There is no shortage of information available on the internet regarding what the Bible says about sin and salvation in general, and homosexual acts as sin in particular.  I came across an article by Kevin Smart (I think it’s actually by his wife, however!) at Light & Life Communications and thought it was good, so I want to share it.  Also, the article contains references to biblical verses regarding homosexuality, so I’ve written them out here for your reference.

For anyone who comes to this article and wants to rave about how I’m picking on a certain sin and somehow that negates the points made–please, don’t be absurd.  Sin is sin, no matter WHICH sin it is (if one can in all seriousness claim that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexual practices, then in all seriousness, it doesn’t condemn anything).  The reason why Smart’s article exists, and others like it, is because so many people are trying to make homosexual acts NOT a sin when they clearly are in God’s view.  The worldly embrace of homosexuality has entered the church and thus it’s a big issue indeed.  Who would accept a church that embraces adultery the same way?  That would be funny, wouldn’t it, to see a bunch of leaders in churches who are proud practitioners of adultery?  Adulterous acts and homosexual acts are both sexual sin–they are outside of God’s provision of marriage between one man and one woman.

Gay Love

A formerly nonexistent point of view in the Christian community is increasingly becoming a popular opinion: A heterosexual union is the ideal, but a monogamous union of a homosexual couple is acceptable to God.

I have wondered in the past whether or not I had any right to question a homosexual’s lifestyle if that individual maintained a monogamous relationship. God has blessed me with many beautiful friendships in my life. Over the years as the homosexual backgrounds of some friends have been revealed to me, I have become somewhat perplexed about why I, as a heterosexual Christian, would have so many friends and acquaintances who are gay.

. . . .  Christians need to be reminded, as I have been, that they are the salt for their homosexual neighbors. They have what it takes — God’s grace — for homosexuals to be freed of their thorns in the flesh, the sins in their lives. We as Christians need to show God’s unconditional love to homosexuals to such an extent that they become more attracted to God in our lives than they are to a member of the same sex. If our neighbor finds in us the love of Jesus Christ, he or she may turn from homosexuality’s embrace. We should not close them out of our lives.

. . . .  Many homosexual Christian activists argue that Christians who condemn homosexuality based on biblical grounds are taking the Bible’s references to homosexuality out of context. There has been much written in support of Christians practicing homosexuality, as these writers retranslate and reinterpret Scripture in favor of homosexuality.

Without taking on the task systematically, I would like to simplify the classic argument against homosexual practice, while not intending to oversimplify it. We need only look to Genesis to meditate on the fact that God created man, and then woman, in His image to be united in exclusive intimacy. Genesis unmistakably teaches that God made man and woman to become one flesh. This is the good and perfect will of God, which men and women have since disobeyed and marred in all forms of sin, including homosexuality and transsexuality, which are condemned explicitly elsewhere in Scripture (rather than just implicitly in the Genesis Creation narrative): Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Deuteronomy 22:5; Deuteronomy 23:17; Judges 19; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:10-11; Romans 1:26-27; Matthew 19:4-5; Mark 10:6-7; and Jude 1:7.  [see the verses written out below]

. . . .  Condemning homosexual relations, I’m well aware, is not socially or politically popular at present, but as Christians we are called to be not politically correct but biblically correct, to seek God’s righteousness and to be molded into the likeness of Christ. . . .  Nevertheless, we can be friends, mentors, prayer partners, accountability peers and witnesses to the gays and lesbians in our lives. Heterosexuals should not think that because we do not have a homosexual past we cannot witness to a homosexual neighbor. In fact, a homosexual who is searching may find the health and restoration he or she needs within the environment surrounding a loving, godly married couple who invites him or her into their lives through friendship and Christian witness. . . .

. . . .  Read more at the link provided (article title)!

Verses (from the NIV) for the biblical references given in the article only (excluding Genesis 19 and Judges 19):

Leviticus 18:22:   Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

Leviticus 20:13:  If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Deuteronomy 22:5:  A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.  [Considering when this was written, surely if someone wore the cloths of the opposite sex it was meant as an act of deception.]

Deuteronomy 23:17:  No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute. [“There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.” 1 Kings 14:24]

1 Corinthians 6:9-11:  Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? 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.  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Timothy 1:[8]-11:  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.

Romans 1:26-27:  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 natural 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.

Matthew 19:4-[6] (and Mark 10:6-7):  “Haven’t you read,” he [Jesus] replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

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.