By Warren Peel (Pastor of CCF)

This article was originally published on 17 October 2014 on GentleReformation.com.

Is Christianity homophobic? It’s a common charge to be flung at Christians, but what does the Bible actually say?

1. We must condemn the practice of homosexuality

If we have been created by God then he is the only one who can tell us what is right and wrong sexually. After all, if God doesn’t tell us, who can? Is it just a matter of whatever is culturally acceptable? That would seem to leave the door wide open to incest, polygamy, paedophilia, bestiality or whatever in an even more ‘enlightened’ future.

As we look at the Bible, it is absolutely clear that homosexual practice is forbidden. This is clear not just in the way God set things up in Genesis—that he created people male and female and that the two shall become one flesh—but in many explicit statements as well. For example, in Leviticus 18.22 we read: You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And in Lev 20.13: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

At this the homosexual lobby is up in arms, but it’s vital to read the statement that comes just three verses earlier: If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. In other words, God condemns all sexual sin. Too many Christians are soft on heterosexual sin while making a huge fuss over homosexual sin.

The New Testament is no less explicit about homosexuality than the Old Testament. Rom 1.24 speaks of God giving people over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

‘Unnatural’ means against God’s created order. The customs and norms of culture may change and do change all the time, but the Creator’s pattern for humanity stays fixed.

There is no way to get around a straightforward reading of the Bible on homosexuality (though many try to do so in all kinds of ingenious ways). We can’t rewrite the Bible to suit ourselves. Only God has the right to tell us what is sexually appropriate. Sin is whatever God says is wrong. So we have to call homosexual practice sinful.

2. We must accept the people who are struggling with homosexuality

It is not enough to simply condemn the practice of homosexuality. The Bible also teaches us to love people who are struggling with homosexuality.

Homosexual practice is a perversion of the beautiful gift God has given us of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman within marriage. But we need to realise there is a whole list of sins God calls an abomination. Prov 6.16-19: There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. Homosexuality is an abomination—but so are many other sins that we commit every single day. Does our indignation boil over when we see some TV show endorsing homosexuality, but wouldn’t miss our favourite soap opera that is stuffed full of heterosexual fornication and adultery? Let’s take the planks out of our eyes!

We are all sinners. We have all sinned sexually and we all need the gospel of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Our whole self is rotten and needs to be redeemed. Homosexual or heterosexual, we all need a Saviour.

This article first appeared on GentleReformation.com and is used with permission. Read the original article.