Reply 1: The Silence of Jesus

“JESUS NEVER UTTERED A WORD ABOUT SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS”

Indeed, Jesus never uttered a word about same-sex relationships. But it is inconceivable that he would not have articulated the same explicitly negative moral stance of the Old Testament; we address this issue in Chapter 16 of Facing the Facts (2019), which we quote here:

        “Some argue that Jesus is the champion of the outcasts and rejects from mainstream society and, therefore, that he loves and accepts LGBTQ persons exactly as they are, including accepting any loving behavior consistent with the desires of their hearts. This is a flawed argument. Jesus indeed loves the outcasts exactly as they are, but he doesn’t accept their sins—he calls sinners to forsake their sinful lives and follow him, just as he did with the woman caught in adultery in John 8:11 (Jesus said, “Go, and from now on sin no more”), the tax collector Zacchaeus in Luke 19, and the Samaritan woman in John 4.

        “Some argue that since there’s no record in the Gospels of Jesus directly saying anything about same-sex relationships, we can conclude he has no problem with such relationships. This is a bad argument for three reasons: First, while Jesus challenged religious practices that were based on misinterpretations of Old Testament laws, he said clearly that he came not to “abolish the Law or the Prophets . . . but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). Second, on those few occasions in Jesus’ ministry when he talked about sexual morality, he always tightened rather than loosened the law. He went beyond adultery to condemn lust (Matthew 5:27-30), and when he talked about divorce (Matthew 19:1-12), he tightened the bonds of marriage compared to the practice of the time. Third, if you believe that having no direct statement from Jesus on a certain behavior means it’s okay, what about his silence on rape or incest?”

We believe that in his earthly ministry Jesus Christ never said anything about homosexual behavior not because he approved of it, but rather because 1) there was no argument at the time contrary to the Old Testament teaching (it wasn’t a “thing”), and 2) such behavior was so obviously contrary to God’s will that it didn’t merit discussion.