Q.

Were there gay couples in the Bible?

166

Q

Several recent books attempt to reframe Christians’ relationship to the

gay community, such as Andrew Marin’s Love Is an Orientation. He goes

through the “big fi ve” passages often used to condemn homosexuals. Marin

notes how selectively we apply the purity codes outlined in Leviticus. It is also

tough to pin down the apostle Paul’s condemnations in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11.

Paul employs two Greek words for homosexuality that are not found in any

other ancient literature. How can we assess Paul’s understanding when there

is nothing else to compare it to?

I am intrigued by the choices of the fi rst cross-cultural missionary in

the Bible, Philip. In Acts 8, Philip and the early Jerusalem church are on the

run, fl eeing from Rome. He heads toward an even more persecuted people

in Samaria. En route, Philip encounters an Ethiopian eunuch who longed to

become part of the Jewish community. But the eunuch’s physical alteration

made him ceremonially unclean, unable to enter the holiest part of the Hebrew

temple. Philip insists that nothing can separate the eunuch from the love of

God through Jesus Christ. Philip baptizes the eunuch. How fascinating that

the fi rst non-Jewish Christian believer in the Bible is a sexually ambiguous

African man.

Scriptural References

Leviticus 17—26 (the Holiness Code); 1 Samuel 20:30; 26:12; Acts 8:26–39

Suggested Additional Sources for Reading

• William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex (Fortress Press, 1988).


• Teresa Hornsby and Amy-Jill Levine, Sex Texts from the Bible (Skylight,
  2007).


• Andrew P. Marin, Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the
  Gay Community (InterVarsity Press, 2009).


• Jack Barlett Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality (Westminster John
  Knox Press, 2009).

Suggested Questions for Further Discussion/Thought

1. What role do ancient texts have on our ethical practices, sexual or not?


2. Does it matter if David and Jonathan were gay?


3. What is the message about judgment here?


4. Why do you think homosexuality is perhaps the most important moral
   issue in our society for some Christians?

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