BaylorFTW said:Waco1947 said:
I begin with hoteroerotism and homoertoism. God has built into us the need for sex that humans might thrive.
Genesis 1:27 So God created humans in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female, he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth..." God gave us our sexuality that we might enjoy it as recreation and not simply procreation. In other words, God gave us the 'want to have sex' or our eroticism
However, in Genesis 2 God gave us boundaries for our eroticism, that is, a marriage - covenanted, loving, faithful relationship.
Erotocism and and boundaries are the first concepts. Eroticism outside of these boundaries is not God's way.
Now, what Romans says and how we interpret it is what I challenge.
Romans 1: 18- 24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse[e] for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse[f] with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done. 29 They were filled with every kind of injustice, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters,[g] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.
Homoerotic conduct was also commonly assumed to involve, necessarily, one person's exploitation of another. Plutarch's Daphnaeus admitted that even if the passive male has consented to homoerotic intercourse, by taking on the "weakness" and "effeminacy" of a woman, his shame is greater than a woman's because he has surrendered his manliness. From this point of view, if there is exploitation of one person by another even where there is consent, how much more where there is none. One thinks of the Sodomites' attempted rape of Lot's visitors, of the sexual favors a master could demand of his slaves, and of a pederast's sexual abuse of a pubescent boy. To ethical teachers in the Greco-Roman world, it would have seemed just as obvious that homoerotic conduct was inherently exploitative as that it was driven by
In Paul's day, the critics of homoerotic activity invariably associated it with insatiable lust and avarice. Seneca portrayed it as a rich man's sport, Dio Chrysostom as the ultimate sexual debauchery, and Philo, with reference to Sodom, as one of the vile consequences of wanton luxury and self-centeredness. The old Platonic ideal of the pure, disinterested love between a man and a boy had come to ruin on the hard realities of Roman decadence. One of the speakers in Plutarch's dialogue could acknowledge the possibility of genuine homosexual love, but even he saw a need to repeat Plato's warning about homoerotic seduction,
passive male has consented to homoerotic intercourse, by taking on the "weakness" and "effeminacy" of a woman, his shame is greater than a woman's because he has surrendered his manliness. From this point of view, if there is exploitation of one person by another, even where there is consent, how much more where there is none. One thinks of the Sodomites' attempted rape of Lot's visitors, of the sexual favors a master could demand of his slaves, and of a pederast's sexual abuse of a pubescent boy. To ethical teachers in the Greco-Roman world, it would have seemed just as obvious that homoerotic conduct was inherently exploitative as that it was driven by
You quoted Gen 1:28- which says "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply;" which clearly shows men and women are to have children for procreation. The Creatr called allof creation good including sex which God called very good. God also in sex for recreation. People who choose not have or unable to have children or too old to bear a child cannot be condemed for simply enjoying as fun and intimate. This latter part is essentil in understaing my position for sex for gays - it is recreatinal, fun and intimate.
Then, you assert this means
You accept that Gen 2 is talking about boundaries for marriage but misunderstand that it is giving the ideal coupling (male and female) and that they become one flesh because they each have something the other lacks. This understanding doesn't make sense with same sex couples. Gay coupling is also becoming one flesh. One flesh is unity of a marriage unit for both gay and straight.
Gen 2:18- And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Gen 2:24- Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. True for gays too. They leave father and mother and become one flesh - again one fleash is metopher for unity.
Then, in the New Testament, we see Jesus affirm this coupling in You left out verse 3 Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" The passage is about divorce not marriage
Matt 19:4-5- 4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Notice Jesus has the opportunity to expand marriage or disagree with the ideal God set in Genesis. Instead, he affirms it again pointing to the importance of males and females who are different coming together to become one flesh. Again, something same sex relationships can't do.
We also see Jesus specifically mention sexual immorality (fornications in KJV) in Mark 7:21. The word in the Greek is porneia which would include homosexuality and lesbianism. Not it doesn't because you simply made that up. Homosexual and lesbianism is unknown to Paul. They are 20th century concepts. Paul saw homosexual and lesbian "behavior' which he condemend and if read my post you would know I stand shoulder to shoulder in condemning those exploit behaveriors.
Remember Jesus followed the law and would not go against Lev 18:22. Then Jesus followed the law of that one verse Lev 18:22 than he has to follow all the law of Lev. Did he? Did he beliver in killing a son for dishonoring his father and mother. You can't simply take a verse out that context.
If you look in the LXX, it will use the same Greek words Paul uses in 1 Cor 6:9. Refresh my memory.
Finally, you have another problem. Even if we grant all your arguments as correct despite what is mentioned above, you still will not able to show anywhere in the bible where homosexual and lesbian relationships are approved of by God. In contrast, we can see plenty of examples where God supports marriage between a man and a woman. I can show you where God approves of marriage that are loving, kind, faithful and all. Prove to me that LGT are not loving, kind, and faithful
Thank you for challenging my post with some interesting interpretations of your own. Let me try to expand on what I intend, so it will help clarify my point.
Waco1947