Jesus committed abominations

One of the difficulties in sorting out Old Testament legal material is that we misunderstand the reasons behind its various formulations. Thus, we have Jews who to this day follow a kosher lifestyle, and others who may still be people of faith but who don't observe those old laws. Christians, by and large, have relegated most of the Holiness Code to the culturally-bound trash heap, although some still distinguish between ritual laws which no longer apply, and moral ones that do.

I want to spend a little more time on this because of the view of many Christians that homosexuality is immoral and that the only legitimate marriage is between a man and a woman, based to a large extent on the teaching in Leviticus 18 and 20, as well as Romans 1. It is this very view that is arousing such animosity among those critics who want to deny Trinity Western University, my old employer, the right to found a law school.

Of the many (613 to be exact) Mosaic laws that defined Israelite life in the ancient near east, a good number of them served as, for want of a better expression, identity markers. Keep in mind what I said in an earlier post--when the Israelites left Egypt for the Promised Land, they were by and large "Egyptianized", when it came to everyday life. There was not much that made them stand out from the dominant Egyptian culture. Many would not even have been monotheistic. Therefore, having taken the Israelites out of Egypt, God took the further step of taking Egypt out of the Israelites through a series of laws, commemorative feasts, even physical markings. Circumcision was one such example of these markers, the 10 Commandments another, Passover and the other sacred festivals a third. They built a sense of national identity and solidarity, and firmly established Yahweh (or Jehovah) as the one true God.

Other laws had to do with issues of being clean and unclean. This had nothing to do with physical cleanliness per se, or even with moral purity. The issue was one of ritual purity; i.e., being in a state of readiness to participate in religious rites. To be unclean didn't necessarily mean that you had committed a sin, but only that you were not in a fit state to worship.

[Editorial note: In my fundamentalist upbringing, fitness for worship included a jacket and tie for the males, and appropriate dresses or skirts for the females. But I digress :-).]

There were an amazing number of normal and completely acceptable human activities (e.g., a husband and wife having intercourse) that rendered a person unclean--not sinful, remember, just ritually unprepared for worship. For each there was an appropriate regimen that had to be followed to rid oneself of this ritual impurity. Here is a helpful list from BibleStudyTools.com:

In Old Testament times the ordinary state of most things was "cleanness," but a person or thing could contract ritual "uncleanness" (or "impurity") in a variety of ways: by skin diseases, discharges of bodily fluids, touching something dead (Num 5:2 ), or eating unclean foods (Lev 11 ; Deut 14 ).

An unclean person in general had to avoid that which was holy and take steps to return to a state of cleanness. Uncleanness placed a person in a "dangerous" condition under threat of divine retribution, even death (Lev 15:31 ), if the person approached the sanctuary. Uncleanness could lead to expulsion of the land's inhabitants (Lev 18:25 ) and its peril lingered upon those who did not undergo purification (Lev 17:16 ; Num 19:12-13 ).

Priests were to avoid becoming ritually defiled (Leviticus 21:1-4; Leviticus 21:11-12 ), and if defiled, had to abstain from sacred duties. An unclean layperson could neither eat nor tithe consecrated food (Lev 7:20-21 ; Deut 26:14 ), had to celebrate the Passover with a month's delay (Num 9:6-13 ), and had to stay far away from God's tabernacle (Num 5:3 ).

Purification varied with the severity of the uncleanness. The most serious to least serious cases in descending order were: skin disease (Lev. 13-14), childbirth (Lev. 12), genital discharges (Leviticus 15:3-15; Leviticus 15:28-30 ), the corpse-contaminated priest (Eze 44:26-27 ), the corpse-contaminated Nazirite (Nu 6:9-12 ), one whose impurity is prolonged (Lev 5:1-13 ), the corpse-contaminated layperson (Num 5:2-4 ; 19:1-20 ), the menstruating woman (Lev 15:19-24 ), the handling of the ashes of the red cow or the Day of Atonement offerings (Leviticus 16:26; Leviticus 16:28 ; Num 19:7-10 ), emission of semen (Lev 15:16-18 ), contamination by a carcass (Lev 11:24-40 ; 22:5 ), and secondary contamination (Lev 15 ; 22:4-7 ; Num 19:21-22 ).

Purification always involved waiting a period of time (until evening for minor cases, eighty days for the birth of a daughter), and could also involve ritual washings symbolizing cleansing, atoning sacrifices, and priestly rituals. "Unclean" objects required purification by water (wood, cloth, hide, sackcloth) or fire (metals), or were destroyed (clay pots, ovens), depending on the material (Lev 11:32-35 ; Num 31:21-23 ).

What could possibly be wrong with sexual relations? or menstruation? or childbirth, for Pete's sake?

Why should I be able to eat chicken but not pork? Couldn't one just slap a bandage on that skin problem and head off to the Tabernacle? Because these things made me sinful? Not at all. Their reasons were symbolic, as BibleStudyTools.com goes on to explain:                                                                       The purity system conveys in a symbolic way that Yahweh was the God of life and was separated from death. Most of the unclean animals were either predators/scavengers or lived in caves (e.g., rock badgers). The pig, moreover, was associated with the worship of Near Eastern chthonic deities (i.e., spirits of the underworld). Leprosy made a person waste away like a corpse (Nu 12:12 ). Bodily discharges (blood for women, semen for men) represented a temporary loss of strength and life and movement toward death. Because decaying corpses discharged, so natural bodily discharges were reminders of sin and death. Physical imperfections representing a movement from "life" toward "death" moved a person ritually away from God who was associated with life. Purification rituals symbolized movement from death toward life and accordingly involved blood, the color red, and spring (lit. "living") water, all symbols of life (underlining is mine).

Please remember that a ritually impure person did not have to repent as such. There was no sin in play, and therefore no required contrition. But a ritual purification was necessary as outlined above.

That's why I said that Jesus must have often been unclean. He didn't avoid lepers (skin disease being the worst form of uncleanness); he touched and healed them. Dead bodies? He raised them from the dead. A woman with chronic menstruation grabs his robe--no problem. She is healed as well. Jesus was, from time to time, unclean, yet without sin.                                                                                                 

And here is another curious point--many of these unclean entities, experiences, and behaviours were called abominations. An abomination that wasn't a sin!

Now that's worth exploring further.      

Unclean Jesus?

I feel like I am nearing the end of my study of biblical teaching on LGBT issues--not because I have established definitive conclusions that can be demonstrated chapter and verse, but because (as with so many subjects of modern interest) there is insufficient explicit teaching.

"What's that?" you gasp. "A topic that the Bible doesn't conclusively address? A monstrous suggestion!"

Well, not really. Of the controversial topics which have occupied a good deal of my professional and personal life, very few can be said to have the benefit of a clear body of biblical material which one can easily apply in sorting them out. Advice and opinion from equally fair-minded Christians has been all over the map. These issues include, in no particular order:

• Whether there is a Christian way of doing business. Canada's richest and most successful Christian businessperson says that there is not.
• Which political party to support, or even whether to vote at all.
• Whether one should bear arms or participate in war. My conscientious objector father-in-law, and my father who fought in WW2 and later became a cop, might see the matter differently.
• The acceptability of abortion under any circumstances.
• Ditto with euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
• Contraception. My Roman Catholic friends have a well-worked out opinion on this which I don't happen to agree with.
  
• Labour relations and the role of the strike weapon, particularly in the public sector (e.g., strikes by teachers and nurses).
• Vast areas of business ethics.
• Setting up independent, faith-based institutions (I taught at evangelical Trinity Western University for eighteen years, and worked for five years for the Christian Labour Assoc. of Canada, a Christian labour union) versus living out one's faith with integrity within secular and pluralistic systems (I have been a public school trustee for twenty-seven years and lectured at the Univ. of British Columbia).
• Bankruptcy. I wrote a book on this topic and encountered vastly different opinions on its morality both among people of faith and in society generally.
• The role/status of women in church and the family. While this issue is not what it once was (thank goodness), there are still many churches here in Abbotsford (which has over 100 such institutions for a city of approximately 140,000 citizens) where the muzzle is for all intents and purposes still firmly applied when it comes to women preaching/teaching and giving church leadership. 
• Capitalism versus socialism versus some other 'ism'. My wife's Mennonite cousin in Waterloo Ontario told me that Mennonites in his area typically vote NDP based on their commitment to social justice. He was gobsmacked when I told him the Mennonites here in British Columbia more often vote Conservative.
• What constitutes "the Gospel". 
• Divorce and remarriage.
• The acceptability of drinking alcohol. I side with Jesus on this one and indulge in all forms of the grape. A former academic vice-president at Trinity Western clearly saw such behaviour as sinful and only recently was the outright ban on TWU employees taking a drink finally lifted.
• Whether Hell or Heaven is the default destination for all human beings from birth.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. At one time or another I have heard what are alleged to be biblically-based answers to all of these questions, but in almost every case the answers were as varied as the colours of the rainbow.

Which brings me back to matters LGBT. What I hope that I've demonstrated is--while taking a high view of the infallibility and relevance of scripture--that whether all forms of sexual relations between people of the same gender are unacceptable to God is not nearly as clear cut as those who boycotted World Vision for a day or two see it to be--quite the opposite in my opinion. When explicit teaching is missing, we have to go with principles, values, and objectives underlying biblical material, and with the broader context within which the teaching occurs.

I know that some of you, despite my best attempts to dissuade you, will go right back to Leviticus and its "unambiguous" teaching in chapters 18 and 20.  So I want to take one last crack at the dangers of using of Old Testament legal material to define present-day morality. And I want to do this for the following reason:

Taking Leviticus at its word, we have to say that there were times when Jesus must have been, in his Father's eyes, unclean.

I hope this whets your appetite to read on.

Breaking news: God loves me, among others

My mother-in-law, Marjorie, is a resident of a long-term care facility in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. Just under a year ago (ironically on her late husband's birthday) she suffered a stroke and is now pretty incapacitated, although still able to find small pleasures in life. She's 96. Until she was 94, she had never spent a night in a hospital except while having her five children.

Yesterday being Easter Sunday, a local Mennonite church put on a nice little service at the home. It consisted mostly of hymns that the residents there would have likely sung back in the days that they can still remember, as well as a few brief remarks from the pastor.

In the front row of the little gathering was a sweet old woman, still remarkably straight in her wheelchair, whose earlier, healthier life you could imagine if you looked past the wasting effect of age. I learned that she was 104. One of my mother-in-law's neighbours in her wing of the residence was also in the "congregation". Her late husband was a minister, as are her son and daughter. She couldn't be more cheerful and friendly. She often remarks upon how bad her memory has become. Every time I see her, she tells me that she is 94.

These three dear ladies plus about 20-30 other residents, accompanied by a few family members, sang along as best they could. What I found particularly poignant was the choice of songwriter Bill Gaither's Because He Lives I Can Face Tomorrow.

And then one day, I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain;
And then, as death gives way to vict'ry,
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives.

What do such words mean when one is 94? or 96? or 104? How much do they think about those final days, I wondered. I may have been slightly teary-eyed as I mused on this question.

Quite unexpectedly, my mind turned from such melancholy thoughts to the blinding realization that in God's eyes I am of no more dignity and worth than all of those old folks in the long-term care facility, including the ones who have Alzheimer's and have to be locked in to prevent bolting; the folks who lie back in their wheelchairs with jaws permanently dropped; the ones who stare vacantly at the television screen; and the dear old soul that constantly wheels herself up and down the halls and calls me nurse.  God loves each of them as fully and with as much appreciation and respect as he does me, my spouse, and my kids. I found this both humbling and exhilarating.

I was struck almost speechless (no Sutherland is every entirely speechless) at the thought that I don't have to do anything to merit God's love. If I spent the rest of my days behind a locked door, or nailed to a bed of suffering, or always looking for the nurse, he couldn't love me more. John Milton said it best:

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Milton, On His Blindness

Now in keeping with my present exploration and my theological opinions, I believe that what is true of me is equally true of all God's creatures: Caucasian or other; straight or other; male or other; healthy or other; in one's right mind or other; Christian or other; smart, average or struggling; able or challenged; productive or kept from being productive; aware of our God or not--all are precious in his sight. No change, no striving, no further merit is necessary. God's nature is to love; his desire is to love; his greatest wish is to see all of his creatures through to all that they were meant to be. He has given himself eternity to accomplish this.

Yet, there are those who decide that being in that circle of God's love is insufficient, or unimportant, perhaps even unwanted. They reject the need for God in pursuing their full potential. God never gives up on them, but they may give up on God. Because of God's commitment to free will, these people will be left with the consequences of their choices. But not because God wants it that way.

He loves me. And you. And all those people who don't know about him, or have been given a very distorted picture of him. Bask in the light and warmth of that reality.

A very blessed Easter to you all.

Russell Crowe, Noah, reincarnation, and the Christian view of gays

My wife and I made our way to the new gigantic movie theatre in town last weekend and saw Noah, starring that estimable New Zealander, Russell Crowe. I enjoyed Mr. Crowe very much in A Beautiful Mind and The Insider, and feel that he did a credible job in Les Misérables. I don't think that he will be up for the best actor Oscar for the biblical epic, but it was fun to watch him nevertheless.

At the very broadest level, the movie follows the biblical narrative, although it does add an interesting twist to Noah's understanding of the precise nature of his calling by the Creator (I won't give it away in case you haven't seen the movie and plan to do so).

I was arrested, I'll admit, by the portrayal of the middle son, Ham. He is definitely cast as an outsider in the movie, as he proved to be in the Genesis story as well. But the thing that struck me most was this: he was remarkably pale skinned to be the supposed father of the sub-Sahara African race, the position he was accorded in history for more than 2000 years.

While there is not a scintilla of biblical evidence to support it, as recently as when I was a  high school student in Ontario in the early 1960s, it was still believed in many Christian circles that Noah's oldest son, Shem, was father of the Semitic races; the youngest, Japheth of us Caucasians, among others; and that Ham was the father of the Africans. As noted in Wikipedia:  

Ham was one of the sons of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, who are interpreted as having populated Africa and adjoining parts of Asia. The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 105:23, 27; 106:22; 1 Chron. 4:40. Since the 17th century a number of suggestions have been made that relate the name Ham to a Hebrew word for burnt, black or hot, to an Egyptian word for servant or the Egyptian word Kmt for Egypt.

Those of you who are familiar with the biblical story know that Ham in some way took advantage of, or showed disrespect to, his father while he was inebriated and unclothed, and was cursed by Noah (through Ham's son, Canaan) for his trouble.


Genesis 9:24-27: And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

A very interesting article written by a scholar at the Yale Law School regarding religion and discrimination makes this point with regard to the history of American racism and its relationship to the Noah story:

During the colonial period, (i.e., the colonization of the U.S.) the three great English religions--

Anglican, Puritan-Calvinist, and Roman Catholic--accepted slavery with few qualms; only the Quakers consistently raised moral objections to slavery. Accompanied by much egalitarian rhetoric, the American revolution stirred religious-based opposition to slavery among Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But after 1818 these same religions moved decisively toward a stance either tolerating or supporting slavery....The primary biblical argument was Noah's curse....When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, southern Protestant ministers called for their region to...secede. (Source: Wm. S. Eskridge Jr., Noah's Curse: How Religion Often Conflates, Status, Belief, and Conduct to Resist Antidiscrimination Norms, Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship Series, 01-01-2011, pp. 666-669)

The article goes on to note that as recently as 1964 and the tabling of the U. S. Civil Rights Act, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd criticized the proposed legislation for imperiling the liberties and freedoms of many honest, hardworking and religious Americans. He attempted to buttress his arguments with reference to Noah's curse of Ham, Isaac's blessing, and Levitical laws against interbreeding cattle and sowing with mingled seed (p. 675).

[Byrd, a Southern Baptist, loved gays as much as he appreciated other races. He strongly opposed President Clinton's 1993 efforts to allow gays to serve in the military and supported efforts to limit gay marriage. In 1996, before the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, he said, "The drive for same-sex marriage is, in effect, an effort to make a sneak attack on society by encoding this aberrant behavior in legal form before society itself has decided it should be legal....Let us defend the oldest institution, the institution of marriage between male and female as set forth in the Holy Bible."(Source: Wikipedia)]

I am writing this because I want to illustrate how a misinterpretation of scripture can have horrific consequences for subsequent government policy, cultural turmoil, and gross injustice. What I have noted above concerning racism in the U.S. is paralleled in justifications for apartheid in South Africa.

No one today pays any credence to the proposition that Noah's curse justified racial segregation and slavery. Yet that view persisted for centuries and did untold harm to individuals and groups.

What is true of Noah's curse is equally true of the biblical teaching on the status of women vis-a-vis men in society and the home; i.e., that misinterpretations, particularly of St. Paul's writings, provided biblical justification for denying women personhood, the vote, most occupations, and any number of other indignities, obstacles, and wrongs. 

I have often wondered if misinterpretations of the Bible shaped public opinion and government policy or vice versa. Given the penchant of many professing Christians (and other religions as well) to

go to Holy Writ for "proof" of already established opinions (we call this practice "proof-texting"), it could be that the belief or bigotry came first, and the scriptures were then sufficiently twisted to give the dubious view a holy sheen. I noted just yesterday that a survey of religious beliefs in British Columbia found that 35% of Chinese Christians believe in reincarnation (Doug Todd, Western and Eastern spirituality thrive, and mix, in B.C, Vancouver Sun, April 18, 2014, p. A3). While this conviction is well-entrenched in Chinese culture it has never been held by the Christian church, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a biblical text to support it . I would be interested to know if these Chinese sisters and brothers have worked out a biblical defense for their cultural belief.

But whichever direction it does--bigotry first or Bible first--I believe that what we are seeing with prejudice against gays is parallel to what we witnessed with racism and sexism. Biblical teaching is being distorted to justify the pigeon-holing of certain people into a place where they can be denied acceptance, communion, marriage, church office, and full equality with other Christians. I'm trying to show that there is no scriptural support for this. It took Christians a long time to overcome their bigotries with respect to non-white races and to women, and it won't happen overnight with gays either.

But one must press on.

Let's take stock before plunging on

I've covered a lot of ground in the past number of posts. I've been reasoning as closely and as thoroughly as my inadequate brain allows. The use of my 'theology from the ground up' approach (rather than relying on established schools of thought) comes with all the risks of being only one person's opinion.

At this point, I feel that I need to take stock of what I've covered thus far before entering into any new territory. So bear with me, oh faithful reader. I'm learning as I go. Here are some of the key questions I have been addressing regarding the biblical teaching on homosexuality, the relevant biblical material, and a few helpful summary quotes from identified sources (in italics).

A. Which sins were punishable by death in the Old Testament legal material?

The Old Testament prescribed the death penalty for the crimes of murder, attacking or cursing a parent, kidnapping, failure to confine a dangerous animal resulting in death, witchcraft and sorcery, sex with an animal, doing work on the Sabbath, incest, adultery, homosexual acts, prostitution by a priest's daughter, blasphemy, false prophecy, perjury in capital cases, and false claim of a woman's virginity at the time of marriage.

B. Where does homosexuality rank among the moral issues in the Bible? Whether homosexuality, in and of itself, is a moral question at all is what I'm exploring, of course. But in terms of its frequency of mentions in the Bible compared to other issues, where does it stand?

1. Idolatry - 169 instances
2. Self-righteousness - 79
3. Murder - 57
4. Adultery - 52
5. Theft - 42
6. Greed, avarice and covetousness - 40
7. Lying and false testimony - 30
8. Hatred - 21
9. Homosexuality - 7

While we're doing lists, note that the Christian's responsibility to care for the poor and work for justice is mentioned over 300 times, and the proper use of wealth over 250 times.
  
C. What else besides homosexuality is called an 'abomination' in the Bible?
(source: http://www.dragonlordsnet.com/abomination.htm)

Of the sixty-five occurrences of the word 'abomination' in the Old Testament, and two in the New: 

1. Five refer to something as being an abomination to another people. 

2. Thirteen of the things labeled "abominations" are dietary restrictions.

3. Seventeen refer to improper sacrifice. 

4. Outright adultery and adultery cause by divorce account for three of the verses. 

5. In addition to Jesus' comment in Luke 16:5, the love of money is decried as an abomination in two Old Testament passages. 

6. Four related verses cite dishonest trading practices as abominations. 

7. Twelve other verses list behaviors ranging from murder to women wearing "anything that pertains to a man". 

8. Eight passages, including one from Revelation 21:27, are not clear about what they mean by 'abomination'.

9. Two refer to homosexual behavior of some sort.

D. In assessing why homosexuality is included among the Old Testament 'abominations', are there any clues from the original meaning of the Hebrew term employed?

In every reference that I consulted, the Hebrew term tow' ebah is understood as follows: a disgusting thing, abomination, abominable

1. in ritual sense (of unclean food, idols, mixed marriages)
2. in ethical sense (of wickedness etc.)  

(Source: http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/towebah.html)

In the Old Testament, homosexual activity was strongly associated with the idolatrous practices of the pagan nations surrounding Israel. In fact, the word "abomination," used in both mentions of homosexual acts in Leviticus, is a translation of the Hebrew word tow' ebah which means something morally disgusting, but it also has a strong implication of idolatry. Thus, many Bible scholars believe the condemnations in Leviticus are more a condemnation of the idolatry than of the homosexual acts themselves. However, that interpretation is not certain. (Source: http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_homosexuality.htm. 

E. What are the seven verses regarding homosexuality?

a. Associated with rape

1. Genesis 19:5 - They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
2. Judges 19:22 - While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him." 

Except among conservatives who understand the emphasis to be on the act of homosexual intercourse itself, there is broad consensus among scholars on both the left and the right that these passages have nothing to do with homosexuality per se, but rather with hospitality and justice. That is, both scenes represent hosts protecting their guests from severe humiliation and outrageous injustice. Some other parts of the Bible interpret these passages just this way. Ezekiel, for instance, refers to the sin of Sodom not in terms of sexual immorality but rather justice: "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy" (16:49). (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/what-does-the-bible-reall_b_990444.html)

Note as well that victors would commonly rape male captives in ancient times, humiliating them by  treating them like subjugated women. This might explain the strange incident of David's men being humiliated when a neighboring king had their robes cut off at the buttocks (suggesting rape) and their beards shaved (thereby 'womanizing' them). See 2 Samuel 10:4-5: So Hanun seized David’s envoys, shaved off half of each man’s beard, cut off their garments at the buttocks, and sent them away. When David was told about this, he sent messengers to meet the men, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back.”

Significantly, Ezekiel was much harder on his own countrymen than on the people of Sodom, citing God's declarations that Jerusalem and Judah were far worse than Sodom for their abominations: idolatry and ignoring Sabbath; sex with (step-)mothers, sisters, in-laws, neighbor's wives and menstruating women (all heterosexual acts); charging interest, making profits which destroyed others' lives, and ignoring the disadvantaged (Ezek. 8, 16, 18, 20, 22). Jesus similarly vows that cities that don't welcome his disciples and their message will be judged as being more sinful than Sodom (Luke 10).

b. Associated with prostitution and pederasty (i.e., intercourse between a man and a boy) 

1. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers--none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

This verse has been translated in as many different ways as there are different versions of the Bible, so we have to look at the original Greek to see what Paul was really saying. The word translated here as "male prostitute" is the Greek word malakos which literally means "soft to the touch." However, it was used metaphorically to refer to a catamite (a boy kept for sexual relations with a man) or to a male prostitute in general. The word translated here as "homosexual offender" (rendered "sodomite" in the version I've recorded above) is the Greek word arsenokoites which means a sodomite, a person who engages in any kind of unnatural sex, but especially homosexual intercourse. Some believe this use of arsenokoites referred specifically to the men who kept catamites, but that is not certain. (Source: http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_homosexuality.htm)

c. Undefined

1. Leviticus 18:22  Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.  
2. Leviticus 20:13  If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.      [Deuteronomy 27 repeats many of the abominations listed in Leviticus 18-20, although the reference to a man lying with another is missing. This is also true of Ezekiel's list of abominations in chapters 16 to 22. The two references in Leviticus are quite isolated instances.]
     With respect to the verses in Leviticus, there is considerable debate about three matters. 1) Do these passages refer to consensual homosexual practice (and whether that was even a recognized option in the ancient world), or do they describe the cultic practice of Israel's neighbors and adversaries? 2) Are these regulations contingent because they derive from particular challenges and situations the Israelites faced at that time (the importance of procreation, for instance, given that Israel was a nomadic people dependent on increasing its population for survival), or do they intend to establish universal sexual norms? And 3) even if these regulations were normative for Israelites, do they continue to be for Christians given how many other Levitical codes are contradicted later in the New Testament or have historically been ignored by Christians. (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/what-does-the-bible-reall_b_990444.html)   
   
3. Romans 1:26-27  For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women   exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 
4. 1Timothy 1:8-10  Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching.

Paul's reference to gay sex as being unnatural has to be interpreted carefully. In Romans 11 the same apostle who some think condemns homosexuality as unnatural, praises God for going against nature by including the Gentiles among his chosen people (v. 24 If you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!). On the other hand, Paul says that it is disgraceful, because it is unnatural, for a man to have long hair in 1 Corinthians 11:14--hardly a biological truth. [And what could be more unnatural than circumcision, which was required by God of his followers in the Old Testament!]  
It could be that Paul's use of the term 'unnatural' is more akin to 'outside the norms of our culture'. According to David Lose (referenced below), arguing from nature was a common rhetorical device in Paul's day, employed by many contemporaries of the Apostle, and was similar to saying today, "The conventional wisdom is..."

F. What are the difficulties in coming to a conclusion about what the biblical teaching means?

David Lose provides this good summary of the issue (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/what-does-the-bible-reall_b_990444.html):

Most Christians I have talked to fall into one of four groups regarding these verses, depending on how they address two questions. The first we've named directly at several points already: Do the passages refer to anything like the phenomenon of life-long, monogamous or mutually consensual same-gendered relationships that we know of today? (It's worth noting that the word "homosexual" was not present in the ancient world but was instead invented in the 19th century.) The second issue we've only alluded to: Whether or not the passages refer to the phenomenon we are describing today, are we bound to ethical determinations made by persons living in vastly different cultures and times and whose understanding of the world and of God's activity was shaped and limited by their own cultural viewpoints.

Depending on how you answer those two critical questions, you will likely fall into one of our groups.

• The passages in question refer to homosexual practice in all times and cultures and so universally prohibit such practice.
• The passages do not refer to homosexuality as we know it today and so cannot be seen as prohibiting it. Other passages therefore need to inform our discussions about sexuality in general and homosexual relationships in particular.
• The passages may or may not refer to homosexuality as we know it, but they -- and the larger witness of Scripture -- imply a view of nature and creation that supports sexual relationship and union only between man and woman, and so homosexual practice is prohibited.
• The passages may or may not refer to homosexuality as we know it, but they -- and all of Scripture -- are conditioned by the cultural and historical realities of the authors and so offer an incomplete and insufficient understanding of creation and nature and so cannot be used to prohibit homosexual practice today. Rather, one needs to read the larger biblical witness to discern God's hopes for caring, mutually supportive relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual.    

On the issue of sexual orientation, a statement by the Bishops of the Church of England (Issues in Human Sexuality) in 1991 pointed out that "the modern concept of orientation has been developed against a background of genetic and psychological theory which was not available to the ancient world."
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_the_New_Testament#1_Timothy_1:9-10)

G. So what's next?

On the basis of this and earlier posts, what do we have?

1. We are dealing with a physical act that is rarely discussed in the Bible. The contexts of the few
   
   relevant passages are different enough, and the language sufficiently ambiguous, that knowing the precise meaning of this 'abomination' is quite difficult.
2. The moral quality of the act may have more to do with important contextual factors (e.g., idolatry and pagan forms of worship, ritual purity, social norms such as hospitality and social justice, etc.) than with the sexual matters themselves.
3. There is no hint in the Bible of an awareness of differences in sexual orientation. The biblical writers, in discussing gay sex, would have assumed that virtually everyone was heterosexual by nature; therefore, a person engaging in homosexual relations would be seen as deliberately violating his/her own nature, by choice, for sexual self-indulgence or some other unacceptable reason (and we know that such was not uncommon in Roman society and among the variety of fertility cults). Monogamous gay relationships characterized by love, fidelity, support, commitment, and so on are simply never discussed (along with a host of other modern issues ranging from free markets to political parties to reproductive technologies to social media, to name but a few).
4. The New Testament writers and church leaders, particularly the Apostle Paul and to a lesser degree Peter and James, radically re-oriented Old Testament legal material. While the principles underlying the legal material were maintained, specific behaviours were largely set aside in favour of proper motivations, attitudes, and goals. Consequently, many practices that were forbidden in the Old Testament were permitted in the New.
5. Homosexuality's significance is very much overblown among conservative Christians today. 

So let's take it from there.

Does he or doesn't he?

When I was a kid, hair colouring ads were pretty lame. Who can forget, "Which twin has the Toni?", a slogan apparently now in the advertising Hall of Fame. Clairol was equally famous for "Does she or doesn't she?" The original campaign went on the say, "Hair colour so natural that only her mother knows for sure." This was later changed to "only her hairdresser knows...." Sounds silly now, although it really worked at the time.

Well, I kind of feel that way with St. Paul and his views on homosexuality. Does he or doesn't he?--denounce, of course, not participate. People can't seem to decide for sure.

I've tried to establish in earlier posts that Paul was the furthest thing from a knee-jerk apologist for the old Mosaic laws, whether to do with women, marriage, circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, kosher foods, or any others of those mysterious taboos. Very much to the contrary, in fact. His protestations directed toward the traditional Jewish understandings of the law couldn't have been more controversial in their time (see, for instance, Acts 15:1-27).

If we accept St. Paul at his word, then we have to look at any particular aspect of his teaching through the lenses of freedom in Christ, inner motivation, self-discipline, and responsibility for the greater good in the long-term.

Romans 14:14 - I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself...

1 Corinthians 6:12 - "I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

1 Corinthians 10:23 -  “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.

With these caveats, then, let's look at the critical passage in context:

Romans 1: 18ff
¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

[We know that the Roman leaders of Paul's day were renowned for their dissolute behaviour, including not only the usual kinds of heterosexual lust, but sex of any kind, including group sex displays and pedophilia. Bill O'Reilly, author of the best-selling book Killing Lincoln, covers this debauched Roman lifestyle very thoroughly in his equally excellent Killing Jesus; e.g., Tiberius pp. 99, 112ff, Julius Caesar, p. 116. Paul was clearly addressing a social ill modeled by the upper classes.]


Paul is concerned here with people who should know better--they understand what God is about but have deliberately chosen to do things that are contrary to God's revelation concerning his very nature while ignoring his incredible power. How this knowledge is transmitted isn't stated in so many words. Theologians use terms like general and special revelation, and so on, ad nauseam. The important thing is that we have it within us to recognize right from wrong, and sufficient free will to make choices.

But rather than being grateful for this knowledge, people substituted their own preferences. While some behaviours are listed--degrading of bodies, murder, gossiping, slander, boasting, and disobedience--a large number of attitudes and motivations are included as well, such as lust, greed, envy, malice, insolence, lovelessness, and mercilessness. In every case, the preference is for self-indulgence and advancing one's causes and preferences without regard to what it might cost another person.

It is easy for some to conclude that one of these indulgences is gay sex, because Paul uses it as an example of the evils he is talking about. But we would be too hasty to assume that it is the sex act itself that is at issue here. It could just as easily be the motivation for the act. Let me give a parallel example.

In Genesis 19:1-9 we have the famous story of Lot and his angelic visitors. The men of Sodom, the city in which Lot resided, showed up at Lot's door and demanded that Lot hand his guests over to them for sexual purposes: 

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

The passage is one that is typically used to show God's animosity for gay sex. Not surprisingly,  our English word 'sodomy' (anal copulation) comes from the name of this town. Note, however, that Lot offered them his own virgin daughters as substitutes. He recognized that his fellow citizens were not discriminatory in their tastes--when it came to lust, any outlet would do.

But it was not the proposed sex act itself for which the men and boys of Sodom were denounced in later biblical passages, but rather the objectionable inner lives of the town's citizens: their lack of gratitude for their good fortune; their greed, lovelessness, cruelty, and self-indulgence, despite their favoured situation. Note that in Genesis 13, the area where Sodom was located is referred to as "well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt" (v. 10). But as in Jesus' parable of the rich fool who tore down his storage barns to build even bigger ones to hold his ever increasing wealth, their wealth had made them insensitive to the needs of others.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 - Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Take note of the reference to Sodom's 'daughters'; i.e., other nearby cities which had not participated in the specific incident related in Genesis 19 but who presumably shared the same cruel, self-centred and loveless lifestyle. The inhabitants of all of these cities had participated in the 'abomination' (the meaning of which is not spelled out in detail), not just the Sodomites. Therefore, anal penetration doesn't appear to be the focus here. So many things were called abominations in the legal material of the Old Testament that we can't know what laws were broken. 

Sodom becomes a byword for great sinfulness generally, rather than for homosexuality, in Isaiah 1 and 3, and Jeremiah 23. Jerusalem is called Sodom in Revelation 11:8 because it is the site of Christ's crucifixion. Jude 1 also uses Sodom as a metaphor for those who profess to be fellow believers, but who use freedom in Christ as license for any kind of evil behaviour--the very thing that Paul warned his Roman readers about in Romans 6:1-2. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Perhaps surprisingly, given the way in which Sodom was held up as the epitome of evil, Jesus puts their sins into perspective in the passage in Matthew 10 where he sends his apostles out on their first 'tour':

Matthew 10:5-15 - These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Here there is certainly no reference to debased sexual sin. What was worse than the sins of Sodom and the other cities (including Gomorrah)? More to be condemned were people seeing the power of God (healing of many diseases, ridding the possessed of demons, even resurrections), and refusing to accept the obligations that this knowledge placed upon them (providing hospitality, learning from God's servants, responding in love and gratitude to God's revelation). This sounds very much like Ezekiel 16 above, but with this amplification: having an even clearer revelation of God's power and nature through the activities and teachings of Jesus' disciples, they are more accountable for their response.
  
I am proposing then, particularly when we remember the Apostle's revelatory take on Levitical teaching (see my earlier posts), that it is not acts in themselves but the motivation for the acts that is in question in Romans 1. Paul is looking at men and women who, if they took their knowledge of God's nature, power, and priorities seriously, would be loving, merciful, faithful, self-disciplined, and concerned for what's best for others. But he sees just the opposite--including individuals who are seeking sexual satisfaction wherever and however they can find it. Note that the individuals in Romans 1 appear to be exercising a choice to abandon their usual practice in favour of another solely for sexual gratification. Paul turns himself inside out to denounce this choice and the degraded motivations that prompt it.

Now, if we believe as many do, that there is only one sexual orientation that all share (an unambiguous, full-on attraction to the opposite sex), then an argument that Paul was dismissing all gay sex as sinful could possibly be made. But I am convinced by scientists who have no reason for fabricating or misinterpreting their evidence, that there is a small but significant percentage of God's creatures who feel attracted to the same sex in the very same way that I feel attracted to women. Such people would not be abandoning their natural inclination for the opposite sex in order to mate with someone of the same gender as is referenced in Romans 1 above. Theirs would not be some kind of impure and degrading lust, but a simple following through on one's normal orientation, with the same possibilities for monogamy, full commitment, and fidelity as are there for me.

I also believe that one would be taking biblical teaching farther than it was ever intended if one were to say that a person's same-sex attractions are no different morally than kleptomania, homicidal mania, pedophilia, or any other compulsion or perversion; i.e., outside of the person's control but evil if acted upon.

But this post has gotten pretty long. So we'll look at this matter next.

Okay, time to tackle Paul

St. Paul is one of my heroes. So are Stephen the Martyr and the prophets Nathan, Jeremiah and Habakkuk. Nehemiah is pretty high on my list as well. Why this grouping you ask, oh faithful reader? I think it's because they were all plain-spoken. They specialized in the unvarnished truth. The more difficult the circumstances, the more assertive they became. None of them would win any popularity contests. Today's tastes run to everybody feeling good about themselves, and never is heard a discouraging word. Not so with these guys. Each was the Don Cherry of his day--only with the ability to speak his native language. And wear normal clothes.

The Apostle Paul in particular gets a bad rap in many quarters. My daughter spent a year studying at my alma mater, Queen's University in Kingston, ON. She told me of an English professor who took it upon himself to (mis)represent Paul's view of women as being subordinate to males (Paul actually considered women to be men's equals in every respect). The reaction of one female student was to bang her fist on her desk, exclaiming, "Bad, bad Paul." In fact, many modern female Christians dislike the Apostle a good deal because of their regrettable misunderstanding of his teaching on the subject.

I had a friend at a church I once attended who was himself soft-spoken and tender-hearted, who championed the vulnerable, and always tried to smooth over difficulties--all lovely characteristics, of course. He couldn't stand Paul. Proponents of that most hard-nosed, mechanistic of theologies, Calvinism, find their inspiration in his writings. Many find him arrogant. The poor fellow can't catch a break.

Paul is also lauded in some quarters--and vilified in others--as being the champion of the anti-gay crowd, as we read in a recent post. His words in Romans chapter 1 are seen as the clear and decisive re-statement of Leviticus 18; i.e., that homosexuality is an abomination.

But as with his views on women, I believe that Paul's teaching on gay issues is completely misunderstood. Here's why.

[I am grateful for the outstanding scholarship of James V. Brownson for the discussion that follows. His book Bible. Gender. Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships, Eerdmans, 2013 is must reading for anyone interested in an exegetical and theological study of the Bible and homosexuality.]

We have already seen in the New Testament the abrupt change in views of certain Levitical and Deuteronomical teachings having to do with kosher foods.

1. The Apostle Peter in Acts 10:9ff - Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven....Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. 

2. The Apostle Paul in Romans 14:14 - I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.
 
These two Christian leaders had clearly understood that with the dawning of the age of the Messiah, that all the old bets were off. A radical reevaluation of what it meant to live a life worthy of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit involved a whole new reorientation of the relationship between principles, values, and behaviour.  

No longer was the focus on a scrupulous avoidance of those things in one's environment that could make one ritually impure--coming in contact with a leper; non-kosher food; working on the Sabbath; even a woman's "time of the month". Rather, the critical issue was one of motives. 

And they didn't learn this from anybody strange.

1. Jesus on defilement from food: Mark 7:5ff - The Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”....Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”.... “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

2. Jesus on the defilement that comes from contact with leprosy: Mark 1:40-41 - A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”

3. Jesus on the defilement that comes from a woman's menstrual flow: Mark 5:25ff - And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.... Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” 

4. Jesus on working on the Sabbath: Matthew 12:1ff - At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

St. Paul really got this. Look at his definition of commendable behaviour to his Corinthian readers in 2 Cor. 5:9-12 - We make it our goal to please [Christ], whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.

What is seen, rather than what is in the heart. Sounds familiar. Look up above again at Jesus speaking in Mark 7. Paul, the self-described former Hebrew of the Hebrews, is setting aside all of the old categories of acceptable godly behaviour--that which can be seen and assessed--in favour of something that is comes from within. Another translation of 2 Cor. 5:12 captures it nicely: We are not again commending ourselves to you but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. 

Sounds a lot like Jesus' denunciation of those scrupulous Pharisees in Luke 11:42-43, doesn't it? "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs [conspicuous behaviour], but you neglect justice and the love of God [inner motivation]. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces" [pride in appearances].

In Matthew 23:27 Jesus words are particularly condemnatory: You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. This statement dramatically turns Levitical teaching on its head. To touch a tomb made a person ritually defiled, and unable to participate in religious rites. But the Pharisees defiled others by their inner lives.

Paul pounded this new view--that defilement comes from within--home in his first letter to the Corinthians. Concerning the outside defilement that comes from non-kosher food, Paul said this:

I Cor. 10:23-33: I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

This is a truly remarkable passage. It uses the Jewish view of defilement from non-kosher food as a case study for what should determine behaviour. Paul starts off by saying that there is nothing that can necessarily be condemned on its own merits. Nevertheless, circumstances might dictate different responses to the same cues. How does one assess the import of circumstances? The likely impact your decision will have on the long-term well-being of the other person. For further study, look at parallel teaching earlier in the letter at chap. 8.

Or consider this equally remarkable teaching on marital relationships from 7:12-14: If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

One only has to compare this teaching with that of the great Jewish leader Ezra in the 6th century BC, whose express purpose was to rid the newly restored nation of Judah of ungodly influence. Marriage to unbelievers ranked high on his list.

Ezra chaps. 9 & 10: After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices.... They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.” When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.

Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed:

“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today....

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law....Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honor the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”

Don't be confused by the reference to foreign wives. The issue here was not race. Moses married a non-Jewish woman. Ruth was a Moabite. The issue was that as foreigners, the women would not be followers of Yahweh. These Gentile women, and any offspring, would be unholy--that is, they would not be followers of the one true God. The only cure was to remove this dangerous and defiling element immediately. Paul's position couldn't be more different. Rather than an unbelieving spouse being an unhealthy influence that must be got rid of, the believing spouse is a sanctifying influence on the non-Christian. And the kids themselves are deemed to be holy, rather than the opposite as Ezra saw it.

Paul the Liberator.

What you will find in Paul's teachings, following Jesus' lead, is a complete moving away from the avoidance of anything that might cause a person to become impure in God's eyes, to a confident engagement with the wider culture. With respect to sexual behaviour, sexual impurity is defined by an inward state of lust, or a lack of self-restraint. As with other behaviours, no longer are acts themselves to be debated, but the inner motivation of the person in question. 

But what then do we make of Romans 1:18-32? Is this a singular instance where Paul focuses on specific acts themselves rather than on motives?