In this week’s episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete and Jared welcome back Season 1 favorite Matthew Vines to discuss how conversations about the Bible and same-sex relationships have shifted over the past decade. Matthew revisits common biblical arguments against same-sex marriage and offers thoughtful counterpoints grounded in Scripture and church history. The conversation explores how a deeper understanding of the Bible’s context can invite Christians to think more expansively about faith, love, and partnership.
Mentioned in This Episode
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Pete: You are listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the Internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
Well, welcome everyone. On today's episode, we're talking about the Bible and same-sex relationships with Matthew Vines. Matthew is the author of God and the Gay Christian: the Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships, the revised and expanded edition of which has just been released. He's also the founder and executive director of the Reformation Project, which we encourage you to look up.
Pete: But more importantly, if it's possible, he's one of our very first guests here on The Bible for Normal People, and that episode is actually in the top five downloaded episodes of all time of The Bible for Normal People. So we're really excited to have Matthew back on the podcast 10 years later.
Jared: 10 years.
Pete: 10 years.
Jared: Woo. Alright, let's get into it.
Matthew: We still need to ask, okay, but what are the core principles behind the Bible's teachings on marriage and sexuality? And can same sex unions fulfill those core principles?
So this is where, and I think that Romans 1 is still relevant. I think that all texts and scripture related to sexual morality still have relevance in giving us a sense of what are the values that should shape a Christian understanding of sexuality?
Pete: Matthew, welcome back to the podcast. And, and we're celebrating, I guess technically the eleventh-anniversary edition of your book, God and the Gay Christian, which came out in 2024.
Jared: Tenth-anniversary would be too cliche.
Pete: You need to do something different. 11th, 12, 17th year edition, and I just, why does it have to be an even number anyway? We're
Matthew: A baker's ten.
Pete: Yeah. It's a baker's ten.
Jared: As they, as they say.
Pete: Right. So, yeah. Anyway, let's, um, let's, let's dive right into this. Uh, what, in the intervening, you know, ten years, right, since you wrote the book.
What sorts of things have changed in terms of arguments? Uh, are people going in different directions or if the same things keep coming up again, um, what's different for you in terms of how you engage people in this topic?
Matthew: It's a good question. I'll try to answer it concisely.
When it comes to the non-affirming side of the discussion, I think one of the main changes has been that there has been a shift away from a primary focus on the six prohibitory texts that refer to same-sex behavior in scripture, and there's been more of a focus on trying to make the big picture case that whether scripture ever even referenced same-sex relations or not, its heterosexual vision for relationships should be understood as by default, excluding the possibility of any same sex unions.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: I think the reason that that has been the move is because if you accept effectively the cultural distance argument, which is, you could certainly characterize much of my argument as related to that. I do think that the types of same-sex relations and behaviors that existed in the biblical world are categorically distinct from the phenomenon of same sex marriages between lifelong monogamous, same sex unions between partners of the same social status.
I actually added a whole appendix to this updated edition of the book, addressing that question. Did same sex marriage exist in the biblical world? My case and I go into detail about some, some of the weeds of some of these ancient texts is that no, there's nothing analogous to what we are talking about today in the ancient world, at least in any of the extant literature, and there's a good reason for that.
It's not a coincidence. It's because for the ancient world, in order for any relationships to be accepted, in order for any sexual behavior to be accepted, it had to mirror the basic hierarchy of society, which was a hierarchy of men over women. And so for same sex relations to be accepted even by the Greeks and Romans, who were much more permissive when it came to sexuality than say the Jews and the early Christians, they still would only accept same sex behaviors that mirrored some basic hierarchy, right?
So you have these clear status distinctions between the partners. Christians then and Christians today have good reasons for looking askance at that and for not, uh, supporting those sorts of same-sex practices. But, so if you then accept that the type of same-sex union that we're talking about today is categorically distinct from the same sex practices of the biblical world, then that opens up, uh, a lot of room in terms of recognizing that yes, the Bible speaks negatively in the six passages that it refers to same-sex behavior, it speaks negatively about same-sex behavior.
But what if the type of same sex behavior we're talking about is fundamentally different than that, then that is not necessarily going to lead Christians to form a negative judgment of same-sex marriages today. So the reason why conservatives, I think, have been shifting more to what you might call more of an emphasis on gender complementarity writ large, more of an emphasis on this idea of just marriage necessarily being heterosexual by its nature is to avoid the cultural distance argument.
If it feels like your prohibitory texts maybe actually aren't gonna take you as far as you thought they would then, so there can be more of a shift in that direction on that side. There's also, on the affirming side of the ledger, I do think that there have been, uh, there's been some progress in terms of some of the arguments getting stronger. That's always been one of my concerns from the very beginning. In 2009 when I was changing my mind about this, I thought, you know, I agree with the progressive view on this, but I don't think I agree with their arguments. Like I agree with their conclusions, that I do think that same-sex marriage is not a sin and should be blessed in the church.
But a lot of these arguments I don't think are great arguments. And I still get frustrated sometimes by seeing some of the popularized arguments on social media about the Bible and same-sex relationship that'll say, oh, Leviticus, that was just about raping children. I was like, no, it wasn't.
Like that's not what the text says and we, or, oh, Romans is just about temple prostitution.
I was like, no. That's not correct, and you don't need to make fallacious arguments in order to come to an affirming conclusion. So anyway, I still feel like sometimes we gotta, uh, educate the masses in, in all directions. And I, I want to have an affirming argument that is, that is sound, that is biblically correct.
Pete: Right?
Matthew: Uh, that is historically, you know, that is, has correct historical context.
Pete: And just, just one quick observation. I think this is a great introduction for, uh, people who are interested in having the discussion. 'Cause you are really coming down on the complexities of dealing with biblical passages.
Which not everyone recognizes, you know, it's clear, it says X, Y, and Z, but there is a lot going on. There are a lot of moving parts about history, and these passages are not clear. They have to be understood historically. That takes some work.
Matthew: It does, but part of, I'll say, part of my entire project from the beginning has been, I'm not trying to pioneer anything when it comes to interpretive methodologies. I want to take interpretive methodologies for understanding scripture that have already been established and accepted in many non-affirmative communities and simply apply those tools more consistently when it comes to the question of same-sex relationships.
I was frustrated by this. I remember when I was in InterVarsity in college and we were reading the book by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. And really, it's a pretty well-done book that has a lot of nuance to it. So when it comes to questions like the role of women or slavery or things like that, they're saying, hey, here, we need to understand the cultural context, historical context, and all of these other factors.
Then when it comes to same-sex relationships, they didn't apply any nuance to it at all hardly. And I just thought, okay, can we just, if, if we're all accepting these basic interpretive principles, why can't we apply them with consistency to this topic? It's because the topic is a third rail. It's because this topic is going to get you kicked out of your leadership position or anything. Okay.
But, I wasn't in a leadership position and I was just wrestling with this as a young person, uh, who felt like the non affirming position was causing tremendous damage and suffering that seemed completely unnecessary.
So I thought, well, I, to me this just seems like let's just apply these tools more consistently. So that's part of what I've been trying to do. And while it is true that many Christians I think are not necessarily aware of some of the nuances in their own communities' interpretation of scripture, you're, it's very difficult to actually find churches that take an absolutely literal approach, right to every passage in scripture.
And so what I'm just trying to do is point out the ways that we're already approaching scripture with nuance when it comes to a simple issue like holy kisses in church, right? You have five commands in the New Testament that say to greet believers, greet one another with a holy kiss. And this was something that was literally practiced in the first century.
And it's not something that is literally practiced in almost any church, certainly in the Western world today. And this causes few people a crisis of conscience about whether they are rejecting the authority of scripture because people just intuitively understand that the principle here, the moral logic, as one might say behind those texts, is to show hospitality and warmth to others in your church community and that we can do that in ways that are consistent with what our cultural norms are.
And so there's simple things like that or you, you can get into somewhat more complex areas around women wearing head coverings in church in 1 Corinthians 11, but there's already, with almost, with every Christian I have ever met who is alive today, I can find some text, some issue, including in the New Testament itself where they are recognizing a gap between what the text says and how they believe it is most faithful to apply that text today, that there is not always a one-to-one application. So all I want to do is say, look, we're already doing this. We already all think this is legitimate in at least certain ways.
I just want to apply that logic to the question of same-sex relationships.
Jared: I, I, I wanna go back to, because you've, you've said a lot already and I wanna make sure people are tracking 'cause I think this is actually really important. You talked about cultural distance as, uh, as kind of the, the hub of the argument that has many spokes, and then you talked about the move away from the, the clobber passages or these, uh, passages that are used toward kind of bigger picture arguments.
So I'm wondering if in our conversation, let's tackle those one at a time. Let's maybe tackle that hub piece, the cultural distance piece that talk about a little more and maybe root it in, you mentioned Leviticus and you mentioned Romans 1. And do that 'cause I think that's really important. What you're saying is we're just adopting-
For me, growing up in a very evangelical conservative tradition, I adopted a grammatical historical, contextually appropriate, uh, appropriate hermeneutic or or way of reading the Bible. This is how I was taught to read the Bible. And so I hear you saying if we were just consistent with that, we would come to maybe some conclusions that the people who taught me that method would not agree with.
And I think that's just a really important part. Then maybe move to these bigger, once those don't hold water, what I hear you saying is over the last 10 years, those aren't holding as much water anymore. So now we've moved to, we've kind of moved the goalpost and so there's some other arguments that we have to deal with.
But maybe we can start with that first one. So maybe Leviticus and Romans as our, as our examples. How is the cultural distance argument made when it comes to those texts?
Matthew: Yes, it's a great question. I'll start with Romans, because I think that's probably the single most cited and important text in the debate, certainly when it comes to the six passages that refer to forms of same-sex relations.
So for people who don't know what's going on in the book of Romans, Romans 1 through 3, Paul is making the broad case that everybody, whether you're Jewish a Gentile, is in need of reconciliation with God. And he explains in Romans two how his fellow Jews, even though they have the written law, nobody keeps it perfectly.
So even a single infraction of that law renders them in need of reconciliation that's provided through Jesus. Uh, but then the question Romans 1 could be raised, someone theoretically could push back and say, but hey, we're Gentiles. We didn't have the Torah, so you can't really blame us for behaving however we want to.
And so he is making a different argument in Romans 1, and the argument there is saying that you don't need written revelation to know from the reality of creation itself, that attests to the existence of a creator. And so he describes people who knew the truth of God through the creation itself, but turned away from God to worship idols.
And then God gives them over, in a series of exchanges, essentially saying, if you don't want me at the center of your life, then don't have me at the center of your life. Go your own way and see how it works out for you. And in predictable fashion, it does not work out well. Paul is, uh, drawing pretty clearly here from a first century BC book called The Wisdom of Solomon.
That, wisdom 13 and 14 is extremely similar in its structure to Romans 1:18-32, where it's describing the origin of idolatry, people turning away from God, and then it leading to this raging riot of murder and all kinds of depravity. And so Paul ends this with 21 different vices, including murder, including that they have no love, no faithfulness.
Slander. Uh, but in the middle of it, there are, there's, there's this, this description of sexual, uh, sin sexual, the sexual exchange as well. So he says in Romans 1:26, even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. And likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and became inflamed with lust for one another.
They committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. So the question here, I believe today is not, did Paul have a positive or negative view of same sex relations in Romans 1? He obviously had a negative view and it's a very negative view of same sex relations in Romans 1, and I don't think it's particularly constructive to try to suggest that he didn't.
The real question is just why did he have a negative view of same sex relations in Romans 1, and is that reason something that would extend to all same sex unions, including monogamous, lifelong same-sex marriages today? So the basic argument that I make in my book, and this is similar to what I was saying about the head coverings, right?
We know what Paul said, or not head coverings, although that too. We know what Paul said about holy kisses. He said to do it, and yet we still don't do it because we believe that the reason why he said it is there's a deeper principle here that might take on different expressions in different cultural context.
So what was the reason why Paul had a negative view of same-sex relations? Well, the argument that I make that I think is pretty well substantiated by ancient literature, and there's a quite a good amount of extant ancient literature, specifically about male same-sex relations and consistently, especially among those who oppose same-sex relations.
You see a consistent theme going back to Plato in the fourth century BC, which is this view that same-sex behavior is really just an expression of excess akin to drunkenness and gluttony. So if you were to go back a hundred years and talk to Sigmund Freud and you would say, hey, why are some people attracted to the same sex?
He would say, 'cause they had an overbearing mother and an, and an absent father. Right? So, no, we don't agree with this today. This isn't this, that, that theory is not held up. But Freud a hundred years ago was recognizing, hey, there are some people who, there's this different thing about them and what's the reason for it.
If you go back and ask Plato, at least if you read Plato's dialogue laws from the fourth century, he says that the reason why some people pursue same sex relations is because they cannot control themselves. And you frequently see this connection that is made, uh, um, among Greek and Roman writers, including those contemporaneous with the Apostle Paul in the first century to specifically, uh, drunkenness and gluttony.
It's similar to “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry, right? Where you're at a party, you're getting drunk, you're kind of just experimenting, you're pushing boundaries, you're exploring, and that this is something that in theory, anybody could have this propensity because anybody can eat too much and be gluttonous.
Anyone can drink too much and get drunk. Anyone can let their sexual desires and appetite be taken too far. And one, uh, particular manifestation of this that was common was same-sex relations. Now, why do people think this way? Because it actually made a lot of sense given the same-sex practices that were predominant in the ancient world.
So the primary forms of same-sex behavior that you see in ancient literature are pederasty, which is a particularly odious practice of adult men with adolescent boys. That was commonly seen as a rite of passage, uh, as horrifying as that is to us, in ancient Greece, and was still practiced in ancient Rome, although with a different class structure primarily.
Then there was also the issue of prostitution. So, uh, male and female prostitution was considered acceptable, was even taxed in Athens. Uh, and then there was also the, uh, having sex with one's slaves, which we would also like pederasty regard as a form of rape. Uh, and so in the Roman world in particular, and there is a fantastic book that anyone who is interested in this topic should read.
It is called Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams. He's a classicist. This is the best book on the Roman context of same-sex relations. And he points out in this book that a Roman man, a free Roman male, was free to have sex with anyone as long as that person was not someone else's property. And as long as that person was not another free adult Roman man, because in the ancient world, and David Halperin is another excellent classist who's described how, especially in ancient Greece, the whole concept of having sex with someone does not make sense.
They did not have sex with people. They did sex to people. That is how sex was conceived of. Whereas we today, modern people, generally speaking, if you think that someone is the scum of the earth, you generally don't want to have sex with them. That's a general principle. Generally, if somebody is going to have sex with someone that indicates some level of, uh, regard for that person.
If you're going to, you know, be intimate in that way with someone. That is definitely not the way that it was seen in an ancient context where sex is not about intimacy. It's not about mutuality, it's not about sexual relations, like there's anything mutual to it. It is about performing your social status, and so a core aspect of performing that status is to reinforce your dominant or your subordinate status through all aspects of sexuality and sexual expression.
So that's why the very concept, and Williams says in this book, that the one thing that a free adult Roman male could not do was form a lasting reciprocal relationship with another free adult Roman male. Which is so interesting because people like to think about ancient Greece and Roman as, like, wildly permissive when it came to sexuality.
And they were in so many ways and in so many ways that they should not have been. And yet, when it comes to the question of same sex marriage today, they would not have had any ability. They would not have made any room for that if it was based on the equality of the partners. So this is why, when you see same-sex behaviors in ancient literature, it's almost always men who are married to women or will be married to women who are also finding this additional outlet for lustful, self-gratification on the side.
So the early Christians didn't just say no to same sex relations. They said no to all sex outside of marriage. So this was particular, and that view today is often seen as like this, uh, stick in the mud, terribly regressive, oppressive view by many people after the sexual revolution. But if you were a woman or a slave in the first century, it was great news.
If your husband or your master became a Christian. Didn't necessarily mean he would, uh, start being faithful and stop, uh, assaulting you. But at least now, he wasn't supposed to be sleeping around. At least now there was an expectation. It was, so, the expectation for women in the ancient world was they were supposed to only have sex with their husband.
Right. And if they had sex with someone other than their husband, and you see this reflected even in the Old Testament as well, uh, but that a man had way more freedom and flexibility, and then Christianity comes along. I mean, even Judaism by the, you know, first and second centuries, BC had already shifted to saying that men also needed to be monogamous with their wives and not have, um, sex outside of that relationship.
But certainly then by the time of Jesus and Paul and the early Christians, the, the standards for men are then made identical to the standards for women. And that's especially good news if you are an enslaved person, uh, because at least now, even if somebody is, uh, not doing what they're supposed to do, at least now you have a higher authority you can appeal to, right?
You have a community you can appeal to. You can say, this is not how you are supposed to be living. You're a member of the body of Christ. This is not what you're supposed to be doing. And so really I think that the early Christians rejection of same sex relations cannot be understood apart from the rejection of all sex outside of marriage.
And because there was no context for same-sex relations that really was remotely similar to what we're talking about today of a covenantal relationship in which sex is an expression of that kind of self-giving, self-sacrificial, covenantal love in a lifelong bond. There was no form of same-sex relations anything close to that.
Then it only makes sense that the early Christians would've rejected same-sex relations categorically. And then when you look at what Paul is saying in Romans 1, and you read it alongside the writings of a first century, Greco-Roman order like Dio Chrysostom. His description of same-sex relations is very, very similar.
That it's basically an excess that anybody might be prone to or pursue if they lost self-control. And so I think we can and should agree with Paul, that the types of same-sex behaviors that were widespread in the ancient world are not things that Christians could accept. And I actually, there's just one sentence at the updated edition that I'm very excited about, and it's in chapter seven, and I added this because I found just a few years ago, a new, well, it's not, it was new to me and I had never seen anyone cite it before in the, in this discussion about same-sex relationships in the Bible, but Dio Chrysostom wrote, uh, an entire discourse about Tarsus, of course, the hometown of Paul, and about how pederasty was rife in Tarsus.
An entire discourse by Dio, who was, again, a contemporary of Paul. And he, it's kind of a funny discourse actually, because he, he, he calls it a snorting disease. He says the way that you can tell if somebody is a pederast is if they're snorting all the time, like, uh, sneezing and snorting.
Uh, it's not probably scientifically correct, but that to me is really interesting when it comes to, people will say, oh, so you really think if we brought the Apostle Paul to, you know, 2025 America and just asked him, hey, you good with same sex relationships, as long as they're lifelong and you think he would just say yes, well you, you can't take someone out of their cultural context like that without, like, the question really is if Paul grew up in an environment where same sex marriages, like between equal partners we're a part of that cultural climate.
What would Paul have thought by the time he was, you know, 30? Well, at that point he's not Paul anymore. Like people have changed so much, but, so I think it matters that you have this. So just from reading Dio Chrysostom, what was Paul's exposure to same-sex relations growing up in Tarsus, it was practices that we all would and should reject. So it's not about saying that Paul, and I'm not saying that Paul is limiting his statements to pederasty in Romans 1. I don't think that he's limiting it to that. I think he's making a general statement about same-sex relations in Romans 1 as this vice of excess.
And I think that general statement made a lot of sense and was a particularly resonant example since same-sex behaviors in the ancient world epitomized that excess. So the problem is that the types of unions we're talking about today, the types of same sex relations we're talking about today, very much do not fit into that paradigm.
And so it's not a matter of saying, oh, Paul, you know, some people wanna say, oh, Paul was this homophobic, bigoted person. No, it's not like, it's not like there was this nice gay couple down the street and he just never went and asked them their coming out story and to learn about, you know, what they went through.
That's not at all what's going on. I actually think Paul's concern and his, his rejection of same sex relations, the reasons he rejected those practices are reasons we all should still be completely supportive of, yeah. Uh, the, the final point I'll make about this, and then I know we have a couple of things to get to, is, so some people say, okay, okay, that may, that may all be true.
It may be true that the types of same-sex unions we're talking about today, right, are very different. However, Paul uses the ca the label of nature, right? He says that these are, that this is unnatural. I think this is probably one of the most powerful arguments from the non-affirming perspective of that even if this is different, that if it goes against the natural order, right, the created order, then it really doesn't matter what positive qualities that it has, it's still by default excluded from permissibility for a Christian.
And so, I had one pastor just tell me if the Bible says something is not natural, I just can't support it. I said, I hear you, and can you tell me how you interpret 1 Corinthians 11? And the typical response I get is, let me look it up, or something like that. Uh, and in 1 Corinthians, you have the same author, Paul, and he says, do you not know that nature itself teaches that it is shameful for a man to have long hair, but to a woman's glory?
He's using two of the exact same Greek terms here for nature. The word is physis in 1 Corinthians, and it's the para physin in Romans 1, and he's using the same word for disgraceful as shameful in Romans 1, atimia. Now most Christians today, including most non-affirming Christians today, and to the extent that they have studied first Corinthians 11, will say that you need to interpret it as something that is culturally specific and that Paul is describing what the cultural norms around hair length for men and women were in the first century Mediterranean.
I actually think that's the only way to interpret the text. That makes sense given that. Samson's long hair in the Old Testament was actually a sign of his devotion to the Lord. That was a requirement of him taking the Nazarite vow that he would not cut his hair. Absalom also is praised as the most handsome man in Israel in the Old Testament, and he had this abundant, long flowing hair.
He said he cut it once a year and it weighed five pounds, just, uh, an enormous weight. Um, you wonder if they added something else to the, um, but anyway, so there's just, Paul, there's no way Paul didn't remember Samson, like Paul was a deeply devout Jew, and so to me., either Paul is just being flatly, contradictory, or forgetting about the Old Testament, or we can interpret his use of the term nature, which is a fairly capacious word in in ancient Greek, that it can have a range of meanings and one of those meanings can pertain primarily to cultural conventions and norms.
So if that's how we are going to read Paul's, the very same author's use of the very same words in 1 Corinthians 11, which incidentally is also a text about gender and appropriate behavior related to gender. Then should we at least not be open to a similar cultural understanding of those words in Romans 1?
It doesn't necessarily mean that that's the best reading in Romans 1, but I think it means it has to at least be a possibility that is on the table that we consider. And in fact, when we go back and look at this phrase, para physin against nature as it's referred to for same-sex relations, we'll find first of all, this is not a phrase that Paul gets from the Hebrew scriptures.
The word physis for nature does not appear one time in the septuagint. Why is that? Because it's actually a secular category. The Jewish category is the concept of creation or ktisis as it was translated in ancient Greek. So this idea of physis, Paul is drawing this, that's essentially a secular shorthand that goes back as far as Plato again in his fourth century BC dialogue laws in which he's also describing same sex relations as this vice of excess.
So by the time of Paul in the first century, this, uh, this, this, these labels of natural and unnatural are effectively like this kind of shorthand that he can use, that he is drawing from a Greco-Roman background, not making a theological statement that is intended to harken back to Genesis 2 through the use of the words nature and unnatural.
So, if again, if we're so, and, and how does Plato use these terms? There are two primary ways that those terms were used. One was talking about the subversion of hierarchical gender roles and patriarchal gender roles specifically. That sexual behavior that conformed to patriarchal gender roles was seen as natural and deemed as natural and sexual behavior that violated patriarchal gender roles was seen as unnatural.
So same-sex relations could present a problem here because you're going to have a male, essentially in the quote-unquote “feminized” female role, and if you look at things in this very hierarchical way, same sex relations among women create the opposite problem, which is that you have a woman, as they would often describe it, a woman trying to assume, trying to take on the superior status of masculinity that she does not deserve because she's the member of the inferior sex.
Obviously that's not what I think, but that's what they were very adamant about. Many leading ancient writers. The issue of patriarchal gender roles is a huge aspect of it. The also, also the issue of procreation and procreative capacity. And then really, it's just a hermeneutical question for us today.
What is basically the hermeneutical status of patriarchy? Do we understand patriarchy, uh, as something akin to slavery and polygamy in scripture where it's, uh, it is something that certainly we see reflected in scripture. Something that is that, that it, that shapes the background of scripture, but the Christians today recognize as essentially a product of the fall, uh, and not as something that we should be, something that God kind of accommodated, but not something that is, should be part of our vision of the kingdom of God going forward.
Uh, and you know, you can draw a text like Galatians 3:28 and seeing this idea of the blueprint of the kingdom of God is one in which these basic hierarchies are overcome.
Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and also male and female. So if you take that view of patriarchy, the patriarchy is not something that is ethically normative for Christians. If patriarchal norms significantly informed this label of unnatural in Romans 1, then I think that that adds a lot of weight to a culturally specific understanding of Romans 1 for Christians today, and that if the reasons behind Paul's negative assessment of same sex relations then do not extend to the sort of monogamous lifelong marriages today.
Pete: Yeah, that's a really thorough dive and I think we've only touched the surface of things that we can get into talking about this. And again, I think that's a great reminder to our, our listeners, that we gotta put our adult pants on here and look at this stuff and, and try to understand it and not just go by verses and thinking, we know what it means when it says, you know, God's wrath is revealed.
That’s a drawing back, like you were implying. Right. And there's so much happening there. And I, I think what I'm hearing you say before we move on to the next topic, um, essentially Romans 1 is not relevant for addressing the question that we're asking today because of the cultural distance. Is that an overstatement or would you agree with that?
Matthew: I wouldn't put it that strongly. I think it is relevant in a broad sense and that it continues to underscore 'cause there are two things, there are two things you can, two approaches you can take with a cultural distance argument. You could say, the Bible does not directly speak to this, therefore do whatever you want.
I don't like that approach because I still think just because the Bible, an argument from silence is not necessarily going to take you across the finish line on anything.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: So I still think we need to then say, okay, I think it matters greatly if the Bible does not directly speak to something, but then we still need to ask, okay, but what are the core principles behind the Bible's teachings on marriage and sexuality?
And can same sex unions fulfill those core principles? So this is where I think that Romans 1 is still relevant.
Pete: Okay.
Matthew: I think that all texts and scripture related to sexual morality still have relevance in giving us a sense of what are the values that should shape a Christian understanding of sexuality.
Right? What are the, and I think what you see going on in Romans 1. That lustful self-seeking behavior is not something Christians should be endorsing. And interestingly, uh, in Romans 1:28-32, Paul specifically says that these people have no fidelity and no love. So is he talking about loving, faithful same-sex relationships?
By definition, he is not. Um. And so, but, so I, I, I would, I would, I would not say that it's not relevant at all, but it's, it's, it does not have a one-to-one, uh, possibility-
Pete: Yeah.
Matthew: For the type of same sex marriages, we are talking about.
Pete: The historical distance. The historical distance causes complexities for how we engage this text, and it's not, it's not a proof text.
Matthew: Right.
Pete: Yeah.
Matthew: And I, I would also just add that in a nutshell, I think that the core principles of the Bible's teaching about marriage and sexuality, especially in a text like Ephesians 5 or Matthew 19, is that marriage is a covenant that is designed to reflect God's covenantal love for humanity through Jesus.
And so through the covenant that two partners make and keep with one another. Um, and that it also radically shifts this ancient idea of sex as something you do too in order to show dominance. The Christian idea is so different than that, I think much more liberating, and it is that sex is actually something you have with someone.
Not as a way of, uh, proving any self, proving anything or asserting yourself over that person, but actually connected to you, you are sharing, you are giving something bodily in the same way that you are also giving the rest of your life to that person in a service mindset, right? So that marriage is about service and that sex, it doesn't, now, obviously you hope people enjoy it too, right?
It shouldn't just be a purely like, ah, this is just a duty. Um, but the idea is that it's, it's, it's supposed to be less taking and more giving in terms of, uh, a Christian approach to sexuality. And so if marriage is fundamentally about covenant keeping in order to reflect God's covenant with humanity through Christ and that kind of self-giving covenantal love, same-sex couples are just as capable of fulfilling that as heterosexual couples are.
And so I get into, I'll go into the details of some of the issues around procreation in the book. I won't do all that now, but I don't think that there's any teaching in scripture that says that sex must be open to procreation in order to be moral, or even that marriage itself must be capable of procreation in order to be a valid marriage.
Even in the Old Testament where marriage was, where procreation was much more significant than in the New Testament. Couples like Abraham and Sarah and Hannah and Elkanah, who no one ever thought would be able to have a child. Their marriages were still seen as valid marriages even before they had children.
And then in the New Testament, the only exception that Jesus gives for divorce in Matthew 19 is related to infidelity, at least as it's typically interpreted and understood. He does not give an exception clause for infertility. And that would've wrinkled a lot of first century men who would've felt like, Hey, if, especially 'cause they always didn't have the best understanding of, you know what, what might be the reason for infertility.
So they would always say, my wife is falling short here, so I, why can't I trade her in and get a new one? And Jesus had no concern for saying that that should be any valid reason to get a divorce. And so I think that also underscores that for Jesus, covenantal faithfulness is foundational to what a marriage is, in a way that procreative capacity is not. It doesn't mean that procreation isn't good, isn't important. It just means that it's not essential, it's not definitional to what a marriage is.
Jared: Right. So maybe in the last couple of minutes that we have, can you take us beyond the text?
'Cause when we started, you said people are moving away from these passages and moving toward these bigger picture arguments. So can you restate what those are and how you, um, how you have conversations around that?
Matthew: Well, some of it's what I just said, um, about does marriage must, does marriage require sex difference in order to meet the definition of what a marriage is according to scripture?
And certainly it's true that there's no, you're not gonna find same-sex marriage in the Bible. And I think any attempts to, uh, try, try to secretly find the gay people in scripture are, uh, misguided. Uh, that's anachronistic and incorrect. Um, you're also not gonna find same sex marriage in what's ironic is, uh, someone like Preston Sprinkle, who's a non affirming author, will, will, will agree with me on that point, but then he will go through these other ancient texts trying to find same-sex couples who he's trying to then say are, are really, really similar to what we're talking about today.
And that's what I, I dedicated a chunk of the appendix specifically to Preston Sprinkle’s arguments because his arguments have gained the most traction on that. And I think that they're all wrong. They're all either misreadings of ancient texts or misrepresentations of them. Um, and so then it really does come down to, okay, what does the Bible itself?
Does the Bible itself, of course, the Bible assumes, takes as a given, that marriages involve a man and a woman. Now, in the Old Testament, sometimes it was more than one woman, right? But there's no, uh, but that's also like, that's to be expected. Of course it does, because same-sex marriage didn't exist. Nothing like that existed in the biblical world.
So the question is not, is that what we see in the text descriptively, but rather like, is this universally and exclusively normative for marriages based on the deepest principles of the Bible's teachings about sexuality? And so if the Bible's teachings do not teach that procreative capacity is definitional, is essential to what marriage is, but rather covenantal faithfulness is definitional to what marriage is, then I think the argument that marriage requires sex difference ultimately fails.
Pete: There's an argument from the Bible, people argue from the Bible. There's another line of argument as well, which is an argument from tradition. And in your book you have an example of that, which I don't think was in the first, uh, uh, the first edition, but Usury, yes. And how people could, could you walk us through that and as maybe a model for also thinking in terms of tradition?
'Cause you know, the church has, quote, always believed X, Y, or Z. And are you saying that the church has always been wrong about this sort of stuff and, and the tradition argument that I find very compelling to help, to help walk through those kinds of issues. So maybe just talk about usury and that that might give us a good sense of what that argument from tradition is.
Matthew: Yes. So I will say, I take the tradition argument seriously. I think you often hear from the more affirming or progressive side of things, just a dismissal of tradition. And people will point out legitimate areas where the tradition was wrong and that's certainly important to discuss. But then that will be used to just say, who cares about tradition?
'cause tradition was wrong on slavery or tradition was wrong on X, Y, and Z issues. I do care about tradition because even though tradition is not infallible still when we recite the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed in church, that's the Christian tradition. I think the vast majority of Christian beliefs are like that are traditional Christian beliefs are beliefs that we continue to uphold today and that we should continue to uphold today.
So I think the tradition challenge is an important one. The argument I made in the initial version of the book, but still in this edition, was focused on the issue of the telescope and geocentrism and how for the first 1600 years of the church, everybody interpreted the Bible to teach that the earth stood still at the center of the universe.
Galileo comes along in 1609, says uh-oh, doesn't appear to be the case, initially is persecuted for it. Eventually though, everybody decides that that is correct, and now we all interpret the Bible differently and decide that, oh, of course they were just describing how things looked from our perspective here, but they weren't trying to write a treatise on astronomy.
So that's the, what you could say, the new information can lead to new understandings type of argument. And I think that has a lot of relevance for this conversation when it comes to new information and new understandings about sexual orientation and even just the types of same-sex relationships that we're talking about today.
But one pushback, and this is part of what I was addressing with the usury argument in this edition of the book is people say, well, that sounds a little bit, you know, that's, that's almost a, that's not a moral issue, right? That's just a, almost a blandly data-based question. And so when has the church ever changed its mind on an issue that was seen as a salvation issue?
Like a huge moral sin issue? You-will-go-to-hell style issue. Um, as the, the church, oh, could never change its mind on something where it, it took that stance on a moral topic. And in fact, it has, and this is a much under appreciated underused thing that I'm hoping to give more attention to. But up until the reformation, the church was completely unanimous that charging any amount of interest on any loan was a sin and a grave sin that would separate people from God and prevent people from spending eternity with God.
People were excommunicated from the church and even anybody who at a church council in 1311, I believe it was, they said, anybody who even affirmed that it was not intrinsically sinful to charge interest on loans was a heretic.
So it's not just people who charge interest, it's also those who are interest-affirming. Okay.
Jared: Not very, not very American, this early church.
Matthew: And so, and, and there's an understandable reason for this. So in the Old Testament, interest is initially prohibited. Uh, it's initially said you can't charge interest to the poor.
Then it says in the Torah, then it says you can't charge interest to fellow Israelites. But by the time, by the time you get to Ezekiel 18 and Psalm 15, interest is prohibited categorically, and it's described in incredibly stark terms that are actually very similar to the prohibition of male, same-sex relations in Leviticus, because Ezekiel 18 describes a man who is guilty of murder and adultery and also of the sin of charging interest on loans.
And it says that the punishment for all of these things is death. These are all abominations tova, the same word from Leviticus 20:13 and 18:22 for male, same-sex relations, and that his blood will be upon him, which is identical language into the prohibition language in Leviticus 20:13 of male, same-sex relations.
Then you go to the New Testament. Some people say, okay, okay, but if it's not repeated in the New Testament, the reason we have an issue with same-sex relations is because Paul also has this negative statement in the New Testament. But by the time you get to Luke 6, when Jesus is being asked, he says, not only he, he seems to be raising the bar even higher.
He says, don't even expect the principle, don't even expect the amount that you lend to ever be returned to you in the first place. He said, even sinners lend expecting to receive back what they gave. Uh, and so he seems to be raising the bar even higher. So if you shouldn't even expect to get the initial money back, you certainly shouldn't be expecting to get interest.
This was how the Church, church fathers, Popes, church councils, all understood the biblical teaching on usury. Today, usury has been redefined to mean excessive interest on loans. That is not what it means in scripture. That is not what it means in the Christian tradition until John Calvin. So you get to, and this also made sense because in an agrarian society like Ancient Israel was, and even like early European societies were, the ways that interest can be beneficial there.
There were fewer examples of it, but they did acknowledge it. They said, well, what if you give a loan to a rich person? No. What if Ambrose, what if you give just a 1% loan? He said, no. You know what Jesus did with the one out of a hundred? He went and he saved that lot sheep, and instead you're trying to turn that warmth into the, you know, in, into death instead of life.
It was kind of a powerful piece of rhetoric. That's really, but by the time you get to John Calvin, as you're switching from a primarily agrarian society where interest was used to destroy people. It really was. And it still is in various ways today, but especially in an ancient context. In a mid, in, in early medieval societies, uh, you know, the serfs, right?
Nobody wants to go be a serf, that sort of thing where you start to get in a debt hole you can never get out of. And then the rich are just able to exploit the poor. It's terrible. And it's clearly at odds with just how we're supposed to act as Christians. But by the time you get to Geneva, right, in the early 1500’s, John Calvin is looking around and he's seeing an increasingly commercial economy develop, where in fact the inability to lend at interest was preventing a lot of people from being able to start businesses, from being able to do things that would benefit both themselves and their communities.
And so Calvin reinterpreted the biblical prohibitions on usury and he acknowledged, he said The Bible condemns this and prohibits this categorically, but he said the reason why it does, we need to understand the intent of the law-giver, he said, and the reason why it does was to prevent the rich from devouring the poor.
He said, we still need to honor what the purpose of these prohibitions and the laws were. But he said our context is very different than the context of the ancient Israelites, and because our context is so different, he said we should permit some interest-bearing loans, not, he still said, don't ever charge interest to the poor, which I think we should have maintained that, actually.
I still think we should have maintained, Calvin is more conservative on this topic than the average person today, and I think we would've better heeded some of the guardrails that he sought to put up against it. You know, when you go out and you see payday loans and, you know, loan sharks today, you're like, uh, this is where the biblical teachings on this.
Some people will look at the biblical teachings on interest and be like, oh, it's kind of embarrassing because we don't, we all ignore this. But it's like, well, if you go to the moral logic of it, it's not only not embarrassing, it's great. It's actually really good. It's deeply humanitarian and justice-oriented, but it is an acknowledgement that.
No one today in the church, I can't find anybody who thinks that it is intrinsically sinful to charge any amount of interest to any person in any loan ever. Augustine, uh, said he, he specifically quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which is one of the main verses that comes up in the con in the debate about same-sex relationships, because there are these two Greek words I won't get into right here.
You can read the book. The question of forms of same-sex, male, same-sex relations, they can encompass. And he says that these people will not inherit the kingdom of God. So people quote this today to say that same sex relationships are a salvation issue. Well, Augustine quoted that same text because it also says that the greedy and swindlers and extortionists will not inherit the kingdom of God.
And so Augustine quoted this exact text when asked about the ethics of charging interest, and he said, no, the Bible makes it plain that if you charge interest on loans, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Full stop. And so the rhetoric of Christian history, they're all the last point too. It's really interesting.
Some of the church fathers argued that interest was categorically wrong because it was against nature. And they said it was against nature because nature only meant for living things to be able to reproduce. And copper and gold are not living and therefore naturally cannot reproduce. And if you are effectively making money in your sleep, you are doing something that goes against nature itself.
So it's, it's actually almost like, so it's almost, it's, it's fascinating how many parallels there are in these debates today. And you realize, okay. That's an issue where for the three-quarters of church history, everybody agreed, thought that the Bible was completely clear because the Bible was condemnatory toward it.
But John Calvin came along, made a very, uh, nuanced argument about the importance of essentially a cultural distance argument that has now completely prevailed. And now we can't even imagine how our economy could function without, without interest. And we still should be honoring the moral, the moral logic of those biblical prohibitions.
And we should still be concerned for justice. And as the Bible was concerned for justice, just as when it comes to sexuality, we should still have, I think, real guardrails around what it means to live a godly life that honors your body and other people's bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit. And we should certainly have a concern for justice as well that I think informed the Christian rejection of sex outside of marriage given so many of the terrible practices and ways that people were being abused sexually.
Uh, but we can also see Calvin as a model of recognizing that what the affirming position is advocating for today is not actually unprecedented in changing, uh, the view of an ethical topic, uh, in terms of biblical interpretation and Christian teaching in practice today. And I think that it is actually a quite significant and powerful precedent for the topic of same-sex relationships today.
Jared: Wow. That was, that was great. Thank you for walking through that with us. I mean, I think there's a lot for people to chew on and unpack. I, I imagine people just rewinding this like, wait, what was that? Right? Yeah. What was that? What was that?
Pete: A lot, lot of, lot of nuggets here.
Jared: Yeah.
Pete: Lot of good nuggets.
Jared: Well, thank you so much Matthew, for coming and, and giving an update on sort of what's, what's happening in the world of, uh, of these churches and people who are really wrestling with this and sort of figuring out, um, you know, where, where is the Bible in all of this. So, um, thank you for the work that you do.
And thanks for coming in and chatting with us again.
Matthew: Well, thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate it.
Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just wanna give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give.
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