With The Perrys - Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Preston Sprinkle doesn’t shy away from the tension of wrestling with what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality. As his theological curiosity has led him to search the scriptures and dialogue with people in the LGBTQ community, Preston is also committed to embodying the grace and kindness of Jesus. He joins the Perrys on today’s episode to discuss some of his methods in approaching the topic of same-sex marriage. It all starts with asking the fundamental question, “What is marriage?” Follow Preston Sprinkle at PrestonSprinkle.com and check out his new book, Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? His other books include Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say and  People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue.   Take our brief listener survey.  Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Saints, how art thou? What up with y'all? How are you today? Doing good. Your hat is very interesting. Your face is very... It has like little things sticking out of it. Yeah, because it was one of those hats that you get an urban outfit is that comes like folded up.

Uh-huh. And I didn't want it folded up. And so I ripped it. And so... And then when I ripped it, I was like, I was going to cut this off. But then, you know, I kind of liked a little rugged look, so I kept it. Do you have a question for me regarding my day or something? Because I usually ask you a question to open it up.

Really? It's starting to feel like I'm being left out of offering any. You don't feel included? I do, just not in the intro. Oh, well, I don't have a question for you. I have a statement. You're very beautiful. Okay, so we have a guest with us today.

And his name is Preston, too. Preston. I feel like a bit Trudy. You know, like, whoa, team I. I can come back later. Get a room. Hi, Preston Sprinkle. Welcome, welcome to our couch.

Good to be here. Thanks for having me on your couch. This is, yeah, I feel like I've been here before because of your Instagram feed. Too many people have told us that. That means we show our house too much. Now, last year, you might recall, not last year. It was like two years ago. Was it two years ago?

It was a while ago. I don't know. The pandemic has scrambled all of our since of time. A while ago. About two, three, four, five years ago, we had Preston Sprinkle on to talk about his book related to just transgender conversations. I don't know if you know that people got mad at us for that. Really?

For what? They felt like we didn't ask you enough questions about like the Bible and transgender stuff. Like we were kind of like in the clouds. We didn't come down and like talk Bible. And it's like we didn't want to. We wanted to ask about like what gender pronouns and stuff. But there's a thing called selective outrage out there. And so, you know, you can't, you know, hang your head up.

There's a lot of Bible in the book. So we could have gone to several chapters. Embodied, Transgender Identities, the Church, and what the Bible has to say. It's right there in the subtitle. Look at that. Now, Preston is back with us because he has another book titled, Does the Bible Support Same Sex Marriage,

21 Conversations from a Historically Christian View? Like, you like swimming in topics that are like that people don't be messing with. What's that about? Like, what? Brave soul. Yeah, you know nothing about that. Yeah, I know.

Because I'm saying, we got to be built different to be touching stuff like this. Yeah. So what does that? I think so. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Of course, as you know, as you guys do too, you get criticism, right? You get a lot of pushback and anger and all this stuff.

But for me, and I imagine for you guys tenfold, I mean, the positive feedback does far outweigh the negative. I typically listen to the negative more, you know. Yeah. But, yeah. I don't know. Somebody asked me, like, why do you, why did you even get into this conversation? And to me, it almost, I don't, I don't use the word calling. I rarely use the word calling.

Like, I think that's overused in the church. But I do feel a sense of something outside of me that was compelling me to continue to engage the conversation. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is, I think the fourth book on the topic, probably my last. Okay. And a lot of people are going to be excited. Yeah. Yeah.

hear me shut up about it maybe but speaking of calling um i was very intrigued to to ask you this question because you know i'm i'm on a little small tour now and it's like an open forum type style tour and uh surprise me a lot of questions came you know in because we do like you know q and a crowd and also online and a lot of you know men especially in the black in a black church are starting to ask questions about how to actively engage with men who are same sex attracted for discipleship purposes and for me me that's just new but like when I see men like you you've been kind of in this space for a while as a as a straight male and so like what what has motivated you you know to to talk about homosexuality being a straight male like what's what's the motivation man so I I sort of fell into it

over a decade ago out of a I would say out of theological curiosity like you know I grew up knowing what I believed about everything, right? But then not knowing why I believed it. So I've been on a, I mean, a lifelong mission to take all of my preconceived beliefs back to the Bible and try to study the Bible as freshly as I can to figure out what the Bible actually says, you know? And sometimes that confirms your presupposition.

Sometimes it challenges them. So I did that with this topic. You know, so it really was just me in a bunch of books and, you know, word studies and looking at Bible verses and stuff. And early on in my journey, I started to get to know a lot of LGBT people just to hear their stories

and found out that the overwhelming majority were, you know, raising the church, were kind of shame and shun, mistreated, you know, best case scenario, kind of just isolated and almost ignored. That's like best case, you know, versus sometimes just deliberately, like, mocked and dehumanized. And so, yeah, for the last 10 years,

I've tried to, you know, wrestle with this tension of, you know, following what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality. You know, I was, I think most of the last. Most people know I hold to a traditional sexual ethic. And also trying to embody the love and grace and kindness of Jesus toward LGBT people in ways that I don't think the church has done well. That's good. Speaking of that, I read something in your book that was really interesting.

You talked about how... Can I interrupt you real quick? Yes. I just want to interrupt to just affirm. Because I feel like I do spend a lot of energy in affirming Preston Sprinkle. But it's for due reason because I feel like... I feel like you do a good job at being curious about people about just being academic and intellectual and authentic and sincere

even as you search the scriptures, but even how you apply what you learn academically, you do it with so much care. It has like this pastoral shepherding. Because you used to be a pastor, right? I've never actually been a full-time pastor. I've been like an elder and non-teaching teams. Yeah, they got traits like pastors.

I sound at the same. Like, when you listen to me, even talk about sexuality, a lot of the way I approach it is not just my own history in that life. It's also learning from people like Preston. So I just wanted to say that. That's good. Yeah, I echo that. I think I learned about you way later than when, you know,

and she kept saying, she just kept saying this guy named Preston. I'm like, who is this guy? Like, every time she'd say your name, I thought she was talking about me. And I'm like, this is weird. But when I, you know, checked out your stuff. I was like, though, this dude is dope. But yeah, I was reading your book And it was a portion of your book

Where you talked about you did a talk And how in the talk It was very interesting Because in the talk you Kind of encouraged the church to support You know, same-sex attracted people Gay people in the church But at the same time, I think you said

The second half of your talk Was talking about how you support The more traditional framework for marriage And yada, yada. And two different people came up to you. you after the event. One person accused you of not really preaching biblical truth when it came to,

you know, homosexuality. They completely misunderstood what you were saying. And then another person came up to you. It was like, why do you hate gay people? And so like literally like you kind of affirm both, but they both misunderstood you. And so when you talk about such a polarizing topic like that, you can often be misrepresented, misheard,

you're misread and all of those things. And so I want to talk to you about methods. Like what is your method when talking about these things? Because I love methods. Yeah. And honestly, that's a question that I wish was ask more. Because oftentimes we just rely on citing the verses or stating the kind of like the analytical, you know, theological point we agree with.

And we don't realize we're talking to a really complex human person that oftentimes as a very complex story. And this is something that's been shown through a lot of psychological research that, yeah, we've got, our interpretive lenses are just so colored by our experience, our background, our emotions,

our hopes, our fears, you know, what we want to believe, you know, and so I think it's important to consider all those things. I think just anecdotally, too,

I've learned over the years, like, just that example, you know, like one sermon, we're like, you know, two people,

based on what they wanted me to say, heard two completely different messages. Even the one person that says, you know, was like confronting me for affirming same-sex marriage. You know, half of my message was literally showing, proving traditional marriage from the Bible. She even used verses that I quoted in my sermon saying, you should go read this passage.

Because I think because I began with, man, we need to do a much better job, loving and caring for LGBT people. she immediately just read the rest of the message through it. If she hears that, then this person cannot embrace traditional marriage, you know? So, yeah, methods, I think, well, because of what you said, Jackie,

I mean, I think being, before we start to, like, assert our view, like, we need to get to know who it is we're talking about. We need to be curious about their story and what's going on. And that might, it doesn't change the content of what we are going to say, but maybe it might change the shape of, how we go about saying it.

And we get this from the Bible, right? You have, you know, you read like First Corinthians, you know, where Paul's just going off on this church, right? And then you read like Philemon. And he's like, he's a lot more reserved. He's like, he's trying to lead Philemon to come to the conclusion on his own rather than just saying like, I'm an apostle, you must do what I say. So you see, you know, Paul and Jesus and others kind of understanding kind of the context

in which they're in and they present truth in a way that's contextualized. It's sensitive to that. Have one follow-up question from that. Because, you know, in my time of, like, trying to give the gospel to, like, atheists, sometimes agnostics, you know, Hebrew-Israelites, I've kind of learned, you know, my audience and, like, the people that I'm trying to reach. And I know sometimes, you know, to avoid certain words that can be triggers, right? Because it seems as if in the book what you said to the person who was in the audience, it was a trigger.

And so because I don't know what the trigger, you know, because I don't really minister or reach out to this community. And I know you interview a lot of people on your show and your podcast who have been same-sexistract. And so in dealing with that community and loving that community, well, like I think you do it in a loving way. Are there any triggers, you know, are there things that you avoid? That's good. with saying that that can potentially make them hear something that you're not saying and close their heart to you and their ear to you when you're trying to reach them. That's a great question.

And the answer is absolutely there's a lot of triggers. For each person, it might be different. For one, you know, one trigger that is a real subtle one is simply the word homosexual. Instead of like gay or even with younger people, sometimes they like the word queer. I think queer is, that's a whole other, has some complications there. But the word homosexual, if you get up and start talking about how we should love homosexual people, there's going to be many people in the audience, or not, I depend on anybody who is affirming of same-sex marriage is gay, maybe younger, they're going to hear

that word and they're just going to be like, oh, this person's out of touch. Explain why. Explain to me why. Most people in the community don't use that word. Okay. That's usually a word used about them. Yeah. From an us versus them kind of perspective.

Yeah. Well intended. I'm not saying, I know lots of be able to use the word. They don't mean anything by it, but it's just kind of an outdated. It's not what most gay people used to refer to themselves. So it gives the impression that, oh, you obviously don't really know any. It's like coming in the black community and saying black Hebrew-Israelism. They hate that.

Black Hebrew-Israelism. Yeah, Hebrew-Israelite is a growing religion in the black community. A lot of black churches are trying to figure out how to reach them. But black Hebrew Israelites, it's a very dated term. And so they just like to call themselves Hebrew. Hebrew Israelites or Israelites. And so... Yeah. I would say it's very similar.

Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Would you agree with that with the word homosexual? For sure. Yeah, it has this like Old Testament kind of swag to it. Like, you know, like, what are you for to bring up in here? But I think I'm wondering, even when it comes to kind of

the same-sex marriage conversation, right? Let me read what you wrote. Yeah. And then we'll... So you define marriage as this. You say marriage, is a lifelong, one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons,

a male and female from different families. That's key, because, you know, marry your cousin is a bit interesting. United with the purpose of telling God's... Shout out to Alabama. In Arkansas. I got to start over. Okay, a male and female from different families

united with the purpose of telling God's story of faithfulness, creativity, and sexual relationships out there. outside of this covenant union are sin. I put it around brackets because I think sometimes when you hear marriage defined, you don't even hear it defined with the mention of sexually different persons. And so why is it, like, why is it crucial or even fundamental to our understanding of marriage to, like, platform the fact that, like, no, this includes mailness or males and females,

not just two people that love each other? Yeah, I think this is the fun, in terms of, wrestling with the theology of same-sex marriage, traditional marriage, I think we need to ask, what is marriage? What are we talking about? And this is something that I've been shocked

over the years at how many really smart people just skip right over that question. They'll ask me like, what's wrong with two people of the same-sex getting married? Which is a great question. I'm like, that's a great question, but I need to first know

what do you mean by that word marriage? Yeah. And I think I use the illustration in the book. like if if a Martian, you know, landed on Earth and started, you know, learning English and then, you know, he meets, he meets you, Preston, and then Jackie walks in and says, oh, this is my wife, you know, we're married. And the Martian says, oh, I haven't heard that word before. What does that mean?

Like, how would you actually define that? It's really good. Word. Would you say, well, it's when two humans fall in love? Like, would two be significant in that definition? Would falling in love be significant? Or would sex difference be part of that essential definition? So before we even move into, you know,

the, you know, Leviticus and Romans and some of these other passages people go to, we need to ask a question, what are we even talking about? What is this thing called marriage that we're trying to understand what does the Bible say about this? So, yeah, this is, you know, I try to show early on the book that,

I know I'm not supposed to use the word clear. I get critiqued for saying it's clear. To me, it seems pretty clear that when the Bible does, describe this one flesh union. One flesh is the biblical term for marriage. Sex difference is an essential part of the form that one flesh union. Jesus, I mean, do you have Genesis 1 and 2, but Jesus in Matthew 19, he even goes out of his way to say, from the beginning, God created the male and female for this reason, man shall leave his father, mother, be joined his life. And the two will become one flesh, which two?

Male and female. He actually goes out of his way to like highlight male and female there. So, and again, I'm not, you know, there's lots of pushbacks, everything I said, which is why, you know, it's like chapter three, four, and five, you know, addressing those pushbacks. But I think starting with that fundamental question, what is marriage is absolutely essential. I really do think it's important because it's like,

I think sometimes we forget that marriage is something that God made. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like in Genesis 1 and 2, like he created that. Like the origin of marriage is God, not even America, not even like Earth. Like it's a divine kind of thing. And so like us paying attention to what God has to say about it and how he designed it and what he originally created.

Like when he came and putting, what's their names? What's our grandparents? Adam and Eve. When he put them together. I'm like, what? I was going to say Dorothy? I got my name Dorothy. That's important, you know?

When I have had conversations with people, I did ask you this question. I asked you when I came to y'all house and y'all were eating food and I was pregnant. So one thing that was really surprising to me is when I would have conversations with people who felt like, how do I word it? They felt like they can engage in a relationship with a person of the same sex. but if they pursued holiness, like it wasn't sex, that that still was permissible. So it's like being girlfriends but not girlfriends, kind of like this like covenant friendship type of situation

where we share our bank accounts, we share rent, we share mortgage, like we do life together, but we're not sinning because we're not being sexual since that seems to be what Paul is actually getting at when it comes to like prohibiting is like the sex part. What would you say to that type of situation? I want to hear what you have to say first. I'll say what I said to them because I was winging it. I don't have anything to say.

I think you would have something to say. I think you would. Okay, I don't think about it. I want to hear you guys. Well, yeah. So this is kind of a live conversation within I guess the community of people who are same-sex attracted, gay, however they identify,

who are committed to a traditional sexual ethic. and I want to be slow and curious, slow about forming my kind of strong opinion on it and curious about how people are going about this because if they are committed to not, you know, engaging in a sexual relationship outside male and female marriage and that shows that they're, you know, that's a pretty radical thing to say.

You know, they're on, they're on a traditional side of this conversation. So for, for, for, me, I wouldn't, I want to maintain the sanctity of marriage and not engage in or make any other relationship look like that, mimic it. You know, somebody just asked me the other day. Like, what do you think about like getting like marriage rings in these kind of relationships? It's not a sexual relationship, but they even have, you know, like, like wedding rings, you know. I'm like, but that, that clearly is sending a signal in our culture that this is, it's sort of mimicking, mirroring

marriage in a way that I think is just at the very least unhelpful. You know, like that's just like why do that? Now, if somebody says, I am committed to this friend, we live together, we are committed to each other. If I'm in the hospital, they're going to visit me. I mean, that just sounds like really good friendship.

That's like David and Jonathan stuff, you know? And I think our culture has a kind of weak view of friendship, especially among guys, right? So if they're pretty, pursuing this, what I would consider in a category of a really robust, faithful friendship, then I can celebrate that. I just want to make sure you're not using, you're not making it look like a marriage or even using, you know, some people say, well, this is my partner.

I'm like, well, in our culture, right? I mean, partner signifies this is a sexual romantic relationship. That's what that word means in our culture, I think. So why use a language? It's going to be kind of confusing. Can't you just say this is my, why not say this is my friend? Yeah, for sure. defined friendship in real robust ways and then there you go.

Yeah, my only thing I would say to that and, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, guys. I'm open to be corrected, especially on this topic. But, you know, for me, for somebody who's living with, you know, another person of the same sex and they are physically attracted to one another and even emotionally, you know, investing in one another, but they're just not having sex, I would question if they're truly seeking the Lord about that decision, like truly seeking the face of God for this situation

because God just doesn't tell us things because they're sin, tell us not to do things because they're sinful, he also tells us to do things to avoid it, right? And so like, because we are progressive people, you know, I don't think that, you know, the temptation will go away for not to be. become sexual for you not to be in a relationship if you put yourself in a situation where you know you are emotionally and physically attracted to somebody that's exactly what i said yeah

really yeah i see wow one flesh you're a wise man no i because when i was thrown off by it because that was the first the first time i had heard that kind of position and my original question was like what's the goal right because i was like the way we're made as human beings, I don't see how you can be intimate in every other way and then not somehow end up in some type of exploration of like sexual intimacy. Like I don't know how you can bond emotionally and bond financially and like linking yourself in this like low-key, one-flesh union. That's not a one-file.

Like it just seems, it seems dangerous to me. Yeah. It ended up being that. And so. So for me, for me, I think it's just a wisdom thing. And I agree with everything you said too, Preston. And so those are just, you know, kind of my thoughts. There's a lot of diversity.

This is something I've learned in the last couple of years. Like there's a lot of different approaches to these kind of relationships. Some that, again, I would think are, I don't, I'm not comfortable with maybe the language or how it's going about. And other ones, or I'm like, this just seems like a really good, what I call a friendship, you know? So I think that's one thing to recognize. There's a lot of, a whole spectrum of kind of how people are.

or approaching this. But yeah, no, I, yeah, the temptation. You know, you would compare it to like if I was a single guy, heterosexual, and my best friend was a female, I was attracted to. Well, just because we're straight, doesn't mean we're necessarily attracted to each other too. That's another component. But if we were living together, emotionally connected,

watching movies late at night together, you know. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm not, so I'm not picking on, like, like same-sex contract to people. I'm like, I just, I would give the same counsel to anybody. That's good. Like, man. And if they're like, well, where does it say it's sin?

I'm like, I'm not even needing to go into the sin category. Yeah, I want to talk about wisdom, you know. Yeah. It's just a wise rhythm of life. So, I don't know. It's. Yeah. And God also talks about the appearance of evil, the Bible, you know.

And so I think God cares about what, what things look like, you know, to the outside world and stuff like that. And so I like that you brought that point out as well. So a popping argument right now is how the word homosexuality or homosexual was added to the Bible recently, right? Which is true. That's a fact. Like I don't know how to pronounce arts of the code is all that type of stuff. But when Paul was writing his letters, he did not use the word homosexual, right?

That's a translation. I think my, I want you to speak to the. addition and the way those terms have been translated because you're like a scholar and stuff. But I also want you to speak to the fact that I feel like people are taking the fact that homosexual, the term homosexual was added to the Bible and making conclusions then about how we should understand

same-sex attraction and what God might permit and not permit. So like, what are we supposed to do with that, Preston? Have you heard this argument? Is this a popular argument? Yeah. Especially on TikTok. Really? It's a whole thing.

Because I think I can recall you talking about it. They even kind of compared it. Did some people compare it to slavery? Well, that's different. That's like how because people, because we moved in a right direction with seeing slavery as sinful, then in the same way that we should move

in a more affirming direction when we talk about like same sexuality. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, different arguments. There's some overlap. Yeah, they're different. Yeah.

So I'm surprised you came right out and said, yes, this is a bad translation. Because some people, they kind of like, they don't know that. They think, no, the word should be in there. So, yeah, no, I fully agree. And also going back to methodology, one of the things I try to do in the book is I want to encourage the reader and I try to model this.

Like, is there anything good we can find in this argument that I'm ultimately going to disagree with? But is there anything we can learn from? Can we affirm aspects of this argument that are positive? Because sometimes I think if we do any of that, we just give too much ground and we're not being bold with the truth.

I'm like, I think people see you as a genuine thinker. If you can say, you know what, that's actually a good point. Or, you know, I agree with this part of your argument. Yeah. Then they, at least they think, okay, well, you're genuinely listening. So with this argument, I come right out and say, the basic, the foundation of the argument is 100% true. The English word homosexual,

which means somebody who is attracted to the same sex is a bad translation of the Greek word, arsenacquites. There we go. That sounds like a tongue. You're a seminary student, aren't you?

I didn't Greek yet. I'm scared of that. That's true. Next semester. Arsenacquites, which is used in 1st Corinthians 6'9, and the Greek word, you know, there's different

ways people have translated it, but I think the best translation of that Greek word is a man who is having sex with another male. Like that's, it's, it's referring to ongoing, in the context, it's people who are not repentive. It's not like they did this like, you know, 10 years ago and they repented or whatever. It's, it's, they are, this is an activity in their life. So, um, so yeah, so it's, and then if you remember that passage, it's like, you know, I can't quote it verbatim, but, you know, neither of the adulters, the sexually immoral, the greedy, they're this.

that, that nor the Arsenaquitas will inherit the kingdom of God. If we translate that homosexual, that just means somebody 's attracted to the same sex. What about the... I'm pointing at you. This is black church. No, this is black church.

This is black church. That means you're talking good. You're talking good. You might get a shoe throwing at your necks. Be ready. You amongst black folk. He thought I saw a spirit. He said, oh, is it a fly?

I thought I saw a spirit She pointed She said, oh my gosh What's happening? That's so funny Oh my word Oh, okay, yeah, yeah Oh, we did Mae Preston Red.

It's okay, okay, May Preston Red. Come back, come back. You were saying I was saying If somebody, like many friends that I have, you do too, is attracted to the same sex

but out of allegiance to Jesus is committed to a life of celibacy and they read 1st Corinthians 6.9 and if it says neither the adulterers that's sexual behavior, neither the sexually immoral that sexual behavior, nor homosexuals will inherit the kingdom of God

if that person doesn't make it in, somebody who out of allegiance to Jesus says I'm committed to celibacy, then we're all screwed, right? And this is actually, there has been cases where people have had a really faith, rocking experience when they read that translation.

So all that to say, that is not what the Greek word means, and it can do a lot of damage by using a term homosexual. Now, where the argument, I think, overreaches is when it says, therefore, because of this mistranslation, therefore the Bible's, you know, homophobic, it doesn't condemn

same-sex marriage, this is all bad translation, everything. It's like, wait a minute, that logical leap you're making there, I think, is unchanged. justified because you can use all kinds of different words to convey the fact that marriage is between a man and woman without using the English word homosexual. That's good. That's really good.

I honestly think that's such a big deal because I even think that so much of the whole conversion therapy stuff or even people feeling shame as it relates to the experience of the attraction, I feel like people would have more, I guess, clarity if they knew that the experience of the attraction isn't what condemns you. It's submitting to and the practice of that attraction

that condemned. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Like the experience of it is a temptation that you either respond to or you reject. But at the end of the debt.

So like I think if we saw that like Paul was coming for like action like for verbs, not people, then I think we would read it differently. Because if people and I think that we have to I think we start normalizing, not normalizing,

but I think the church and the world can kind of make an idol out of, you know, those who are saying sex attracted because if I'm, if I'm, you know, if I have thoughts of an ex-girlfriend, nobody's going to call me an adulter, right? Right, right, right, right. Nobody's going to say, you're an adulter, you know what I mean? But if somebody has thoughts about this opposite sex, we automatically attribute, like, homosexuality

or you're gay, you know, and I think that we can often adopt the world's way of thinking. And it's like, no, like the Bible says that we. We were all born in sin, shaped it iniquity. And so we're all kind of born with the propensity to have certain struggles. And, you know, and so, yeah, that's just really good clarification. Yeah, it's like if we said where, you know, if I said I'm straight, that means I'm attracted to the opposite sex. That's four billion people on the planet. Right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah. That doesn't mean I'm acting on it, obviously. You know, who has a stamina for that? So, yeah. And we ain't got to get into this. I personally also have a bigger issue when it even comes to the categories that we use to define people.

Like, you know, homosexual, straight, like, heterosexual, homosexual. These terms are even, like, mad new. You know what I'm saying? And so it's like even these kind of identity frameworks or like I can see how it's helpful for people to like name their experience and stuff like that,

but I still feel like that is a part of the issue. What would you say? people should be referred as, you know. Well, I think we're here now. So it's like if you want to refer to yourself as gay to be, to have a title and a name for your authentic experience, and that's where we are, right? But I still think that the bigger,

the bigger identity marker is that I'm made in the image of God. Yeah. I am a female. You are a male, right? We are Christians. Like, I just feel like those actually. should have more sway over how I view myself and how I view others. That's good.

I am very intrigued. I did not read this chapter because we're talking, but I am really intrigued to hear your response to the view that Paul, when he condemns or prohibits homosexuality in Romans 1 or 1st Corinthians 6, I think there's some in Timothy, that he wasn't talking about consensual same-sex relationships. And the argument basically goes, that in Paul's day there was a lot of pederasty.

There was like rape where, you know, the male like head of the home would have a boy slave and he would basically like practice his like sexual stuff on the boy. Therefore, what Paul is prohibiting isn't same-sex relationships where there is mutuality, where there is love, where there is consent. He's actually condemning the sexuality that was practiced in his time. For real? What's you say, Preston? I'll be learning a lot when I talk to y'all too.

This is, where are these arguments head at? This is one of a, I would say, one of the most popular arguments. Well, it used to be more popular among scholars. It's not so much anymore. We can come back to that. But yeah, so that's a great summary of the argument. Basically, Paul, you know, whatever he was talking about when he said, you know, no to same-sex sexual relationships.

It wasn't the kind of relationship that people are arguing for today. You know, two adults, same-sex, falling in a love in a mutual relationship. My response, well, no, first, remember we got to find something good in the argument. There we go. Yeah, yeah, let's follow our own advice. So when I looked into this argument, and my main area of research is like first century Judaism, like all the background stuff. So this is really intriguing to me.

I'm like, well, wait a minute. I've read a lot of this stuff, not with this question in mind, but it forced me to go back and say, well, is there, is there, is there a truth to this, you know? And when I read the literature, I would say by far the majority of male, we'll come back to that, male same-sex sexual relationships in the ancient world, they were like that. They were, as you said, you know, master and a slave or older man, younger boy. So I can see where their argument comes from.

there are some exceptions to that. In the first century in particular, there was a whole, like, and this is widely known in the scholarship, that first century Rome, there was an upheaval of all kinds of things, including, you know, common sexual practices,

which kind of led to just a lot of diversity in how the Roman world was acting. So most relationships were non-consensual, but there were some, based on the evidence that were consensual and between adults, especially among women. And this is where I think the argument

really faces a challenge. Paul leads with women sleeping with women and then men sleeping with men. If you look at the ancient literature, when female same-sex relationships were addressed, there are almost all adult consensual, same status. You know, there was no, like, older woman and a younger girl, you know?

So the fact that Paul sees them both is basically the same kind of thing shows he's probably not thinking of non-consensual relationships. Also, if you could look at the language Paul actually uses, you know, there was a lot of Greek words to describe pederesty. Yeah. He doesn't use any of those.

There's words to describe masters and slaves. He doesn't use any of those. He just uses the basic Genesis 1 and 2 kind of language for male and female. And so if you look at Romans 1 in particular, there's no evidence that what's wrong with this relationship is one person's oppressing the other. It's

Paul uses language of mutuality. So, yeah, I don't, I think the argument is, is, has a lot to it. But I don't, I, I just think it falls short of proving that, you know, Paul must have been only thinking of non-consensual relationship. Yeah, that's really good. I have a quick question. And it's kind of for both of you guys. You know, like, you know, when I engage with other religions,

most of the conversation and the arguments are surreuthers. around and around Jesus not being God, right? And one of the main arguments for that is that Jesus himself never said, I am God, right? He's, you know, but, you know, I kind of respond sometimes and be like, well, he never said he was the Messiah. He never said, you know, Mary's my mother, but we believe those things because the Bible holistically points to those things. It's kind of like the homosexual. The word homosexual. Yeah. That like, just because that word is in there doesn't mean the concept isn't a dream.

Yeah. And so I guess in this, in the argument of, you know, I don't want to say homosexuality, just same sexual attraction or just relationships. Do people ever have that argument that Jesus himself never said these things? And so we have to kind of throw it out. Is that an argument? Yeah, yeah. That's a. Yeah.

It comes up from time to time. I think it's, yeah, Jesus never explicitly mentioned. same-sex sexual relationship. But he does talk about marriage quite a bit. And that's why I want to bring it back to. He actually addresses more clearly than anybody else in the Bible, the fundamental question we should be asking. It's because people don't ask that question.

They think all this talk about marriage, they just don't think it's relevant. But he clearly said marriage is between a man or woman in Mark 10 and Matthew 19. And if people are like, well, he still doesn't address same-sex sexual relationships. I guess we have to ask a question why, you know, like, there wasn't, there's not a single positive reference

from a Jewish writer 500 years on either side of Jesus that said anything positive about same-sex sexual relationships. It was unanimously a non-issue. Like everywhere, and all, and Judaism was very diverse, right? I mean, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Herodians, you have the sellouts, you have the zeal. you know, why diversity in Judaism, but when it came to same-sex relationships,

there was no debate. Well, when we look at what Jesus addresses in the Gospels, he's often addressing issues that were debated within Judaism about divorce and Sabbath and this and temple and all these things. He's not going to preach a sermon talking about something that is just non-existent in Judaism at that time. That's good. I never thought about that.

I mean, I don't like using analogies, but I'm sure we could all think of things that every single Christian agrees as sin and then you guys ask a question, how, I've never heard a sermon on it.

And 10 years in church, never heard a sermon on fill in the blank. And it's like, do you need to preach a sermon on something? Yeah, for sure. That everybody agrees with. I think to draw that, I would like to hear

you kind of dig a little deeper into even Jesus' affirmation of marriage and how he pulls from Genesis 1 and 2 in explaining what marriage is and how really if he speaks to marriage being a union between male and female, then that kind of already answers the question. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, in Matthew 19, he's in a conversation about divorce.

And to argue against divorce, all he really needs to do is cite Genesis 224. A man to leave his father and mother. He joined to his wife. and the two will become one flesh, what God is brought together, let no person rend a sunder. Why don't I want to say that? Is that old King James?

Yeah, that's old King James. I feel like you try to marry us again. You could just say separate. Separate. Separate. I was saying, like, I'm fit to take my house. I don't know. Wow, that's weird.

Yeah, so all he, then that alone would be sufficient, but he actually goes out of his way to not just cite Genesis 224, but he cites Genesis 1.27, God created a male and female, and then he splices it together with Genesis 224. Therefore, and the two will become one flesh. So he, again, he goes out of his way to reference the most significant verse

about sex difference, Genesis 127. Yeah. And brings it into the logic of what marriage is. That's good. It's, I think that's probably, if you want, like, one, if someone said, what is the single most important passage in this conversation? It would probably be Matthew 19 to me. Wow, that's really good.

And I don't like to wrap it. I think there's lots of important things, but I think that is probably the clearest, you know, illustration of what marriage is. And again, I mean, we're having this kind of having to explain this. For 2,000 years, the global church, we're like, well, yeah, why are we even talking about this? It wasn't, it wasn't obscure to the global church up until, you know, five minutes ago.

Do you have any insight on why, like, what is it about this cultural? moment that this is such a conversation. Because we could say, you know, we have a devil and we have principalities and rulers, right, who want us to think, believe things about our bodies, about sexuality, about Jesus, about God, about his headship and his lordship that are untrue, right? That's the spiritual dynamic. But I think when it comes to culturally, what do you think are some of the forces that have kind of led us to this moment? That's a great question.

I think there's probably people that have done more work on that. Like there's better people to address that. I'm thinking of... Carl Truman's book. I was just going to say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that expressive individualism. Like, I think there's been a...

I think he even goes back like 200 years, right? Saying where we are now, there's been a lot of momentum. But this expressive individualism, this... So the focus on kind of the individual, but like they're in, like our, you know, immaterial part of us, not our body so much, but like how we, our desires and, and what brings us happiness and fulfillment. And I think those,

those are seen as kind of the primary values in personhood now more than they ever have been in the past, you know. So, but yeah, that's, I mean, I'm, you know,

I'm relying on other people who have kind of done that kind of sweep of history. Yeah, yeah, yeah, to understand that. I feel like I understand better, you know,

uh, you, You know, you don't taught us and you don't explain your scholarly things. I guess to wrap it up, I would just say, you know, I'm looking forward to digging in this book a little more. But to wrap it up, like, what would you, okay, why did you write this book and what do you want people to take away from this book? I wrote the book because I've been speaking on the topic for 10 years. I've written a few books on it already. But as you said, whenever you go speak, you get like Q&A.

you get, you know, just one-on-one conversations and people all, you know, just, they flood the stage, you know, what about this? What about that? And there's, you got all these kind of pushback. So over the years, I'm kind of responding, responding, responding. So this book kind of is a compilation of like the top 21 kind of arguments that are often, that I'm having to respond.

So that's kind of why I wrote it, but also that first chapter where it's, it talks about how to have a profitable conversation, I not only want to give people kind of reasons to believe, even the traditional view of marriage, although that's definitely part of my motivation, but I want to help them to go about having these conversations in a much better way.

Yeah. I mean, everyone could carry over into politics, worship. When I looked in the book, that's what I liked about the book the most. You're not just debunking arguments, but you're trying to reason with people. You seem very fair while still at the same time having a stance.

That's what I respect the most. But at the same time, you are practically teaching people good methods and how to give the gay community truth and grace. And I think that's what the gospel is. It's a message of truth and grace. And so, yeah, good job, bro. Thank you. Thank you for your work.

Thanks, Preston. Thank you. Preston. Preston. Bye, yeah. Peace. With the Perry's is produced by the Perry's, with support from Amanda Reed and Channing B. McBride.

Editing by Xavier Fairley, video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, artwork by hop, and music by swoop. If you'd like to support The Perrys, you can visit the link in the show notes. This is with the Perrys. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.