in the translation, they quote, at one moment, I may declare concerning a nation or kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it. But if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil,

I will change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on it. At another moment, I may declare concern a nation or kingdom that I will build and plant it. But if it does evil in my sight, not listen to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I have intended to do to it. Now this raises a million questions, but part of the question is, is God really changing his mind here? Or is it really he's saying at the beginning, if you do A, I will protect you. If you do B, I will destroy you.

And so God already has his mind made up based on how they will react, how God, in fact, will judge. Now, of course, God knows the future where they're going to go, but he's letting them know that they're in the driver's seat. And based on their response is how God will respond to them. That doesn't feel to me like it's an apologetic just made up to save the narrative. That feels very straightforward within the text. And if this is the strongest example, minimally, I think it just pushes back on some of the weakness of the basis of the argument that

they're making is that your take or again do you see it differently no i think that's absolutely right and in fact the the first example they give in the book which is from first samuel 15 um when god is described sort of changing his mind with regard to saul is precisely an example of that where it's it's it's god changing his relationship with Saul because of Saul's sin. And of course, in fact, it's sort of core to the gospel message that God changes his relationship with us when we repent. So actually, you know, we go from being under God's judgment to being included in God's family and utterly beloved and under his mercy if we repent and put our trust in Jesus. And again, I think this is one of the ways in which this book robs us of the gospel because

actually the place of repentance is lost. None of us can presume on God's mercy if we don't repent. And at the same time, all of us can count on God's mercy if we don't repent. And at the same time, all of us can count on God's mercy if we do. And actually, the examples they're giving there are precisely making that point, that God will receive those who are repentant towards him and that he will reject those who are unrepentant. I'm trying to pull it up here. I can't find it right in front of me, but I know in that passage, it's in the same 1 Samuel chapter 15. One thing we can say to the authors

is they would have been aware of minimally the tension that's here. Whoever wrote 1 Samuel, whoever writes the Old Testament, clearly brilliant people who wrote this and were aware of the tension. And it's not like they wrote and were like, oh my goodness, there's a contradiction here. No, they're building it in for reasons. And so I think we have to give them a little bit more credit in terms of what they're trying to do than just pointing out a seeming contradiction that's there. Although it's fair enough to say, I'll leave it

out, there is a tension in the text that needs to be resolved. But let's imagine you and I say, okay, God has changed his mind on these issues. Nothing from that follows that he's changed his mind on other issues or all issues, let alone issues of the nature of marriage and sexuality. That is an argument that was not made in this book, as far as I can discern it. Now, let's go to some of the laws. Let me see if I can pull this up here. They make an argument right here on page 56, and they say, biblical laws were not unchanging, nor can they easily resolve ethical questions.

So not only has God changed his mind, the second pinnacle of this is that laws themselves have changed. And they say the story shows God himself taking part in reinterpreting and outright revisiting existing practices. Now, in principle, I don't have a problem with that. I think that's true. But there's a difference, again, between saying God changing these as the authority who put them into place and us overturning them later on for different reasons. That's a very, very different thing. Now, one of the examples they give, just to be specific, they say right here, this is towards the end of the book, they're kind of recapping

their argument. They say, it isn't hard to find other examples of biblical laws or teachings that the church has subsequently abandoned or overturned. So they say in the Bible itself, we have God overturning his laws, but we also have the church subsequent to the scriptures reinterpreting certain laws, and they give the example of slavery. Now, my big issue with slavery is I think William Webb drew this out in his book in the early 2000s with IVP, and I think Daryl Bach at Dallas Theological Seminary wrote the foreword for this book, and he called it Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. You probably would title it something different today, but it reflects its time, which is fine.

And he argues that there's a trajectory when it comes to women and a trajectory when it comes to slavery towards increased value and dignity and liberation. But when it comes to sexuality, the trajectory, if anything, is actually in a more conservative direction as we get to Jesus. So polygamy is maybe allowed in certain ways in the Old Testament, and we'll just say maybe it's allowed even though I think the scripture condemns it. The Bible rules it out when we get to the person of Jesus. Divorce is not just physically divorcing somebody. I'm sorry, unfaithfulness, adultery is not. It's actually your thinking itself, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, that is akin to adultery. So using slavery, I think, actually works against their argument in the opposite direction. Your take on that? heard is from the analogy with slavery, where people will say, you know, yes, we know that the

Bible in the New Testament and the Old says no to same-sex sexual relationships, but also we can say that the Bible says, you know, affirms slavery. And so the fact that subsequently we've sort of understood that this isn't actually faithfulness to God means that we can kind of make the same move when it comes to sexuality. I actually, I think the argument fails um and i've written a sort of a longer article sort of on on precisely why it fails but i think it's the best it takes the longest to explain why that argument fails relative to for example the inclusion of the gentiles which i think is a pretty i mean relatively central to this book and almost laughably implausible, actually, as a good analogy for this situation. I think we have all the resources

within the New Testament for the abolition of slavery. We have a radical overturning of the paradigm of slavery. We have Jesus himself positioning himself as a slave. You know, when he explains to his disciples, for example, that whoever wants to be first among you must be last and whoever wants to be great must be slave of all. Why? Because even Jesus, the son of man didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So we have this like at the center of the biblical story, the greatest king in the world has ever seen presenting himself as a slave who's come to die as a ransom for's come to die

um as a ransom for others so as i say i think actually when you look more closely what you find is that the the sort of claim that the new testament affirms slavery is radically misleading um and again i've sort of written more extensively on that in other places but i think it's the best straw that you can grasp at if you're trying to make a biblical case for same-sex marriage and i think it ultimately fails let's look at two more issues that are kind of central to this in terms of the argument that he makes one is about shifting sabbath laws so now we're moving to the new testament section written by uh richard hayes not christopher but they have the same general theme about the widening of grace that's there. And there's an interesting review I'll link to below that posted not long ago by

Darren Belusic. And I want to just kind of read his response to this. It's stated just as clearly as it could. Now, the case is made in chapter 9. Hayes appeals to Jesus' ruling on the Sabbath to build a case for his conclusion. Jesus ruled that healing is doing good and thus lawful on the Sabbath in accord with God's purpose of giving the Sabbath for the sake of human well-being. So healing on the Sabbath, Hayes interprets the story, is not defiance of God's law, but an embracing of its deeper intent. Then he draws the conclusion, again, this is Hayes in the book, quote, that means that actions done for healing and human wholeness should be welcomed rather

than forbidden, even if they appear to violate a particular scriptural prohibition. And so same-sex marriages being in line as he sees it with human well-being should be embraced similarly. Now, I want your thoughts on this, but Belusic gives two responses that I agree with, and I think he just stated it so well. I'm going to read it from his article. He says, the argument's inference does not follow from its premises. As Hayes keenly observes, Jesus acts of healing on the Sabbath of cord, not only with the spirit, but also the letter of God's laws. There's no God-given law that forbids healing on the Sabbath. It was only human-made rules intended to define conscientious keeping of the law that forbade healing on the Sabbath. Thus, the argument's inference should read, actions done for human well-being, provided such actions do not violate God-given laws, should be welcomed rather than

forbidden, even if such actions violate human-made rules. I think he's right about that. And then he says there's a relevant disanalogy between Jesus' healing on the Sabbath and the church blessing same-sex unions. There's no specific prohibition in Torah of healing on the Sabbath, but there are specific prohibitions in the Torah of same-sex intercourse. Therefore, while Jesus' healing on the Sabbath did not violate a God-given law, the church's blessing of same-sex unions would violate a God-given law. Now, I have a couple of things to say about that, but I think Balusik's response is exactly right, and I don't think the argument from shifting Sabbath laws proves his case at all. Anything you'd add or tweak to that point?

Yeah, I think I'd maybe go even one step further and say that in the coming of Jesus, we see a new era in salvation history. I mean, I assume that's something on which Christopher and Richard Hayes would agree with me, that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who is the eternal God made flesh, and he is the one who is the fulfillment of the law. So for example, you know, all the Old Testament laws around temple sacrifice are no longer binding on us today because Jesus is the sacrifice and he is the temple and he is, you know, all the things. The fact that Jesus, and I mean, I think you're right in the specifics there that Jesus isn't actually violating the Sabbath law, but the fact that Jesus sort of weighs in and does something which,

in the perception of those around him at least, is violating the Sabbath law, does not mean that we therefore have carte blanche now to say, oh, you know, here's my great idea about how we can sort of change God's revealed word in terms of its commands to us, because actually, I mean, broadly speaking to maybe slightly oversimplify, but the Old Testament laws, when it comes to how, whether they're binding on Christians today, fall into one of

three categories. There are some that are specifically released, like the food laws. There are some that are specifically reinforced, like the no to same-sex sexual relationships or the no to adultery. And there are some which are either not brought up again in the New Testament or brought up in such a way where there's legitimate room for disagreement between Christians on how we interpret them now. So for example, I think the Sabbath law would be an example of that. What does it look like today for us to observe the Sabbath? Is that something that's binding in the same kinds of ways on Christians today or not? And so as we look at the ways that Jesus kind of disrupted some of the expectations

of his fellow Jews in his time and place, we for sure should be paying very careful and close attention. But when it comes to how this then informs how we think about sexual ethics we need to look about look at what jesus taught on sexual ethics um you know for example one quote from the book that i pulled out was richard hayes saying you know how he suggests that we ask how might the gospel stories of jesus convention altering words and actions affect our thinking about norms for sexual relationships in our time i think that's a great question to ask agreed but we can't answer it by ignoring jesus's clear teaching on sexual ethics we've we've got to keep listening to jesus especially when he's talking about the issue that we're that you know that's at hand

rather than somehow like only listen to what he's saying about the Sabbath and then try and make our own interpretive leaps when it comes to sexual ethics and set aside what Jesus actually taught. I think built into his example is that obviously healing somebody's hand that's broken on the Sabbath is towards their flourishing. Can the same be said for affirming a same-sex union? Well, I think a case could be made from natural law that the hand is meant to function a certain way. There's a design for it built at the Bible, but also by looking at the nature of the human body. And so there's a little bit of a disconnect, a leap from one to the other that I think weighs against them. And there's an assumption that same-sex unions is what helps people flourish. They assume that rather than make that case. And I think import it into it. So if you and I are right, it doesn't help people flourish minimally spiritually and relationally and thus shouldn't be done given the reasoning that they give tied to the Sabbath

laws. Now with that said, let's shift. I want your thoughts on one more. This is kind of at the root of Richard's argument, is tied to the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15. Now he has a lot of pages on this, and I can't give it its full due, but he's kind of telling this story from the beginning of Acts, the widening of God's grace, whether it's Cornelius in Acts 10, a God-fearing Jew, whether it's at the beginning, you have reach out Philip to the eunuch, to Samaritans, etc., which of course is the theme of Acts, to Jerusalem, Judea,

Samaria, the ends of the earth. But then as you get to Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15, now the question is about Gentiles. Do we include them? Yes. How do we include them? And the answer is they don't have to keep the Jewish law, but what's required to be kept. And in Acts 15 28 through 29, it says, for it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials. Do you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and what is strangled and from sexual immorality? If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Now, the other three in this issue we could discuss, but they're tied to immorality and then sexual immorality is

specifically mentioned. And Hayes points out that this would be porneia, right, in the Greek, which of course refers to a range of different kinds of sexually immoral behavior, fornication, divorce, same-sex sexual behavior. And so my question reading this is going, how is he going to get outside of this? Because this seems to be a clear example of widening God's grace to the Gentiles, but not doing so in the case of same-sex unions. You have this mercy and this grace and this biblical truth in parity. And he writes this, he says, if the church today looks to the council as a pattern, and if it decides that same-sex unions are no longer to be automatically classified

as porneia. We would need to ask what analogous transformation guidance the church would offer to its members of differing sexual orientations. When I hit that, I was like, okay, it's a big if. Now we're acting in a way that we had the same kind of authority that the council had the apostles that were assigned by jesus and wrote the scriptures to decide this to me that's a huge massive time out that i think rejects the spirit of what inclusion of the gentiles involves your take yeah i mean i think there's again so much to be said that one it's interesting you bring up that word that greek word pornea which is usually translated sexual immorality as in that passage and it was striking to me that even in hayes's uh richard

hayes's own um text he he contradicted himself regarding that word so um at one point i think on page 120 um hayes says if we go to the four gospels looking for jesus's explicit teachings about homosexuality we will look in vain there's not a word on this topic in the gospels but then he later says um that porneia is quote a non-specific umbrella term for any kind of sexual immorality presumably including any and all forms of illicit sexual relations elaborated in Leviticus 18, adultery, incest, lying with a male as with a woman and so forth. So from Richard's own pen, same-sex sexual relationships are included in porneia and Jesus uses that term. That is actually clear in Jesus's teaching. So we sort of have a problem at that level. and then we have the problem

as as you've noted there that consistently in the rest of the new testament so from acts through the epistles and through to the book of revelation come to that we have this word cropping up again and again we have um porneia you know being a a very serious issue like sexual immorality is not again it's not a kind of agree to disagree issue. It seems to be an exceedingly serious sort of break fellowship, call to repentance kind of issue. And it's striking that Paul, who was the apostle to the Gentiles, you know, specifically commissioned by Jesus to reach the Gentiles with the gospel, Paul is responsible for three of the New Testament texts that specifically speak to same-sex sexual relationships so what we're what we're saying today if we decide that same-sex sexual relationships don't count as porneia is we're saying well Jesus was mistaken even according to Richard's own

definition and Paul the apostle to the Gentiles was mistaken, but we today are correct. And what's then kind of ironic there is the we who Richard and Christopher decide is the sort of the group to be consulted on these questions because part of their argument towards the end of the book especially is that because the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is going to lead us into all truth, that we can expect the Spirit to be at work today leading God's people into truth. And because as they look around them, you know, for example, Richard in his evidently sort of more liberal, progressive sort of church context, as they look around Western liberal Christianity and see a consensus when it comes

to same-sex sexual relationships being actually fine that this must be the spirit leading them in to all truth unfortunately when you look around the global church you find the completely opposite consensus and again i mean ironically um if they make a couple of comments about how, if we don't kind of keep in step with the spirit, we're going to be shriveling away as churches. It's striking that globally, one of the most flourishing and growing and sort of seemingly energetic sort of denominations is sort of more Pentecostal ways of living in the Christian faith, who are clearly very anchored on the work of the Spirit, and also, in the large majority of cases, very clear on same-sex sexual relationships being wrong for Christians.

So they find themselves in a very odd place, actually, of claiming that a small minority of predominantly white Western Christians have this sort of special access to the insights of the spirit on this question when the majority of the global church is profoundly wrong in order I mean that that's kind of how they have to to land if they're going to say that um you know we today empowered the Spirit, are able to sort of discern God's will on this question in a way that Paul, for example, wasn't. I had not picked up on this contradiction that you draw, Rebecca. I think this is a brilliant point, and you're right.

It's on page 120. He says, this is Richard, if we go to the four Gospels looking for Jesus' explicit teachings about homosexuality, we will look in vain. There's not a word on this topic in the Gospels looking for Jesus' explicit teachings about homosexuality, we will look in vain. There's not a word on this topic in the Gospels. Now, you could maybe say explicit teaching, but when you go later on, you're right. He says porneia includes, likely from Leviticus 18 and 20, it includes all sorts of sexual behavior, including same-sex sexual unions. So if that's the case, then we don't just have six passages in the New Testament.

Now we have Mark chapter 7 with Jesus. Now we've got Galatians chapter 5. Now we've got an even broader set of not just six texts that talk about this a lot more. And I think there's a contradiction that's there. At such an interesting point about the global church, maybe two years ago, I had a conversation with Colby Martin, who's a progressive Christian, self-identified, written a book on shifting towards progressive Christianity and towards LGBTQ ideas. And he makes a different argument than here. But I raised that same point.

I said, it seems to be a smaller segment of white male progressive Christians who are arguing the way that you are in the name of inclusiveness. But if you start including Asia and the Middle East and other parts of the world, you're actually in a minority if we expand outside of the U.S. context. So I think that's a really helpful point. We're bumping up against time, but I did want to get your quick take on an argument that's used often is eunuchs and how eunuchs are a sexual minority and they are welcomed into the kingdom. Therefore, we should have sexual minorities welcome today. Now I have two issues with this. Number one is it does say, and I think it's Isaiah 56, it says eunuchs who obey my Sabbath, follow my commands. In other words,

they are brought in in the New Testament to repent and turn from their sins like everybody else is, that's one thing that's left out of this. But the move from eunuchs who, either by choice or by birth or force from somebody else, males who could not impregnate a woman who had been castrated, that physical kind of, let's just say, inability or experience that they have that kept them out of the Old Testament covenant is not akin to the kind of sexual minority today that our culture says, where you're in a category of sexual minority because of your attractions, that's far more Freudian than I think it is biblical. So for those two reasons and more, I don't buy that move from the sexual minorities. And it's done in such a subtle way,

like the sexual minorities include all these things. We allow the eunuch. We should allow people today who are sexual minorities. And I go, timeout, you skipped about three or four premises to get there yeah any other thoughts on that one by you yeah i think that's right and i think it applies the same argument applies to the inclusion of the gentiles piece because it is absolutely true that there is there is no kind of immutable characteristic or when i say immutable characteristic i mean, nobody is excluded from Jesus' kingdom on the basis of something that they can't change. So whether it's your skin color or your place of birth or your patterns of attraction or your struggles with sin and whatever area, none of us are excluded on the basis of any

of those things. But all of us are called to repent. Repent and believe is the duo that comes together in the New Testament. How do you enter the kingdom of God? You repent and believe in Jesus, right? And there's a sleight of hand that happens or a kind of conflation that happens, and it happens in this book, it happens in a lot of other arguments in these spaces, which says if somebody experiences same-sex attraction or struggles with same-sex sinful desire, Christians can debate exactly how they want to frame that. Then from the sort of affirming position, people will say, well, then

they cannot help expressing those desires in same-sex sexual relationships. And so to say that they must help, they must say no to those desires if they're going to be followers of Jesus is actually to sort of exclude them, just like excluding somebody on the basis of their racial heritage or whether they were born a Jew or a Gentile. Actually, it's not like that.

And in fact, it's demeaning to people like me who struggle with same-sex attraction to say i have no agency over the choices that i then make on the basis of of my simple desires right because you know just as you have choices that you make when you when you experience a simple desire towards somebody other than your wife you as a follower of jesus need to say no to that desire and likewise for me when i experience a sinful desire towards somebody other than your wife, you as a follower of Jesus need to say no to that desire. And likewise for me, when I experience a sinful desire towards somebody other than my husband, I need to deny that attraction. I need to say no to that pull to sin. And so in actual fact, God's mercy is plenty wide enough for every sexual sinner in the world today. It is plenty wide enough for every sexual sinner in the world today it is plenty wide enough for everybody

today in the united states for instance who identifies as lgbt but nobody is going to enter god's kingdom without repenting or believing and and in order to understand what we need to repent of we need to read the scriptures we need to submit ourselves to god's word even when that lands us in very culturally uncomfortable or personally complicated places. My final thoughts on this. I think the book is interesting. I think it's well-written. I don't think it's going to be persuasive to anybody who's not already affirming.

And I say that for a couple of reasons. The language itself, I think, I don't know how to say this, but I think you and I are the weak brothers. You and I are akin to Pharisees in the narrative. And if you disagree with your position, it clear must be one that lacks love in principle and you're just buckling down and closed-minded and unwilling to go with the spirit. Just the way it's framed isn't going to persuade anybody for that reason alone. And second, I just don't think the arguments are convincing.

But I would invite people to read it for themselves. Don't take our word for it. At Biola, you know where I teach Rebecca, we read original sources over and over again. I tell my students if we're critiquing Hume, don't read Gary Habermas' Critique of Hume. Read Hume yourself charitably. See where you differ, and then go to others. So go read the book yourself, compare and contrast with what we said, make up your own mind, and then maybe write some kind of review or assessment.

Rebecca's written book called Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Marriage? And we had a conversation in this, I'll link below, where we walked through kind of the top 10 affirming arguments, give our responses, but that is my go-to shorter, concise book. You don't specifically address this book in here, but a lot of the arguments, it's like you've already anticipated them and dealt with them. So that's a wonderful book. For those of you who are watching this, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other conversations coming up you won't want to miss. And I teach a whole class at Biola in our master's program on a biblical view of sexuality. So if you thought about studying apologetics, we would love to have you on campus or distance

program. If you're not ready for master's, we have a certificate program where we'd love to train, equip, and walk you through some more formal training. Links are below. Rebecca, thanks again for coming on. We'll do it again soon. Thanks for having me. to train equip and walk you through some more formal training links are below rebecca thanks again for coming on we'll do it again soon thanks for having me