Paul & the Homosexuals

In their headlong rush for society’s acceptance the homosexuals have viewed the religious community as a special prize. While most hard core gays are not religious themselves, they find it galling that evangelical Christianity seems to be the last major holdout to embracing the notion that homosexual orientation and practice are legitimate forms of human sexuality.

Some have attempted to liken their unnatural sexual practices to a calling. A lesbian named Marilyn exulted: “I’m much more at peace than I used to be. Through the Metropolitan Community Church I’ve learned that what I’m doing is not sinful … Now I feel secure that I’m following the Lord’s call.” Someone has told this poor girl that when she engages in unnatural sex with other women she is following a calling. She may be, but it isn’t the Lord that’s doing the calling. The Bible says plainly, “God has not called us to uncleanness, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7).

The Scriptures are, of course, the major difficulty in all the ambitious attempts at rationalizing such sin. And of all the Biblical writers, none is clearer in condemning this unnatural sin as Paul. His vivid denunciations of homosexuality and lesbianism are so bold and plain that it forces the pro gay “theologians” to perform exegetical leapfrogs and contortions in order to hint that maybe these verses don’t really mean what they obviously say. It is almost humorous to read some of the twisted logic and fairy tale explanations they give as they attempt to dilute Paul’s stern warnings.

Some don’t even try. Pro-gay “theologian” Paul Williams declared, “Paul, like most of us, had his good moments and his bad moments … Perhaps Paul was condemning homosexuality. So what? Paul was wrong about a number of other things, too. Why should you take him any more seriously than you take Jerry Falwell or Anita Bryant or Cardinal O’Connor?” He sums up his approach to Biblical revelation by saying, “It cannot be believed unless it rings true to our deepest capacity for truth and goodness.” (In other words – If you like it, it must be true!).

Homosexuals and lesbians are not the only ones who have had great problems with Paul. Liberals and free thinkers of all assorted stripes have found this short Jewish firebrand a nuisance. Frequently we hear the assertion that Jesus never meant to establish a religion along the lines of Pauline theology. Even televangelist Robert Schuller has suggested that Christians may be basing their theology too much on the “spirit of Paul” rather than the Spirit of Jesus, when they focus heavily on such things as original sin, the depravity of the human heart, the need for repentance, etc.

Was Paul simply an extraneous peripheral to the newly emerging Christianity? Did he muddy the waters of the pure religion that Jesus meant to establish with his negative ideas about the depravity of the human heart, the need for the new birth, and the radical notion that a man is justified before his Creator through faith in the crucified and risen Savior?

Let us consider Paul’s credentials. We find that Jesus sovereignly chose Paul, converting him almost against his will. On his way to Damascus Jesus appears to him in blinding glory, exposes Paul’s folly in persecuting the church, and commands him to go to a certain house to await further instructions. While Paul waits there, a disciple named Ananias is told by Jesus to go and pray for Paul, “For he is a chosen vessel of Mine, to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15).

The premier doctrine of the church, The just shall live by faith, was given to us by Paul. Jesus did the gospel (died on the cross for our sins and rose again for our justification), but it was left to Paul to ex-plain the gospel.

Paul tells us where he got this information. In Galatians he declares, “The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man … it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11, 12). It is amazing that this honor and responsibility did not go to one of the original apostles such as Peter or John, but to Paul, a man who must have seemed something of an outsider to those who had walked with Jesus throughout His earthly ministry.

In the narrative of the fledgling church, the book of Acts, we find Paul everywhere. More than any other apostle or preacher, Paul was responsible for the explosive growth of these first century believers. Sick and demon-possessed people found deliverance and healing by touching cloths that had been on his body, so great was the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Paul. All the sick people from the island of Malta came to him and were healed. Everywhere he went, churches sprang up, and converts abounded. Jesus honored him with a personal appearance while he was in prison, telling him, “As you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness in Rome” (Acts 23:11).

Such was the apostle and Biblical writer that condemned the homosexual lifestyle in no uncertain terms (see Romans 1 and 1st Corinthians 6). But Paul was no gay basher. He condemned the sin, but offered hope to the sinner. The same man who so forcefully preached against sin, preached all the more power-fully for the forgiveness Christ offers, proclaiming, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).