Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep901: The Historically Christian View of Marriage: Part 1

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

In this podcast, Preston gives an overview of what the Bible says about marriage and same-sex sexual relationships. He summarizes the historically Christian view in three points: 1) When the Bible talks about marriage, it says that sex difference is part of what marriage is; 2) When the Bible mentions same sex sexual relationships, it always prohibits them; 3) there has been a multiethnic, multidenominational, global, 2,000 year consensus among Christians on the first two points. Theology in the Raw Conference - In Person or Online At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different viewswill be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will bechallenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Faith, Sexuality, and Gender Conference - Live in Boise or Stream Online In the all-day conference, Dr. Preston Sprinkle dives deep into the theological, relational, and ministry-related questions that come up in the LGBTQ conversation. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.comVenmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkleInstagram | @preston.sprinkleYoutube | Preston Sprinkle Twitter | @RawTheologyInstagram | @TheologyintheRaw Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

🎵 Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My name is Preston Sprinkle, and I do not have a guest on the show today. The only guest is myself, and I want to do something a little bit different in this podcast episode, which is also a YouTube channel where you can view this episode, which may be important as I'll explain in just a second. What I want to do is I want to give an overview of what I call the historically Christian view of marriage and same-sex sexual relations. I've written about this topic in many different places. I've spoken about it, but many different places. I've spoken about it, but I don't think I've ever recorded on this podcast kind of a somewhat concise, although

this is going to take a bit of time to unpack, but a concise kind of A to Z overview of what is the historically Christian view of same-sex relationships and the historically Christian view of marriage. So that's what I want to do in this podcast. And if you're watching this, you see what's going on here. But if you're just listening, then I want you to know that I created a whole visual PowerPoint or keynote presentation that's going to go along with this that I'm going to be interacting with throughout this recording. So if you only do audio, then go with the podcast. You will pick up on most of what I'm saying, I think. But if you do want a visual of a lot of things I'm talking

about, then go to my YouTube channel, just type in Press and Sprinkle, and it'll take you there. So let me give a few introductory points as we get started. First of all, as we approach this topic, we absolutely need to have a posture of both grace and truth. This isn't grace or truth. This is grace and truth. Biblical truth is filled with grace and biblical grace is filled with truth. There is no biblical dichotomy between being loving and being truthful. Being loving is being truthful. And if you're not being loving, you're not being truthful. And if you're not being truthful, you're not actually being loving in the biblical sense. So we need to do both. And again, if you've listened to my journey, if you've read stuff I've written on this topic, you know that I have had a change of

heart. I had a change of posture several years ago when I started to engage this topic. And it started as just an academic exercise. I just want to know, what does the Bible say about homosexuality? And what are the arguments against the biblical view? And I just treated it as just an academic conversation. And early on in my journey, I reached out to several gay and lesbian and transgender people and just heard their stories. And I was pretty crushed. My eyes were opened, and I'll never be the same. I encountered many, many people who all said basically, well, they said lots of different things,

but one of the main consistent threads woven throughout all these stories was, I've never met a Christian who was kind to me. Or I grew up in the church, and I was mocked and made fun of and shamed and shunned, or I was just treated like some outsider, some other, some subspecies to the human race is how many, many LGBT people have felt growing up in the church. And 83%, according to the largest study available, 83% of LGBT people were raised in the church. And so many of them, many of them have had some pretty poor experiences. Not just bad, not just they encountered the theology of marriage and sexuality and they disagreed with it, but they encountered Christians and did not experience the love and grace of Jesus.

And so that has shaped the way I approach this conversation. Now, in this podcast episode slash YouTube conversation, I am going to focus more narrowly on just the theological conversation, which means this podcast is incomplete in terms of approaching this conversation as a whole. Do not take this podcast as a one-stop shop for how Christians should engage the topic of sexuality and marriage and LGBT people as a whole. If you treat it that way, then you're going to miss the boat. This is an incomplete episode, an incomplete recording. We are simply focusing on the theology and we're going to do so fairly thoroughly, I believe. But we also need to cultivate a posture of love and kindness and

grace and humility and a posture of honoring LGBTQ people and learning from and listening to stories and walking with and so on and so forth. So while we are going to focus on the theology in this conversation, I encourage you, if you have not yet done so, especially if you're a straight, conservative-minded Christian, I highly encourage you to make sure you go out and listen to loads of stories from LGBT people. So we need to have a posture of both grace and truth. I call this view the historically Christian view of marriage and same-sex sexual relations. There's other terms we could use here, like, you know, some say it's the biblical view of marriage and same-sex relations. And while I do agree it is biblical, I don't like using that term. That might sound odd, but I don't love using the term biblical to slap on my view

because everybody does that. Anybody can quote the Bible in support of their view of anything and call it the biblical view because they quoted the Bible. So I believe this view that I'm presenting is biblical and people who disagree with everything I'm saying, they're also going to think their view is biblical because we're both going to the text of scripture to understand what it says. So instead of the biblical view, I want to use a term to describe this view that is, I think, more accurate. I think historically Christian view is the best term we have. Some call this the traditional view of marriage, and I'll use that term. I'll use the term traditional view of marriage.

The one thing I don't like about that term is it gives the impression that we embrace this view of marriage and same-sex relationships simply because it's our tradition. And it could sound like we're unwilling to go against tradition. Now, if you Google my name hard enough, you will see that I'm more than eager to go against tradition if tradition does not match what the Bible says. So I will use the term traditional view of marriage. I don't love that. It's not my preferred term for the reasons just stated. I really don't like the term conservative. So people often will describe me as having a conservative theology on this topic, although they might not say I have a very conservative theology on other topics. Either way, I don't like the term conservative. I don't use it for myself.

It has way too many political connotations. It places a view on a political spectrum rather than a theological one. Conservative means many different things and many different people. What does it mean to be conservative? It's just somebody who's to the right of me or you. Or if you say that person's liberal, it just means they're to the left of you. Well, you're not the standard of political or theological truth, and neither am I. So I just don't like using terms that open up loads of misunderstanding. I used to use a term non-affirming. I do not use that term anymore. Again, there's loads of stuff I affirm about all types of people, including LGBTQ people. This conversation is really about marriage and

sexual ethics, not about whether I accept or don't accept a certain kind of person based on their sexual orientation. So in a sense, I affirm a certain definition of marriage. I affirm what I would consider a historically Christian view of sexual ethics. And so affirming, non-affirming, I think can be misleading as well. So I'm going to stick to historically Christian view of marriage and same-sex relations while I might use the term traditional here and there, but you now know what I mean by it. I also want to make clear that the focus of this topic, the focus of this topic, both as I present it and how I think it should be considered just as people discuss this conversation, we are talking about the meaning of marriage and sexual ethics. We are not talking about whether gay people should be accepted into

the church. It's not about whether gay people should be accepted into the church. Okay? It's not about whether gay people should be accepted into the church. This conversation, this debate, if you want to frame it that way, is about the marriage and sexual ethic that all people are being accepted into. Okay? So if a church is not accepting a certain kind of person or whatever, then I think that's flat out wrong. Everybody, right? Everybody should be accepted into the church community.

The question is, what is the sexual ethic? What is the meaning and definition of marriage that people are being accepted into? So this is more about what it means to follow Jesus in terms of the sexual ethic that Jesus in the New Testament has invited us into as believers. But the people that are invited into that come in all shapes and sizes and sexual orientations. So I really want to make a distinction there. I think that's really important because I think these are collapsed together. Oftentimes people will talk about the church and faith and LGBTQ questions and make it about accepting or rejecting a certain kind of person. That should not be how this is framed. We are discussing the definition of marriage and the sexual ethic that

all people are invited into. All right, what I want to do, I want to begin by giving three reasons why I believe in the historically Christian view of marriage. Now, I'm going to do my best to represent what historic Christian thinkers have, how they have interpreted the Bible. So I'm going to go back to the Bible and try to represent what Christianity has taught for the last 2000 years in terms of marriage and same-sex relations. I am not going to try to convince you to believe this. I'm not going to pound my fist and say, you must believe this or else. All I'm going to do is try to represent what I think is the best reading of Scripture and invite you to consider that. And if you reject that, then I invite you again to provide a better alternative interpretation of how I'm reading these texts. Okay. First of all,

the most important reason why I believe in the historically Christian view of marriage is that when Scripture talks about marriage, it says that sex difference is part of what marriage is. And I'm wording this very, very carefully. When scripture talks about marriage, it says that sex difference, biological sex difference is part of what marriage is. So for instance, let me give you two possible definitions of marriage. The first definition of marriage would say something like, you know, marriage is the union between two consensual humans. So if two humans fall in love and they consent to a lifelong relationship commitment, you know, maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but that's at least the original commitment, then that can be recognized as a marriage. Okay. And in 2015,

the United States, for instance, legalized that definition of marriage, that two consensual humans can get married. The other definition of marriage or another definition of marriage, that two consensual humans can get married. The other definition of marriage or another definition of marriage is that marriage is defined as the union between two sexually different humans, namely a male and a female. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. And so this other definition of marriage says that the meaning of marriage is the coming together of a male and a female. Now, these are two possible definitions, okay? I do think scripture teaches the second definition of marriage, and that's not a radical claim. This is something that, I mean, historic Judaism and Christianity and most monotheistic, I think all monotheistic religions have said that sex difference is part of what marriage is. This is not a radical claim. It

might be radical to some modern people living in the West that were kind of raised in a more, living in the West that were kind of raised in our secular culture. And my point, at least right now, is not to... Well, I will end up arguing for the second definition and showing why I think the Bible best represents this view. But it's important. It's super important for everybody, even if you completely disagree with everything I'm going to say about marriage and sexuality, it's important for you to understand that there are different definitions of marriage that are out there. And if you hold to one or the other, then you need to understand the differences and be able to defend your definition, not assume it. Okay. And this is so important because I see people using the term marriage as if it's some kind of agreed upon, as if there's some kind of agreed upon definition. Like a lot of people

will just assume that option number one, the first definition is the view of marriage. That marriage is, you know, some people even say like, what's so wrong with two people the same sex getting married? They're not hurting anybody. You know, it's consensual. What do you care what they do in the bedroom? What's wrong with love? Or what other phrases that will be attached to that? And I always respond, well, that's a really good question. But it's not the first question that needs to be asked. Before we ask what's wrong with two people of the same sex getting married or however you want to frame it, we need to first of all ask, what's the meaning of marriage? When you say marriage, what do you mean by that term? Because there's different definitional options there. Does that make sense? So we need to go

all the way back and ask not what is the Christian view of marriage? We need to ask what's the meaning of the term marriage as we're using it? Okay. So the first definition that marriage is a union between two consensual humans, that that is a, and I'm not saying this in a negative way. It's just, I'm just making an observation. That is a very modern Western secular definition of marriage. That doesn't mean it's wrong. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that if people come at this question with the assumption that the first definition is correct, that's

your, I think you need to at least recognize that you're assuming a very modern secular Western view of marriage that may or may not be correct, but it's not the only option. Okay. So why do I think that the second definition best matches scripture? If you go all the way back to the story of creation in Genesis, I do believe that it lays the groundwork for this understanding of marriage, that sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. So for instance, if we go back to Genesis 1, Genesis 1 is like a broad overview of creation. And in overviewing creation, it highlights all kinds of creational differences. Differences that I often describe as singing together in harmony. Okay, land and sea and sun and moon and day and night and evening and morning and light and darkness. And you see all these differences sort of interacting with each other. And rather

than representing chaos, as in other creation accounts, in Genesis 1, these differences are singing together in harmony and are being ordered by the sovereign God who will be called Yahweh in Genesis chapter two. At the climax of this beautiful array of differences singing together in harmony is the creation of humanity as male and female. In the climactic section in Genesis one, humanity represents and interacts with these creational differences. Male and female, they're different, but they're also fully equal to each other. And they both bear God's image as the pinnacle of God's creational differences. Okay.

And this is all woven into the fabric of what Genesis 1 is saying. And again, nothing I'm saying so far is really that disputed. This is more of an observation than an argument. Okay. So male and female participates in creational differences. In Genesis 2, we also see male and female, these sex differences coming together in a one flesh union that we call marriage. Marriage, marriage. In Genesis 2, 24 and 25, or Genesis 2, 23 and 24, which we'll look at in just a second. Okay, so sex differences are woven into the fabric of creation

and marriage comes at the end of Genesis 2 as one way in which the sex differences interact with each other. I love how N.T. Wright puts it. He says, the coming together of male plus female is itself a signpost pointing to that great complementarity of God's whole creation of heaven and earth belonging together. That comes from N.T. Wright. He wrote an essay on marriage. I think it's called The Meaning of Marriage. You can Google it. It's a great essay. And I think N.T. Wright captures this point perfectly. And he goes on in that article to talk about how this understanding of marriage as it relates to creation is a major thread throughout the entire biblical storyline. Okay. You see it all throughout the Old Testament,

New Testament, Ephesians 5, Book of Revelation. It comes at the very end where you see, again, the marriage metaphor being used of sort of heaven and earth coming together again at the end of the biblical story. So one thing to point out here is that when we are talking about marriage and same-sex relations, we are not just talking about a small handful of verses in Leviticus or Romans 1 or some Greek word in Corinthians that nobody knows how to translate is how, you know, some people will frame it. Or we're not, you know, this isn't just about six so-called clobber passages. Like this conversation, once you understand it through the lens of marriage, it actually is a significant part of the biblical storyline. Okay. So number one, when scripture talks about marriage, it says that sex difference is part of what marriage is. Let's dig just a little bit deeper here into Genesis 2. And again, it would help if you had the visual. I'm

going to put some texts up on here. I want to start with Genesis 2, 18 and 220 with this word that's sometimes translated as, well, helpmate or suitable partner. I have here suitable helper is another translation. And I actually don't like this translation, suitable helper. This is, if you remember the context, it's describing Eve in relation to Adam. Adam has been created and now God has just created Eve because Adam was without a suitable helper. And just, this isn't really directly related to our topic, but the word helper or helpmate, it translates a Hebrew word that's often used of God intervening to quote unquote, help Israel oftentimes through military intervention. So this isn't, my point is it's not a, it's not

a term that's demeaning towards women, even though the English term helper could possibly be taken that way. The Hebrew word for helper is actually a, a, a profoundly honor honoring term and powerful term. You know, uh, again, it's just, it's often describing God helping Israel because they were not winning the battle. Okay. So it's almost like God looks down at Adam and says, dude, oh my gosh, you really need some help. And so he creates Eve, not as some weaker person who, you know, needs to help some person who's pretty much has it all together, but just needs a little, you know, kick in the pants once in a while. Like this is a, um, this draws on what was stated in Genesis 1, that God created humankind, male and female in his image. They are, they are equal, even though they are different in many ways. Okay. But that's okay. So the word that I'm mainly after, though, is a word translated suitable. It's a Hebrew word, kenegdo.

Now, kenegdo is used only two times in Scripture, here in Genesis 2, 18, and then again in verse 20. It's only two times kenegdo occurs. Now, kenegdo is a combination. It's a compound word of two Hebrew words. The first word is ki in the Hebrew, and it basically means similarity or sameness. It looks at something that is very much like something else. Okay. Now the other part of this compound word is the word negdo, or it's actually, if it's by itself, it's, it's neged. Neged is a less common word. Key is a very common Hebrew word, but neged is a less common word.

And it can be translated various ways that often conveys difference. Opposite. Difference. Sometimes the two people are standing opposite each other. They're described as being neged, each other. So here's what's interesting. In the original creation account, when Eve is created from the side of Adam, not from his rib, that's not a good translation. It's from Adam's side, which is an image being portrayed. I don't

take this to be literal, but more, you know, conveying more theological meaning that Eve is created not from Adam's head. She's not superior from Adam, not his feet. She's not subservient to Adam, but from his side. And the word side is often translated. The Hebrew word often translates the side of a sacred piece of architecture, like the tabernacle is often the side of the tabernacle is the same Hebrew word used to describe here. So Eve is created as a sacred equal to Adam. And she is like Adam in that she is human. She's key, but she's also different than Adam. She's neged. So this word is almost created for this moment to describe Eve's full equality to Adam, and yet some sort of difference that she possesses from Adam. Okay? So we know

that her common, her key, her similarity is that she's a fellow human. Remember, you know, the context, Adam was looking around at all the animals and it says, there was not found a suitable helper for him. You know, Adam's looking at all the animals and thinking, this isn't going to work. So God creates Eve who is like Adam. She's human. So she's like Adam in that she's human, but she's different from Adam in that she is, she's what? However you finish that sentence has, I think, some theological significance. What is the difference that Eve brings to the table according to what's being highlighted in Genesis 2? Is it her, you know, some say, well, maybe it's her personality. Maybe he's like type A and she's a little more introverted, or maybe she's smaller than

him or physically just a little weaker. And all these are possibilities. Or another possibility is that the difference being highlighted here is that she is a female rather than a male. And that would make, I think, most sense of Genesis 2. And Genesis 1 is clearly highlighting biological sex differences when it says that male and female, he created them. And the next command is a command to procreate, which demands biological sex difference. So we do have contextual evidence that it is her biological sex that is the difference being highlighted here that's being

captured by this unique Hebrew word kenegdo. Now, some of you are thinking, well, of course, that's the difference. And I do think this is rather clear in the text of scripture, but I have talked to several people, many people who say, I hear everything you're saying, Preston, I just don't see it. I don't see that this is highlighting biological sex difference. So I can't, again, it's up to you. You have to, I don't want to say come up with your own interpretation, but I can't like force feed this interpretation upon you. I'm just trying to help you understand where this interpretation comes from. Okay. So that's Kenigdo in Genesis 2.18 and 2.20. At the end of Genesis 2, we see sex difference being built into the very meaning of marriage. Now there's an interesting, well, it's not, some people don't think it's interesting,

but at the beginning of 2.24, 2.24, Genesis 2 224 is the main marriage statement in all of scripture. For this reason, man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his life, and the two will become one flesh. There's very, I mean, everything's disputed, but there's minimal dispute that this is a significant marriage statement for the rest of the Bible and for Judeo-Christian tradition. That man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his life and the two will shall become one flesh. What the Bible says is a one flesh union here is what... what, I can't really highlight it. When they become one flesh, that statement one flesh is what we now call marriage. Okay. What is interesting about that statement is the leading phrase for this reason. For this reason means there is a logical connection between what's said about marriage

in 224 and the previous verse in 223. So the meaning of 224 cannot stand alone. It depends upon what's just been stated in 223. The meaning of 223 is being baked into 224, if that makes sense. So what does 223 say? Well, it says, you know, the man said, this is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. That is a statement of equality. This captures almost the key in Canegno. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This is a full equal human person. Adam goes on to say, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

The ish and the ishah. Ish means man, ishah means female. And even there, even in the Hebrew words, you see a degree of commonality, ish and ishah, and a degree of difference. They're different words, but they sound very similar. They have, you know, I mean, ish and ishah has some similarities there. That second half of 223 captures the neggedness, not nakedness, but the negged aspect of Keneg Do, the difference. She's equal to me. She's also different than me in that she is a woman, an isha taken out of ish. For this reason, equality, difference. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. I would suggest that the they here, that become one flesh, is not

simply two consensual humans, but according to the blueprint of Genesis 1 and 2, from everything I've been saying, that the they is precisely two sexually different persons. Let me give further evidence for this by going to the New Testament, because some people say, well, that's Genesis, that's Old Testament, we've moved beyond that. That's why I think it's important to go to Matthew 19 and parallel passages where Jesus quotes from both Genesis 1 and 2 in a context where he's laying down his understanding of marriage. He says, in a context where he's laying down his understanding of marriage. He says, Matthew 19, 4-5, at the beginning, the creator made them male and female.

And here he's quoting from Genesis 1-27, which is the most explicit statement about sex difference. What's fascinating, well, sorry, let me just keep going here. Jesus goes on to say, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. There's a few observations I want to make here. Number one, Jesus splices together Genesis 2.24 and Genesis 1.27. and Genesis 1.27. What's interesting is that he keeps the opening phrase of 2.24 for this reason,

which was important for the syntactical relationship in the original context of 2.24. It connected 2.24 with 2.23 in the original context. Here, he keeps that syntactical connector, only now he brings in Genesis 1.27, an even more explicit statement about sex difference. Because some of you might say 2.23, yeah, I see what you're saying, but it's not that explicit. I'm like, okay, I can see where somebody wouldn't see it as clearly there, but Genesis 2.27 or 1.27, that's the whole point is sex difference. So here Jesus brings in 127 to replace 223, if you will, an even more explicit statement about sex difference, and then says, for this reason, man shall leave his father and mother to be joined to his wife, and the two, which two? Two consensual humans or the male and female of the previous verse.

I would suggest that syntactically and logically and just exegetically, the two that become one flesh, according to Jesus' statement here, is precisely two sexually different persons, a male and female, because he went out of his way to bring in this text. Now, I think he is one of the main motivations for him in bringing in 127 is the duality spoken of here. Because if you remember the context, he's addressing what might be called serial non-monogamy. There's different phrases you can use. You know, the woman who had all these husbands and which, you know, husband will she have in the new creation? Is that how it goes?

I forget. But, you know, talk about different marriages and like, you know, there's all these different possible spouses here. And Jesus brings in the two here to kind of say, you know, from the beginning, it wasn't so. One flesh union was between two people. But the two people in question are two sexually different people, like the duality of marriage and the sex difference in marriage are baked into each other everywhere they're mentioned in scripture. So I don't think it's an either or, but a both and. You can't say, well, he's just after the number two here. And that's why he cited this passage.

I think it's a both and, not an either or. Jesus also, I don't know if he changes the text or if he goes with a Septuagint here, but instead of saying they will become one flesh, he says the two. So an even more explicit statement that relies upon sex difference. So all the way back to our first point, when scripture uses the, well, not the term marriage, but when it talks about marriage as a concept, the one flesh union, it says that sex difference is part of what marriage is. So when I engage people in this conversation about, you know, what's wrong with same-sex marriage and same-sex couples and so on, I often ask people three questions, okay? And I would encourage you

in the most gracious, humble way possible to do this. If you're having a theological conversation, I'm not saying you lead with a theological conversation. I'm saying if you find yourself in a theological conversation slash debate slash discussion, hopefully it's more of a discussion than a debate. There's three questions I genuinely want to know from people who don't see things, who don't agree with the historically Christian view of marriage. Three questions. Number one, what's your definition of marriage? Like when you say the word marriage, how are you defining that term? Because again, there's various definitions available. I need to know which one you're using or assuming. Okay. So number one, what's your

definition of marriage? Number two, where did you get that definition from? Because if somebody says, well, that's just what marriage means. I'm like, well, according to certain definitions, I just need to know if you have an understanding of the origin of your definition. I have an origin of, I understand the origin of my definition. It comes from Judeo-Christian marriage and sexual ethics as rooted in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Christian New Testament, what we call scripture. And I can show you where I'm getting that definition from. And that definition has resonated with church history as they have come back to the text of scripture. So I can unpack the origin of my definition. I'm not saying it's therefore

right necessarily. I'm just saying that I can show you where I got it from, from scripture. So I, yeah. Where did you get that? Or what's your definition of marriage? Where did you get that from? Like what's the, or is it the, is it the Supreme court in 2015? Is it the, I think the second humanist manifesto of the mid seventies, I think they define marriage in similar ways where it ways where as long as it's

consensual and mutual, then that qualifies for a marriage. Okay. At least now I understand where you're getting it from. I'm getting it from the humanist manifesto of the 70s or the Supreme Court in America. I just need to know where do you get that definition from? And number three, You know, where did this, where do you get that definition from? And number three, how does scripture inform your definition of marriage? So as you define marriage this way, you know, to consensual humans, regardless, you know, sex difference isn't a bad thing. It's just not a necessary thing. Okay, now I understand where you're coming from. How does scripture inform your definition of marriage?

Do you need scripture to support your definition of marriage. Do you need scripture to support your definition of marriage? Or I know I have some friends who are affirming and Christian would say, well, I think scripture is almost irrelevant for understanding modern views of marriage because scripture is an ancient document. So I don't need to, I'm like, okay, that's all I'm, I just needed to know that ahead of time so that as we go to scripture as a source of authority, we might be missing each other here. Okay. So what's your definition of marriage? Where did you get that from?

And how does Scripture inform your definition of marriage? That really is the starting point for a, I think, a helpful conversation about marriage and same-sex sexual relations. conversation about marriage and same-sex sexual relations. If people don't lay out their kind of fundamental understanding of marriage, I just feel like the conversation just, it begins with like two feet in midair. And I don't think it's often a very helpful conversation at that point. Okay. So that's just by one reason for believing in the historically Christian view of marriage. What's my second reason? My second reason is this. When scripture talks about same-sex sexual relations, it always prohibits them. And I'm listing here a few passages, which you may be familiar with. Leviticus 18.22, 2013. Sorry, let me say that slower. Leviticus

18.22 and Leviticus 20.13, Romans 1.26-27, 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, and 1 Timothy 1.9-10. These passages are ones that directly mention same-sex sexual relations. And in every single case, when same-sex sexual relations are mentioned, they are always prohibited. Now I know I can hear you. I can hear you screaming at your iPhone and your podcast app saying, yes, but that's not what these verses mean. They're not referring to adult, modern, consensual, loving, same-sex relationships. They're referring to abusive relationships. They're referring to, you know, slaves raping their, sorry, masters raping their slaves, or they're referring to pederasty, you know, older men on younger boys or sexual exploitation

is I'm summarizing how some people understand these passages. We're going to get to that in a second. I'm going to address a lot of these concerns in just a second. But I want to point out that even if you hold that view of these passages, this second point of mine still stands. Almost every affirming person that I know would still agree with this statement as it stands. So I'm not saying, I'm not, this is just an observation, not an argument yet. Okay. When scripture does mention some kind of same-sex sexual relation, it's always a negative description. It's always prohibited. Even if you think it's only talking about a certain kind of non-consensual same-sex relationship,

when scripture does mention same-sex sexual relations, it always prohibits them. There's other passages we can bring in here, which I don't think are as helpful. The Sodom and Gomorrah story, the parallel passage in Judges 19. We don't have some positive example of a same-sex sexual relationship in scripture. Why is this important? It's important because when it comes to other ethical questions or even theological questions in scripture, we don't find this kind of uniformity. Let me give you several examples here. I mean, if you look at the question of, for instance, divorce, when scripture addresses divorce, is it always in the negative? Does scripture always say don't get divorced? No, there's actually some various tensions in scripture on the question

of divorce. Deuteronomy 24 seems pretty lenient on divorce. Ezra chapters nine and 10 actually commands divorce, which is, I don't know what to do with that. It's kind of a unique situation, but no one reads Ezra anyway, so no one really knows about that passage. But Ezra 9 does a different view of divorce. And Malachi 2, depending on the Hebrew text you're going off of there, could say, God hates divorce. And then you get to the New Testament and Jesus says, don't get divorced. And he comes down really hard on that. But then he says, except for sexual immorality, and there's some confusion or debate about what that means. And Paul adds his two cents in 1 Corinthians 7. So there's tensions in scripture on other ethical questions. Well, what about women in ministry? I don't like that phrasing, but like women teaching in a local church or women pastoring or women

being elders. Now, look, I don't even care what view you hold. Whatever view you hold, you have to admit that the other view, that wrong, nasty, horrible view that you disagree with, that other view does have a verse or two to support it. You have to admit that. Okay, that's why this is such a debate in evangelicalism, because there's some texts say this, other texts say something different. So 1 Timothy 2, man, if you were on a desert island and a bottle floated up on the shore, and all that was in that bottle was a snippet of 1 Timothy 2, then you would be hardcore complementarian of the John Piper sort. You just would, right? If that's all you had, then you would be complementarian. Vice versa, if you, okay, so my complementarian audience is cheering right now, but put your hands down because if you were also on another desert island and 1 Corinthians 11 floated up on shore, or Acts 20 floated up on shore,

where you have female prophets and female prophesying in a church. And Paul says, hey, women, when you're prophesying in a church, make sure you cover your head or put a veil on, depending on the translation. Okay, so Paul, you're cool with women prophesying in a church. That sounds pretty bold and authoritative to me. You got female prophets running around the book of Acts. So there's tensions in scripture. You got female judges and other female prophets in the Old Testament. There's tensions in scripture

with various ethical questions. What about even theological questions like election? Did you choose God or did he choose you? Well, are you reading Romans 9 or are you reading Hebrews 6? You might get a different perspective. Should you kill your enemy or love your enemy? Well, again, if you did your devotions in the book of Joshua, you might have a certain view. And if another person did their devotions in the Sermon on the Mount, you might have a different view than what the person has when

they read the book of Joshua and on and on it goes, infant baptism, adult baptism, and so on. It's very rare, if you think about it, that scripture would speak with such uniformity on a particular ethical question. The few times, the few categories we can probably go and say, yes, here's where there's whichever page you turn to, there's some, you know, there seems to be uniformity. Adultery might be one. Is that the only one? I mean, there's probably a few others. What's interesting though, is the ones that are pretty set in scripture have to do with sexual ethics. So when scripture talks about same-sex relations, it always prohibits them. And in light of the

way scripture treats many other ethical and theological questions, I do think that that is a rather significant observation, especially when coupled with the definition of marriage that we laid out under their first point. Now, some people are going to say, well, Preston, yes, I see what you're saying, but you are a white, straight, heteronormative, cisgender male. And so you have thick, thick, fogged up lenses. Your heterosexuality has fogged up your lenses. So you're just reading scripture the way you grew up with. You're reading scripture the way you want to see it. And so this is just your interpretation, which makes sense to you because you're straight, but it doesn't make

sense to other people that aren't straight. I actually think that's a good pushback. I think it's always healthy to pay attention to various problems that can happen when you interpret scripture by yourself. I would lean, not quite Catholic on this, but I think that one of the most dangerous things you can do is interpret the Bible by yourself. I think the Bible is designed to be a communally interpreted book. In fact, for the first 1500 years of Christianity, few individuals woke up in the morning, read the Bible and interpreted it for themselves because most people couldn't read prior to the printing press or afford a hand copied version of the Bible. They were relying upon the community of God's people to understand what the Bible says.

So I very much want to wear and think through and consider this pushback that I am just, this is my individual straight interpretation. And this is not, you know, this is, that's all it is. It's just my interpretation. Here's the one problem with that. And this is my third reason why I believe in the historically Christian view of marriage and same-sex sexual relations is that there has been a global, historic, multi-denominational 2,000-year agreement on the first two points that I made. I'm going to say this a few times just to make sure I don't get this pushback. I am not saying, therefore, because there's been historical consensus, therefore it's true. I'm not using this as a separate argument. I'm using this as a response to the argument that says, I'm just reading the Bible through my individual lens

that I want to see. Because yeah, I think one of the most healthy things you can do is to consult people of different denominations, consult people of different eras in church history. Consult people of different ethnicities. Consult people of different sexes. Like look at female and male interpreters of the Bible. The thing is, when we do this, the more global, the more historic, the more multi-denominational we get, all this does is show that this is not simply my individual white interpretation of scripture. I mean, and you can cast in that really broadly. You can look at Protestants, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox,

Coptic Christians living in Egypt. You can look at Christians in Africa, in Latin America, Asia, wherever Christianity has existed. On that note, I mean, it is interesting to acknowledge that the affirming view, the view that has a sexual marriage ethic that says that marriage isn't, that sex difference isn't part of what marriage is, that same-sex relationships could be considered as marriages. That view was born out of a more Western, modern, largely white-educated context. And there has been several voices in these other parts of the world, black Christian leaders in particular, who have raised this concern. I've heard people say, we've been colonized by the West before. We've been colonized by white people before.

We don't need to be colonized. We don't need to be theologically colonized once again by this Western kind of white progressive sexual ethic. We're okay now. We can do this. We can take it from here. So if people, because I know a lot of the same people that are concerned with listening to ethnic minorities and listening to global voices and to say we need to get out of our sort of Western European mindset and whatever and pay attention to the oppressed people around the globe. Oftentimes, that is with certain qualifications. Like we will want to listen to those voices unless they disagree with a Western sexual ethic. And I do, I don't know, want to point out at least the potential inconsistency with that. Do we really want to listen to and learn from global voices when it comes to things

like marriage and same-sex relationships? So Christians in different denominations, cast that net as broadly as you want. Christians all around the globe, Christians of different church expressions, high church, low church, Wesleyan, Reformed, Frozen, Chosen, Presbyterian, Snake Handling, Charismatics, KJV-only fundamentalists, and those who think that the message is a translation. Like whatever expression of church you have, whatever form or whatever part of the world that takes place, whatever denomination you're in, there's a wide array of different expressions of the Christian church. And even within that vast array of church culture, if you will, there has been very

little agreement on much of anything, but they have agreed with the first two points that I, uh, made before. Um, and I mean, if you put some of these people in a room together, like snake handling charismatics or KJV only fundamentalists, like somebody is not going to leave that room alive because people are going to be bitten by snakes. And, um, you know, the, the charismatics tell the KJV only fundies that, well, you don't believe this is a thing anyway. And you don't think I could heal you because you don't believe in healing. So go deal with it yourself. And then the message readers are off in the corner smoking pot. And I mean, if somebody walked into this room with, if you just took a sampling of the global

church and put them in a room together, you would think that this is a religious convention, not a Christian convention, because it just seems so different. The Christian church is incredibly diverse. We can't even agree on what books belong in the Bible, which makes it all the more remarkable that there has been a historic global multi-denominational, multi-ethnic, 2,000-year agreement on the basic question of marriage and same-sex relationships. Again, I'm going to say it one more time. I am not saying, therefore, it's true. What I am saying is, therefore, you can't really say that this is just your individual white male perspective. This is just you reading into the text as some individual

which you want to see there. While that's theoretically possible, it's extremely unlikely given the uniformity that there has been an agreement on the questions at hand. And again, I'm not using this as a standalone argument. Well, this is what we've always believed. I've heard people say that. I do not like that line of reasoning. This is what we always believed there before we should always believe it. No, we should take this historic view and go back to the text of scripture with it, which is why I began with the first two points, because I think those are the most important. So again, first point, when the Bible talks about marriage, it says that sex difference is part of what marriage is. When the Bible directly mentions same-sex sexual relations, they are always prohibited or spoken in negative terms.

And thirdly, there has been a widespread global historic multi-ethnic, multi-denominational agreement on those first two points. There's a lot more I could say to unpack this view, but that should keep us busy for a bit. But I'm sure some of you at least have loads of pushbacks. For instance, yes, but the same-sex prohibitions in the Bible aren't addressing consensual adult relationships, some will say. Or wait, if God created people to be gay, why would he say it's not okay to act on it? Or, you know, well, doesn't the Bible change perspectives from Old and New Testament? I mean, look what Jesus did with the Sabbath command, or look at what God did with the Gentiles. We now accept Gentiles. Or some people say,

wait a minute, I just heard that the word homosexual wasn't even in the original Bible, and therefore this whole thing has been a translation mishap. Those are all great, great questions. And we will address all of those and more in the next Theology in the Raw episode, where I'm going to address the main affirming pushbacks to the historically Christian view of marriage and sexuality. Until then, thank you for listening to Theology in the Raw. you