This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 589: 1 Corinthians in Context 6 - Homosexuality and Singleness

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

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589 1 Corinthians 6.mp3

Transcript

00:00
Hey there.

00:01
I'm Sean.

00:02
And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:11
So often we default to categories of thought prevalent in our time and without realizing it.

00:15
I.

00:18
Read them into the Bible. As it turns out, 1st century people living in Corinth.

00:23
Did not think about sexuality like we do at all.

00:27
In today's episode, I want to begin by focusing rather closely on one Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9, which mentions same sex relationships.

00:36
This verse has been at the center of major translation disagreements that have sometimes opened the door wide open to committed same sex relationships and at other times close the doors so tightly that even celibate men get locked out merely for experiencing attractions to the same sex.

00:56
In what follows, we'll carefully examine not only the Greek underlying the bewildering array of English translations of 1 Corinthians 9, but also critical background information from both Greek and Roman cultures.

01:10
This will put us on solid ground to understand precisely what behavior Paul is forbidding for Christians in Corinth.

01:17
Next, we'll dip our toes into Chapter 7 and see how advantageous singleness is for Christians, whether same sex or opposite sex.

01:26
Here now is Episode 589, part six of our first Corinthians and context class, homosexuality and singleness.

01:43
As with last time, I want to begin with a disclaimer. Some of the following content is inappropriate for children.

01:52
If you're watching this or listening to this and there are kids nearby, now is a good time to turn it off.

02:00
I think this content is very important for us to consider, but it's it's become very controversial in our time.

02:07
The subject of same sex relationships in particular, but I want.

02:13
I.

02:13
Want to see if I can ask you to do something for me and that is just sort of bracket modern sensibilities and assumptions and ways of thinking.

02:24
While we enter into the ancient world.

02:27
They had.

02:29
I think pretty much all the same things we have as far as like configurations.

02:35
But they.

02:36
Did not look at it the way we look at it and.

02:40
I am definitely not endorsing the way they looked at it.

02:43
Think.

02:44
I think it's not really helpful the way they looked at it either, but I have to explain it to you so that you understand what's going on.

02:53
Our main text is first Corinthians 6.

02:56
9:00 and 10:00 and 11:00, so that just three little verses that I left from last time. And then I want to jump into first Corinthians 7 and talk about singleness.

03:07
I want to begin by talking about pederasty.

03:10
The Greeks had institutionalized.

03:13
Consensual pedophilia between citizens of equal rank.

03:18
In other words, it was considered socially acceptable and socially advantageous for an older man to.

03:28
Develop a sexual relationship with a pre adolescent boy that would eventually result in not just mentorship.

03:39
Well, sex, mentorship, and ultimately business opportunities.

03:43
And then when that boy became a man, succeeded when he became older, he would then enter into a relationship with.

03:52
A boy as well.

03:53
0.

03:54
The Romans also practiced pederasty, but they didn't do it among equals.

04:02
And there was number mentoring or business?

04:05
So it was just about dominance and power, Moyer Hubbard writes.

04:11
Pederasty was also widely practiced and was considered an acceptable form of sexual expression between.

04:18
An adult male and a pre pubescent teen, usually of lower social rank.

04:24
A common subject for Marshall's epigrammatic wit is lamenting the boy who matures and turns to heterosexual relations.

04:33
Other times, he simply extols the delights of pederstein.

04:37
Indeed, in Marshall Circles, pedophilia was so pervasive that he warns young men about to marry that they.

04:45
Is it the prostitutes district and find someone who will train them to enjoy women?

04:50
Marriage contracts often contained a stipulation against bringing a boy lover into the home.

04:57
And Marshall, if you didn't know, is riding around the year between the years 86 and 102 in Rome.

05:04
It's between like 30 to 50 years after Paul wrote First Corinthians, but very much from a Roman perspective.

05:12
It's important to realize that ancient views about sex, especially same sex relationships, were quite different than ours.

05:20
And as I mentioned, the Greeks had their way of doing it where it's like this whole mentorship program mixed up with pedophilia. And then the Romans were just doing it to assert dominance. OK.

05:33
We're in.

05:33
Corinth is a Roman city at this time period it had been a Greek.

05:37
It would become a Greek city again in 100 years, but like right now, when Paul is there and the Corinthian churches gate started, it's very much a Roman mindset to things.

05:47
The idea of sexual orientation and the terms heterosexual and homosexual.

05:53
Were not invented until the 1860s.

05:58
Which means that no ancient people thought that way.

06:01
They weren't thinking in terms of.

06:03
Am I attracted to the same sex or am I attracted to the opposite sex?

06:07
I'm sure they experience attraction.

06:09
But I'm just saying the category of orientation wasn't part of their thought world.

06:15
Romans did not think that way. They thought in terms of power.

06:20
The Roman Empire was about power.

06:24
Marilyn Skinner writes in her book sexuality in Greek and Roman culture.

06:27
Rank in class were more decisive in calibrating sexual power relations than physiological manhood.

06:35
The body of the Roman Veir, the adult citizen male, was regarded as inviolable.

06:41
Legally protected from sexual penetration, beating and torture. Although sexual attraction to youths was regarded as completely normal.

06:50
Just as it was in Greece, Roman men were rigorously prohibited by law as well as custom from sexual contact with Freeborn Citizen Boys.

07:00
Violation of the physical integrity of a citizen youth was treated as the equivalent of unlawful relations with married or unmarried women and punished as stupram, a criminal sexual act.

07:13
Pederasti as an institutionalized, cross generational relationship of two Roman citizens thus becomes unthinkable.

07:20
Furthermore, because slaves and prostitutes were the only legitimate objects of male ********** desire, relationships with boys were often treated as trivial even by those who viewed them in a favorable light.

07:35
Here is a line from Horus in his second satire, he says when your throat is parched with thirst. Do you insist on having a golden tankard, which is a cup when famished?

07:46
Do you turn up your nose at all? But Peacock and turbot? When your organ is stiff and a servant girl or a young boy from the household is near at hand.

07:56
And you know, you can make an immediate assault.

07:59
Would you sooner burst with tension? Not me.

08:02
I like sex to be there and easy to get.

08:07
So was the attitude of the cultured Roman wealthy landowner, homeowner the sort of person that would be having servants in their home? All of their servants, male or female, adult or child?

08:22
Were sexually vulnerable, were sexually available to the master of the House and his friends.

08:29
For the Romans, it was not a big deal to have sexual relations with a man or a woman, or a boy or a girl.

08:37
They didn't think in those terms.

08:38
What mattered was penetration and rank. Penetrating a male prostitute at the brothel was no big deal.

08:46
Would even think anything about it.

08:48
Penetrating a male slave at your house or at a friend's house was no big deal.

08:52
Getting penetrated or penetrating someone of equal rank was unthinkable and could land you in the law court.

08:59
With great shame and potentially financial ruin.

09:04
So that's how they thought about it.

09:06
It's totally different than our way of thinking about it.

09:09
It was about.

09:10
Dominance. Now let's go to 1st Corinthians, Chapter 6, verse 9. Because Paul enters this world in the words he uses to forbid certain behaviours.

09:21
First Corinthians 69 says do you not know that wrong doers will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

09:27
OK, do not be deceived.

09:30
Sexually immoral.

09:32
Idolaters, adulterers. Male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex.

09:38
Thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers.

09:43
None of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

09:46
So here we have a translation issue and I'm going to be laser focused on these two sections right here. The ones that say male prostitutes and men who engage in illicit sex.

09:58
Actually only two words in Greek.

10:00
And it's translated into 8 words in the nrsv here.

10:04
So let's take a look at what we're dealing with. The two words are malaki and arsenicite.

10:11
Malaki is translated as male prostitutes in the new revised standard.

10:16
Updated edition is translated as Boy prostitutes in the Catholic Bible. The New American Bible, revised edition and translated as effeminate.

10:25
And the nasb, 95 S male, prostitutes, boy, prostitutes effeminate.

10:34
That's not all the same thing.

10:37
Uh, then we have arsenicete, which is translated men who engage in illicit sex from reading the nrsv you get the impression these are people that are like doing illegal things and sexually speaking.

10:47
Whereas the Catholic Bible just translated Siddha sodomites, sodomites would refer to male and females.

10:54
So that's a very broad category. And then the nasb, 95 translates it, homosexuals.

11:00
Which?

11:01
By today's standards, which this is a translation done for people reading English today?

11:07
Would include anyone who has same sex attraction whatsoever.

11:11
Which is way, way broader than this word is, as we'll see.

11:17
These are not the best translations.

11:20
Is Paul coming from?

11:21
I realize I talked to you about the Greeks and I talked to you about the Romans.

11:24
Let's talk about the Jews for a minute, because.

11:27
As Gary meters says, if you cut Paul, he bleeds Old Testament.

11:32
He's probably pulling from Leviticus 20 verse 13, which says if a man lies with a male.

11:39
As with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall be put to death.

11:45
Their blood is upon them.

11:47
Notice a couple of things.

11:49
There's no distinction.

11:51
Between active and passive participants in the sex act.

11:55
Distinction at all.

11:57
Secondly, sex with the same sex is considered a serious.

12:02
Crime in the Old Testament warranting the death penalty.

12:08
Just like other sexual sins, including adultery.

12:13
Sex with your father's wife.

12:15
Sex with your daughter-in-law, sex with one's wife and her mother.

12:20
Sex with an animal and sex with one's sister or step.

12:25
That's all in the same list of Chapter 20 of Leviticus. Sound like it's just focusing on same sex. Sex is talking about any kind of sex that is.

12:34
Appropriate for the people of God.

12:37
There's no mention of orientation in this.

12:39
It's just the real focus is just like this word right here lies.

12:44
Like that's that's the focus of the whole law. Is somebody who does this thing.

12:50
About.

12:51
It's about an action.

12:52
It doesn't say anything about your.

12:54
Does it say anything about whether you liked it or not?

12:56
It say anything about getting paid or not?

12:58
It's just like did you do the thing if you do the thing, then you're guilty of the crime.

13:03
There's no mention of status who's penetrating the age of anybody, not none of that is mentioned here.

13:10
So when we look at the Greek version of Leviticus 2013, we find the same words that Paul uses in First Corinthians 69.

13:22
Except they're split into two words instead of one word. And I'll read you just the English of that. If you can read Greek, you go head along.

13:29
In Greek, I'll just read the English here.

13:31
Is from the new English.

13:33
Translation of the Septuagint and he who lies with a male, which is the word arsenous.

13:39
In a bed kit.

13:42
For a woman, let me just do it again.

13:45
For he, who lies with a male in a bed for a woman, both have committed an abomination by death.

13:51
Them be put to death, they are liable.

13:53
So what we have here are these two words.

13:57
So it's man and bed are the two words and Paul combines them together.

14:04
And invents, so far as we know, he invents a new word.

14:07
And This is why the translators are like what? There are no parallels.

14:12
There are no previous references, at least not that I'm aware of.

14:14
They'll dig something up.

14:16
But in Leviticus 2013 is clear what he's talking.

14:19
He's talking about a man having sex with a man. As if this man was a woman.

14:23
So Paul's term arcanae is rare, but it's clearly a combination of these two Greek words from Leviticus 2013, Leviticus 2013.

14:33
Not a confusing.

14:33
We know what it means.

14:35
But what about that other word?

14:38
Malakos definition, one from the standard Greek dictionary called the Bedag.

14:44
Is pertaining to being, yielding to touch, soft of things clothes.

14:50
That's definition.

14:52
I am wearing a malacose sweater tonight.

14:55
It's nice and soft definition.

14:59
2 Nothing to do with my sweater, please.

15:01
Pertaining to being passive in a same sex.

15:05
Effeminate, especially if katamites of men and boys who are sodomized in such a relationship.

15:13
The Greeks had tons.

15:14
Words for sex, by the way.

15:17
Maybe even more than we do in English. OK, but this is a word.

15:21
You just.

15:22
Just been soft.

15:23
But like unless it means something else and then if it means something else, the passive partner in a same sex.

15:30
Encounter then that's what it means.

15:33
And we find effeminate men talked about throughout the ancient world.

15:39
Is not a modern thing.

15:41
This is something that people have noticed throughout time, and it's not just boy prostitutes.

15:46
Yes, there were boy prostitutes in the ancient world.

15:50
Yes, they were more feminine. OK, but there are also fully grown men who made an effort to appear feminine in the ancient world.

16:00
There's a story from Phydrus who wrote was it 15 between 50 and 50?

16:08
So like directly lived at the same time as the apostle Paul.

16:12
And he wrote in Rome, a version kind of like an updated version of Aesop's Fables.

16:18
And.

16:19
So Phaedra's wrote all these fables and he talks about one time when Prometheus got totally wasted with Bacchus.

16:27
And he had all these body parts that he had like formed.

16:31
Then he went to this dinner party, got all wasted.

16:34
Came.

16:34
He's all staggering and he put like the wrong.

16:37
Genitals on the wrong people.

16:40
And it's just sort of like a story.

16:42
It's a fable, but the point of the fable is.

16:45
And that's why today we all too often see passion diverted into depraved paths.

16:52
So ancient people were not looking at feminine men and masculine women as something that was positive.

17:01
Were criticizing it, in other words.

17:03
That's my main point there. The Roman view was that effeminate men and masculine women were seen as accidental creations.

17:10
What Fydrous is trying to explain?

17:13
Juvenile, whose name says it all in his sixth satire, said. Supposing none of these exits catches your fancy.

17:20
Don't you think it better to sleep with a pretty boy?

17:23
Talking about troubles that men have with their wives.

17:27
Don't you think it'd be better to sleep with a pretty?

17:29
Boys don't quarrel all night or nag you for little presents while they're on the job or complain that you don't come up to their expectations or demand more grasping passion.

17:39
So that's pretty.

17:41
Juvenile also juvenile talks about a lot of stuff anyhow.

17:45
In the 8th satire, he says, perhaps you despise the unwarlike Rhodians, the scented sons of Corinth, and rightly.

17:52
What harm can ever befall you from youths who put on perfume and shave their legs to the crotch but steer clear of rugged Spain?

18:01
A very wide berth to Gaul and he goes on from there.

18:04
So juvenile is writing between the years he this satire he's writing between the years 118 to 120 AD in Rome so.

18:12
So 6070 years after poll.

18:15
But still reflecting the same general sentiment of the time.

18:20
That they looked at the use of Corinth as kind of feminine. Alright and he says he calls them the scented sons of Corinth and he calls them unwarlike.

18:33
We probably would call that metrosexual.

18:35
You know, just sort of like a guy that really knows how to dress or to groom himself, that sort of thing, right?

18:41
Judo is just like taking a shot at.

18:43
He's like, yeah, the Spaniards and the and the gals, you know, they're real men over there, you know.

18:47
Epictetus writes about this, he.

18:50
And this is extremely rude. So.

18:53
But it is what it is. I want you to see it.

18:56
His book is called on personal adornment.

18:58
Was a.

18:59
He wasn't a Roman and he's writing around the year 93 to 135. Somewhere in that range, he says he once visited by a young student of rhetoric, stylishly dressed, and who had a very elaborate hairdo.

19:12
So this is actually Epictetus, a student who's writing about his teacher.

19:16
And Epictetus asks him the question, are you a man or a woman?

19:21
The guy responds a man.

19:23
So adorn yourself as a man, not as a woman.

19:25
A woman's skin is naturally smooth and soft.

19:29
If she's hairy, she's a freak and she's put on display in a freak show in Rome. In the case of a man, this happens. If he's without hair. If he's naturally hairless, he's a freak.

19:39
So if we find a man trimming and tweezing his hair.

19:42
What to make?

19:44
Where should we exhibit him and how shall we advertise him?

19:47
Come and see a man who D rather be a woman.

19:51
What a scandalous spectacle. No one would believe the advertisement by.

19:56
I imagine that even men who tweeze do so without appreciating what it is they are doing.

20:02
Man, what reason do you have for finding fault with nature? In your case that it brought you into the world?

20:08
Then you can really give this guy the business here.

20:12
Are you saying that it should bring everyone into the world as women?

20:16
In that case, what good would all your primping do you if everyone was a woman?

20:20
For whom would you be beautifying yourself?

20:24
You don't like the way things are.

20:26
Then why not go the whole hog and remove?

20:28
Shall I call it?

20:29
Remove the cause of your hairiness.

20:32
Turn yourself into a woman in all respects.

20:35
So that we're not left in doubt rather than being half man, half woman. Who are you trying to please women?

20:42
Then please them as a man.

20:44
Yes, but they like smooth skinned men just to come back.

20:48
At this young guys getting roasted here.

20:51
To which Epictetus replies, go hang yourself. If they liked sexual deviance, would you become a sexual?

20:57
And this word he uses for sexual deviant is this word quinellos. And I'm going to talk about that in a second. But it's they're translating here sexual deviance.

21:05
Let me finish this and we'll do it.

21:07
#33. Is that your?

21:09
Is that what you were born for? To please dissolute women?

21:12
Is that the kind of person we make a citizen of Corinth and possibly city Warden or Superintendent of the Cadet Force or commander of the Armed Forces, or President of the Games?

21:23
Interesting. The Epictetus talks about president of the Games in Corinth, as literally the highest honor.

21:28
Anyone could ever possibly.

21:29
Have but in court that was certainly the the case. And So what do we see here? We see a very strict minded person.

21:38
I mean, this guy is not so far as I could tell, what we would call trans or using our categories.

21:44
Is just a guy.

21:46
That's trying to impress the ladies and he thinks the women like smooth men.

21:51
He's doing all this.

21:53
To become smooth, to impress a woman, right?

21:56
Is not really.

21:59
Analogous to the transgender subject of our time, and still Epictetus is like super harsh on them.

22:05
And super like, hey, just be a man. And if you're a man, then she'll like you and the guy is not buying it.

22:12
That's what he says.

22:14
But he does use this interesting word and I want to talk about that word. Marilyn Skinner writes about it.

22:20
Says to be a Roman veer a real man.

22:24
Was to be hard in every sense physically, to be impervious to pain or fatigue, mentally, to be stern and unyielding. And of course, inevitably to take the insertive position in sexual.

22:35
Will Congress?

22:37
The Romans borrowed from the Greeks the word kinados denoting a man.

22:42
Who allowed himself to be entered anally, Latinized as Sinitus.

22:48
It meant the opposite of veer. Thus, Romans could be assigned to one of two categories.

22:54
Man or veer?

22:57
Or non man senitas.

23:00
So that is the ancient prejudice and their way of thinking about things.

23:05
Again, I'm not endorsing.

23:09
Their way of slicing the apple at all. OK, I'm.

23:11
I'm with Paul on this, OK, so putting this all together, we have two words.

23:17
This word malakos, and that means the passive participant in a male on male sexual encounter.

23:26
And the word arsenicite, which means the active participants in male on male sexual encounters.

23:36
So.

23:37
Here are the translations, just so you see how all these different translations do it.

23:42
The NRS Vue says male prostitutes and men who engage in illicit sex.

23:48
There's nothing about prostitutes in the word malicious.

23:52
Just nothing about prostitution.

23:54
You could be a.

23:55
You might not be a prostitute.

23:57
You just happen to be the person who is the passive participant.

24:02
This is over defining it.

24:04
And then men who engage in illicit sex once again, that's super vague.

24:09
And if somebody's reading this in the 21st century, elicit sex, they're thinking of something that is really bad.

24:16
Not thinking of sex with another person of the same sex necessarily.

24:21
So I think this translation is not good.

24:24
The NABRE already mentioned boy prostitutes.

24:27
Sodomites. I think that translation is bad.

24:30
The Nasb 95, effeminate, or homosexuals.

24:33
That's pretty bad too.

24:35
You can be effeminate and not be the passive participant in a sexual act.

24:39
It.

24:40
So that's making the category too broad.

24:43
It's including people that are engaged in sexual activity and those who are not engaged in sexual activity, who are both effeminate, right.

24:50
Homosexual is just the worst and the nasb 20s even worse than the 95.

24:55
It just reduces everything to.

24:58
This verse that we're reading says these people can't enter the Kingdom of God.

25:02
In our small verse, if your translation says no, homosexuals can enter the Kingdom of God, and that's not what the Greek really means.

25:10
You have just, you have just excluded a lot of people from salvation.

25:16
The NET does a really great job.

25:19
Passive homosexual partners practising homosexuals.

25:24
I don't think most people know what that means. Practising homosexuals versus not practicing.

25:29
Think that's pretty vague.

25:31
The ESV has men who practice homosexuality. Again, I think that's.

25:35
It's questionable, like if people would actually understand what does that mean, practicing homosexual or not practicing homosexual?

25:42
So I actually like the CSB Christian Standard Bible, which translates males who have sex with males.

25:49
Boom, there it.

25:51
You're saying what he's saying and it's it doesn't get into the passive and the active?

25:57
They're both there in the Greek, but in English you could just say males who are having sex with.

26:01
Males you wouldn't want to say men because it could be a man having a sex with a.

26:07
And if you say, well, men having sex with men is bad, but you can have sex with boys no good.

26:11
So males is a generic word, includes all of the male species.

26:16
I think this translation is probably the.

26:19
Now let's read the verse, hopefully with better understanding here.

26:22
Background information.

26:25
Corinthians 69 don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's Kingdom?

26:31
Do not be.

26:32
No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers.

26:36
Or males who have sex with males.

26:38
No thieves, greedy people. Drunkards.

26:41
Verbally abusive people or swindlers will inherit God's Kingdom, and some of you.

26:47
Used to be like this, but you were washed.

26:50
You were sanctified.

26:51
You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

26:58
Such were you.

26:59
You some of the people in Corinth were thieves. Some of them were having sex with the same sex.

27:05
Some of them were greedy, some of them were abusive in their speech.

27:10
But they were washed.

27:12
They were sanctified.

27:14
They were justified.

27:17
Paul didn't believe sinful behaviors permanently defiled people.

27:23
He believed that, and this is what's called a vice list here.

27:27
That's the technical term for it.

27:30
He believed that people that practice his vices could be saved.

27:34
He knew that they could be cleansed, made holy and cleared of guilt.

27:39
But once cleansed not to continue in the behavior.

27:43
That make sense?

27:45
Now let's talk about singleness.

27:48
Paul was single, Jesus was single.

27:52
Lots of Christians have been single over the last 2000 years.

27:57
And they've done amazing.

27:58
Just Jesus and Paul would carry the day anyhow, but also a lot of others have done amazing things.

28:03
In singleness, let's go over now to First Corinthians Chapter 7 because I want to talk about singleness because I think in our context today, especially, but.

28:12
Also, in ancient times this gave a path for people who experience same sex.

28:17
That they would call it that.

28:18
But singleness was an option.

28:22
Marriage is not salvation.

28:25
I think a lot of people get this idea.

28:28
That if I could just get married, then my life is going to be perfect and I'm going to be sass.

28:35
Soul will be.

28:37
I'll find my soul mate.

28:38
Is that what you call it?

28:40
It's not true.

28:42
You're the only one that's going to satisfy you. Is God not your husband, not your wife?

28:46
A lot of times the spouse brings more problems.

28:49
OK. And Paul talks about that kind of humorously in one Corinthians 7.

28:54
He says in verse.

28:56
I wish that all were as I myself AM.

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But each one has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

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To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain unmarried as I am.

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But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. Isn't that fascinating?

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Says.

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That it is good for them to remain unmarried.

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I wish.

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All were as I myself AM.

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Paul is not.

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Looking at this equally here, he's saying single Christians awesome.

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Married Christians, it's not sin.

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Right. I mean.

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Is this is what he's?

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Here it's pretty. It's pretty interesting. I think in many churches today, you go to the church and you say, OK, married people, awesome single people.

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It's not sin.

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Right, this actually reverse of what we read here in the Bible. In one Corinthians 728, Paul says.

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If you marry.

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You do not.

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Sin, it's not sin.

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And if a virgin marries, she does not sin.

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Yet those who marry will experience distress in the flesh.

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I would spare you that.

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Married people have to face distress. The singles don't.

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Verse 32. I want you to be free from.

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The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world. How to please his wife.

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And his interests are divided.

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And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world.

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How to?

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I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

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So if someone doesn't want to marry someone of the opposite sex because they don't find the opposite sex.

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Attractive. Fine.

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That's fine.

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Everyone doesn't have to get married. Whether you are opposite sex attracted same sex.

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You can be single.

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In fact, Paul sees that as an.

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Look at verse 36 if anyone thinks that he is behaving indecently toward his fiancee.

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If his passions are strong, and so it has to be, let him marry as he wishes.

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Is no sin.

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This is so.

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It's like the third time now. He's like cold marriage.

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It's not a sin.

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Let them marry 30.

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But if someone stands firm in his resolve, being under no necessity but having his own desire under control.

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And as determined in his own mind to keep her as his fiancee.

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He will do well.

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So then he who marries his fiance does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do better.

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This not.

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That's that subtle.

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This is better is what he's.

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A wife is bound as long as her husband lives.

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But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes. Only in the Lord. But in my opinion.

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She is more blessed if she remains as she is, and I think that I too have the spirit of God.

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This is just this is just unbelievable, isn't it?

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Isn't that?

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What matters most is your relationship with God, not whether you're married or not.

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Marriage is not salvation.

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Is not.

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Living for God is what matters.

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God loves masculine women. God loves feminine.

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Men, God loves those who are attracted to the same sex God loves.

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Those who don't like their biological sex.

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He loves all those.

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He loves those are attracted to the opposite sex too.

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God wants all of the people to be part of his family to be saved, to be part of his Kingdom, to have eternal life.

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God's heart.

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If you're a girl who likes sports and doesn't care much about makeup.

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It's fine.

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If you're a guy who's artsy and.

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You are sensitive.

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That's fine.

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You have space to be that as a Christian.

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But you don't have space to do is to have sex.

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Outside of marriage between a man and a woman, you don't have that space, but you have all the other space to be.

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Who you are relative to what?

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Bible says is right.

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God wants all to come to Christ and have eternal life, but.

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Once someone comes to Christ, that person needs to follow the Christian ethics.

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The Christian rules for sexuality.

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We read nothing about orientation or gender identity in the Bible.

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Read about.

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We read about behavior.

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And this is so hard for people in our time to understand, because it's all about I am gay.

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I am a lesbian.

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AM.

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I am transgender.

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It's the I am part that they're claiming they're claiming an identity and what the Bible is talking about is a behavior, and those two things are related, but they're not the same thing.

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And so.

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The Bible is not saying you can't experience same sex attraction.

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Not saying you can't experience gender dysphoria or some other.

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Issue.

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That makes you want to do differently than what the standard male female.

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That's that's not what it's saying, but what it is saying is that you can't act in a way that the Bible says is wrong.

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The definition of sin.

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Is acting in a way that the Bible says is wrong. If you're a believer who struggles with these issues, you can choose singleness.

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Can choose celibacy you?

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You can be part of the church. You can have salvation.

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And there's lots of people who have made that choice. My heart goes out to you. Who?

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Struggle with this stuff because it's not easy.

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And sometimes that's our.

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As Christians, we haven't made it easy.

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And look, we do have to hold the line as far as what God says is right and wrong.

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But at the same time, we can have compassion, we can have tolerance, we can have willingness.

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To share the gospel with somebody who is in one of these other kind of lifestyles.

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There's a good website that I want to recommend called Living Out org.

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The website of a man named Sam Albury.

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Sam Albury is the same sex attracted pastor in England. He's not attracted to women, he's attracted to men.

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Chose to be single for Christ, and he's a pastor.

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He's a conservative Bible, believing pastor in England.

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And he has this website living out org which has lots of resources for people who are choosing singleness for Christ.

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All.

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Well, that was exciting, wasn't it?

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Bottom line, God wants everyone to be in his family.

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It really does.

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And guess what?

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Being attracted to the opposite sex has its struggles too.

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We're all exercising.

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We're all telling our.

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No, we're all saying, yeah, but yeah, but and then putting ourselves under the authority of Christ, that's what it means, Lord.

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That's what it means when we say Jesus is Lord. We're saying that we're under his authority.

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We're going to do what he says, even if we don't feel like it, even if it. If it seems like it's different than our natural inclinations.

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All right. So that was homosexuality and singleness in First Corinthians.

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Next time we're going to jump backwards to the first half of Chapter 6 and look at.

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Law.

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Which would be I think would be rather refreshing after all this sex talk.

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So we'll do that and crack that nut next week as we continue through this class.

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Corinthians in context.

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I.

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Well, that brings us presentation to an end.

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What did you think? Come on over to restitudio.org and find Episode 589, homosexuality and singleness, and leave your feedback there.

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Now, if you're interested in this topic of same sex attraction and what other parts of the Bible have to say about it or or other people have to say about it, I would encourage you to check out a number of other episodes from the rest of Tudio catalogue.

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Episode 4.

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7 reaching LGBT plus people, which is a sermon.

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I preached a couple years back and I also have two interviews with Beckett Cooke, who was a.

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Fashion set designer in Hollywood and totally converted to Christianity. And then.

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Changed his lifestyle so he interview 18 God Woo's fashion set designer from gay lifestyle and that actually goes all the way back to 2017. And then also episode 292 called a change of affection, which I recorded two years later. Also with Becca Cook.

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And that's after his book came out, which is called.

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A change of affection, which is essentially his testimony.

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Another episode to consider is number 154, spiritual friendship, celibacy as a call to love with Wesley Hill, which I thought was very well done.

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A lecture he gave that he.

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Gave permission for me to put on the podcast and there are a number of others too that you can consider listening to number 83 questions about gay and lesbian Christians, which was more of a roundtable discussion with a few of US podcast 81.

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My life as a stud with Jackie Hill Perry.

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Fantastic presentation that she did.

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And then Podcast 69, which was an interview with Caleb Kaltenbach done by actually somebody else. But they gave me permission to put it out on the podcast, and that's where a teenager comes out as a Christian to gay parents.

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And some really interesting thoughts on that.

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Take a look at the catalogue.

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You can scroll that in your phone or your tablet.

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It's also available at restitudio.org. I've got a list.

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If you click podcast info.

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And then Scroll down, you can actually see a list of all 588 episodes.

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O far actually 589 as of today.

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So take a look at that if you're interested in more on this particular subject.

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On episode 570.

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That's an interview I did with Bob Cardin called my Journey into healing.

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3 Christopher wrote in responding to Mark, and then, which is a little too long for me to read out here, but I'll just read out a couple paragraph, he says.

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Are told that even what we call faith, the size of a mustard seed is enough.

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Now the growth is in our willingness to risk to risk disappointment, but also to risk achievement.

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Success is not realized through avoidance of.

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It is through expectation of growth and success. So in faith we grow as people.

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It's the strictly human that needs to be restrained by spiritual faith.

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The key for my prayer for healing of others is to empty out my issues, focus and that allows mental room for spirit to move me. I have been given words to say things, to pray for that were not requested.

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Some was ovarian cancer disappeared.

40:36
Someone's ear infections improved.

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It's God's love and God's will right now for me to figure it out, for God to reveal. It may take a few reiterations listening before I find out what was to be healed.

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It's OK with me if you see prayer.

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That is not granted verbatim.

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And then he goes on to mention Bob's.

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Bob Cardin's class called Knowing God better, which is a series on YouTube. For those of you who are interested in learning more about Bob Cardin.

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And the subject of healing 0.

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A lot to think about there. I have honestly been thinking about the subject of divine speech, which would include word of wisdom, word of knowledge, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, any of that sort of thing, as well as healing.

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Because in studying for this first Corinthians class, I am going to cover a lot of this material.

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Although, as you've probably noticed in this class, I'm not going verse by verse and I'm not answering all the questions that any particular chapter might raise instead.

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Focusing on what the background information is and how that can help us to understand at least a couple of aspects of what a given chapter or even half a chapter is talking about.

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0.

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Stay tuned.

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We are going to get into the miraculous and learn what the Greco Roman people were doing, what they knew about what their experience.

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Was and I hope for you this is really going to make the Christian gifts of spirit or manifestations, whatever you want to call them. Miraculous. I think it's going to really make them stand out.

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Contrast to what other people were doing and what other people knew about.

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So stay tuned for.

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It is certainly an interesting topic that is worth your consideration wherever it is you happen to land on the subject.

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Well, that's going to be it for today.

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Everyone for tuning in.

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We'll catch you next week if you'd like to support this ministry, you can do that on our website. Rest of tudio .0 RG.

42:43
To thanks so much to those of you who have been supporting us this first Corinthians class has definitely been.

42:51
The most expensive research project I've done to date as far as just like the sheer number of resources I've had to get in order to do the work necessary to put this together.

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Thanks so much for those of you who have.

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Heled with that.

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Well, that's it for.

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See you next time. And remember the truth.

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Has nothing to fear.