Paul Among The People--Romans 1:24-27

Day 5

Harsh and brutal is the chapter on Paul’s words about homosexuality in Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among The People:  The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time.

Depressing and distressing, I think.

Not his words, so much, but the context of what Paul is writing about in Romans 1:24-27 and later in Romans 1:28-2:1.

Romans 1:24-27  Therefore God gave them up to vile impurity in the lusts of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged natural relations for that which is contrary to nature, 27 and likewise the men, too, abandoned natural relations with women and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males committing shameful acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Also, I realize I’ve wandered for over 3 years all over the Bible–some verses I’ve looked at two and three times–but I’ve  never approached these Scriptures.

But here they are today and I’m not sure what to think about them.

Ruden stresses where Paul is coming from:

“Much of the Greco-Roman worldview Paul might have adopted, what he heard at home and in the synagogue would not have let him tolerate homosexuality.  Jewish teaching was clear:  homosexual acts were an abomination.”

Paul’s words are bracing and terrible to behold and understand if you are a homosexual trying to be a Christian.

Paul is flat out stating that if you are a homosexual, you are serving the creature, which is yourself, rather than the Creator.

And for that, Paul has been branded a bigot for millennia.

Dallas Willard offers more about being “the creature” rather than the Creator in Renovation of the Heart:

“The human body becomes the primary area of pleasure for the person who does not live honestly and interactively with God, and also the primary source of terror, torture, and death.  So it is an obvious thing to turn to for those who worship and serve “the creature rather than the Creator.”  And because bodily enjoyment is what they want, what they choose to pursue, God abandons them to their pursuit of every pleasurable sensation they can wring out of the body–primarily sexual, for that usually gives the greatest kick, but bodily violence is a close second.”

The homosexuality of Paul’s day and what he would later inveigh against so vehemently, was sadistic, aggressive, and unfeeling.

Ruden writes:

“Readers may think I am exaggerating, that the day-to-day culture of homosexuality could not have been so bad.  They may have heard of Platonic homoerotic sublimity or festive or friendly couplings.  None of the sources, objectively read, backs any of this up.

The literature of the time (which seems to me to be ancient pornography) shows what the Greeks and Romans thought–that the active partner in homosexual intercourse used, humiliated, and physically and morally damaged the passive partner.

In Paul’s day, there were slave auctions of little boys sold to be used and played with sexually by their masters.

That was their sole function and when they began to hit puberty, they were discarded for younger boys because of their secondary sex characteristics and their ancillary hair.

The word “pedagogue” comes from the practice of wealthier Greeks and Romans hiring someone (or getting an older slave to do it) to accompany their young sons to school so flagrant pedophiles wouldn’t pester them and his friends along the way–”offering friendship, tutoring, athletic training, money, or gifts.”

But parents of young boys didn’t want to put too much emphasis on their sons being protected either.  The gossip of the times was so vicious that anything the parents did that drew attention to their sons was actually self-defeating.

Keep a boy inside away from the deadly hurly-burly of the streets?  Then he MUST have something to hide.

And to be branded a homosexual could, eventually, lead to losing rights of citizenship.

What a malignant, noxious society!

Homosexuality then wasn’t about relationships or romantic love.  Homosexuality then was about domination, virility, and to put it very bluntly–who was penetrating who.

(Curiously, lesbianism doesn’t feature in Greek-Roman culture because as Ruden so blatantly puts it there was no penis involved–women were meant to be dominated and penetrated anyway–so there was little value in showing off one’s virility, power, and dominance by nailing a slave woman).

Historically, then, I can see WHY Paul writes about homosexuality in the way he does.

The whole business was vile.

Is it today?

Parts of homosexuality, seem at least to me, to be as vile today as what Paul would have witnessed.

(Now, transgenderism has to be considered and if that’s not exchanging worship of the Creator for worship of the creature, I don’t know what is).

But I have GOOD friends who are homosexuals.  I have family members that are homosexual.  I hired homosexuals and sent them off into elementary classrooms to teach, excellently, in most cases.

How do I reconcile Scripture with my personal connections to homosexuality?  I’ve heard for years that gays and lesbians are JUST THAT WAY and can’t change.

Why feel bad about yourself ALL THE TIME for your sexual predilection?

Rosaria Butterfield pegs as a lie that homosexuality is normal in Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age: 

“We must ponder why God’s attribute of immutability has been embraced by the LGBTQ+ movement as an attribute of homosexual orientation…If you exchange the Creator for the creature, you impose God’s attributes on man.  When we hear “homosexual orientation is fixed and immutable–it never changes,”" this is only imaginable in a world that has already exchanged the worship of the Creator for the worship of the creature, of God for an idol.  Gay Christians teach that you can’t repent of who you are, how you feel, or even what you desire.  They believe that homosexual orientation is morally neutral, separate from one’s sin nature, cannot be repented of, and rarely changes over a person’s lifetime.  This is a lie.”

To be honest, I’ve never had this conversation with ANY of my gay and lesbian friends or family.  What they do with their bodies is NOT my business, in the same way what I do with my body, isn’t their business.

God help you too, if you try to judge me for what I do.

I can only imagine the angst and anxiety of homosexuals in my life if they are sensitive to Paul’s words and are trying to make their way realizing that they are being perceived by other Christians as exchanging His glory for the worship of the creature.

But like Paul’s laundry list of Do Not Do’s from Galatians 5, I have my own challenges to stay righteous–and some days I’m hanging onto that cliff with just my fingernails.

Maybe I should talk about Paul’s Scripture to my homosexual friends and family?

I’ll let the Holy Spirit decide.  I don’t think I’m capable on my own.

Lord, we ask Your forgiveness for the times we have placed other things and acts before You.  Help us to recognize what is false and distracting that leads us away from Your truth.

Lord, guide us to live our lives in ways that reflect our deep devotion to You.  May all of our actions be aligned with Your will.

Amen.