Sexuality and Lust

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural  relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.   -Romans 1:21-27

Homosexuality is a touchy subject in today’s society. If one supports it, then he or she does so on the basis of acceptance. If one does not, then he or she, even if accepting of the person or persons practicing, is seen as unaccepting or completely intolerant and traditionally closed minded. This creates quite a controversy within the Christian community because: 1. Our goal is to reach the world for Christ 2. That world accepts things that, according to scripture, cannot be accepted by the Christian community. So, the Christian community begins to compromise on its beliefs in an effort to reach the world. As a result, members of the Christian community begin living according to the expectations of the world, apart from God. In doing this, the Christian community becomes futile in its thinking: we know God, but fail to honor and give thanks to Him in our actions.

It is no coincidence that, in the later part of this passage, Paul relates homosexuality to following the expectations of the world and to idol worship. With the advent of sin into humanity, came a genetic disorder. According to Romans (5:12-14), man inherits sin. This only makes sense considering that all of creation was corrupted through the sin of Adam because Adam was given dominion over all creation. Sin, as a whole, is inherited from our fathers. The entirety of the Christian message is this: we must overcome our sinful nature, which is only possible with God through Jesus Christ, so that we can live in perfect unity with God.

I have no doubt that lust/homosexuality/bisexuality are components of sin that a person can be born into, because sin is inherited. This is a majority basis for the defense of homosexuality/bisexuality. “I was born this way.” We are all born into sin.

Despite our  birth into sin, sin is still wrong. Considering homosexuality:

Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:8-10, Jude 7

What does Paul write about those who knew God and still chose to practice homosexuality/bisexuality, and therefore refuse to overcome their fleshly natures?

He states that God gave them over the their dishonorable passions, and that they received within themselves the due penalty for their error. Could you imagine being handed over by God to our own dishonorable passions? Paul describes the same type of punishment in Galatians 5 as ‘falling out of grace’. We do not fall out of grace because we were born into sin, but because we are unwilling to overcome our sinful nature. If that means spending the remainder of one’s life alone, then we do that to honor God.

It also seems to me that some today mistake intimacy with the same gender as an act of homosexuality/bisexuality. There is nothing that says we cannot have a friend of the same gender that we can share anything with, or even spend all of our time with. We cross the line when that relationship becomes romantic or at all sexual.

Biblical texts seem to be very clear on this subject. Hate the sin, love the sinner. When it comes to our own family (Christians), we do have a responsibility to hold them accountable and to help them overcome the sinful nature they are giving in to (Matthew 7:5).