This is the level to which these discussions are approaching in our day. With the stakes so high, all Christians who hope to faithfully engage in this discussion and demonstrate Scripture’s and the Gospel’s sufficiency to address this highly controversial topic, need to be equipped to respond to arguments like these in ways that are accurate, informed, and full of grace and truth.

As the Supreme Court has recently heard argumentsregarding a federal mandate that would legalize homosexual “marriage,” it’s important for the church to be equipped to defend their position from Scripture. True Christians are not against gay “marriage” because we are mean-spirited, bigoted misanthropes who love to force our opinions on others. We are against gay “marriage” because God Himself is against it, and He has told us so in His Word, the God-breathed Scriptures (2 Tim 3:16–17). Scripture tells us that to embrace homosexuality as spiritually permissible is to commit (or help others to commit) eternal suicide. And no one who truly loves homosexuals would ever be a part of that.

Because God has spoken on this issue, it falls to the church to herald His Word on the matter. Passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 are clear:

• 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 – Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
• 1 Timothy 1:9–11 – realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men andhomosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

However, those who would argue that homosexuality and Christianity are not mutually exclusive argue that these clear passages have been mistranslated. The word translated “homosexuals” in each of these verses is arsenokoitēs, and, the argument goes, that original Greek word doesn’t refer to “committed same-sex relationships” but “abusive male-male” relationships. Such an argument has been widely popularized by author John Boswell, whose arguments, though refuted by Robert A. J. Gagnon, are constantly marshaled by liberals as evidence of the compatibility between homosexuality and Christianity.

For example, I came across a post from Dr. Gagnon’s Facebook page (courtesy of James White) in which a commenter sought to advance this argument. (The following is lightly adapted for readability and accuracy, as the commenter misspelled numerous Greek words a number of times.)

“There is adequate evidence through exegesis of the Scripture and through transliteration of the words in question that supports the view contrary to your belief. 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:9–10 refer to abusive male-male relationships. As I’m sure you know, the former contains the Greek words malakoi and arsenokoitai and the latter contains only arsenokoitai. They each have, within certain translations, been falsely translated to the word homosexual, as these words are not a reference to homosexuality per se, and certainly not a reference to loving, committed, same-sex unions. Other Greek literature of the same period of time supports the view that arsenokoitai makes reference to a male-male relationship with an imbalance of power, for example a pederastic relationship.

“Generalising arsenokoitai to refer to all gay men and women is entirely incorrect. Its meaning is akin to that of men who abuse their power, economic or otherwise, to have sex with another (usually younger and weaker) male, or to humiliate another male. It may even be seen as an inadvertent reference to sodomites in the true sense of the word, being those who wanted to use male-male rape as an act of abuse, hence the term ‘homosexual offender’ in the NIV. The arsenokoitai often took advantage of younger male prostitutes; malakoi is translated to male prostitutes in the NRSV. The arsenokoites was the active male in the pair and, as I’m sure you know, such cult-temple prostitution was very common in the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s time. This is what Paul was referring to.

“On a final note John Boswell suggests in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: ‘Perhaps the most extensive evidence that arsenokoitai did not connote “homosexual” or even “sodomite” in the time of Paul is offered by the amount of writing extant on the subject of homoerotic sexuality in Greek in which this term does not occur. It is extremely difficult to believe that if the word actually meant “homosexual” or “sodomite” no previous or contemporary author would have used it in a way clearly indicated with this connection’ (1980: 345).”

Here’s my question to all Christians who argue based on Scripture that homosexuality is a sin: How would you respond to this kind of argument?

Now, I’m not suggesting that you’re not a faithful Christian if you’re not a Greek scholar. But what I am suggesting is this: This is the level to which these discussions are approaching in our day. With the stakes so high, all Christians who hope to faithfully engage in this discussion and demonstrate Scripture’s and the Gospel’s sufficiency to address this highly controversial topic, need to be equipped to respond to arguments like these in ways that are accurate, informed, and full of grace and truth.

So the rest of today’s post is borrowed from a comment that Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon left on his Facebook wall responding to this argument. In it, he offers 11 responses that demonstrate that the term arsenokoitai (which gets translated “homosexuals” in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10) is not limited to exploitative forms of male homosexual practice. In posting this response from Dr. Gagnon, my hope is that the church will be equipped to love their neighbor as themselves—in particular by helping them see the truth of Scripture and not be led astray by fine-sounding yet specious arguments.

Here’s Dr. Gagnon (also lightly edited for readability):

1. Clear connections to the Levitical prohibitions of male-male intercourse.

The word is formed from the Greek words for “lying” (verb keimai) and “male” (arsen) that are connected with the terms used in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Levitical prohibitions of men “lying with a male” (Lev 18:22; 20:13). (Note that the word for “lying” in the Levitical prohibitions is the noun koitē, also meaning “bed,” which is formed from the verb keimai. The –tēs suffix of the singular noun arsenokoitēs denotes continuing agency or occupation.)

The intentionality of the connection with the absolute Levitical prohibitions against male-male intercourse is self-evident from the following points:

(a) The rabbis used the corresponding Hebrew abstract expression mishkav zākûr, “lying of/with a male,” drawn from the Hebrew texts of Lev 18:22 and 20:13, to denote male-male intercourse in the broadest sense.

(b) The term or its cognates does not appear in any non-Jewish, non-Christian text prior to the sixth century A.D. This way of talking about male homosexuality is a distinctly Jewish and Christian formulation. It was undoubtedly used as a way of distinguishing their absolute opposition to homosexual practice, rooted in the Torah of Moses, from more accepting views in the Greco-Roman milieu.

(c) The appearance of arsenokoitai in 1 Tim 1:10 makes the link to the Mosaic law explicit, since the list of vices of which arsenokoitai is a part are said to be derived from “the law” (1:9).

All of the above considerations show Dale Martin’s argument to be silly; namely, that the meaning of this particular compound word does not add up to the sum of its parts. While other compound words do not necessarily do so, in this instance it clearly does.

2. The implications of the context in early Judaism.

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