The first verse you mention is Romans 1:20-28, a “Clobber Passage” extremely popular among conservative Christians who claim biblical support for their personal prejudice against gays.  I have already illuminated the true significance of this seemingly wicked passage many times before in this thread, and yet I am going to explain it to you now – again …

So please, listen this time, OK?

 

Firstly, when we have the patience to read the entire first chapter of Romans, we can easily see that the last half doesn’t “fit” with the first, and that it also happens to contradict the tone of the rest of the letter as well.  Yes, it is true that Paul was a writer often more inconsistent than integral, and yet even so it remains quite remarkable to see him switching so rapidly from speaking of God’s loving “righteousness” in verses 16-17 to God’s abject “wrath” in verse 18.

 

Secondly, another oddity we see in this passage of Romans is the high concentration of the third-person – an intensity that is found nowhere else in the entire epistle.  Indeed, in these few verses alone, the third-person pronoun (the Greek autos – Strong’s #846; translated as “they”, “their” or “them”) is used fourteen times, the third-person reflexive (“themselves”) is used once, and the third-person verb-plural is used repeatedly.  Indeed, any sincere seeker of Truth simply must wonder just who it is Paul is talking about here – just who is this “they” he keeps mentioning?

 

Thirdly & finally, it is critical to realize that the answer to these conundrums becomes clear when we remember to whom Paul was writing and why – that in all likelihood he was paraphrasing in Romans 1:18-32; that he was in all probability reciting some of the commonly heard anti-Gentile slander frequently uttered by the Hellenistic Jews of his day, and that he was doing so to set up his primary objective; an objective he clearly identified when he dramatically switched to the second-person in the early verses of the very next chapter — and argued directly against that same bigoted vitriol.  Let’s listen – first, to the relevant verses from the passage in Romans 1 cited by you:

 

“For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error” – and then, to the far more important passage that immediately follows:

 

“THEREFORE you have no excuse, whoever you are [or “Oh man”; the Greek words eime o anthropos – see Strong’s #1510, #5599 & #444; a direct vocative reference to those advocating the harsh spew from Romans 1], when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself … You say, ‘We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’  And yet do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds:  to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.  There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good … For God shows no partiality.” ~ Romans 2:1-11

So you see, my Friend, in Romans 1:26-32 Paul is not condemning homosexuals at all, but is rather quoting a common condemnation thereof made by conservative Jews of his day.  And what Romans 2:1-11 then shows us immediately thereafter is that Paul actually condemns their condemnation!  He does so openly in Romans 2, and he continues to do so consistently all the way to the end of this letter! (see Romans 3:21-23, Romans 5:18, Romans 7:6, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:28-30, Romans 9:23-26, Romans 10:12-13, Romans 12:3, Romans 12:16-18, Romans 14:4, Romans14:10-14 & Romans 15:2)

 

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God; those who are called according to His purpose … As indeed He says in Hosea: ‘Those who were not my people I will call my people, and she who was not beloved I will call beloved.’ … Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block in the way of another.” ~ Romans 8:28 + Romans 9:25 + Romans 14:13

 

In short then, the passage from Romans that you cite here is actually part of a rhetorical refrain (that should have been placed in quotation marks, had punctuation marks been used by the ancient writers in their day), with the condemnations mentioned therein being blatantly & overtly rejected by Paul immediately thereafter in Romans 2:1-11; a passage in which he essentially stated that we are all to a degree idolaters … that we are all to a degree fornicators … that we are all to a degree of “depraved mind” (and that a significant few of us even engage in homosexual sex) … and that that we are all therefore to humble ourselves before God …

…  and that we are all therefore to STOP JUDGING ONE ANOTHER!

Filed under: Burnishing Bigotry by Scaughdt