It’s odd to think that all of Jesus’ spoken words recorded in the Bible would apparently total only around four hours of spoken words.
We don’t have a history of the Son of God ever writing a single thing down Himself.
The divine, inspired Word of God has provided us with roughly four hours of spoken parables, commandments, and insight into what Jesus felt was essential for us to know before He died on the cross.
The most important guidance was left for us.
The most important stories were left for us.
What God desired us to know about the coming of His son, He inspired writers to capture.
And so, Jesus’ warnings to us about the “extreme perils” of homosexual behaviors and the potential “downfall of society” as a result of them are captured clearly in the Bible in this way.
Here are the Five Things Jesus Said About Homosexuality
Yep — Jesus didn’t say a single word about homosexuality.
In all of the “do’s and dont’s”. In all of the things that were important to emphasize.
He said nothing about it.
As a matter of fact, none of the Gospels mentions homosexuality.
But let’s keep going.
Homosexuality is not mentioned in Acts, sometimes considered the second part of “Luke-Acts”.
The apostle Peter — one of the closest men to Christ and who carried on the teachings of Jesus after His crucifixion and helped cement the foundation of the Christian church as we know it — also did not admonish relationships between two people of the same sex in his writings that are included in the Bible.
James, nor Jude nor the three letters of John reference it.
So basically no one that existed with Jesus while He was alive wrote anything down about His thoughts on same-sex relationships.
Out of the 13 letters in the Bible attributed to Paul, only three have some reference to same-sex behaviors. And of those three, a total of three passages mention it.
This seems like an awful lot of non-communication about a topic that we’re confident is so paramount to salvation that it’s causing a division in the United Methodist Church, yes?
To Be Fair
There are a lot of things that Jesus never mentions, however. I’m not sure that we can accurately say that because He didn’t mention them, He wouldn’t have an opinion on them.
And some might say that in Matthew 19:4-5 that Jesus makes it super clear:
He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Let’s think about the context of this passage.
There was no same-sex union concept at all back in this time period. That’s important to understand. This would be like assuming Jesus might have some commentary on artificial intelligence or smart homes.
But look at that last statement: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
If God brings two people together, then…
What I do think is this — we have to step back and take a look, as a whole, at how the nature of God’s will can be understood by what He has left for us in the Bible. Where did He place emphasis? How do the stories help us understand how to have a relationship with Him?
We don’t give our kids all of the answers about how to handle every situation. If we develop a good relationship with them, however, and they understand our values and what we feel is important to be a caring and valuable member of society, then when faced with new situations in which they have to make decisions for themselves, they have the relationship built with us to use with us in discerning good from evil and right from wrong. They understand our will for them — who we want them to become and the values we want them to hold.
The Takeaway
What I do know is that Jesus spent a lot of time telling us and exemplifying for us, how to treat other people.
His guidance to us stressed that doing harm to others wasn’t acceptable.
He wanted us to know that it was essential to watch out for those who were less fortunate or who needed to be shown compassion.
When Jesus says “do this thing” or “don’t do this thing’, it seems like that’s pretty intentional. It’s something He wants us to remember. It’s important to His kingdom. It’s a valuable lesson in bringing others closer to knowing Him.
So what about all of those things that he didn’t mention?
Maybe we work to understand His nature and His will.
Maybe we should remember His unconditional love for others.
Maybe we could remember that He would want as many people as possible to spread the Good News to the world.
Maybe two people in a loving, committed relationship who both want to live their lives as Christians should be something that we celebrate.
“…let no one separate.”
Yes, but you see…. they can’t…. because….well…..
Love God. Love one another. Make disciples.
He actually did say a few things about that.
