Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: With Christopher Yuan—The Alisa Childers Podcast #40

Derek

2/6/2019 02:16:59 pm

Hi Alisa. I'm fairly new to your podcast, but I've found your interviews really interesting. I've been reading a fair amount of progressive Christian writing lately, what you might call "revisionist," and I have a follow up question to your conversation with Christopher Yuan.

You and Dr. Yuan argued, if I followed correctly, that it's not relevant to our understanding of scripture that, for instance, Paul's definition of the term "homosexual" might be very different from our 21st definition of that term. You said that those who would focus on those differences are missing the fact that scripture is inspired.

Here's my question: If we don't use the lens of the (human) author to understand the words we find in scripture, how should we go about interpreting those words? It doesn't make sense to me to just look them up in Merriam-Webster, given the history of the Bible (translations of translations, copies of copies, and such). What tools or lenses do you use to interpret texts like this one?

Alisa Childers

2/7/2019 08:47:24 am

Hi Derek, thanks for the question. I do agree with Dr. Yuan that the belief that Paul didn't understand the concept of a loving, monogamous same-sex relationship (influencing his writing) undermines the doctrine of divine inspiration.

However, this claim is also demonstrably false. While it's true that the primary expression of homosexuality in the ancient world was abusive (pederasty, master/slave etc…) it is historically verifiable that loving monogamous same-sex relationships did, in fact, exist. In his book, *The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics*, Dr. Robert Gagnon documents several examples from ancient cultures.

Regarding your final question about interpreting the actual words Paul used, yes we absolutely need to know what those words meant to him. Many scholars have written on this, and if you want to look at a concise summary, I recommend Kevin DeYoung's *What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality,* which dives into this question in chapter 5. Basically, the word translated in English as "homosexuality" is a word first used in Greek by Paul, *arsenokoitai*. Most scholars (even atheist and gay scholars) agree that this word literally means "men who take other men to bed," which is why most English translations use "homosexuality" or "men who have sex with men." It's only the modern revisionists who are trying to re-interpret its meaning.

If you want to dive deep, get Gagnon's book, but DeYoung's overview is also sufficient. Hope that helps!