There is a social movement in full swing among all ages of people in the world today regarding the exploration of sexual orientations outside the one established by God—namely heterosexuality, wherein children can be generated. The voices of the world are growing unbearably loud in their cry for those who experience same sex attraction or distaste for opposite gender attraction to embrace their non-normative lusts and pursue their carnal desires until they are given social legitimacy. The biggest obstacle to these pursuits has been the voices of those of the Abrahamic religions who view homosexuality as a sin. For those caught in the middle, both God fearing and same sex attracted, the struggle to capture any kind of value or identity has been immense.
Religionists are not without conflict on the issue themselves. On the one hand, some faith leaders have denounced any degree of same sex attraction as a sure sign of sin; and, on the other, many have started to declare that homosexuality is no sin at all. And beyond that, there is a debate of whether all such individuals are the result of environmental conditioning or whether some are actually “born that way.” On either side of the ecclesiastic aisle of this debate, many cite a lack of specificity in the scriptures on the topic as a large problem.
But is it true that the scriptures are silent on the issue?
Of course in the King James Version of the Bible there are not any instances of the word “homosexual,” but this is a historical lexicography issue and not a topical one. The word ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai) used in 1 Corinthians 6:9 was translated into King James English as the debatably ambiguous “abusers of themselves with mankind,” whereas newer translations provide the meaning of this Greek word more directly with our modern vernacular (see the bolded word below):
“Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9 – 10, NLT).
There is also Jude 1:7, wherein the sins of Sodom and Gomorra are described, but the original Greek wording of ἑτέρας σαρκὸς (heteras sarkos, “strange flesh”) is only imprecisely translated as “homosexuality” (though little doubt this is what is meant). Of course many Christians are unwilling to consider the terms of the Law of Moses as having any applicability after Christ’s ministry and thus dismiss extremely clear verses such as the following:
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Lev. 20:13).
Thus, lamentably, the foregoing verses have done little to quell the flame of debate since the act of homosexuality is being separated more and more, in a psychological standpoint, from the sexual identity of “queer” individuals. In other words, science is now declaring that people in normal gender roles and traditional heterosexual relationships may in fact be silently same sex attracted. Thus the debate that continues among the churches still hinges on the perceived scriptural silence on whether a proclivity toward same sex attraction is a learned behavior or an inborn trait.
The implications are not minor, for if it were true that babies were born with this proclivity, then its source could be attributed to God’s will—recognizing nonetheless that said proclivity is a failing or a curse. (This is akin to the apostles asking the Lord why a certain man was born blind: “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” [John 9:2] The answer in this case was that the failing was God’s doing, consistent with Exodus 4:11; the apostles’ question was probably not founded on ignorance, however, as it may have been the pre-mortal choices of the man that could have affected his circumstances in life.)
The reason that any other verses possibly pertaining to people born with same sex attraction have escaped view is because scripturally the Greek and Hebrew languages apparently did not have specific terms for these sorts of individuals; however, from a cultural and semantic perspective, they do provide a general term under which same sex attracted individuals could have chosen to be numbered:
- εὐνοῦχος (eunouchos)
Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine
Strong’s 2135: From eune and echo; a castrated person; by extension an impotent or unmarried man; by implication, a chamberlain. - סָּרִ֔יס (sā·rîs)
Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine
Strong’s 5631: to castrate; a eunuch; by implication, valet (especially of the female apartments), and thus, a minister of state — chamberlain, eunuch, officer
Per Strong’s concordance cited above, the word eunuch did not only mean those who had been physically altered to prevent them from having posterity, but it also meant those who for any reason were prevented from having posterity. Persons of same sex attraction, by extension, would have fallen under this same title per the cultural auspices of the Law of Moses, if their disinterest in the opposite sex was sufficient to keep them from marrying. To remain faithful to the kingdom of heaven, they made themselves—in effect—eunuchs.
Jesus himself appears to endorse this conclusion when he says:
“There are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matt. 19:12).
That Jesus includes individuals of same sex attraction among his definitions of eunuchs is a matter of deduction: lacking progeny could only be a matter of force in two conditions (impotence and castration) and a matter of choice in one (voluntary celibacy), and Jesus addresses all three. That voluntary celibacy should be indicative of same sex attraction—or, conversely considered, disinterest in the opposite sex—is naturally concluded upon when one considers the significant social and survival consequences for individuals choosing not to marry in the ancient world; though some individuals never had the opportunity to marry out of no choice of their own, the conditions in which a person would willingly choose such a life would indicate a condition of moral dilemma, and—since Christ says the choice was between some alternative and inheriting the kingdom of heaven—the moral alternative must have been against the terms of the Law.
In other words, though the Lord’s words are not a definitive statement that people with same sex attraction are products of nature (as opposed to nurture), we can see that whereas those ‘so born from their mother’s womb’ could mean either impotence or same sex attraction, those who ‘have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake’ could only be those who faced a moral dilemma that required them to choose celibacy for the sake of righteousness given their disinterest in the opposite sex.
That Jesus’ sayings regarding those who ‘made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake’ did not apply to someone who castrated himself out of some overzealous detest for his own flesh (like Origen) is brought out in a pair of scriptures. The first is from the Law, wherein someone who had been so mutilated was specifically prohibited from worshipping in connection with those who had not done so:
“He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD” (Deut. 23:1).
Or, rendered more clearly in the modern vernacular:
“If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the LORD” (Ibid., NLT).
And yet despite this, we are met with a story in Acts of a man described as a eunuch who nonetheless was on his way back to Ethiopia from Jerusalem where he had specifically been worshipping:
“The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet” (Acts 8:26 – 28).
Why was this eunuch allowed to break the Law of Moses and enter into the congregation in the holiest of cities, Jerusalem itself? It is because the nature of this man’s being called a eunuch must not have been that of castration, but instead either impotence or celibacy, very possibly due to same sex attraction.
In the story of the Ethiopian, it is not possible to know whether his status was a result of impotence or celibacy, but a passage in Isaiah seems to address specifically those who have chosen celibacy over ‘strange flesh,’ whose place in society may have caused them to wonder where they stood in God’s eyes given perhaps their inborn proclivity toward same sex attraction. Using very consoling words, the Lord addresses the righteous among two groups: voluntary converts (those without parents in the faith) and voluntary celibates (those without posterity):
“Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.
“For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
“Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
“The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him” (Isa. 56:3 – 8).
Note in the above passage how that the eunuchs are not told that in the kingdom of heaven they would have sons and daughters themselves; the reassurance is that their sacrifice to live pure lives despite their proclivities would result in their obtaining ‘a place and a name’ for themselves better than that of ‘sons or daughters’ in the kingdom. This seems addressed to those who do not feel worthy of either the term ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ due to their inborn feelings in this life. For those who must choose, as Christ said, to make ‘themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake’—despite all the world telling them that their worth is only in identifying themselves in a sexually deviant way—this would be a high reward indeed.
In conclusion, there is no such thing as a LGBTQ member of the church of Christ (though we could perhaps do well to adopt something like the wordy yet definitive Navajo terms of “uncle who understands the ways of the woman” and “auntie who understands the ways of the man”); there are only men and women, brothers and sisters, who must each confront their own personal sacrifice to live purely ‘for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’ To those who choose celibacy over giving in to same sex attraction—an unfathomable sacrifice in the eyes of the world—the word of the Lord is:
“Do not not say to yourselves, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ Unto you I will give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give you an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.”
Some are born blind and some are born deaf, and some are born with broken sexual desires. Why do such weaknesses exist among God’s children? Of course it is because this is a fallen and broken world, but we should not lose sight that God has designed it that way to give each of his children a particular set of trials and tests based on what they needed from before their birth on this world. Successfully proving faithful through such adversity will lead to an everlasting inheritance where all failings are repaired. For now, the question each child of God must face is this: what have you been asked to sacrifice for the kingdom of heaven’s sake?
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