A READER writes, “My friend’s close relative is a homosexual and this raises many questions in our minds. Are people born homosexual or do they choose to be? Can you provide any scriptural answers to such questions?”
It is important to distinguish between sexual orientation and desire on the one hand, and sexual conduct and practice on the other. In this fallen world and in our fallen nature, various people experience a variety of sexual desires—most commonly for the opposite sex, but also for persons of the same sex, for children, for animals, and even for the dead.
Many heterosexual people insist that their “natural” urges require multiple sexual partners, simultaneously or in succession, sex with someone else’s spouse, or with someone besides one’s own spouse, or with someone who is not a spouse. However, what is “natural” to our fallen nature is often unnatural when measured by God’s original unfallen creation and by his design for his redeemed people. Whether the causes of homosexual tendencies are physical, societal, or otherwise is really beside the point.
In the beginning, Jesus pointed out, God “made them male and female” and ordained that a man and a woman be joined together as husband and wife (Matthew 19:3-6). That does not diminish the appropriateness or the dignity of singleness, but for long-term human happiness and protection God prescribed that singles remain celibate. For those who take sexual partners, the Creator ordained permanent, monogamous, heterosexual married union as the rule and the norm.
There can be no doubt that the practice of homosexual
intercourse is contrary to God’s design and that it is sinful (see Romans
God’s grace truly provides forgiveness—for sexual sin as well as all other kinds—but that same grace also instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live . . . righteous and godly” lives (Titus 2:11-12). We all are sinners. None of us merits God’s approval and none has grounds for self-righteousness. We must seek the welfare of all human beings, treating each person with respect, acknowledging in every individual the image of God. At the same time—as unfashionable as it might be in this day of moral relativism and political correctness—we must humbly proclaim the biblical standards regarding sexuality, as also concerning such matters as pride, gossip, anger, and hatred. We simply cannot change the biblical standards, and we dare not pretend that they do not exist.