Psych and Theo Podcast
Welcome to the "Psych and Theo Podcast". We’re your hosts, Sam and Tim. Join us as we tackle cultural issues by providing insightful discussions from both a theological and psychological perspective.
From celebrity pastors and church controversies to hot-button topics like abortion, gay marriage, and gender identity, we address these issues with grace, humor, knowledge, and wisdom. If you’re looking for thought-provoking conversations on church culture, pop culture, mental health, moral issues, and all things related to the Bible, then you’ve come to the right place.
We do our best to bring our unique perspectives to navigating the complexities of faith and culture through the lens of theology and psychology.
If you’re ready to challenge your thinking and deepen your understanding, then follow us on the "Psych and Theo Podcast." Subscribe now and join the conversation!”
Psych and Theo Podcast
Ep. 40 - How to Navigate LGBT Issues Using Compassion and a Biblical Lens w/ Cassian Bellino
What if we could merge theology and psychology to navigate the challenging intersection of Christianity and LGBT issues? Join us as we bring together insights from Tim, a seasoned theologian, alongside our special guest, Cassian Bellino of the Biblically Speaking podcast. Together, we explore how Christians can uphold their faith while engaging empathetically with the LGBT community, confronting misconceptions about therapy, and promoting a healthy fusion of mental health and spiritual well-being. Cassian shares her thoughts on tackling cultural norms and what it means to embody a Christ-centered life that challenges traditional notions of masculinity.
In this episode, we tackle the ethical dimensions of LGBT issues through a practice known as steel manning—presenting opposing viewpoints in their strongest form. By doing so, we aim to foster respectful dialogues around the church's varying treatment of certain sins like premarital sex and homosexuality. We dissect interpretations of same-sex relationships from Genesis, Leviticus, and Paul's writings, questioning if these biblical teachings are culturally bound or universally applicable. Our conversation digs deep into historical contexts and challenges listeners to think critically about how these ancient texts relate to modern same-sex relationships.
As we journey through biblical narratives, we confront complex subjects like same-sex attraction, human struggles, and the pursuit of a Christ-centered life. From examining the deep friendship of David and Jonathan to exploring Paul's writings, we highlight the importance of empathy and understanding in our dialogues. We leave you with a powerful reflection on how love, patience, and faithful conversations can pave the way for a deeper connection to God, encouraging listeners to speak truth with compassion and trust in God's guidance for the outcomes of their discussions.
To learn more about Cassian Bellino and her podcast, check out her information below:
Cassian's Website: https://www.bibspeak.com/
Bio:
Cassian Bellino is the passionate host of Biblically Speaking, a podcast born from her personal journey of seeking clarity in Scripture. Over the past year, Cassian has turned her questions and curiosity into a thriving platform that has reached over 70,000 followers. She’s had the privilege of hosting renowned guests such as Dr. Hugh Ross, Dr. John Walton, Pastor Douglas Wilson, and Ken Ham, creating conversations that bridge faith, reason, and a deeper understanding of the Bible.
When she’s not hosting interviews or building community, you can find Cassian inspiring others to connect scripture to daily life and faith. Join the conversation and explore her work: Resources: https://stan.store/biblicallyspeaking Website: https://www.bibspeak.com/
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Well, all right, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast, sam, but Tim is not here. This is actually a recording that I'm going to present to you guys today of an interview that Tim did with a friend of ours. Her name is Cassian Bellino. She has a podcast called biblically speaking and she basically invites scholars from bible scholars onto her podcast and she has some questions that curious christians have about the bible. So we've been on her show. She she's uh, come on ours, I think. I'm not sure about that. I'll have to think we've done so many different episodes together, it's kind of getting mixed up there. But yeah, we will be presenting that show for you guys today.
Speaker 1:It was a really good discussion. My buddy, tim, did a great job explaining the different issues that show up when you're talking about LGBT issues. How does a Christian respond to people who are supportive of LGBT concerns, who want to adhere to God's word and also learn how to love those in the LGBT community? Well, and kind of finding that balance where you don't compromise truth but you can still be a Christ-like representative to those around you. So again, that's a really good episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. So, again, that's a really good episode. I hope you guys enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Before I shift over into that episode, remember to download the podcast, to share the podcast, to give us a rating, a review, let us know actually been due to the suggestions that you guys have made. So we really appreciate that. It shows the level of engagement from your part and we also enjoy we just enjoy talking about things that are interesting to you. Tim and I have our own ideas about how we, what kind of topics we want to bring up. So those are the things that you guys are receiving. But, again, if you are interested in a topic where you want to see where there's a cultural issue and you want to see what the Bible has to say about it and what's the psychological or counseling view on a particular issue that's happening in our culture, feel free to send us a message through Instagram or you can email us at psychandtheo at gmailcom. So, without further ado, enjoy this great interview with my buddy, tim.
Speaker 2:Okay, hello, hello. Welcome everybody to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino and I'm your host, and today I'm honored to welcome a new guest, dr Tim Yance. We didn't go over your bio, but I did bring up one of your Standing for Freedom intros and, according to the Internet, you are an adjunct professor at Liberty University. You teach courses in ethics, theology, apologetics and worldview. You have a master's of divinity from Liberty Baptist Theology Seminary and a PhD in theology studies on Christian ethics from South. I literally had to take a breath like this is so many credentials from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. So you have a lot of specialties and you also are a chaplain. You also served as a chaplain assistant for the US Army National Guard. You're a writer, you're a contributor and you're also a podcast host, which is how we got connected through.
Speaker 2:Psych and Theo, because Sam Landa reached out to me and came on some one of my lives and he's actually going to be on a podcast episode coming up, but glad to be connected to him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's great, great to be here. Yeah, the brand new baby podcast called psych and theo, me and sam tackling cultural issues from the perspective of psychology and theology together. So I'm the theologian, he's the professional mental health or mental health professional, I should say. And so we'll. We tackle issues together from those two angles. So we, we cover all kinds of different issues.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I sometimes wish we had that in church of like somebody to be like. This is your attachment theory to Jesus, and this is what scripture says about it. Like that would be phenomenal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, well, that's one of the one of the episode topics that we we did early on, was we? Uh we ask a question is it a sin to go to therapy? Cause a lot of people think that the only form of counseling that's right is quote unquote biblical counseling or what's called new thetic counseling, and Sam can kind of talk about that when he comes on and does his episode. I'm sure he'll get into that a little bit. But yeah, we tackle that issue because a lot of Christians, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what counseling is and what mental health is. Some people tend to over-spiritualize it all and some people tend to just ignore the spiritual completely, and so we ignore neither.
Speaker 2:We cover all the bases, so when did you guys start?
Speaker 3:that Our first episode released in the spring. I think we're up to like 20 or 21 episodes now and we try to release once a week. We're taking a little break right now just because of our schedules not lining up. We've both been doing a lot of traveling but we're about to start season two coming up and season two is starting with a bang. We're going to be blowing up the myth of the alpha male.
Speaker 2:You teased that in one of the episodes and I was like where is that? Where is that it's?
Speaker 3:coming, it's coming. Yeah, we're going to take on this alpha beta paradigm that the manosphere says men have to be an alpha and no one wants to be a beta. No one wants to be a beta whatsoever. You can't be a beta, that's the worst thing ever. So we're just going to blow up that paradigm, and then we actually are interviewing some other men and we're calling this gentle dangerous men, men who model what it means to live for Christ but are quite dangerous in themselves, and so it's a series of interviews that we're doing on that topic.
Speaker 2:Or is it just random guys off the street you're pulling in or like specific yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:We see it, hey, you, hey, you want to be in it on the podcast let's? It's like dumb and dumber. You've seen dumb and dumber when they're driving down the road. It's like, hey, there's some people pick them up yeah, I can't wait to hear that.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be great yeah first.
Speaker 3:The first two are military veterans. One is an associate dean here at liberty university where I work, and then another another is a personal friend of ours who's a former Marine and involved in politics, and both those guys are like really kind, gentle people. You wouldn't guess that they're deadly killers from the outside. And then another one that we're. I was supposed to talk to him yesterday but we had to cancel or postpone it, so I'll get to him later. But he's the founder of a orphan ministry in a country that I won't name because it's a closed country. But he has endured lots of persecution and even threats and assassination attempts on his life. But his work is adopting hundreds or tens of thousands of orphans off the street and training a lot of them those who want to be trained in the Bible, and then commissioning them as pastors to go out and plant churches as well.
Speaker 2:So that's been this lifelong ministry.
Speaker 3:So he's a gentle, he's a giant, but he is quite dangerous in his own respect.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they all sound pretty alpha to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they don't beat their chest. You know the the manosphere says the alpha has to be, you know, like a Chad King, if you know those, if you're familiar with those terms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think of a few.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's exciting. I can't wait to hear it when it comes out. When does season two start?
Speaker 3:You know I'm going to. I'm going to punt and defer to Sam on that Cause. Sam is running the technicals. I think we I should know this. I should be ready for these questions, but I'm not. I'm such an amateur when it comes to podcasting. So it'll be out in a couple of weeks, I think.
Speaker 2:Okay, you guys are ahead of me to me. I'm like it's just a really long season one. I'm just going to keep going.
Speaker 3:It's a never ending story. It just keeps going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just keep going. I think we're on episode 25.
Speaker 3:It's like Grey's Anatomy, like it's just going and going, like 15 seasons or something.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, but it's episodes. It's just so long. This topic is super sensitive, so I just want to come out of the gate right away and talk about it in a sensitive matter that it's probably not safe for younger ears. If you do listen to this podcast, as a family with children around, we're going to be talking about some pretty graphic Bible verses and just more sensitive topics on the topic of same-sex attraction and homosexuality from the biblical perspective. But I think, tim, you did a really good job in the episode at Psychanthea when you talked about this, that you're not trying to talk about this in a judgmental or a negative way. You're simply just reflecting on the idea of homosexuality and what the Bible says about it, and in no way, shape or form is this supposed to be a shameful or finger pointing episode of who is right and who is wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when Sam and I were dealing with that subject. One thing that's really important, and I think everyone needs to put this into practice, but it's something that was ingrained in me going through my studies in apologetics, which is a defense of the Christian faith. Through my studies in apologetics, which is a defense of the Christian faith any sort of philosophy classes you're trained to steel man the other argument. So that way you're not. The opposite of. That is a straw man, where you're setting up a weak version of your opponent's argument and so you can easily knock it down and maybe sell some books. But you can easily get exposed if someone comes along and says, hey, that's not what we actually believe and you are misrepresenting our argument. So you want to do the opposite of that. You want to steel man another your opponent's argument. So that way you present them in the strongest, best and most charitable light possible and then refute that in a way that's professional, factual and that doesn't alienate them.
Speaker 3:We can get into some of the issues of like is it hateful just to disagree with someone? That comes up in this topic a lot. But I would say no, we shouldn't be conflating disagreement with hate. Those are two different things. But yeah, we can disagree respectfully and be firm in our positions and be informed, but it's important to be calm, cool and measured when we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to lie. I'm kind of scared to talk about this topic, but with somebody who is so experienced and eloquent in the topic, of course we had to have the conversation. I'm not going to gerrymander around different scriptures in the Bible just because some are more sensitive than others. I don't think the Bible is really here to keep us content.
Speaker 3:Yeah, gerrymandering, that's a good word, thank you.
Speaker 2:Topic these days old and unsure how to love my friends that you know support same sex, same sex attraction, who might be homosexual. Obviously I love them. Obviously I want what's best for them, but I also want to abide in the Bible. I want to be set apart. So am I wrong? How do I love them? I don't want them to be wrong, but I also want us all to be encouraged. But I also I I'm spiraling, you know, like, how do you go about this?
Speaker 3:So this is the way I frame it to my students, and what I like to do with my students is I like to give them contemporary stories or news stories, anything that's happening in their world, to say, hey look, you're going to be dealing with this and so you need to be ready.
Speaker 3:Our culture is moving in such a way that these are becoming celebratory in our culture. You notice that we don't typically talk like in podcasts and Christian conferences or whatever. We're not dedicating a lot of time to alcoholism or drug addiction, like, is it wrong to be addicted to drugs or is it wrong to be an alcoholic? We kind of know those are destructive to us. Our culture isn't celebrating that as like good, but our culture is celebrating this form of sexuality as good. It's calling it good, it's calling it brave and courageous and virtuous and things like that. And so, because the culture has shifted, we now must address what the culture is saying as Christians, because we're called to be salt and light in the culture. So we need to figure out how to do that in a way that is judicious and prudent.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of trauma embedded within that community and I think that trauma is a very complicated topic and it's hard to control yourself when you feel hurt or abused or anything. But I think I'm more so curious when it's in the Bible. It feels like homosexuality, Like why does it feel worse than sex before marriage? Like why, maybe biblically, we are in church and we're like don't have sex before marriage but if you're gay you're like not even allowed on the front doors, it feels. I'm not saying that's the rule, I'm just saying we've heard of it. We've had a friend that happened to. They feel unwelcome. But I would say a lot of people have had sex before marriage and they still go to church, they still make friends, they still find a place. So is there a biblical basis for that?
Speaker 3:Sort of you know yes and no. There's the way that some Christians talk about this, way that some Christians talk about this, I think, lacks clarity, and so I think maybe we can get into this, into the episode how all sin is sin. All sin alienates us from God, from lying to all the way to murder and everything in between. All sin separates us from God. However, the Bible does treat some forms of sin in a different way, either because of how they start or because of the consequences that follow from them, even the natural consequences. So here's an example. Let's say, a young person who's kind of being dishonest and being kind of an unruly young person. You're supposed to discipline them. That's a typical thing for teenagers to kind of be that way. There's a known. That's a typical thing for teenagers to kind of be that way, but something like murder.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's a much more severe thing that the bible speaks of, because there's there's serious moral violations there and serious consequences that follow from that right yeah, so, um, there's there seems to be in scripture scale where someone can slide and get into worse and worse forms of sin, to the point where it completely destroys their life. I mean, james talks about this, that there's sins that lead to death and destruction and that we need to turn our brothers and sisters away from those things.
Speaker 2:That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, so would you say. Then with sex before marriage, the sliding is single motherhood and a child, like that's kind of the next step. Versus with same-sex attraction. It could become more perverse Versus. Is that what you're trying to say here?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, with the difference between something like, like a, heterosexual relations before marriage versus, uh, something like homosexuality, this the bible, seems, still treats them both pretty, pretty harshly in the sense that they're both really severe sins.
Speaker 3:In general, sexual sin throughout the bible is is a pretty serious matter because it's part of like sex is a really, really important part of human nature. Uh, and it helps like uh, it's part of like sex is a really, really important part of human nature. And it helps like it's reserved for the marriage covenant between the man and the woman and we can kind of get into like what's the? This is how I kind of usually start. This subject is, before we talk about like what's wrong, we need to look at what the Bible says is right or the picture of sexuality that the Bible paints.
Speaker 2:But let's get into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but in terms of like, which of those sins is worse? I think that the scriptures would say that both of them are pretty severe, that if we're wondering which one is worse, we're probably starting out with the wrong question. You know, I'm not saying you're starting out with the wrong question, but if Christians are like, well, that one's worse than this one, they're both pretty severe sins.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, then what does?
Speaker 2:the Bible say is good, then let's get into that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so typically on this subject, if we're talking with Christians and there's some Christians who they love the Lord but they are maybe wondering does the Bible actually prohibit same-sex romantic relationships as we see in our culture today? Does the Bible actually callit same-sex romantic relationships as we see in our culture today? Does the Bible actually call that sin? So some Christians are really wondering that they hear what seem like persuasive arguments to that effect. So we need to deal with how does the Bible say that this is actually sin? Okay, what's helpful first is to see what the Bible says about sex in general, how the Bible portrays and frames the sexual relationship between human beings and universally. Throughout the scriptures, from beginning to end, sex is portrayed as a loving, physical union between a man and a woman. In marriage. It's a heterosexual union between a man and a woman.
Speaker 3:I won't get into the polygamy issue because there's instances of polygamy in the scriptures. We don't have to get into that issue. But at the bare minimum, if we're just making a minimum case, the Bible reserves sex for the heterosexual marriage, union between the man and woman, and marriage. The reasons in marriage is because marriage is a covenant and a commitment that is supposed to model God's relationship to humanity and, as we see in the New Testament, christ's relationship to his church. So there's this imagery going on in scripture where, as in heaven, so on earth, the things in earth are supposed to mirror the things in heaven, and marriage is one of those pictures of the man and the woman mirror Christ and his church on earth. But from the beginning and Jesus says this from the beginning in Genesis 1 and 2, a man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife and the two of them become one, and that is the picture that we see throughout scripture.
Speaker 3:So anything sexual relationship outside of that is considered sin. It's considered outside of what the Bible would say is good. That includes heterosexual relationships outside of marriage. That includes bestiality, includes homosexuality. That includes lust and pornography. It includes only fans. That's a whole other topic that's come up in our culture now. Anything like that, any form of sexuality outside of the marriage union, is the Bible says, is wrong and we're not supposed to do it Okay.
Speaker 2:So it kind of isolates. It's not just about homosexuality, it's really just the marriage covenant, and that's where you end and where you begin, and there's not really anything else that you need to focus on. But I was curious. I mean, if we're looking at what's natural and I think you know what's natural is a man and a woman our reproductive organs are literally made for each other what can we do? Um, like instances of like homosexuality and like animals?
Speaker 2:you know where we see it like in the natural world that isn't influenced by culture or whatever it might be? Is that something where we're like, look, god was actually lying and I was wrong? Or is that something where it's just like that's a completely set of different set of rules and we can't apply that to the human nature yeah, I would.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what you just said there.
Speaker 3:It's a non-sequitur, which means it doesn't follow If someone points to the animal kingdom and says look, animals do this, therefore it's okay for humans, that's a non-sequitur. In the ethics world we call this the naturalistic fallacy, because it's pointing to nature and saying something is this way, therefore it ought to be. It's called the is ought fallacy or the naturalistic fallacy, so it's saying something is this way, therefore it ought to be this way. But we can see what's wrong there, because there's all kinds of things that happen in nature that ought not to be In the animal kingdom. There's predation in nature. Animals prey on one another, they kill one another, animals sexually abuse one another and we would say, well, we probably shouldn't do that right. So there's all kinds of things that animals do that we would not apply to ourselves. We have, at least at the bare minimum we have moral inclinations and intuitions that lead us to think these things are wrong. Like sexual abuse is wrong, sexual coercion is wrong. Animals don't seem to mind when they do those things.
Speaker 1:Murder is wrong.
Speaker 3:Just killing wantonly. Cannibalism, like animals eat each other. So there's all kinds of things that happen in nature that we do not apply to ourselves. Now someone might say, well, it's just evolutionary biology and evolutionary ethics, we don't have to get into it. We're refuting evolutionary psychology, I should say, and morality. But that's something that in the ethics world we deal with and the Christian apologetics world is where does morality come from? But at the bare minimum, if someone is making a case saying look at nature, there's same-sex relationships in nature. Therefore, we're natural beings too. Why can't we have it this way? Well, that's a non-sequitur. That's not a valid argument on its face okay, thanks for addressing that.
Speaker 2:Getting back to the bible, you kind of mentioned that, like, the biblical depiction of a marriage is two people that are loving, and I would argue that a lot of people today who are in same-sex relationships love each other, they're happy, they're gentle with one another. How does I mean? Is there a difference between how same-sex relationships and marriages, how they are depicted today and what people are defending passionately because they they love their husband or wife? Is that the same case as it was biblically? Was it just written at a different time and it was a different culture? I don't know. Is it apples?
Speaker 2:to apples is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:That's the key objection that you're bringing up.
Speaker 3:This is the number one way that let's just say like a pro LGBT position, or maybe I'll say a gay Christian position, would be because there are organizations that claim to be Christian and pro-LGBT or gay, like gay Christians will make these kinds of arguments. But that's the number one objection. If I were to argue and say the Bible says this kind of sexual relationship is wrong, they would say well, it's apples and oranges, you're comparing. The Bible's talking about some sort of sexual relationship that's not equivalent to what we see in our culture today. So what I have to do now, again to steel man the argument, is to address that specific argument head on and we need to look at the background literature in the Bible to really figure out is the same sex relationships that the Bible is addressing? Are they really that different than what the culture is celebrating today? And I would say no, they're not actually that different. There are different forms of the Bible addresses, but what's included in that are the romantic relationships between same-sex couples, even today.
Speaker 2:Let's get into it. I mean, I feel like in Genesis we kind of see it right off the bat as far as like as early as Sodom and Gomorrah and with the angels that tried, you know, having lots of children and that, or his guests, sorry, his uh, the angels that visited him.
Speaker 2:But even and I was listening to your episode with uh Theo and Syke and you guys talk about the Nephilim. So I'm really, I'm really eager to jump into the scripture here, starting chronologically in Genesis. So what scripture do you see that kind of supports that biblically, the context of same-sex relationships is very different from what we see today and how there's, I guess, harm in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, podcast rule number one if you mentioned Nephilim, you're going to get a 20% bump in your viewership.
Speaker 2:The SEO goes off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Just put it in the description title, like Nephilim question mark, and you'll get it All right. So yeah, chronologically, I want to open up by saying I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I'm a philosopher and an ethicist by training. By saying I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I'm a philosopher and an ethicist by training. But, as my teachers taught me, ethicists, we have to be versant in a lot of different subjects and we have to sometimes rely on guys who are deeper authorities on those subjects than we are, but we have to be really versant in a lot of different things. So I'll say that by saying, if there's a Hebrew scholar or a Greek scholar who's listening, they're going to know a little bit more about Greek syntax or Hebrew root words than I would, but I might even know more about this topic than they do. So, okay, so we'll just leave it at that. So, as we walk through Genesis, I think it's important for our readers, to our readers, our listeners, to remember that Genesis.
Speaker 3:As a conservative evangelical, I take the view that Genesis was written by a single author, maybe with later editors kind of tidying things up, but I take the view that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. That's not a controversial view. Conservative evangelical scholars hold that view and it can be defended. With that in mind, then, it does help to understand the connection between the stories in Genesis, the law in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy and then how that later connects to the other stories in the Bible that talk about these kind of sexual issues. So right away, chronologically, Genesis 1 and 2 opens up. Man and woman are created. That's the first marriage union. That's the famous passage where it says a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh and they become the parents of all living human beings. We see the first instance of a violation of that sexual boundary in Genesis 6. Now I take the supernatural view of Genesis 6, so here's the Nephilim subject.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by supernatural Like, not literal?
Speaker 3:No. So there's a natural view of Genesis 6, which is sometimes called the Sethite view, that the sons of God in Genesis 6 refer to the line of Seth and the daughters of men refer to the line of Cain. Sons of God in Genesis six refer to the line of Seth and the daughters of men refer to the line of Cain. And so what happened? The sin. There was an ungodly mixing of righteous people and unrighteous people, sort of like being unequally yoked together. I don't think that. I don't think that makes much sense given the context.
Speaker 3:There's a scholar by the name of Michael Heiser he's passed away now, but he's he's credited with really putting forward a really good defense of the supernatural view, which is that the sons of God in Genesis 6, 1 through 4 are angelic beings that break, they cross over and they transgress a boundary and engage in some sort of sexual relationship with human women, and from that come the Nephilim in some way. Now there's some views of like were they already fallen angels that possessed human men and then they copulated with women and that's how it happened? Or did these angels take on corporeal form, like actual body form, and do this? There's some theories about that, but that's the first instance of the violation of the sexual boundary. Before that, you see some instances like I think it's who is it? Lamech, one of the sons of Cain, takes two wives. So you see, that's the first instance of polygamy that occurs. So Genesis 6 is the first kind of real, serious sexual violation and that's a prelude to the flood.
Speaker 2:After the flood, I'm sorry when you're talking about like the first sexual violation, maybe like was there not homosexuality? Or just saying just like the open.
Speaker 3:What's recorded, yeah, Before that there's no mention of like a serious like transgression sexual transgression, just the sexual transgression and the just sexual transgression.
Speaker 2:It's just sex openly well it's.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say that it's just it's. It's not genesis. One through five doesn't isn't addressing the sexual issues yet I see yeah okay. So it's just I see.
Speaker 2:So it's just saying this is the first time that inappropriate unions between beings because it's from angels that crossed over versus the same species.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, okay, at least that's the first. It's the first mention, like the first problem. Okay, the story.
Speaker 2:Let's say that makes it way less like clickbaity, in my opinion. I feel like whenever I like see about the Nephilim online, it's like giants that are like ravaging women and it's like that's not at all what you just said.
Speaker 3:Well, actually that follows. The Nephilim are the. I should have kept going. So the Nephilim? In the supernatural view, the Nephilim are the offspring of this union.
Speaker 3:And they are. The scriptures call them. They were the mighty men of renown, and so these were these mythical or ancient guys who were basically destroying the earth. But the scriptures don't. What's the word I'm looking for? They don't exonerate human beings from this. Like this rebellion that takes place is a rebellion of both human and angelic rebellion. So because God says in Genesis 6, 5, all human flesh is corrupted in this, but Noah, genesis 6, 8, but Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Speaker 3:So it was a pretty bad situation and so anytime you see, like an angelic rebellion in scripture, there's always a human side to it as well. So humans are not exonerated from. We can't just blame everything on the devil, basically Like we're guilty too of these things. So anyway, I digress, but it's important to kind of keep this in mind, keep that story in mind, because later on, after the flood Ham, he does something very bad to his father, noah. The passage says he uncovers Noah's nakedness and that could. That verse always confused me was like yeah, aren't they?
Speaker 2:like related. What's wrong with, like seeing your brother or dad undressed?
Speaker 3:yeah, so that's a, that's. It's a hebrew euphemism, the uncover uncovering one's nakedness is a is a euphemism. Now there's two prominent theories to that passage. One one theory is that ham, he basically has incestuous relationships with his mother, and that's where Cain, his son Cain or Canaan, comes from, and that's why Noah curses Canaan. Or the other one. The other prominent theory is that Ham, actually because Noah's passed out drunk and Ham actually has he basically sexually abuses his own father.
Speaker 3:And you might be wondering why would someone do that? Well, this is something that in the ancient Near East cultures, to do something like that would be basically to exert dominance and to say I'm now the one in charge. Yeah, the scriptures don't shy away from these things. They speak in euphemisms, but they're painting a picture that's these things. They speak in euphemisms, but they're painting a picture that's. This is how bad things get. You know, at times, like we know the story of Lot and his daughters after Sodom and Gomorrah, you know that these things can happen. The scriptures don't ignore them. So Ham does something really wrong, and so there's. I think the stronger theory is that Ham actually sexually abuses Noah because Versus just seeing him naked.
Speaker 2:It sounds like that's the only solution, if that's a Hebrew euphemism.
Speaker 3:Well, it's, either he sexually abuses his father or he has some sort of relationships with his own mother. It basically takes Noah's wife. So he's exerting some sort of dominance over Noah, because, again, noah has three sons and Ham wants to be in charge. So that's what part of Ham's curse? And the curse of Canaan is that he will serve the other brothers. So he's going to be the lowest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if there's only like five people left on earth, I can imagine the stakes are pretty high, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So I think the stronger theory is that he actually does, uh, abuse. Noah, because the other two sons are mortified by what's happened and they, they cover over, you know, his, their father. They put a blanket over him and cover him up and kind of take care of him until he wakes up and realizes what happened.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's pretty dark story. So fast forwarding once we get the story of salem and gamora and that's the really famous proof text that people will point to for homosexuality. So we've come full circle now. Okay, yeah, and we're like what are we 35 minutes in? We're already just getting started. I'm sorry, I'm a teacher and I'm long winded.
Speaker 3:So when you get to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the story goes that three angels or divine beings come and visit Abraham. One of them is Yahweh in bodily form, the other two are angels in bodily form. Yahweh sends those two angels on ahead to go to Sodom and Gomorrah and he's going to judge the city. Once they get to the city they are going to sleep in the middle of the city and they know Lot is there. Abraham's nephew Lot sees them and he recognizes them as they're coming into the city. He knows that there's and so he says you can't stay in the middle of the city, this is too dangerous, Come stay with me in my house.
Speaker 3:And the story goes that the men of Sodom, they come to Lot's house and they say, hey, who are these two guys with you? Who are these two men? So that is kind of a clue that these angels are appearing like men, like they see them as men. That's like bring them out here so we can know them and that's another euphemism for know them sexually. And this seems to be a pretty clear indication of sexual dominance. They were basically going to rape these two angels, Whether they knew they were angels or not, I don know. But but again, this is. There's a. There seems to be some sort of allusion here to genesis 6 in some way. But lots like don't do this detestable thing I just have a quick question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like was, and just trying to understand the context of it here, was same-sex always um a very aggressive, like power dominance type of relationship or was like for me, sodom and gomorrah was the type of city where it was like very open and like kind of like today, like celebratory, enjoying, pleasurable, hedonistic. Is that the vibe of sodom and gomorrah or was it like I only had a same-sex relation in the instance of putting dominance on another?
Speaker 3:so this is where you know I'm gonna. I'm gonna summarize, but I will defer to my Hebrew scholar brothers on this one. They're ancient Near East scholars but essentially it wasn't like the relationships we would think of today, because it was a shameful thing for a man to take on the quote. Unquote feminine role.
Speaker 2:If you know what I mean. It wasn't accepted in that society at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was very detestable and gross Interesting. They had terms for people like that. Now, even in Assyrian culture there were people that performed that role in these sort of relationships, but it was not seen as something honorable. I see, Basically you didn't want to, you didn't want to be that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was something that they like served as, but it wasn't like an openly proud position in the relationship. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And in the Hebrew and the Hebrew world. I guess this is true in the ancient Near East as well. To treat a man as though he is a woman was a was a bad thing yeah, the as though he is a woman was a bad thing. Yeah, the scriptures paint this as so. In the story of Lot and these two angels, lot offers up his daughters. Look at that through 21st century eyes. We're like how could you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But in the moral calculus of Lot in the ancient Near East, all sexual violence was wrong to the people of God. The scriptures don't paint sexual violence in any way as good wrong to the people of God. Like the scriptures don't paint sexual violence in any way as good, but in lots of moral calculus it was worse for them to treat men as women, like that's to commit sexual violence in that way to a man, to basically I'm sorry for the graphic language, but to penetrate for one man, to penetrate sexually, penetrate another man, to treat him as though he were a woman, was the scriptures call that detestable thing. So Lot was essentially saying look, here's two women. Like if you're going to do this, here's two women.
Speaker 2:I see yeah. That's the calculus, it's the lesser of two evils.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Essentially the lesser of two evils is what Lot is trying to get them to see. But they say, no, give us these two guys. And then it turns into this whole struggle.
Speaker 2:And then angels get. So it wasn't like a lust type of thing, it was a power struggle type of thing.
Speaker 3:It seemed to be common in Sodom and Gomorrah to do this to strangers that would come into the town strangers that would come into the town. So what I want to caution my conservative evangelical brothers and sisters against is just pointing to Sodom and Gomorrah as though that's proof that homosexuality is seen as sin in the scriptures. It certainly is suggesting that, but we need more to our argument than just that, if you know what I mean, because the pro-LGBT side will point to that story and say, well, that's sexual violence. Okay, that's not the same thing as a loving relationship, and they are right in a sense. So we need to kind of add some things to our argument, not just the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:That was like the conclusion I was drawing, so thanks for pointing that out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now jude? Now, if we fast forward into the new testament, the epistle of jude does mention it links salome gamora, the sins of salome gamora, as sexual sin, uh, akin to the, the sin of the angels in Genesis 6. And then it links it also. So I can just well, I don't have the passage pulled up in front of me, but basically Jude is addressing false teachers in the church and he says hey, these false teachers, just as Sodom and Gomorrah, just as they were engaged in sexual perversion, they did unnatural things, they did really detestable things. And just as the angels who are now locked up in chains of darkness, they left their proper dwelling, they transgressed and did detestable, sexual, perverted things. So these false teachers are doing the same thing they defile their flesh.
Speaker 2:That's what he says.
Speaker 3:So he's linking like sexual immorality is a common trait of false teachers.
Speaker 2:A same sex issue. It's defiling of the flesh and working outside sexuality in those harmful ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but Jude is saying that what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah was a severe kind of sexual perversion. So there is something to this besides just loving relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it sounds like violence just all around. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we've hit any instance in the Bible so far of two people loving each other like this. Like in the way that we do in today's context.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd say. Well, the Bible doesn't actually provide an example like that because it doesn't think that that's okay. You won't find a positive portrayal of same-sex attraction or relationships in the Bible because the Bible's not going to say that's okay. Again, how does the Bible portray sexual relationships in a good way?
Speaker 2:In a heterosexual marriage union. Why not monogamous? Well?
Speaker 3:because there are instances of the patriarchss having multiple wives, David Solomon having multiple wives. It doesn't ever like say, hey, polygamy is great, but it does. It does recognize that that was a practice you know back then, got it. Yeah, now in the New Testament it says hey, elders of a church, husband of one wife, deacons, husband of one wife. So it's pushing. It's pushing the people of God back to the Genesis 1 and 2 ideal, got it?
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, you won't find same-sex couples in any sense portrayed well in the scriptures. Yeah, the scriptures are always linking it to really severe sexual perversion, sometimes idolatry Like there's a link between same-sex relations and idolatry a lot of times or cult practices. But yeah, so sometimes people will say, well, sodom and Gomorrah were judged for their inhospitality, not sexual relationships. And they get that from two passages Let me scroll down on my notes here so I don't get them wrong and our listeners can Ezekiel 16, 49 to 50, and then Isaiah 1, 7 through 17. These two passages refer to the sins of sodom and gomorrah and it mentions they were inhospitable, they were overfed and they were unconcerned for the poor. They didn't help the poor and the needy. They were, they were proud. And then it says and then they did detestable things so it kind of throws it in there, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's all together and if you read them closely it's showing a progression. Like they started out arrogant and haughty, decadent, didn't care to do the real kind of justice that the Bible tells us to do. And then they move into sexual perversion.
Speaker 2:So there's this progression downward.
Speaker 3:There's a digression down into immorality.
Speaker 2:Do you? I mean, I'm just trying to speak for both sides and again, like Steelman, the argument do you feel like maybe somebody listening in a same-sex relationship who is Christian is thinking like, listen, I'm sure there were some good cases of loving people? I doubt every, you know. I'm sure not every same-sex relationship was, you know, one of sexual violence and abuse. I'm sure there's some men and women out there that truly loved each other.
Speaker 3:Do you?
Speaker 2:still think the contextual, like the dominance factor of like to be in that feminine role overrules that possibility.
Speaker 3:One of the reasons I wanted to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah in that context is to set up the understanding that I'm aware, like where I'm aware, of the counter arguments, but Sodom and Gomorrah is not all the scripture has to say about it, about the subject, you know.
Speaker 2:So I was, I was worried, it was the only thing.
Speaker 3:So no, no, no, no, no, it's just the proof text that people run to a lot of times as I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:So educate me please so.
Speaker 3:So let's get into some of these other things. We can build our our case. The mosaic law talks about same-sex relations, not just sexual violence. It talks about the act of same-sex relationships man lying with man and it calls this an abomination. This is in Leviticus 18 to 22, and then chapter 20, verse 13.
Speaker 3:Now some people will say, well, in the law there's all kinds of things that are prohibited, that we don't prohibit today, like mixing different kinds of fabric or eating different kinds of food. The problem with that kind of argument is that some things are clearly ritualistic, like for the religious rituals that the Hebrews were doing. Others were related to their, like cleansing and cleanliness laws, but there are some and these the instances where it's talking about sexual morality that are related to universal nature, natural order, and the passages that address same-sex activity, same-sex relations, are in the context where it also addresses bestiality and other such things, and the reason it's addressing these things is because these were practices of the Canaanite cultures around the Hebrews when they're going into the land of Canaan. The Canaanite cultures were practicing these things, and so the Hebrews were supposed to be completely distinct from that the Israelites were supposed to be. We are the people of God, we don't do these things. So these things were considered abominations. They're violations of the natural order that God put in creation for man and woman to be together. As I sometimes Satan our enemy, if he can destroy the sexual order of human beings, he can destroy us completely. I mean, it's that fundamental to our nature, how we relate to one another. Yeah, so the Mosaic Law deals with this subject. Those are two clear prohibitions in the Old Testament law. Now we're not to the New Testament yet, but it's there in the Old Testament.
Speaker 3:The Israelites did not practice this at all. Now, when they eventually engage in idolatry, when Israel falls into idolatry at different points in their history, they do have cultic prostitution, and including in that is cultic homosexual prostitution. Yeah, there's a word, it's called the Kedassim. Kedass is the Hebrew word and it refers to these like homosexual cultic prostitutes, and those were oftentimes at play in Israelite culture. And some of the righteous kings get rid of these cults so they exterminate them, you know, destroy their altars and things like that. So this, all this behavior, is linked to Canaanite religion and idolatry and abomination. So God's saying all this is sin. It's sin.
Speaker 2:I have a quick question on the Leviticus quote, just because, again, like I'm coming from this with just like non-educated or informed from like a scholar's standpoint, just what I've heard and you know the internet, but I've heard TikTok told me I'm just kidding the Leviticus quote was a loose translation that wasn't translated until like the fifties by a German who wanted to take the original translation that was originally referring to pedophilia and then he changed it to homosexuality and at the end of the day, that quote in Leviticus is actually referring to, you know, men should never lie with another boy. That was the original Hebrew translation. So they're actually not saying homosexuality, they're actually referring to pedophilia, which is absolutely wrong. Do you have more data on that?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, oh yeah, it sounds like that person. Again, I don't know who that person was. It sounds like they're actually mixing two things, because that's typically the argument that people will use when countering Paul's references to homosexuality in the New Testament. They might be talking about the Greek Septuagint, because that's the Greek translation of the Old Testament. I don't know what German scholar they're referring to in the 50s or 1800s that might've been dealing with this.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so we can kind of I'll speed up so we can get to the New Testament and, as I mentioned, the Ketuseim and the cult practices, there's one other really, really important story in the Old Testament. That's Judges 19, where a Levite priest, he goes to the town of Gibeah, which is in the tribe of Benjamin, and it's a similar story. It's a parallel to Sodom and Gomorrah and it shows how much Israel had fallen into sexual immorality. That's the point of the story is to show how dark things were before the kings of Israel came about. Is that the Levitical priest? He's there and he's with his concubine, and they're about to stay in the middle of the city, in the town square, and someone this man says don't stay there, you come, stay with me, it's not safe.
Speaker 3:You see the parallel with Lot and then the men of Gibeah come to this guy's house and say we see you have a Levite priest with you. Send him out here so we can know him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how many years later is this?
Speaker 3:Oh, this is hundreds, hundreds of years, several hundred years later, and I'm fuzzy on my Old Testament timeline, but it's a long, long time. Well then, the owner of this house, what is the Levite? What does he do? Well, the owner of the house and the Levite offer up the concubine because they say don't do this detestable thing by treating the Levite priest as you would a woman. So again there's that moral calculus. It's the lesser of two evils, it's not calling it's. It's tough in the 21st century for us to read those stories and see like how the woman was treated, because they eventually kill her, I mean, they she's left for dead. It's a really dark story, but she's left for dead, she, she kind of crawls her way back to the house, but she dies on the, on the basically the front steps of this house, and the Levite priest finds her in the morning.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it gets really dark, but eventually it leads to almost to the near extermination of the tribe of Benjamin, because all the other Israelite tribes are basically like all right, we're going to wipe this out because this is evil. So what it's showing is that even the Israelites had stooped to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah at that point at least, the tribe of Benjamin had in the men of Gibeah. Yeah. But what's important for this is this is after they have the law, they have the Mosaic law, and so these detestable things, what the scripture calls detestable, it's linking it now back to the law as well. So it wasn't just human nature. What?
Speaker 2:was accepted. Now this is an established law that they have to abide by.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay. So a lot of darkness in the Old Testament. It's heavy stuff, heavy stuff. Sometimes people will point to the stories of Jonathan and David in the Old Testament to say, well, look, david says in 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel 1 that Jonathan's love for him surpassed that of a woman 2 Samuel 1, that Jonathan's love for him surpassed that of a woman. David is singing this lament when Jonathan is dead and he sings this lament over Jonathan. He says your love for me surpassed that of a woman. And some people will look at that and say, well, that's clearly gay.
Speaker 3:It's one of these texts where they have to stretch it to mean something that it doesn't mean. Basically, David is saying Jonathan risks his life for David. He gives up his royal, his claim to the throne for David. He gives him his armor, his royal robe. Jonathan basically gives his whole life to David and that's the kind of love that David is talking about in this passage.
Speaker 2:But wouldn't that allude to like a much deeper than friendship, love, if you're giving your very good friend your robe and your title to the crown?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, so jonathan is is juxtaposed to his dad, saul.
Speaker 3:So saul is rejecting david's anointing, anointing as king yeah jonathan recognizes god's anointing on david as king, and so jonathan is righteous and he's and he's good friends with david, and so he's giving all these things to david and like I love you, I love you, like as my friend and you have these things. It would be what we would call an anachronism. Anachronism is a fallacy. Where we read our cultural connotations back into the text, and a lot of people will do that with this story. They'll say, oh well, like wow, a love that surpasses that of a woman must be gay. That's not what that text is doing. It's Hebrew poetry, especially laments and psalms, often use hyperbole in a way. What David is saying is like even the most rapturous love that he could experience with a woman, jonathan's devotion to him, his giving up his life, his royal crown, everything that kind of love surpasses that.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there's no clear connection there with, like sexual. There's no sexual connotation there. People really have to stretch the text to mean that.
Speaker 2:I see, and without that it's pretty far to assume that there was, when it doesn't allude to it whatsoever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially when all the evidence points to David being a quite heterosexual guy throughout his life.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yeah, again, anachronism. People say, well, he was maybe in the closet or something. That's just an anachronism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, so let's jump to the New Testament. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, okay, so let's jump to the New Testament. All right, by the time we get to the New Testament, there's a few important things we need. So sometimes people will say that, well, okay, there's passages clearly there's passages in the New Testament that are really famous for this topic, but Jesus doesn't say anything. Paul's the one that talks about this subject.
Speaker 3:Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Let's deal with that in two ways. First, that's a fallacious argument from silence, because there's a lot of things that Jesus didn't say Okay, as one of my professors said, jesus never said punching babies in the face was wrong. Okay, but we know that that's wrong, okay. So someone's gonna be like, wow, you're so insensitive. But there's a lot of things that Jesus doesn't address. Ok, that doesn't mean that we can't address them. That's number one. Number two Jesus does address this indirectly when he's teaching on the subject of divorce, because the Jews come to him and they're like hey, who's which rabbis right? Can we get divorced for any reason or can we get divorced only for adultery? And Jesus is answering them. He says Moses gave you this letter. He allowed you to have letters of divorce because of the hardness of your heart, because if you didn't, you'd probably kill your wife. He's really I mean, jesus is kind of spicy with the Pharisees.
Speaker 2:He's so spicy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But he says from the beginning this was not so, meaning divorce. From the beginning this was not so. And then he quotes Genesis 1 or Genesis 2. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So Jesus is going all the way back to the created order saying from the beginning this was the model of marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He doesn't.
Speaker 2:He's not saying like two people that love each other can bind and become one flesh, he would have. If that was an option, I think he would have included it.
Speaker 3:Maybe, maybe. Now again, I'm also making an argument from silence, because Jesus doesn't address this, but I think my argument from silence is valid. The other one is not. You know like just because Jesus doesn't say something doesn't mean he condones it, whereas I can say he's clearly condoning heterosexual marriage as the thing God created. He's clearly pointing to that as God's creation.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, so that's what we'll say about Jesus. That's true, all humanity being condemned and under the wages of sin, and therefore like receiving death because of sin. And he describes a society or people that reject God. They reject belief in God first, and then, because of that belief in God, they exchange the truth of God for a lie and they worship the creature rather than the creator. So they go from worship of God to idolatry. That's the first step, and then the second step is that God, because they've given themselves over to this absurd belief that the creation should be worshiped rather than the creator, god gives them over to their choices and then they become further darkened in their minds and since they've flipped the created order on its head already, they now reverse the created order in sexual relationships. And he says women exchanging their natural affection for men to be with each other and then, of course, men exchanging the natural use of the woman to burn in their passions for one another. So Paul is talking about both women and women, and men and men together, so he's kind of catching everyone together.
Speaker 3:Now we'll get into the pederasty argument here in a minute, but that's a really famous passage where Paul is addressing basically a general society that gives itself over to idolatry, first darkened minds and then they engage in sexual perversion along the way. And then two other really important passages. Paul addresses 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10, where Paul lists homosexuality among those sins that are not consistent with the Christian life. He says people who practice these things, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Paul says such were some of you guys, but you're not. Now you're washed, you can come out of these things.
Speaker 3:So 1 Corinthians 6, and then 1 Timothy 1, 8 and 10. Paul makes almost an identical argument there that this sin of homosexuality is among a vice list of things that are not consistent with the people of God. They shouldn't be practicing those things. Yeah, so where do we get this argument that well, paul and the Bible is just dealing with older men with younger boys, as you mentioned the pederasty argument. Okay, this is where this comes in. They'll argue that the dominant or the prominent form of same-sex relations in the Greco-Roman world was pederasty, which is where an older man is.
Speaker 3:Quote unquote mentoring a younger man in life and they have sexual relations along the way and they develop this mutual loving bond for one another.
Speaker 3:So Paul's, really just dealing with that, or he's dealing with temple prostitution or sexual violence as well. So he's not dealing with unloving or he's not dealing with the loving romantic unions that we see today. This is the argument that's being made. The problem with that? Let me give you the Greek first and we'll address that. And then there's a cultural argument, Some evidence we'll bring forward.
Speaker 3:In the passage 1 Corinthians passage and the 1 Timothy passage, when he lists homosexuality as one of these sins, he uses a word, it's a Greek compound word arsonokoitai. It's from two words arson and koitai. Arson means it's A-R-S-E-N. If you're transliterating it, that means like with males, it's like to do something with men or with males, and koita means intercourse. So if you connect that together, it's intercourse with males.
Speaker 3:Okay, so he is catching not just older men with younger boys, but basically the whole range. If he had wanted to use, if he had wanted to single out pederasty, he could have used a more specific term like pederastase in Greek or I'm going to, my Greek is so rusty here, but paidofthoros is the Greek word. Both of those words were more precise to refer to this pederastic relationship. He doesn't use those words, he uses a much more general any same-sex relationship of men engaged with one another. Another word he'll use is a molekoi, which just means softer feminine. It's the only place that's used in the Bible, but in Greek literature it refers to someone who takes that female role in the relationship.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so he's using broad terms to describe an activity that's not limited to just pederasty.
Speaker 2:I see. So even if it was referring to you know somebody that takes on a feminine role in like a pedophilia type of relationship, like a child, like a victim, in that it's still not referring to that, because if it was, it would have used that specific word for pedophilia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, paul could have been much more specific in his language, I see. So we've got broad. We've got a broad prohibition. In Romans 1, men and women and women together, paul says that's an indication of a society that has completely broken down morally. And then in these other passages 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1, paul is using a very broad term as well to refer to same-sex relationships. Now, a cultural backgrounds argument that we could also bring forward is this Some people will say well, paul wasn't a, since the pederasty was the dominant form.
Speaker 3:That's the only thing that Paul would have been aware of in his context. He wouldn't have been aware of like the loving unions that we see today. That just wasn't in his category of thinking. But that's actually false, because in the Greek this you have to go to some Greek literature and let me, let me refer the audience to a book this is a really good book that they, if you want to learn more about this, it's called the Bible and homosexual practice by Robert Gagnon. I'll just leave that up on the screen for anyone who wants to see that he's one of the foremost evangelical scholars on this subject.
Speaker 3:You can see how thick this book is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a mammoth of a book and he deals with all these background issues. Long story short, you can find in Greek literature ancient Greek literature, the classical Greek and then the documents swirling in the first century references to all kinds of same-sex sexual relationships, not just pederasty, but all different kinds of ages bisexual, homosexual, lesbian couples. You can find references to these things spoken of in a positive manner.
Speaker 2:This is within the Bible.
Speaker 3:Not within the Bible, but within the wider Greek, greco-roman world Got it, especially in the ancient Greek literature by the time we, but within the wider Greek, greco-roman world, especially in the ancient Greek literature by the time we get to the first century, pederasty is no longer the dominant form of same-sex sexual relationships. I should say I see Paul would have been aware of all of these things. Paul's a highly educated person. He would have been aware of all of these other things.
Speaker 2:So if he wanted to limit to just pederasty, he could have been way more specific, but he's not I see, okay, that makes a lot more sense that when he you know kind of grouped them women and women and men and men he was including all those forms not just pedophilia but yeah, yeah that's good to know. As far as like a historical and like awareness, I mean, who are we to know what they knew at that time?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I mean, we can know a lot about what they knew. But the the, the pro LGBT arguments typically get some of the background literature wrong or they just misrepresent it, where they say well, paul didn't know these things. Actually he did or he's only he's only referring to one specific kind of sex same sex, sexual relationship. It's like no, he's actually being much broader. If he wanted to refer to that specific kind, he could have been much more narrow in his prohibitions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, I mean we could get into just some theological things, just some more broad things I mentioned before. Oftentimes the Bible links sexual perversion, but especially bestiality and same-sex relationships, to idolatry. It oftentimes links these Not always, but there's a link there.
Speaker 2:What are we idolizing in bestiality?
Speaker 3:Well, the creature, the creation yeah, okay, it's a form of idolatry usually comes first. So people give themselves over to the worship of the creatures and the creation, and then that leads to a darkened mind where they're rejecting God's revelation. People give themselves over to the worship of the creatures and the creation, and then that leads to a darkened mind where they're rejecting God's revelation. And so then, if they reject God's revelation about who's in charge, then they'll also reject God's revelation about what they ought to do in this world and how they ought to relate to one another, even sexually. So they give themselves over to the passions of their flesh. Interesting Now the New Testament tells us as Christians, we have to put the flesh to death. We mortify the flesh in order to live as Christians. So at this point in the conversation, when I'm talking with students, I typically sometimes deal with the question of what about Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction? How do we make sense of that? If the Bible says that same-sex relations are sinful, just like any sex outside of marriage? How do we deal with this? How do we talk to a Christian who's like look, I'm convinced that Jesus is the Savior of the world. He's the Son of God, he died for my sins, but I have same-sex attraction. What do I do? Okay, this is more a pastoral conversation, theological. But how do we make? I can make sense of it theologically, for this episode we can recognize one that the fall affects every aspect of our being. It affects us physically, mentally, spiritually. So sometimes people are born with physical maladies. They might be born crippled, they might be born with an autoimmune disease. Sometimes people are born with mental, psychological maladies. There are Christians who will struggle their whole life and do struggle their whole life, with depression because of something that's physiological, it's not just like something that can be cured easily.
Speaker 3:Sometimes Christians will deal with psychosis and schizophrenia because of what's happened, like something's gone wrong in the brain and the wiring of the brain. You know, I was having a conversation just the other day with a deliverance minister and he was dealing with a person who was hearing voices, the symptoms of psychosis. They were hearing voices, they were seeing things and they were convinced it was demonic. And he deals with he deals with deliverance and exorcism a lot, and so he's he said, well, okay, we'll go through this deliverance, but I can't guarantee Like I can't guarantee that this is demonic. You may just have, like this may be a flesh issue. And so they went. They went through the deliverance process and at the end of it the person was still hearing voices and things like that, and he's a professional counselor. He's been a counselor for like 30 years, so he knows mental health. He's an expert in mental health as well, and he concluded from that. He said he's like this seems like this is a problem with the flesh and you're going to need to stay on your medication and follow the protocols that medical professionals have for you because that will help you. But this is something in the flesh that you're going to have to deal with.
Speaker 3:So we need to recognize that, that even people who struggle, who have a predisposition, let's say, to same-sex attraction, it can be a thing of the flesh that they must deal with. As a Christian, we're called to deal with those things in our flesh. Now, same-sex attraction oftentimes is connected to something in nurture and upbringing. There could be natural predispositions. There hasn't been any science to prove like there's a gene where you're born gay and you can't do anything about it. There's nothing that has proven that outright.
Speaker 3:But there seems to be some genetic predispositions that, when put in the right environmental circumstances, like someone experiences abandonment or abuse or something like that, it can trigger same-sex attraction and someone can develop that. So we just need to recognize that and and you know my, my colleague, sam, he goes into this and our we did some episodes on this topic and he goes into that somewhat we just need to recognize that the fall affects these things, it affects all of our being and that to be tempted with that kind of attraction just like as a heterosexual man to be tempted with lust for a woman the temptation itself is not a sin. If I give over to that temptation, if I indulge in that temptation, then it becomes sin. But just to be presented with that struggle or with that temptation, I have a choice to make. I can act upon it or I can go the other way, and God says there's always another way out.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean but that's tough, you've got to admit yeah, it is. To have a switch or be born or however it comes about. I'm not gay so I wouldn't know. But to say this is who I love. How are you to tell me to reject that?
Speaker 3:That is heartbreaking. Yeah, I would say this, you know, let me go off on a tangent a little bit with like missions, the topic of missions Jesus says in the New Testament. The topic of missions Jesus says in the New Testament you know, to follow me you must hate your brother, you must hate your father and your mother and love me. And we read that. We're like, wow, that's harsh. Why would we? Why Jesus told us to hate people.
Speaker 2:I'm not too familiar with that Jesus yeah but the language.
Speaker 3:There is not a visceral hatred of someone Like, oh, but the language. There is not a visceral hatred of someone Like, oh, I'm so in love with Jesus and I hate my parents. Not like that. It's a language of choosing and adoption. Just like when God says, jacob, have I loved, esau, have I hated? God's not saying man, I hate that Esau guy. He really just grinds my gears. He's saying no, I've chosen Jacob to be the father of Israel, I've not chosen Esau.
Speaker 3:And Jesus is saying in order to love me, to follow me, to bear your cross, you may have to decide between me and your family. Okay, in the missions in some cultures I'll get back around to your question but sometimes when we in other cultures, where family is paramount and you're trying to evangelize people, they will say, well, I love my family. I could never, like we're Hindus or we're Muslims, I could never abandon my family like this. And Christ calls us to follow him first and pray for our family members. But if we're presented with the gospel, we're called to follow him first and in that sense we choose him over family. Okay. So in the same sense, with someone who's dealing with same-sex attraction and they have maybe a romantic partner, or maybe they have someone they care deeply about. Christ is calling you to follow him first and then from that calling you to follow him first, and then from that you know you choose to love Christ and what he has for your life first and you mortify the flesh and I know that's tough.
Speaker 2:That's so tough.
Speaker 3:That is tough. I mean there are people who Jesus says some people are called to be eunuchs for the kingdom and some have been made eunuchs for the kingdom. Now he might be talking about physical eunuchs or some just because of circumstances in their life. They've been made eunuchs and the Old Testament was likely a eunuch because he went into Babylonian captivity and typically they would make those guys eunuchs. There's no record of Daniel being married, so it's likely Now a Hebrew scholar might come along and say Tim, you're wrong, there's some good evidence that Daniel was like. Now a Hebrew scholar might come along and say Tim, you're wrong, there's some good evidence that Daniel was like.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, god says to it's a passage in Isaiah. I'm drawing a blank on where it is, but this just to encourage people. God is talking. He's talking directly to eunuchs in this passage and he says to the eunuchs I will give them a name greater than children in the kingdom. I can't remember the passage right now, but he's promising to the eunuchs who follow me, I will give them a name greater than children, because children were the greatest thing you could have in the ancient world.
Speaker 3:I mean you needed children, but eunuchs had no hope of that and sometimes people with same-sex attraction and then they're not attracted to someone of the opposite sex. They kind of feel like hopeless, like I'll never find like that romantic love in this life. If I'm a Christian and I follow what I think the Bible is saying, I'm kind of like facing a choice of following Christ and resigning myself to not having that romantic partner in life, or having my romantic partner and not following Christ. And God is promising to those people who follow him I will give you a name greater than that. I will give you a name greater than children, you know that is pretty, I would say that even to the transgender people too, who have even even mutilated themselves.
Speaker 3:You know and gone through those kinds of surgeries and things like that. That promises to them too. You follow Christ. He will give you a name greater than what the world can give you.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a good place to end is with encouragement, and I think you've brought up a pretty solid defense, tim, as far as what people may say against homosexuality and what clearly the Bible says, and that this call to follow Christ will be rewarded. I think that's the main takeaway of this conversation that God loves you and he wants what's best for you, and all of us are victims of the fall, but we need to succeed that and still follow him above all else. Now, I think that this is a pretty awakening as far as like, is it right? Is it wrong? You've made a very clear argument that, like, the Bible does not agree with this, and these are all the facts there's.
Speaker 2:Really, it's very foolproof and bulletproof, but as like a Christian woman with some friends that are homosexual, I don't want to hate them. I don't want them to feel bad. I don't want them to feel like they're doing anything wrong because they sin. I sin, you know how. Who am I? How? What is the best route forward here? How do we love them and I hope you don't give me the well we pray for them, but like what else? How do we love them and encourage them?
Speaker 3:So there's no foolproof answer here. There's no easy answer. Some people if I'm talking to Christians, okay, who are dealing with friends or family members who are involved in homosexual or LGBT lifestyles I'll just say this that sometimes people might reject you. You could be as loving and clear as you can be and you still might get rejected. They still might say you hate me, you won't accept me Again.
Speaker 3:There's a conflation there between disagreement and hate. Hate is a moral category of I'm casting a moral judgment on you as a person and condemning you and I'm not going to associate with you at all. Versus, I'm disagreeing with your argument or I'm disagreeing with this lifestyle Because I think it's not just wrong but it's harming you, it's destructive. You know God wants something different for you. Some people are just going to reject you. So, as a Christian, just to encourage you that trust the Lord with the truth. You know I think it was Jordan Peterson has said this like when you speak the truth, it's the greatest adventure that you'll go on, because you don't know what's going to happen. But you have to speak the truth in love.
Speaker 2:Okay, I know that's cliche.
Speaker 3:Christians say that all the time. Speak the truth in love. We need to practice empathy, and that means sitting down with someone hey look. And saying, hey, I can't put myself in your shoes of knowing what it's like to experience same-sex attraction in the way that you do, and so I won't pretend that your road is easy to walk. And so don't presume and just don't give easy, like pat answers. I think it might take many, many conversations of talking with someone and saying, hey, this is what the Bible says. God wants something better for you. This lifestyle is ultimately going to lead to destruction. It might be good now, and statistically this bears out too, but God wants something better for you and he's promising something better for you.
Speaker 3:If you follow him and trust him. But that means sacrifice as well. You know we all have to sacrifice things.
Speaker 2:I was about to say it's not just anybody who's in same sex attraction. That's like well am I screwed then because of the situation? I think this goes for all of us. I struggle with my own sins and I have to choose God through those.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, so let me give you an encouraging story Please. So I've had friends so discouraging. I have had friends even at Liberty former Liberty students, dorm mates of mine who they seemed like they were like normal heterosexual guys. They got married even and some of them had children and then all of a sudden they left their wives in for another man and then they kind of destroyed their marriage and all that stuff. And that's been really hard because some of them have attacked me as well personally. They've just become very anti-Christian in a way. I have had a few personal examples of that, but one one story in particular that's encouraging.
Speaker 3:I was at a birthday party many years ago and I heard these two guys who were atheists former Christians, really like kind of like rabid atheists, like really angry, love to argue with people and they were picking on this one guy who was a Christian and he wasn't like trained philosophically or anything like that. So I kind of felt bad for him because he was kind of getting, he was getting bested by these two atheists. So I decided to like I'll just like join this conversation and and one sense, it was a mistake because it turned into like a three hour. I was stuck for like three hours with these guys. So we went round and around for three hours about all kinds of stuff, not just not homosexuality, but like creation, the existence of God, the resurrection, all that stuff.
Speaker 3:And at the end of the three hours I'm like, wow, I just spent the whole this whole birthday party like talking to these guys. And now it's time to leave and as I was about to leave, this one guy, he said hey, it was good to meet you, you know. He was a brother of one of these two atheists and he had just been sitting there the whole time listening. I didn't know who he was, never met him at all, but he had listened the whole time to this conversation. And he said hey, I want to thank you for what you said, you know, and I was like, okay, he's like I've never heard, I've never heard anyone like describe, like, defend, like their views that way before, which, again, christians like know, like know your stuff and just be able to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm trying, tim. That's why we're here, yeah.
Speaker 3:I have had a lot of training, so I do have that advantage. But do the work. There's apologetics classes that people can take, a lot of great online resources. Anyway, I digress.
Speaker 3:Years later I see this guy in the gym and I hadn't seen him since that birthday party. And he comes up to me and he says, hey, you remember me? And I was like, I think so. And he's like yeah, we're at the at the birthday party. And I'm like oh, yeah, he's like, hey, I just wanted to tell you that I want to thank you for that conversation, because I'm a Christian now and I was like, oh, he said, yeah, um, I recently became a Christian, a few months ago. And he's like I and I was gay too, and I'm no longer gay, um, and I'm a and I'm a Christian.
Speaker 3:And he's like and the, that conversation you had with my brother and his friend, that was the first seeds of my journey to kind of come to faith. So it was like I didn't, I wasn't some winsome evangelist that gave him the Romans road. And he's like wow, like I'll accept Christ right now. You know, wow, you know it wasn't that, it was a long road for him, but I didn't realize that three-hour conversation, that frustrating three-hour conversation, was planting a seed in someone that I wasn't even intending to plant a seed into and then that germinated into a full-blown, you know, faith and coming out of gay lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing, tim, that's phenomenal. I mean, I think at the end of the day, I look at Jesus and like maybe this is more of a passive look on it. But until I am thoroughly trained and feel confident in it because I don't want to misrepresent the faith I believe that God is a product that works. You know, god is a product that if I knock on a doorstep it's going to sell itself. And planting those seeds, you didn't have to follow up with him every month, you didn't have to call him and take him to church, like God did the work. And that's what I hope to do with these conversations by sharing them publicly.
Speaker 2:The point of this whole thing was for me to learn, but I think a lot more people needed to hear it, because I'm probably not the only one of these shoes. But at the end of the day, especially for a topic this sensitive which is why I say this it's not to say we're right, you're wrong. It's to think about these things and maybe something will come out of it and to at least consider it. So thank you for treading lightly and sensitively and very well spoken. I mean, they definitely don't talk to this depth in church.
Speaker 3:So it's truly a privilege to get yeah. I mean when you bring up the Nephilim from the pulpit. It's just things get crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why I had to bring it up right at the beginning. No, but truly I don't. It's. It's such an honest conversation and it's so well-educated. So just the privilege of being able to have this type of information and to share it. You don't get this without it becoming some sort of aggressive conversation or demeaning or accusatory. So, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:And glad to be here.
Speaker 2:We're way over time, but I still have a feeling that there's more to be said, so we'll save that for another episode. If you've got the time, I'd like to end. What can you plug? Do you have classes? Do you have books? Do you have speaking events? How do people hear more if they love this?
Speaker 3:Oh man, this is now. I'm convicted, because I was supposed to work on my dissertation to make it into a book and I haven't. So I missed out on some sales, I guess. But I will plug the podcast Psych and Theo. Again, it's pretty new, just about four months, but give it a listen. We tackle all kinds of subjects. We did a trilogy on this subject of LGBT issues. We did a four-part series on spiritual warfare where we talk about the Nephilim and mental illness and demon possession.
Speaker 3:We talk about mental illness and demon possession, how to discern between those two things. We deal with manhood and womanhood and all kinds of mental therapy, so we deal with all kinds of issues. So I'd say, give us a listen. We're trying to grow. We're a little baby podcast but hopefully people enjoy it. Each episode is about an hour long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some are shorter as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we have a few at the beginning that are kind of like getting to know us episodes.
Speaker 1:Some of your favorite movies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, oh, don't get me started on that, no, we're already out of time.
Speaker 2:No, that's amazing, and I just remember that you are coming back. I already have you on schedule.
Speaker 2:We'll coordinate the details another time, but to talk about transgenderism, which I think. Again I'm terrified to talk about this, but again I'm uninformed. So we have to talk about this, especially from the biblical perspective, and if you're a Christian I think we should also be informed of that. So excited to get you back on. I'll follow up on a good date and time as the summer kind of nears its last month. But thank you again. I really appreciate all the time and committing to such a late call, especially for you.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's all good, you know it's five minutes to my bedtime, so I'm going to hurry home and get in bed. Perfect, Perfect Well thanks so much. It's early for you, it's like what four o'clock or something at your time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm like starting my day.
Speaker 3:Wow, just just suffering in Hawaii and it I'm like starting my day. Wow, just suffering in.
Speaker 2:Hawaii. It's so rough, the sun's going to go down soon, can't surf anymore.
Speaker 3:Wow, just bearing your cross, just bearing your cross, taking up every day, all right. Well, thanks for having me on. It was a great conversation.
Speaker 2:Of course. Thanks so much, Tim. See you soon.
Speaker 1:All right, bye-bye. All right guys. All right guys. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Again, it was a really great interview and I just want to remind you for our friend cass, if you don't follow her podcast, give her a follow. She's a really great supporter of our show and she's also uh been really uh enthusiastic about the topics that we discuss and she's also very enthusiastic about the shows that she does with her guests and, again, we've kind of collaborated on a number of projects together and it's just really good to support each other. So give her a follow. She's on instagram and you can find her podcast on itunes and I think she's on spotify as well. So thank you again for tuning in. We will see you next time.
