Is The Bible Only Prohibiting Homosexual Behavior That Involves Forced Rape?
Matthew Vines is a popular speaker and author who has advocated the position that is not sinful for a Christian to be a practicing homosexual. He claims in his book, God and the Gay Christian, as a tenet of his main thesis that the Bible teaches that the passages that seemingly teach that homosexuality is sinful are passages that are actually referring to those people who are rapists who have forced themselves upon others sexually. That is the illicit type of behavior that is condemned according to Vines. It is not forbidden, according to Vines, for two homosexuals to participate in a consensual, “loving” relationship as he would term it. Is Vines correct?
In the remote context of Romans 1, Paul is giving a clear picture of the downward spiral of wickedness and immoral behavior that the Gentiles had traveled down and how the Gentiles were in dire need of a Savior to save them from their sins.
Within that context, Paul states: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
Does this sound like forced rape? It does not at all. Paul is prohibiting both forced homosexual behavior (with regards to the predator) and those who have consented to give themselves over to that which is vile, unnatural, and shameful. Thanks be to God that He offers the opportunity for people who have committed these immoral acts to escape the penalty of their sin through faith, repentance, and obedience to the gospel of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
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