Miraculously Diverse

There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. (1 Corinthians 12.4-6)

Everything Falls Into Place

When people ask what I do for a living, I blithely answer, “I put on shows in barns.” There’s always a chuckle, followed by, “No, really, what do you do?” And I explain that I actually do put on shows in barns. Corporate clients hire the teams I work with to stage large employee gatherings. We start with nothing but an idea and figure out how to fashion live experiences that convey the messages our clients want to deliver. I’m the creative director—the idea guy. But the finest ideas in the world will come to naught without the rest of the team doing its best to bring them to life. The event producer visits the selected location and evaluates the available space—usually a large hotel ballroom or convention hall—to see what’s possible. Then we add designers and technicians, all of whom take responsibility for their share of pulling the pieces together. When I arrive onsite, I walk into a hollow room rapidly being transformed into a meeting venue. The stage is under construction. Lighting and sound gear is being rigged. Video equipment is put in place. In roughly 24 hours, a barren room becomes a theatrical environment where all the creative elements come together to inform and motivate an audience of several hundred people. 

Obviously, I could never do this on my own. The task is too great. It requires more time and manpower than I could possibly provide. But, more than that, I don’t possess the talent and know-how to do it alone. And one of the first lessons in my business is learning to trust and respect your teammates. They know what they’re doing and if the job is going to get done right, you’ve got to let them do what they’re supposed to do, while you do what you’re supposed to get done. I’ve been at this for 25 years now; to this day, I don’t really understand how everything falls into place. But it does.

This is the principle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12, where he discusses diversity of gifts. Initially, his explanation of how the Body of Christ functions would seem logically straightforward. “The community of believers is equipped with an enormous variety of talents and abilities,” he says, “all of them provided by the same Lord.” If we use my profession as a metaphor, Paul is telling us that God is the Client. God selects and endows each of us with gifts so that, working together, we can create something out of nothing, something that will bring God’s vision and message to life. Whether or not we accomplish what God desires of us depends on three things: recognition of talents we’re given, willingness to participate, and ability to trust and respect those we work with. The task is too great for one of us to manage alone. And although we will never fully understand how everything falls into place, when we commit our talents to God’s use, somehow the work gets done.

The Common Good

Once we digest Paul’s explanation, however, things become less clear. We start asking questions. What are my gifts? What do I bring to this project? Where are my strengths and, conversely, where am I limited? All of this boils down to the hardest question of all: who does God want me to be—what does God want me to do—to help build God’s kingdom? Some soul-searching is required. We need to inventory our talents to discern how they can be used constructively in the community of faith. Alas, Paul’s practicality falls by the wayside when he lists gifts God has given the Body. He dives into the mystical end of the pool, describing decidedly supernatural abilities: spiritual wisdom, knowledge, and discernment, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, diverse tongues and interpretations of tongues.

If such phenomena were evident in our lives, most of us wouldn’t know how to recognize them—let alone deploy them properly. While we may have witnessed these gifts in others, we shouldn’t mistake Paul’s roster as definitive. Nor should we imagine that not possessing these specific talents precludes us from offering the gifts God has bestowed on us. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,” verse 7 says. The ultimate question becomes, “How do I manifest God’s Spirit in my life?” And that can happen in an infinite variety of ways. Some of us possess gifts of joy, others gifts of compassion, and still others gifts of service, activity, and artistry. Every list of gifts is unique to each believer, all of them provided for the common good. Whatever we contribute to the building of God’s kingdom is worthy and necessary. So what are your gifts?

Miracle Workers

There is a second part of Paul’s story we should also reckon with. Often we know what our gifts are, but we worship and serve in faith traditions where they’re unwelcome—not because they’re not valued, but because we’re not valued. The talents and abilities God places in us are as native to us as other components of our making: gender, ethnicity, and orientation. They are inseparable from everything else God created us to be. As a result, the compulsion to use our God-given gifts for God’s glory often drives us to reject—or hide—our God-given identities. The world is full of women endowed with leadership talent who accept lesser roles for the sake of remaining in patriarchal traditions. Tens of thousands of gay believers endure the agonies of belittling doctrines and preaching in order to offer their talents to homophobic faith communities. Worse still, divinely gifted believers of every kind have withdrawn from the Body of Christ entirely because of discrimination and disrespect. And we must ask, how does any of this serve “the common good”? Why do we cling to religious exclusion when it's so obvious that it causes great suffering within Christ's Body?

Choosing where we worship and serve is a complicated decision based on many factors: our upbringing, where we live, our comfort with certain theologies, liturgies, and approaches to community life. Yet we must come to grips with the dilemmas that grow out of our decisions. If we remain in communities where we must surrender our identities in order to use our gifts, we dishonor our making. On the other hand, if we find new homes where we’re trusted and respected, we may have to sacrifice the comfort of traditions we’ve grown to love. We pray for the day when all believers are trusted and respected across Christendom. And we mourn the great losses that many traditions suffer by undervaluing believers who don’t fit their norms. Paul’s vision of the Church’s vast diversity of gifts imagines a miraculously diverse community of faith. When we make peace with who we are and the gifts God gives us, that miracle will become a reality. May God grant us strength and faith to be true miracle workers, wherever we are.

The gifts God gives each of us are as intrinsic to our making as our gender, ethnicity, and orientation.

Exchanges

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. (Romans 1.25-26)

Bad Faith

I recently heard someone observe that Americans have grown comfortable with war because they no longer have to look at it. When the Bush Administration launched the Iraqi invasion, it shrewdly sequestered the media in selected military regiments, thereby censoring war coverage before the fact. (With their “preemptive strike” came preempting freedom of speech, an insane policy for a government that cloaked its motives in the guise of “spreading democracy.”) Not since the days before cameras documented Civil War casualties have Americans been shielded from the horrors of war. Yet, after Iraq, rarely, if ever, do we see young men and women in actual warfare. Very seldom do we gaze on ravaged landscapes, combat carnage, lifeless bodies, maimed soldiers, and flag-shrouded coffins. By mutual consent, the government, press, and we—as citizens and media consumers—exchanged the truth of war’s inhumanity for a fastidiously polished myth of America’s superior ideals and strength.

Although we quickly realized our government acted in bad faith, it didn’t end in sobriety. Our foolish exchange of truth for lies has benefits we'd rather not surrender. Believing what we’re told is much more comfortable than facing facts and truing our ways. Proclivity for denial has reshaped our character. We now clamor after bald-faced lies, consciously ignoring their power to warp morals and shatter principles. Bad faith born of an ideologically corrupt, needlessly invented war permeates the whole of American society—to the degree that even seeing miseries perpetuated by our neglect has ceased to compel us to correct our errors. There’s always someone in easy reach to justify our wrong by offering up scapegoats. What began as a political ploy has festered into personal rancor and social injustice the likes of which we’ve never known. Why does none of this provoke us to reject lies and reclaim truth? As Paul explains in Romans 1, bad faith breeds bad behavior. Exchanging truth for lies causes us exchange native affinities for ones we adopt in service to myths we invent.

Lifestyle

With the mire of politics being something we do our best to avoid here, we’ll touch lightly on the irony of Romans 1’s prominence in the national civil rights debate and move on. Neoconservative Christians mounting a political agenda of LGBT oppression befriend this passage above all clobber texts. Their reasons for pouncing on Paul’s verdict on idolatry as Scripture’s definitive ban on same-sex orientation are obvious. The chapter contains the lengthiest, most explicit portrait of same-gender sex in Scripture. (Remember: same-gender sex and same-sex orientation are not the same.) Second, it allegedly impugns gay men and women alike. No other clobber text remotely addresses lesbianism, which, if not for Romans 1, would present an insurmountable problem to Christians who condemn homosexuality in principle. Next, as the text can be readily lifted out of context, it’s simple to use and, supposedly, easily understood to say what the clobber crowd claims it must mean. Finally, Romans 1 is the all-time favorite because it suggests God finds homosexuality so disturbing God has no use for gay people. Ergo, this “proves” homosexuality is an elective lifestyle—ruling out any possibility it reflects the Creator’s image or purpose. Drop your guard to read the dismembered passage without prejudice and you’ll see it’s ready-made for abuse:

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned sexual relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. (v26-28)

As it turns out, Paul is discussing a lifestyle. But homosexuality ain’t it. That same-sex orientation is decidedly not what he’s talking about is so apparent we’re spared consulting original texts and clarifying translations to deduce this. Paul (God love him) graciously sandwiches his sensational depiction of same-gender sex between two inescapable transitions: because of this and furthermore. Without naming the cause Paul identifies for behavior he says God detests we can’t define its real nature. Without the initiative to learn what results from it, we can’t discern why God loathes it.

When we do the work, however, we can’t dispute Paul is excoriating an idolatrous lifestyle—a conscious exchange of truth for lies that leads to consciously exchanging native behaviors that honor God Who created us for adopted ones that exalt gods we create. The text couldn’t be plainer about what’s happening, why it happens, who does what, and why they do what they do. If we genuinely believe Scripture is true, to insist Romans 1 says anything (good or bad) about same-sex orientation is to stand liable of the very thing it decries: consciously exchanging truth for lies, thereby consciously exchanging godly thoughts and deeds for ungodly ones. Paul is so explicit about this he gives no latitude for alternate readings. Nor does he leave any room to insert meaning beyond his intention. Either we take Romans 1 in its entirety or we throw it away—and with it, the entire letter, as everything that follows, all the treasured verses about grace, forgiveness and faith, flows from Paul’s opening attack on idolatrous living.

What is “This”?

“Because of this” begs the question, “What is ‘this’?” Like the Jude text examined in the previous post, Paul uses transitions to ensure we read him correctly. And he begs no question, having already answered it with the preceding text:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness… For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forevermore praised. Amen. (v18,21-25)

Two exchanges precede the one frequently abused as a clobber text (“natural sexual relations for unnatural ones”). The first identifies those “who suppress the truth” as idolaters and—on the off chance we’re too dense to get that—the second confirms who they are. They exchanged “the glory of the immortal God” for images of humans and wildlife; they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator. “This” is idolatry, plain and simple, and there’s not enough explaining in the world to contort the text into a comment, let alone a doctrine, opposing same-sex orientation. Paul insists stealing honor that belongs exclusively to our Creator and lavishing it on manmade ideologies and inventions inevitably leads to behavioral trade-offs that foster self-degradation. Since he’s talking about exchanging faithful worship of the intangible God for faithless glorification of tangible idols, it makes perfect sense to underscore physical extremes common to idolatrous lifestyles. (While Paul’s cultural blinders often occlude his detection of sexism and other elitist traits dogging him, his legal expertise as a Pharisee equips him with first-rate argumentative skills. Every situation, metaphor, and Scripture he references to advance his opinion fits like a glove.)

With the letter written expressly to first-century Romans—the all-time champs of meticulous recordkeeping—history serves up a plethora of examples that illustrate what Paul refers to. Perhaps the most prominent of them occurs in the Temple of Cybele, near the Palatine, Rome’s ruling class enclave atop its highest hill. Originally a Phrygian Earth goddess, she becomes a revered figure in Caesar Augustus’s global domination ideology. Romans go to bizarre lengths to display their devotion to her. Priests and priestesses sacrifice their reproductive capabilities to her; men castrate themselves and women employ prostheses to perform sexually as men. Adherents to Cybele’s cult—which include Rome’s power-elite, given Caesar’s ardor for the goddess—also partake in gender-bending sex acts, disavowing their procreative power in subservience to her life force.

After a gruesome initiation bathing them in warm blood drained from a bull, senators and army commanders regularly submit to fruitless intercourse with neutered priests. The Cybele myth holds that voluntarily exchanging their native (i.e., heterosexual) drive, surrendering their bodies to seedless men, pleases the goddess, who blesses them and their nation with bountiful fertility. The same myth brings wives of Roman leaders and those hoping to bear children to the temple. There they voluntarily exchange their native (again, heterosexual) attraction to seed-bearing men by coupling with female priests posing as males. Paul ridicules this as total nonsense. He uses belief that patently unproductive heterosexual activity moves an inert idol to magnify one’s reproductive prowess as a prime example of what comes of replacing one’s natural understanding of God with unnatural trust in manmade gods. In verses 19 and 20, he writes, “What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, so that people are without excuse.”

So that’s what “this” is: an extreme example of bad faith engendering bad behavior. While this is not to say similarly extreme instances of homosexuals exchanging native drives in service to idols don’t exist, this isn’t one of them. In fact, by limiting his illustration to straight people who engage in same-gender sex, Paul effectively neutralizes its relevance to LGBT people. Before we rejoice at one of very few times exclusion works in our favor, however, we should pay close attention to the “furthermore” following the scurrilous depiction of pagan rites. Much more than twisted gender-reversals grow from exchanging our natural desire to honor our Creator for unnatural idolization of human ideologies and inventions. And everyone—gay and straight—is susceptible to these extremes.

What’s “That”?

Furthermore, Paul says, since they voluntarily abandon knowledge of God, God leaves them to their own devices, “so that they do what ought not to be done.” And what’s “that”? “That” is a long list of equally degrading, non-sexual depravities: envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, hatred of God, insolence, arrogance, boastfulness, crafting evil, dishonoring parents, and refusal to be understanding, faithful, compassionate, and merciful to others. “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them,” chapter 1’s final verse (32) reads.

“These very things” also qualify as exchanges signifying previous exchange of God’s immortal and just truth for humanity’s deadly, unjust lies. Awareness of them not only empowers us to judge how faithfully we glorify our Creator. It also enables us to assess the validity of those who misappropriate Romans 1 to condemn and cripple believers, regardless of orientation or gender identity. If they—or we—perpetuate and approve practices Paul reviles, we must repent of our evil ways, turning our hearts and minds back to God. Conscious refusal to true our lives to the Creator’s purpose leaves us to our own devices, given over to sinful desires and shameful lusts. Of course, we need not look at Romans 1 this way, no more than America need look at destruction and suffering caused by exchanging truth for lies. But refusal to see idolatry’s wickedness doesn't absolve us from its blame. “God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse,” Paul reminds us in no uncertain terms.

Closing Thoughts

As we close our series on abuse of Scripture that doubts God’s infinite power and wisdom, denigrates LGBT people as electively disobedient to God’s Word, discredits our reflection of the Creator, and denounces our rightful inheritance of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we’re chastened to search our hearts and lives for indications of idolatrous exchanges. If pain or pride goads us to behave in a manner that forsakes God’s glory and bows to human ideology and invention, we must rectify our course. The clobbering will continue as long as idolatry of erroneous doctrines and hateful ideologies persists. Yet living in an idolatrous world cannot force us to submit to its wicked ways. Jesus came to instill in us the hope, clarity, and power to overcome human ideologies and inventions. We defeat unlearned, misguided abuse of Romans 1 by reversing its exchanges. We disavow faithless human conceits and faithfully cling to Christ’s declaration, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14.6) That gets us to God. That establishes us as God’s creation. That’s why we replace our longing for compassion with Christ’s command to offer it—why we obey God’s Word and pray for those who maintain we haven’t got a prayer.

The Temple of Cybele, where exchange of fruitful heterosexual behavior for futile same-gender rites evidenced the exchange of God’s truth for human ideologies and inventions.

Strange Flesh

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. (Jude 1.6-7)

Cameo Roles

My partner Walt was reared as a Jehovah’s Witness, which is sort of like being a Fundamentalist with a twist. Without exception every practicing Witness I’ve ever met is a model of devotion. Yet, after 20 years with Walt and many visits with his extended family, I’m still not sure what they believe. In the early days of our union, we compared a lot of faith notes and usually ended with one of us saying, “That’s weird, because we didn’t interpret it the same way,” or, “We never talked about that.” One evening, for no particular reason, Walt asked, “So what did they teach you about Nephilim?” I sighed, because Nephilim—who pop up in three verses of Scripture (Genesis 6.4, Numbers 13.33, Jude 1.6)—are one of those conundrums that just can’t be solved. Akin to fantastic creatures in Daniel’s prophecy and The Revelation (a Witness favorite), the Nephilim’s cameo roles in our saga signal apocalyptic wrath (Genesis) and epic confrontation with superhuman forces (Numbers). But their real story is anybody’s guess.

In Genesis 6.4, we learn Nephilim are the offspring of unholy unions, “when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans.” Judaic tradition equates “sons of God” with angels—in this case, fallen ones who take up residence on Earth after they’re ousted from Heaven. Although this inter-being congress infuriates God, Nephilim are spared the stigma of their shameful origins. “They were the heroes of old, men of renown,” Genesis tells us. Humanity catches the brunt of God’s anger. Seeing “how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth” (v5), God declares, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” (v7) Enter Noah and the ark.

The Sin at Hand

Evidently the Nephilim manage to survive the Flood. Numbers 13 reports they’re alive and well and living in Canaan, the land God promises to Israel. Before taking possession of it, Moses dispatches 12 spies to gauge what they’re up against. They return with unhappy news: “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there of great size. We saw the Nephilim there… We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (v32-33) After parting the Jordan for Israel to cross over and destroying Jericho’s walls, routing the Nephilim is the cherry on the miraculous-seizure-of-Canaan sundae. It’s not every day a road-weary, untrained army defeats a nation of angelically spawned giants! Yet a quizzical side of the story gets glossed over. Canaan is a pagan stronghold given to gross perversions that don’t square with Genesis’s “heroes of old, men of renown,” indicating a big part of their story goes missing.

I don’t recall Walt’s explanation of how Nephilim figure into Jehovah Witnesses’ end-time theology. But I can safely say the only times our preachers mentioned them was when they dragged out Jude 1.7: “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” The discussion brooked no curiosity in children of celestials gone wrong. The Nephilim got wrung into the rush to assert homosexuals will burn in Hell. And I know I sound like a broken record. But if we just read the text, intelligently hearing what Jude says, we can’t possibly miss his point. Like 1 Timothy, Jude warns readers not to be seduced by false doctrine. The sin at hand is unbelief. No more than surface knowledge of the Nephilim and Sodom is required to spot the connection. Jude defames heretics by talking about the trouble with angels, not same-sex orientation.

Ignoring Instructions

Of all the mangled clobber texts, the alleged condemnation of LGBT people in Jude is by far the most absurd, because the writer tells us how to read the text. Prefacing the Sodom and Gomorrah example with “in a similar way,” Jude insists we link verses 7 and 6: “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the Great Day.” What do the Nephilim’s angelic ancestors have in common with Sodom? Obviously, they all paid awful penalties for their perversion. Yet the exact nature of their sin doesn’t become clear until we note the “and” that starts verse 6, directing us to verse 5: “Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.” Those destroyed for unbelief are Egyptians who drown in the Red Sea. And why don’t they believe, despite God’s ferocious display of power in the ten plagues precipitating the Hebrews’ liberation? Egyptian fealty to Pharaoh springs from belief their monarch is the son of Ra (“pha-ra-oh”), i.e., another product of celestial and human intercourse.

When following Jude’s direction for reading the text—top to bottom or bottom to top—there’s no disputing how he defines “Sodom’s sin.” The men of Sodom invite God’s wrath by attempting to rape angels. Going light on the original text analysis (for which you’re no doubt grateful), the Greek translated as “sexual immorality” is “indulging in fornication,” in other words, “taking improper liberties.” Meanwhile, “perversion” condenses a phrase that means “going after strange flesh.” (I can’t pass the chance to point out Jude’s word for “strange” derives from the root heteros, “of a different kind,” or that the phrase infers Sodom’s compulsion is highly addictive.) Whether or not Sodom’s men knew their intended victims were angels is open to debate. The Genesis account suggests not. Jude seems convinced they did know and didn’t care, refusing to believe God’s fury at their perversion—going after strange flesh—would trigger a wrathful deluge like the Flood that destroyed mortals who slept with angels or the Red Sea that swept over Pharaoh and his men. But it did.

Only by ignoring instructions that Jude provides for reading his letter can anyone possibly misconstrue verse 7 to mean human sexuality of any kind. And, just in case the common thread eludes us, Jude comes right out and explains it in verse 8: “In the very same way”—one more connect-the-dots directive—“on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.” Beyond making it clear he cites Egypt, the fallen angels, and Sodom as instances of perverse celestial-mortal couplings, Jude also clarifies “these ungodly people” constitute his real focus. We discover who they are by returning to the top of the letter.

Going After Strangeness

Jude begins by saying he “felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” (v3-4) Jude urges us to contend for the faith, to believe God’s Word and its promise of grace for all who believe through faith in Christ. Unbelief like that exhibited by the Egyptians, humans who consorted with fallen angels, and Sodom’s citizenry results in going after strangeness, i.e., overstepping mortal bounds to imagine ourselves on par with heavenly beings. The message is actually simple: stay with what you know and don’t meddle in God’s business.

The comparison of false teachers to Old Testament figures who couple with gods or angels sounds silly to modern ears. Yet legends of human-celestial intercourse were a dime-a-dozen in Jude’s day. What throws us off now was abundantly plain to his original readers. These examples drive home the grave error of those who contort the promise of redemption “once for all” into threats against anyone who doesn’t comply to their beliefs—which Jude says is really unbelief that brings wrath. People who corrupt the gospel of grace and deny Christ’s lordship presume to live above the realm of grace and Christ’s authority. It’s a dangerous place to pitch one’s tent.

Where Grace Abides

The trouble with angels is they’re not us and we’re not them. As humans, we’re totally dependent on God’s grace, which we receive by faith in Jesus’s surrogate sacrifice for all people for all time. Jude’s know-your-place-in-the-divine-scheme message is evident in the New Testament’s constant reminders Jesus took our place. Philippians 2.7-8 states Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Regarding angels, Hebrews 2.8-9 says, “God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Emphasis added.) If Jesus found it necessary to become lower than the angels, so must we. And because He humbled Himself to our level, where we are is where grace abides—not with the angels, not in Heaven, but here with us.

“These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage,” verse 16 says. Baseless condemnation and exclusion exalt those who practice them. It’s a twisted compulsion that no true believer should embrace or excuse. No wonder Jude compares false teachers to humans habitually “going after strange flesh”. Going after strangeness—placing oneself above grace by insisting others are beneath it—overreaches and falls short. It’s a self-defeating route people pursue “on the strength of their dreams,” never realizing they’re on the road to ruin. (In essence, they’re “chasing the high.”) That some dismember and abuse Scripture to deny God’s grace to all, especially a text warning them not do it, is so strange it defies reason. But reason’s absence is faith’s opening. So while they persist in their addictive ways, we follow Christ’s way, meeting their condemnation with compassion and prayers.

Jude’s letter targets those who pervert the gospel of grace for all as an immoral means to boast and condemn. He compares them to people who go after strange flesh—an addiction loaded with extremely dangerous repercussions.

Postscript: Jude’s Doxology

Undoubtedly, Jude is one of the New Testament’s more vitriolic epistles—as well as one of the more impenetrable ones, with no less than eight arcane Old Testament allusions tucked in its 25 verses. Yet few epistles equal the ravishing beauty of its closing doxology, which doubles a benediction and praise:

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (v24-25)

Amen.

Love Is the Goal

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Timothy 1.5-7)

The Scenes Behind the Text

First and Second Timothy and Titus, the epistle following them, are collectively called “The Pastorals.” Together, they offer invaluable advice regarding structure, policies, and procedures of congregational life—even though they address different issues and, given variances in language, style, and subject matter, are believed to come from different writers at different times. Only 2 Timothy is immunized from doubts about Paul’s authorship. Linguistic and historical anomalies strongly suggest 1 Timothy and Titus are composed between 80-200 CE by one or two writers signing Paul’s name to their correspondence. While we would reject the practice as fraudulent, writing under apostolic imprimatur is routine for Early Church writers. Ancient readers don’t share our concerns about date, authenticity, and accuracy; they realize Paul isn’t the author, just as they’re aware Timothy and Titus (of whom we know little) have left the scene. The credited author and addressees are symbolic—perhaps to indicate the letters regard problems troubling European churches (Paul’s area of leadership) and to direct the letters to ministers carrying on Paul’s tradition.

With none of the Bible’s original manuscripts at our disposal, it’s possible 1 Timothy and Titus’s grammatical inconsistencies result from editorial decisions and/or transcription error. Thus, we can’t rule out their authenticity altogether. Still, speculation about authorship remains based on both alluding to events unnoted in The Book of Acts, Paul’s authentic letters, and other first-century church documents. The case for questioning First Timothy’s authorship is especially strong. It focuses on combatting Early Church vulnerability to Gnosticism, a rival, pseudo-Christian sect. This problem doesn’t obtain crisis status until the second century.

In light of our interest in 1 Timothy 1.10 as a frequently quoted clobber text, it’s essential we’re familiar with the scenes behind the text in order to align our reading with its stated intention: “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.” (1 Timothy 1.5-7) These words gain tremendous resonance as we explore the clobber text in detail.

In its full context (v8-10), the text reads: “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

Clear and Up-Front

So we enter the letter less sure of who wrote it when or to whom it’s written than whom it’s written about. And that’s important—particularly for those struggling to free the text from Fundamentalist and neoconservative readings—because placing a broad swipe against Gnostics (v3-7) just prior to rattling off a organized list of offenders (v8-10) appears to toss everybody in the same bin of Babblers Who Don’t Know What They’re Talking About. Which is not at all what’s happening. We need to be extremely clear and up-front about this while “de-clobbering” verse 10. A few points we can’t lose track of:

As a pastoral letter, 1 Timothy discusses, but does not declare, doctrine. The urgent tone and specificity of its criticisms—going so far as naming names—send up flares we must read it with utmost care, since confidential content plainly suggests the letter isn’t meant for wide consumption. Whether leaders or laity, our remove from the situation steers us to the letter’s desired outcome: a Christian culture of pure, conscientious, faith-driven love. That is the test for everything we say, think, or do about the text. Any interpretation evidencing impure motives, unjust attitudes, doubt, or fear of punishment (love’s opposite, according to 1 John 4.18) is not to be trusted.

The false doctrines, myths, controversial speculations, departure, meaningless talk, and ignorance (v3-7) the epistle vilifies are Gnostic beliefs. They have no connection with “lawbreakers and rebels” listed in verses 8-10. The roster is included to equate Gnostics with types of people whose disregard for law and order generates disbelief, violence, sex crimes, and deceit.

Consequently, the text is overcrowded with five parties pursuing five agendas: ancient Gnostics corrupting Christianity; ancient pastors safeguarding Church doctrine and order; ancient believers who seek pastoral guidance for their protection; modern Christians who confine the text to its apparent meaning; and modern Christians striving to free the text from its misinterpretation. That’s a lot of people with a lot going on. If we don’t keep them straight, we risk confusing what’s about whom and how it affects us. So, before we sort out this mess, let’s meet the Gnostics, since they started it.

Know-It-Alls

Jewish Gnostics are hardly Johnnies-come-lately. In fact, they pre-date Jesus, originating as an alternative sect that blends Greek mysticism and Judaic monotheism into a belief system that looks nothing like either, yet often sounds like both. They don’t gain much traction in Jewish circles, however, because what they teach blatantly contradicts Judaic principle. Gnosticism breaks everything down to two divisions: material and spiritual, with the material world being inherently evil and the spiritual world inherently good. Since humanity, nature, and the God dwelling among them are “earthly,” they’re evil. “The Divine,” angels, and their heavenly abode are good.

The Gnostics (from gnosis, or “knowledge”) have no use for faith, as that requires belief in God’s goodness. For them it’s all about what you know. Yet the dualism of their construct isn’t that hard to figure out and “easy” religions raise suspicions. Which is why they embroider their doctrine with intricacies that take years to unravel. They invent angelic hierarchies and arcane pathways said to free the soul from earthly evil. They also spend a great deal of time tracing their roots back to Eve, whom they revere for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. These departures from Judaism’s belief in One True God Who dwells in Creation, Adam’s patriarchy, and atonement for sin assign the sect negligible status in Jewish life. Then, Christianity’s explosion offers exactly what they need to raise their profile.

The Early Church’s radical inclusion of all peoples and rapid expansion across Europe provides the Gnostics a new, far more receptive audience. The Hellenistic side of their philosophy has indubitable appeal for Gentile converts steeped in polytheist mythology. At the same time, Gnostic mastery of Jewish Scripture gives them an edge over less adept pastors, teachers, and leaders. With cunningly selective use of prophetic texts, they mount an alternative portrait of Jesus that solves hotly contested doctrines (at the time) like the Virgin Birth, Jesus’s divinity, and Christ’s bodily resurrection. None of this matters, they say, as Jesus was never human. Like Greco-Roman gods, He was a divine entity capable of imitating human form without physically assuming it. This, of course, destroys core doctrines of Jesus’s supreme sacrifice—a physical atonement that fulfills the Law and Prophets—and the Risen Christ’s defeat of mortal death. Many Gentile converts not yet trained to understand the Incarnation’s far-reaching implications fall easy prey to Gnosticism’s know-it-alls.

Outside of Grace

By mid-second century, Gnostics infiltrate European churches, landing positions as teachers, deacons, and lay-leaders. First Timothy’s writer fires off his/her letter as a salvo that first debunks the Gnostics and urges ministers to assert their pastoral authority: “Command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith.” (v3-4) The writer states the overriding purpose for the command: love, which has no part in religious controversy. Finally, he/she reminds readers arguing against Gnosticism invariably leads to defending Judaic Law, which merely counters one cumbersome belief system with another.

To emphasize this point, the writer slips into “Paul mode,” echoing the Apostle’s great freedom-from-Law theme and paraphrasing earlier letters now in wide circulation. “We know the Law is good if properly used,” the writer stresses. “But remember: the Law isn’t made for those redeemed by grace, whose lives are governed by faith and Christ’s commands.” The Law is given for those outside of grace, we’re told. The writer runs down four groups of “lawbreakers and rebels,” citing examples of each with a fifth default category “for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.” His/her choices are interesting, to say the least.

Extremely Specific

Before delineating the groups, what leaps out at us is the absence of idolatry—a veritable fixture of similar lists in Paul’s authentic letters. That changes the context dramatically, redefining 1 Timothy’s infractions as conscious choices rather than religious error. The reason this distinction is critical to the original readers’ (and our) understanding is basic. If the writer pronounces these harmful pursuits as “sin”—i.e., spiritual failure due to human frailty—she/he concedes the Gnostic position that humanity, its religion, and Creator are by nature evil. Isolating unhealthy practices as “lawlessness” permits the writer to categorize types of behavior that consciously don’t witness “God’s work—which is by faith.” In other words, they mirror the Gnostics’ refusal to believe, trusting only what they know. But knowledge without faith leads to pride, corruption, controversy, hatred, and violence. It defies Christ’s gospel, of which love is the goal.

The four categories demonstrate opposition to mindsets the writer insists are vital to the love-goal: a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. Group One (“the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious”) portrays disbelief. Groups Two and Four—violence (“those who kill their fathers or mothers… murderers”) and deceit (“liars and perjurers”)—exemplify impure hearts, or evil intentions. Group Three’s sex offenders (“sexually immoral,” “those practicing homosexuality,” and “slave traders”) represent corrupt consciences. Once again, imprecise translation encourages us to generalize Group Three’s examples, when the original language is extremely specific.

“Sexually immoral,” put elsewhere as “adulterers” or “fornicators,” is a loose translation of pornois (masculine, plural) from the root “to sell off”—ergo, common male prostitutes we call hustlers or rent boys. (The same root gives us “pornography,” for-sale erotica featuring paid models and performers.) “Homosexuality” resurrects Paul’s coinage for male patrons of male temple prostitutes in 1 Corinthians 6.9 (arsenokoitais; see the previous post for details.) While both texts take aim at male prostitutes and their clientele, 1 Timothy’s removal of “idolatry” from its list and use of a term adaptable to men or women confirms the writer intentionally expands Paul’s scope from sex rites to sex commerce. “Slave traders” (andrapodistais; “kidnappers”) misses the connection to flesh merchants who abduct and enslave people as prostitutes.

The Goal and the Test

First Timothy 1.10 ends up confirming our suspicions the text is not a blanket indictment of LGBT believers. Precisely read and interpreted, it reviles the sex trade—not same-sex orientation—as unconscionable behavior that, like disbelief, violence, and deceit, defies Christ’s command to love. This is precisely why the writer turns to these types to neutralize the Gnostic invasion. The sect’s know-it-all pretense promotes myths, controversy, and meaningless talk that foment division, disorder, prejudice, and hatred. It doesn’t merely corrupt Christ’s gospel of love; it destroys it.

Love is the goal and the test. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13.2: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Believers who leverage so-called superior knowledge to promote hateful doctrines match 1 Timothy’s description: “They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.” Beliefs they advance do not advance God’s work—which is by faith. They fall short of the goal. They need our compassion and prayers.

When we open 1 Timothy we’re startled to find its objective is not to condemn believers, regardless of orientation. It commands us to resist those who leverage so-called superior knowledge to promote hateful doctrines. Love is the goal.

Softies

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6.9-10)

The Guy-Girl Thing

Every blue moon, a poll comes out asking people of same-sex orientation, “What’s the most annoying question you get asked about being gay?” I don’t know why pollsters persist in harping on this, because the results never change. The runaway winner is always, “Who’s the guy and who’s the girl?” The best response, of course, should be, “We’re both women” or, “We’re both men”—or, better yet, “We’re two people.” But that doesn’t answer the real question, which has little to no interest in how traditional male and female roles play out in same-sex attraction, dating, and unions. The guy-girl thing is open code for curiosity about what happens in bed.

Beyond the question’s offensive breach of privacy and implication the inferiority of same-sex intimacy requires mimicking opposite-sex dynamics, it’s also exasperating for its assumption that all relationships, straight or gay, operate on gender-defined entitlements and inequities. (Perhaps the best response would be asking the inquirer to define "the guy's role" and "the girl's role.") Indeed, the guy-girl gay cliché should be trashed along with crude straight ones like “who wears the pants in the family,” “the man is the breadwinner,” and “a woman’s place is in the home.” Yet, while banishing these and similarly sexist syllogisms from common conversation is a good start, it's far from a conclusive remedy. And honestly, I’m not sure one exists. The guy-girl thing—like the race thing and class thing—is so profoundly imbedded in the collective psyche that eliminating male-dominant/female-subservient, active-passive language and stereotypes from the culture may change conscious behavior (a necessity) without making the slightest dent on primal mindset and instinct (a tragedy).

Stamped into Our Assumptions

No better proof exists of how wretchedly the “me-Tarzan-you-Jane” gender bias dogs our species than what we find in gay life. For, while we take great umbrage at the guy-girl question (and rightly so), we’ve also embraced and codified it to the point it’s become central to our individual identities. Go to a male-for-male dating site; before opening candidates’ profiles, you’ll find four bits of info beneath their photos: name, age, location, and preferred role—“top” (active), “bottom” (passive), or “versatile” (both). Gay men and women casually discuss one another’s sexual disposition as “butch” or “femme.” Many have no compunction about transposing gender pronouns as a “between-us” slur—more often than not, an allegedly friendly one!—calling him “her” and she “he.” That nothing annoys us more than being asked the guy-girl question while we’re comfortable adopting its premise as cultural shorthand boggles the mind.

Of course, we see similar paradoxes in other minorities that attempt to deflect disparaging terms and stereotypes by “owning them;” why that is, however, is a conversation for another time. The point to draw for our current discussion is this. The guy-girl thing, with all its nasty undercurrents, is so pervasively stamped into our assumptions about gender and sexuality it’s inescapable. It’s been with us since the dawn of time and colors how we perceive the world, the way it works, and one another. Thus, when we open Scripture to texts dealing with sexuality of any kind, we’re wise to read them through the guy-girl filter, to hear the cultural and religious understanding with which they were originally written and received. Then, as believers who’ve been spiritually and socially enlightened to the myths and injustices of gender inequality, we’re irresponsible not to confess many texts regularly abused to condemn homosexuality ultimately endorse and perpetuate oppression of all women as naturally subservient and passive, intrinsically less than men.

Slang and Coinage

“Softies” is the word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, though not directly applying it women. Instead, he employs the term’s common usage in his day—as slang for male temple prostitutes who take the passive position in pagan same-gender sex rites. “Do not be deceived,” he writes. “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Paul’s phraseology, “men who have sex with men,” bears notice, as when we check the original Greek text, he uses two different words: arsenokoitai for the former and malakoi for the latter. Both terms are problematic for different reasons that lead to the same conclusion.

Arsenokoitai appears to be coined by Paul. No evidence of its usage prior to this writing (ca. 55 CE) has been found, nor is it seen in texts of any kind during or immediately after Paul’s lifetime. The word is only found in one other New Testament book, 1 Timothy (1.10)—which most scholars date as a second-century epistle written in Paul’s name and may account for the word’s usage, as well as the verse’s fairly close replication of the Corinthian text. Although it’s possible that arsenokoitai, like malakoi, is first-century, gay-related slang, its absence from literature at the time suggests not. Thus we have two methods for decoding Paul’s euphemism, and which we choose starkly alters how we interpret the text.

Method One: we extrapolate Paul’s meaning by assessing his intentions in light of the context—the preferred method for interpreting Scripture when the original text can be confidently translated. In this case, the preceding list of behaviors Paul typically attributes to pagan cultures (sexual immorality, idolatry, and adultery) coupled with the subsequent reference to pagan male prostitutes would invite us to assume arsenokoitai is Paul’s term for “homosexual.” This would lend credibility, without indubitably confirming, the passage might mean what some believe it does. Method Two: we break the word down, as we would any compound word (which is what arsenokoitai is) and look at its parts to derive a clearer definition. If Paul intentionally combines words to characterize the persons he’s describing, the term becomes very specific. Paul links arsen (“male,” singular/neuter), o (masculine definitive article, like “el” in Spanish), and koitai (“beds, or places where coitus occurs,” feminine/plural). Literally translated, it would mean “the man in women’s beds”—a virulently sexist insult, since ancient women are summoned from their beds to the man’s bed to serve his sexual needs. To visit a lady’s bedchamber and request her favors would be the height of masculine indignity.

Regardless which method we use, it’s obvious breakdown of gender roles is what convinces Paul the acts he decries—whatever they are, as we can't be certain due to his coinage—are unnatural. Confidence this is a guy-girl thing and not to be misconstrued as condemnation of guy-guy and girl-girl things rests in the second “men,” whom Paul portrays with the Greek adjective for “soft” or “fancy” (malakoi). Matthew and Luke use the singular form to describe “fine” clothing, and, in Corinth, it’s a familiar appellation for male sex workers in pagan temples. These men, respected as professionals serving a religious function, only make themselves available for same-gender rituals. They aren’t “rent boys” men summon to fulfill their homoerotic desires. Sex with malakoi happens in their temple chambers, in their beds, according to ritually prescribed terms. While they assume the sexually passive role—which Paul clearly loathes, as it’s the “woman’s job”—that arsenokoitai must go to them and follow their protocol is equally reprehensible.

Diminishing Half of Humanity

The inference is undeniable. Paul reviles the practice because, in service to idols, men debase other men and consent to debasement as women. To put it bluntly, in Paul’s mind and ancient Jewish culture, men are naturally active tops, women are naturally passive bottoms, and anything that varies from his paradigm—whether in same-sex or opposite-sex settings—is unnatural. That places those who accept the text as bona fide condemnation of homosexuality in the dubious position of legitimizing its obsolete view of women as “softies,” inferior creatures of convenience bound to please men on demand with no right of initiative on their own behalf. And sadly, many who embrace 1 Corinthians 6.9’s anti-gay reading find nothing repugnant about its inherently sexist stance. But we who believe Jesus’s teaching and example support gender equality cannot submit to Paul’s rationale. It’s an anachronism, the artifact of a primitive, patriarchal culture, and therefore untrustworthy as doctrine. This would be so even if the reading were not crippled by conjecture, as subjugation of women rests at its core. No scripture—whatever its purported purpose—diminishing half of humanity as naturally inferior can be countenanced. Female and male, we are all created in God’s image and likeness. To legitimize a text that dishonors women is tantamount to doubting God and God’s Word. Constructing doctrine on it—one that promotes condemnation, inequality, and exclusion, no less—teeters (at the very least) on blasphemy.

So we say of those comfortable in taking such risks with 1 Corinthians 6.9 what we’ve said of others who perform similar injustices with previously discussed clobber texts: they need our compassion and prayers.

First Corinthians 6.9, like many of the clobber texts, loses its doctrinal validity not merely for its purported anti-gay views, but because it bases its stance on the assumption women are naturally inferior to men.

Postscript: The Translation Saga

For centuries, translation issues with 1 Corinthians 6.9 have presented an ongoing challenge for scholars and theologians. On balance, the current belief it has something to do with same-gender sex is relatively recent, having first surfaced in the King James Version (1611). Prior to that, the fifth-century Latin Vulgate—on which the KJV heavily relies—translated arsenokoitai as adulteri ("adulterers"; feminine, plural), which echoes the male plural earlier in the verse, possibly to indicate the usage of “women’s beds.” Regarding malakoi, the Vulgate uses mollibus (“luxurious” or “effeminate”) for Matthew and Luke’s description of “fine clothing.” But it uses idolis servientes (“idol slaves”) in Corinthians—a decidedly gender-neutral translation. Given the Vulgate’s closer proximity to Paul’s time, we’re tempted to suppose it’s more accurate; yet four centuries in real time aren’t as close as they look on a 2,000-year timeline. So that’s also a shaky proposition.

The KJV’s handling of malakoi radically departs from the Vulgate, which raises questions about its agenda. It simplifies Matthew and Luke’s usage to “soft," yet pointedly replaces the Vulgate’s “idol slaves” with “effeminate.” Its handling of arsenokoitai is even more curious. It reads, “abusers of themselves with mankind,” a strangely self-contained phrase that disconnects the “men with men” linkage to suggest Paul’s talking about two different groups, not two types of men engaged in mutual acts. (This confusion apparently is somehow tied to 16^th and 17^th-century mores, as Martin Luther interprets arsenokoitai to mean “men who masturbate”!) Some historians have tried to connect the KJV’s overt amplification of gay-slanted texts to the theory King James I was homosexual. If this is so, the KJV distorts the original texts to confirm its patron’s self-loathing and fear—a strange, but not unheard-of, response for personally troubled church leaders.

Modern translations either tend to back off, choosing more generic terminology like “men who have sex with men” and “homosexual offenders” or buckle to the KJV with “sodomites”—none of which gets any closer to solving the riddle of Paul’s intended meaning, and hence offers theologians (or us) not the least bit of help in grasping his original point.