GENESIS 1:27
GENESIS 19 (cf. 18:20)
LEVITICUS 18:22 (20:13)
DEUTERONOMY 23:17-18
ROMANS 1:26-27
I CORINTHIANS 6:9 & TIMOTHY 1:10
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
THE REAL CHANGES TAKING PLACE
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Evangelical New Testament scholar Gordon D.
Fee of Regent College says that these two terms are
"difficult." The Fundamentalist Journal
admits: "These words are difficult to
translate." Of arsenokoitai, Fee says:
"This is its first appearance in preserved
literature, and subsequent authors are reluctant to use
it, especially when describing homosexual
activity." Scroggs explains that "Paul is
thinking only about pederasty, … There was no other
form of male homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world which
could come to mind." Ancient sources indicate
that the malakoi were "effeminate call
boys." Though Paul seems to have coined
arsenokoitai it refers, perhaps, to the call boys'
customers, although nobody knows for sure. Paul's
main point, however, is clear: Christians who
slander and sue each other in pagan courts are just as
shameful as robbers, drunkards, the greedy, and the
malakoi and arsenokoitai (whatever they were). The
other kind of pederasty in Paul's day was that of the
slave "pet boys" who were sexually exploited by
adult male owners. The desired boys were
prepubescent or at least without beards so that they
seemed like females. These men had wives for
dowries, procreation and the rearing of heirs. They
had "pet boys" for sex -- hardly the picture of
gay relationships today. The Bible is an empty
closet. It has nothing specific to say about
homosexuality as such. But the Bible has plenty to
say about God's grace to all people and God's call to
justice and mercy. Jesus summarized God's law in
these words of scripture: "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind... [and] you shall love your
neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39).
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