What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?

The Bible’s teaching here does not begin with a list of prohibitions; it begins at creation, where Jesus himself begins. Asked about marriage, he answered from Genesis: “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female… and the two shall become one flesh” (Matthew 19:4-6). Sexual union is God’s gift, designed for and reserved to the lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. Everything Scripture says about sexual sin—heterosexual or homosexual—flows from that one design. So this teaching is not an isolated rule aimed at one group of people; it is a single standard under the Sixth Commandment, and it convicts all of us in different ways.

Within that framework, Scripture consistently identifies homosexual activity as contrary to God’s design—in the Old Testament and, decisively, in the New (Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:10). Some modern readings argue these texts address only exploitation or pagan ritual, but the Church across all traditions and centuries has not found those readings persuasive; the texts speak of the conduct itself, and they say what they say. Faithfulness will not let us revise them, however strong the cultural pressure to do so.

But a crucial distinction must be made, because Scripture makes it: there is a difference between experiencing same-sex attraction and acting on it. Every fallen human being carries disordered desires he did not choose—that is the inheritance of the fall, and no one is exempt. To be tempted is to be human after Eden; what Scripture forbids is the acting. The Christian who experiences this attraction and fights it is not a special class of sinner. He is fighting the same fight every believer fights against the desires of the flesh—and the call laid on him, chastity outside of marriage, is the very call laid on every unmarried Christian (see “Is it okay to be single?”). The Church owes that brother or sister honor, friendship, and family, not suspicion.

And now hear how Paul finishes the very passage that names this sin, because this is where the teaching lands. After listing the unrighteous—including the sexually immoral of every kind—he writes: “And such were some of you. 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 Corinthians 6:11). Were. Washed. In the same breath that Scripture names the sin, it names the cleansing. This sin is not beyond Christ’s blood, and the person who carries it is not beyond his love. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus—none—and his Church should be the safest place on earth to fight this fight and to find, again and again, the forgiveness that is already yours.