Does the Bible actually forbid same-sex relationships, or have Christians been reading their assumptions into a handful of verses? Read carefully and as a whole, the passages treat sexual union as designed for a man and a woman in marriage, and they forbid same-sex sexual relations where they mention them. Many people hold that conclusion for bad reasons, and many reject it for bad reasons. The honest work happens in between, and that work is what this guide is for.
It has one practical aim. By the end, you should be able to state the best case for a view you do not hold, in words its defenders would accept, before you answer it. You can work through it alone in about an hour, or with a group over one long session or two shorter ones. The material comes from a Jude 3 Project podcast conversation between Lisa Fields, the founder of Jude 3 Project, and Dr. Preston Sprinkle, a Bible scholar who holds the traditional view. Lisa framed the episode’s purpose plainly: she wants listeners to be able to “defend your position in truth and love.” Both halves of that phrase shape what follows.
One limit should be stated up front. No affirming scholar speaks in this conversation. The affirming case appears here as Sprinkle describes it. He describes it fairly, but it is still his account. The practice below asks you to hear an affirming writer in their own words before you restate that view.
Start with who is in the room
Before anyone opens Leviticus, settle what is not up for debate. Genesis 1:27 reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The first thing Scripture says about any human being is that he or she bears God’s image. That includes the gay friend, the son who came out last year, and the group member who has said nothing about her own attractions.
That is also why Jude 3 Project pairs its conviction with its manner. It holds the historic Christian sexual ethic, that sexual intimacy is reserved for the marriage of one man and one woman. It insists that this be held together with genuine welcome and honesty about the church’s failures. Sprinkle shows why that honesty matters. Speaking of his gay and lesbian friends, he says “they’ve been really dehumanized by fellow Christians,” and then he names it: “I think that also is a sin.”
For whoever is leading: assume someone in the group is affected personally, whether or not they say so. Nobody should be asked to share their own attractions, their family’s story, or their current conclusion. Let people pass on any question, and keep the conversation about texts and arguments, never about someone who is absent. If anyone says they are in crisis or thinking about ending their life, set the study aside and help them reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by call or text. Point people who want ongoing support toward a pastor or a trained counselor.
Clear away the arguments that should not persuade anyone
Some arguments are popular on both sides because they are quick, not because they are strong. Sprinkle names several. Two are common on the affirming side:
- Jesus never mentioned it. Sprinkle grants that same-sex relations are rarely mentioned in Scripture. He denies that frequency measures importance: “if we built an ethic around what Jesus did and didn’t talk about, we would have a really weird faith.” He notes that the land of Israel comes up far more often than the deity of Christ, and no one concludes the land matters more.
- Leviticus also bans catfish, so this law is obsolete too. Sprinkle calls this a terrible argument and imagines a judge hearing it: “you’d be rubbing your eyes thinking, is that the best you have?” The same book commands, “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Where a law sits in Leviticus does not decide whether it still binds.
Two weak moves are common on the traditional side:
- Quote Genesis and close the Bible. Sprinkle says Genesis 1 and 2 do not end the discussion on their own. In his words, “a positive affirmation of heterosexual marriage doesn’t, in and of itself rule out the possibility that there could be same-sex marriage.” He warns Christians who share his view not to “want their conclusion to be so correct that they settle for easy, simple answers.”
- Treat a hard word as self-explanatory. The two Greek words in 1 Corinthians 6:9 need study. Sprinkle is careful here: “I’m not saying we don’t know what the words mean. I’m saying we have to do some study to figure out what they mean.”
Removing a weak argument for a view does not make the view false. It only means that view has to stand on better ground, and the same holds for the other side.
Read the passages with their neighbors
For each passage, read the surrounding verses before you discuss the verse itself. A group can split these among pairs and report back. Each passage has two prompts: one about what the text says, and one about how each side reads it.
Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:4-6
Genesis 2:24 reads, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Find what the word “therefore” points back to in the verses just before it. Then read Matthew 19:3-6. Asked about divorce, Jesus answered from creation: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4).
Observe: what does Jesus treat as the governing pattern, and what question was he actually answering? Compare: a traditional reader sees male and female as part of what marriage is. An affirming reader may say Jesus was describing the usual case while addressing divorce. Which reading fits the passage’s own argument better, and why?
Leviticus 18:22 in Leviticus 18
Leviticus 18:22 reads, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Read the whole chapter and list the other prohibitions around it. Sprinkle observes that the chapter concerns sexual immorality, and that Christians would still follow nearly all the laws on that list. His own test for which laws still bind believers is whether the command is repeated in the apostolic writings. Faithful Christians use different approaches to how Israel’s law applies today, so treat his test as one approach among several.
Observe: which items on the list does your church still treat as binding, and on what grounds? Compare: what would someone need to show to set this one verse apart from its neighbors, and what would count as showing it?
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Read all three verses. Sprinkle says the second disputed word, arsenokoitai, first appears in Greek literature here in Paul. He says it is built from two words in the Greek translation of Leviticus 20:13, and that “the word itself just simply means one who sleeps with a male.” He adds that Greek had narrower terms for prostitution or for men using boys, and Paul did not use them. These are his claims about the language, and a group may want to check them against a good commentary. Then read verse 11 aloud: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
Observe: who else is on Paul’s list, and what does verse 11 say about all of them? Compare: some interpreters read the disputed words as naming exploitative practices only. Sprinkle reads them as general. What evidence would decide between those readings?
Romans 1:18-3:23
Read Romans 1:18-32 without stopping at verse 27, and note the repeated language of exchange. Lisa Fields remarks that Romans 1 helps clarify 1 Corinthians, because “I believe that Paul would be consistent in his thinking,” as she puts it. Keep reading into Romans 2:1: “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest.” Finish at Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Observe: whom is Paul addressing by the start of chapter 2, and how does that change the flow of his argument? Compare: how might a traditional reader and an affirming reader each describe what Romans 1:26-27 is about, and what in the text supports each description?
Where the real disagreement sits
With the weak arguments cleared, the honest disagreement comes into focus. It does not depend on catfish, verse counts, or one quoted verse.
Sprinkle is direct that the affirming side has real arguments: “I would be the first one to say that there are some strong arguments in favor of the affirming view.” Later he narrows this to one or two good ones and defines his terms: “a good argument doesn’t mean it’s correct, it just means it has some evidence to support it.” The one he takes most seriously is this: “the evidence for consensual relations in the first century is pretty slim.” The affirming case builds on that point. If the same-sex relationships Paul knew were mostly exploitative, perhaps his words do not reach a committed, monogamous partnership. Sprinkle tells conservatives to consider whether Romans 1 could apply to such relationships rather than dismiss the question.
His answer is cumulative. No single text carries the weight. Creation presents marriage as male and female. Jesus affirms that pattern in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. Leviticus forbids same-sex relations, and Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 echo the prohibition. He also points to the testimony of the early church. He adds a historical claim of his own: first-century Judaism, he says, prohibited all forms of same-sex relations, and Christianity grew out of Judaism. His argument from that claim concerns expectation: “if Christianity is gonna depart from Judaism in their unanimous view, it’s gonna need to be very clear about that.”
The two sides share more ground than people assume. Both can accept that Leviticus cannot be dismissed by location, that the Greek words require study, and that consensual partnerships are thinly attested in the first century. The division lies in one question. Is Paul’s concern grounded in how relationships were conducted, so that exploitation is the problem? Or is it grounded in what the relationships were, measured against creation? A group that sees that question clearly understands the debate better than most people arguing about it.
Sprinkle also refuses to caricature the other side: “I’ve got friends who love Jesus, love the Bible, who disagree with me on this.” He separates people who simply place their desires over Scripture from those who have studied the texts carefully and reached an affirming view.
A practice: restate before you respond
Proverbs 18:17 reads, “He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.” Any view sounds right until someone tests it. This exercise builds the habit of fair testing.
- Before the session, find a statement of the view you find less persuasive, written by someone who holds it. For the affirming view, use an affirming Christian writer’s own account of these passages. For the traditional view, Sprinkle’s case above will serve. Read it slowly.
- Pair up, or work alone on paper. Write the strongest version of that view in three or four sentences, using its best argument rather than its weakest.
- Read it to your partner. The partner says whether a thoughtful defender of that view would sign it, and what they would change.
- Revise until the answer is yes. Only then write one sentence of response.
- Last, note which passage your response depends on most, and what you would need to see in that passage to change your mind.
Leaders: if the room leans heavily one way, assign roles rather than letting everyone pick. The goal is accuracy, not a verdict. Restating a view well does not mean adopting it.
Questions for discussion
- Which weak argument from this guide have you heard most often, and why do you think it spreads so easily?
- Sprinkle says Genesis alone does not settle the question, even though he holds the traditional view. Does that admission make his overall case more or less credible to you? Why?
- After reading Leviticus 18 in full, how would you explain why one law in that chapter still applies and another law in the same book does not?
- How did reading Romans 1 through Romans 3:23 change the way you think Romans 1 should be used in conversation?
- State in your own words the question on which the two sides divide. What kind of evidence from the text would bear on it?
- Sprinkle calls the church’s dehumanizing of gay people a sin. What would repentance for that look like in a specific congregation, beyond saying it was wrong?
What conviction owes people
Sprinkle closes the conversation on the second sin, not the first: “the issue isn’t just solving what the Bible says about same-sex relations. It is also modeling the radical one way love of Jesus towards all people.” He adds, “The Bible never encourages people to be dehumanized, to be unloved, to be untouched.” His own camp, he admits, needs to do much better.
For a church that holds the historic ethic, that means more than politeness. Jesus lived unmarried, and singleness is a full and honored way of following him. Through Isaiah, God promised faithful eunuchs, who would have no children to carry their name: “Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 56:5). A church that asks gay Christians to live celibate lives owes them that kind of belonging: friendship that lasts, a family to share holidays with, and a place to be known.
Before your group meets again, each person can name one practical way their church could offer that belonging to someone who is single for any reason. Then do one small part of it this week.