To begin, I will share a common talking point among pro-gay marriage folks who have read the Bible, which is this: Jesus never talked about homosexuality.
This is absolutely true. He never did. However, He did talk about divorce, on two occasions in fact (and one of them unprompted). It is off this talking point that is important for understanding how we got from an era where marriages not only were one man and one woman, but they stayed together through the thick and the thin, to today, where marriage has become at best this rather flimsy thing that people can sign up for and then sign off when things don't go the way they expect, and at worst this thing that people think they can just skip altogether while enjoying the benefits of a "fake marriage" without the responsibilities that come only with it. In other words, divorce. Here’s what Jesus had to say about it:
Passage 1 [all citations NIV]
31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:31-32 (see also Mark 10:10-12, Luke 16:18)Passage 2
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Matthew 19:3-9 (see also Mark 10:2-9)
The second passage I’ll give a pass for this moment. The short answer is the Pharisees (the equivalent of today’s legalistic “Christians”) were trying to corner Him. Jesus knew how to be shrewd. He even instructed His disciples as such: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16. However, the first passage was part of the Sermon on the Mount (or the Plain, in Luke’s transcript), and His admittedly hard comments on divorce were unprompted. Going off of Matthew’s transcript, immediately before addressing divorce, Jesus addressed adultery (see Matthew 5:27-30), and immediately after addressing divorce, He addressed of not making promises that you won’t follow through on (see Matthew 5:33-37). Again: unprompted. So for anyone who falls in the “curious about or likes Jesus but skeptical of the Bible or at least skeptical of Apostle Paul” category, here is ironclad evidence that Jesus Himself specifically addressed divorce. …even if it is indeed true that He didn’t address homosexuality.
Why is this important? To answer that, I now wish to delve into some lesser-known moments in 20th-century US history. In 1970, then-governor of California Ronald Reagan passed a law allowing no-fault divorce. Over time, other states followed suit, with the state of New York as the final one to pass such a law (they did so in 2010). Today, no-fault divorces are allowed nation-wide, although there is no unified national law for it. But what followed after the first domino fell was a fundamental shift over the next generation not only in perceptions of marriages but also specifically how children experienced “family.” As a disclosure, I was born into and grew up in this. And, so were many of my peers. Instead of being a covenant that was to be honored and treasured, marriage became limited to a legal document that could be overthrown for any reason. The only stipulation was, couples (or even individuals) wanting to divorce had to go through the legal process to do so.
What has since followed, especially with my generation (but also in older and younger generations), are dating couples moving in together before marriage, under the premise of “testing out” marriage to see if it were viable for them. Even though I have never done this myself, I understand that it includes things like living together, managing chores together, sleeping in the same bed, and yes, even having sex (and sometimes having kids together!). Basically, it’s not just “testing out” marriage, but living as if they were married, without actually being married. And, like the gradual acceptance of “no-fault divorce” in our culture, it has also taken time for the gradual acceptance (or “getting used to”) of heterosexual couples (again, “not just the gays”) living together, unmarried, but basically as if they were married. This is a significant part of not only the consequence, but the next-generation legacy of “no-fault” divorce.
As a result, I believe that being used to heterosexual couples living together but not married is what it’s taken to pave the way for gay marriage to eventually become universally “accepted" (i.e. legislated). For this to work, our perception (as a society) of marriage itself needed to be eroded first. If no-fault divorce changes marriage to where is no longer a covenant, i.e. for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, etc., until death do we part, then it also opens the door for the true validity marriage itself to be questioned. “What is marriage?” “If marriage is no longer a covenant, because couples have the freedom to come together and break apart at any time, then who says that it can only be between one man and one woman?” And because of this erosion, we’ve also eroded God out of the picture.
Obviously, as a Christian, I would care if and when God gets eroded out of the picture. But why does this matter in this context? Why is marriage the way God designed it so important, and why is the idea of anything related to God’s design so important? Marriage, after all, is held together, because of God’s explicit design as described in the Bible.
OK — to appease the evolutionists who think the beginning of the book of Genesis is garbage, but somehow also like or are curious about Jesus, I will now repeat part of the passage from Matthew’s transcript of Jesus’ sayings and doings that I had posted earlier in this post:
Anytime we remove any aspect of God’s design, not only do we offend God, but we also begin to remove reminders of His presence and His influence in our culture. In other words, we begin shifting from a world where there is a God and the only true God is the God of the Bible, to a godless world where, if there is no God, then anything goes. This shift absolutely has applied to marriage in the US. Jesus very clearly stated that divorce is not ok, something that was recorded multiple times. Once we started passing the “no-fault divorce” law, we basically defied Jesus, and we also removed His truth, by law, from marriage. I wasn’t alive yet in 1970, but I can only imagine that it probably wasn’t something that was super-noticed. And the fact that it began in California, a state that was already known as “the Hollywood state,” people in other, more conservative parts of the country likely didn’t have any concern that this kind of thing would last, let alone spread, let alone spread to their neck of the woods. Either folks didn’t notice, or folks noticed but didn’t care enough, and certainly if anyone did care and try to stop the popularity of this law, it was by then too late.
So, while Jesus didn't explicitly talk about homosexuality, He did speak directly about divorce, and He also spoke directly about what God designed marriage to be. Since a key part of the pro-homosexuality platform is the idea that gay "marriage" is ok, it's important to point out that even Jesus Himself explicitly says that marriage is for one man and one woman. Anything outside of the boundaries of God's design, is counter to God's will and therefore considered a crime against God. As much as I'd like to try to soften the blow or to say something to reassure those that are angry, I can't. God didn't change His truth for me. But what I can say is He was kind and gentle and patient with me while I was raging and fuming over it, uttering things like: "love is love! Why can't You understand that?!" The funny thing is, His love toward me was love, but in a completely different way. God didn't agree with me, and He did correct me, and He still loved me through and through, even though it was hard. And through this process, I have full confidence that anyone out there who has same-sex attraction, considers themselves gay (or lesbian), and perhaps has a romantic partner or even a civil union partner, and is angry at God or at Christians over this topic, God can still reach that person and show them His love.
Jesus still loves each and every one of us, unconditionally. But we have to receive it, and in order to do so, we have to turn from our ways to follow His will, whether it's moving on from a homosexual relationship, or something completely different that gets in the way of us obeying Him.
Why is this important? To answer that, I now wish to delve into some lesser-known moments in 20th-century US history. In 1970, then-governor of California Ronald Reagan passed a law allowing no-fault divorce. Over time, other states followed suit, with the state of New York as the final one to pass such a law (they did so in 2010). Today, no-fault divorces are allowed nation-wide, although there is no unified national law for it. But what followed after the first domino fell was a fundamental shift over the next generation not only in perceptions of marriages but also specifically how children experienced “family.” As a disclosure, I was born into and grew up in this. And, so were many of my peers. Instead of being a covenant that was to be honored and treasured, marriage became limited to a legal document that could be overthrown for any reason. The only stipulation was, couples (or even individuals) wanting to divorce had to go through the legal process to do so.
What has since followed, especially with my generation (but also in older and younger generations), are dating couples moving in together before marriage, under the premise of “testing out” marriage to see if it were viable for them. Even though I have never done this myself, I understand that it includes things like living together, managing chores together, sleeping in the same bed, and yes, even having sex (and sometimes having kids together!). Basically, it’s not just “testing out” marriage, but living as if they were married, without actually being married. And, like the gradual acceptance of “no-fault divorce” in our culture, it has also taken time for the gradual acceptance (or “getting used to”) of heterosexual couples (again, “not just the gays”) living together, unmarried, but basically as if they were married. This is a significant part of not only the consequence, but the next-generation legacy of “no-fault” divorce.
As a result, I believe that being used to heterosexual couples living together but not married is what it’s taken to pave the way for gay marriage to eventually become universally “accepted" (i.e. legislated). For this to work, our perception (as a society) of marriage itself needed to be eroded first. If no-fault divorce changes marriage to where is no longer a covenant, i.e. for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, etc., until death do we part, then it also opens the door for the true validity marriage itself to be questioned. “What is marriage?” “If marriage is no longer a covenant, because couples have the freedom to come together and break apart at any time, then who says that it can only be between one man and one woman?” And because of this erosion, we’ve also eroded God out of the picture.
Obviously, as a Christian, I would care if and when God gets eroded out of the picture. But why does this matter in this context? Why is marriage the way God designed it so important, and why is the idea of anything related to God’s design so important? Marriage, after all, is held together, because of God’s explicit design as described in the Bible.
20 But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Genesis 2:20-24To start, this passage, from shortly after the beginning of time… [Yes, you evolutionists, I hear you. I’m not going to address creationism vs evolutionism in this post. Sorry. Another day.] … describes not only marriage, but also the design aspect of man and woman, and why man and woman are a natural fit together. God created a woman out of the man’s rib. So the picture of marriage, of partnership, of union, is much more than just two consenting opposite-sex individuals who are attracted to each other.
OK — to appease the evolutionists who think the beginning of the book of Genesis is garbage, but somehow also like or are curious about Jesus, I will now repeat part of the passage from Matthew’s transcript of Jesus’ sayings and doings that I had posted earlier in this post:
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19:4-6 (see also Mark 10:6-9)So, Jesus actually cares about this. I previous gave this passage a pass, because He was responding to the Pharisees who were trying to trap him, and as such a possible reaction could very well have been; “well, He was backed into a corner so He had to say something!” Going back to the passage this time, even if Jesus was supposedly put in a trap, He still answered powerfully. He reiterated the truth that was said in the Book of Genesis. By doing so, He affirmed not the authority of the text in the first part of Genesis, but also the authority of God’s design for marriage.
Anytime we remove any aspect of God’s design, not only do we offend God, but we also begin to remove reminders of His presence and His influence in our culture. In other words, we begin shifting from a world where there is a God and the only true God is the God of the Bible, to a godless world where, if there is no God, then anything goes. This shift absolutely has applied to marriage in the US. Jesus very clearly stated that divorce is not ok, something that was recorded multiple times. Once we started passing the “no-fault divorce” law, we basically defied Jesus, and we also removed His truth, by law, from marriage. I wasn’t alive yet in 1970, but I can only imagine that it probably wasn’t something that was super-noticed. And the fact that it began in California, a state that was already known as “the Hollywood state,” people in other, more conservative parts of the country likely didn’t have any concern that this kind of thing would last, let alone spread, let alone spread to their neck of the woods. Either folks didn’t notice, or folks noticed but didn’t care enough, and certainly if anyone did care and try to stop the popularity of this law, it was by then too late.
So, while Jesus didn't explicitly talk about homosexuality, He did speak directly about divorce, and He also spoke directly about what God designed marriage to be. Since a key part of the pro-homosexuality platform is the idea that gay "marriage" is ok, it's important to point out that even Jesus Himself explicitly says that marriage is for one man and one woman. Anything outside of the boundaries of God's design, is counter to God's will and therefore considered a crime against God. As much as I'd like to try to soften the blow or to say something to reassure those that are angry, I can't. God didn't change His truth for me. But what I can say is He was kind and gentle and patient with me while I was raging and fuming over it, uttering things like: "love is love! Why can't You understand that?!" The funny thing is, His love toward me was love, but in a completely different way. God didn't agree with me, and He did correct me, and He still loved me through and through, even though it was hard. And through this process, I have full confidence that anyone out there who has same-sex attraction, considers themselves gay (or lesbian), and perhaps has a romantic partner or even a civil union partner, and is angry at God or at Christians over this topic, God can still reach that person and show them His love.
Jesus still loves each and every one of us, unconditionally. But we have to receive it, and in order to do so, we have to turn from our ways to follow His will, whether it's moving on from a homosexual relationship, or something completely different that gets in the way of us obeying Him.
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