With the Supreme Court cases on homosexual marriage in the news (one on the Defense of Marriage Act, and the other on California Proposition 8), there is a lot of religious reporting on homosexuality, and reactions to the cases. This is going to be the first of several posts today.
World Magazine, and evangelical publication, has a good article on homosexuality and what Holy Scripture (both Old and New Testament) has to say about it. You can access that article HERE.
I wanted to note a couple of things about the article. One, it discusses context for the different passages that discuss the sin, and goes into detail that not only to engage in the act of homosexuality, but also to engage in lust or willful desire, is sinful. This is the same as a heterosexual engaging in lust for a woman he is not married to.
Also, I found it interesting in explaining a passage by Saint Paul, Wayne Grudem reference the Septuagint (Greek translation), to explain it. The Septuagint includes the “Catholic books”, including the Maccabees and others. The Apostles used the Septuagint as a reference when writing the New Testament. I will write more about that another time.
Finally, I appreciated the “objections” section of the article, dealing with the objections that are often raised against the Biblical passages of homosexuality, including the “I was born that way”, and the idea that “The Bible was only condemning those who are actually heterosexual from engaging in homosexual acts.”
It is a great reference if you need to locate the passages that deal with homosexuality, and dealing with the common objections against these passages.
I found myself wishing that Catholics would provide a good resource concerning this in regards to Holy Scripture. While my next post isn’t about Biblical references to it, I was happy that a Catholic provided his own arguments. Coming up…
