A Thumbnail Theology – Peter Lundell, D.Miss. revised April 2025
Part One: Biblical Considerations
Most will agree that sexual orientations and practices have become more politicized than most of us ever imagined, and this won’t change any time soon. Bible-believing Christians will get caught in the middle of this whether they like it or not. Should one acquiesce and go along? Is that biblical? Where would it lead? Or does one reject those aligned with the LGBTQ altogether? Is that biblical? Where would it lead?
Historical or social traditions cannot be adequate sources of response because they are ever changing and ever varying. Those who hold the Bible as being universally and timelessly authoritative have the Bible as the one reliable source for an adequate response.
Valid exegesis aside, throughout history people’s interpretations of the Bible have tended to be influenced by their surrounding culture and by the human tendency to want God to conform to them. And people do that by changing their interpretations of the Bible. We see both these elements at play in the ways that many professing Christians have appeased, if not embraced, the LGBTQ agenda. I suspect that some also have a fear of being disliked.
What the Bible Really Says
Old Testament
An often-noted fundamental principle is that Genesis 1 and 2 establish the male and female union as normative in God’s creation. This is biblically irrefutable. Though this may settle the issue for some, others may point out that these chapters do not necessarily prohibit sexual identities and relationships that are not normative, as we see under the umbrella of LGBTQ.
The array of LGBTQ identities, and their resulting relationships, seems to defy limits. Yet the primary, unifying factor is that of homosexuality and its varying expressions. What then might be a biblical response?
Contrary to shallow secular presumptions, love (however it is defined in feel-good ways or mis-defined as acceptance) is not the issue. The issue is holiness and healthy sexuality as God designed.
Like it or not, the Bible has always identified homosexuality as a sin, along with adultery and bestiality. But many things have changed since then, haven’t they?
In the Old Testament, especially Leviticus, we see prohibitions against things that are normal today, like planting different varieties of seeds together or mixing fabric in clothing or eating pork. These and similar laws were aspects of God’s holy nation set apart for reasons of (1) holiness, (2) health, (3) avoiding that which is anomalous, and (4) avoiding things associated with paganism. LGBTQ advocates have often said, with some substantiation, that the Levitical prohibitions have become outdated and are no longer relevant—including Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality.
Let’s look deeper. With most of what God prohibits in Leviticus and elsewhere, the Israelites were simply told not to do them. But two, and only two, chapters exhibit God’s attitude and punishment toward particular sins as being categorically different and exceedingly severe. Chapter 18 specifically addresses an array of sexual sins—incest, homosexuality, and bestiality. Chapter 20 addresses spiritual sins, then reiterates the sins of incest, homosexuality, and bestiality all over again, this time applying God’s judgment to them.
These judgments include phrases like “this is detestable,” “they must be put to death,” “they will be held responsible,” and more. These people must be “cut off” because their acts “defile the land,” and if they continue, the land will “vomit them out.”
All of the spiritual and sexual sins are treated as being far more severe than Chapter 19’s simple statements of don’t steal or lie, plant seeds together or mix fabric. Only the spiritual and sexual sins get vehement judgments. And there is no biblical way around this.
Jesus
Some say that Jesus is okay with LGBTQ views because he doesn’t specifically prohibit homosexuality. He is silent on the issue, so presumably that means he’s okay with it. But Jesus didn’t say anything about incest, bestiality, or child sacrifice either. Thus, this argument is superficial and presumptuous. We need to look at the full context of what he did say.
Jesus rooted himself in the morality of the Old Testament, for example that noted above. In Matthew 5:17 he said he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Thus, the moral, and in this case sexual, principles of the Law are not only still in place but are fulfilled in Christ.
In the Sermon on the Mount he set an even higher standard for everything than what we see in the Old Testament—so high that it’s humanly impossible to attain. In this we see our total need for grace. And grace is always given for repentance and redemption, not to claim God’s love to do whatever we want.
We can also go before the Law was ever given to Israel for covenantal relation with God into which Christians have been grafted (Romans 11:17–22). When questioned on divorce, Jesus didn’t quibble with interpretations or exceptions in the Law. He went back to creation and rooted the morality of sex in the permanent life-giving nature of marital love that God designed in our bodies.
Mark 7:21–23 is Jesus’ sin list, which includes “sexual immorality.” To his original Jewish hearers, “sexual immorality” was defined by the Torah. And the parts of the Torah that primarily form that definition are Leviticus 18 and 20.
And Jesus says, “Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law [a.k.a. Torah]” (Matthew 5:18). So, yes, Jesus would clearly consider homosexuality a sin. And his first hearers needed no further explanation.
But Christians too often overlook the rest of the Mark 7 list: “theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.” All of them, Jesus says, are “evil” and “defile a person.” The church has too often not taken those other sins seriously enough. Jesus’ list indicts nearly every believer at some point in their life.
Paul
In Romans 1:21–32, particularly verses 24–28, Paul is graphically clear that homosexuality is sinful and abhorrent to God. His original audience here is in Rome, where these things were commonly practiced. The phrase “God gave them over” is rooted in the Old Testament and depicts how God gives people over to sins or idols, and the resulting self-destruction, that they have willfully chosen in defiance of him. Together with a long list of other sins, he says that these sins deserve death. But what about grace? Yes, there is grace to forgive and redeem those who repent. This is the message of the Bible. But it’s not grace to keep sinning.
Paul’s sin list in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 is written to a largely Roman audience. They didn’t know much about the Torah, so he knew he had to be specific. Thus he distinguishes sexual immorality, adultery, and men who have sex with men (both actively and passively). They are indeed in sin and “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
But don’t forget the rest of the list: idolaters, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. Paul’s list, like Jesus’ list, indicts most people at some point.
Nothing in the Bible and no version of biblical Christianity affirms that because of God’s great love we may disobey his Word. True love inspires true obedience.
The Three R’s: A Biblical Response
So accept or reject the Bible, but one cannot legitimately say it doesn’t mean what it clearly says. And condemnation of homosexuality and many other sexual sins, along with others still, is consistent throughout both Old and New Testaments.
Yet it might help both the LGBTQ and the church to recognize that we all have a place on the sin lists. Every one of us is guilty of something before God. We all need God’s mercy, forgiveness, and transformation. Thus the biblical question is not simply: Are we LGBTQ or straight? The biblical question is: Will we humble our fallen selves before God? Or will we push our agendas to justify ourselves in defiance of God and demand that others fall in line?
Then comes the key that brings everything into a full biblical response.
In 1 Corinthians 6:11, the verse following his sin list, Paul speaks of redemption in a big way. That is the point.
The point is not about rejecting people. It’s not about asserting supposed rights. It’s about redemption.
- The church must not, and may not, self-righteously REJECT LGBTQ people. The Mark 7 and 1 Corinthians 6 sin lists are broad. We are mandated to love all people.
- The church must not be fooled or bullied into affirming LGBTQ RIGHTS. As US citizens, yes, LGBTQ people now have all kinds of rights. But in the Kingdom of God, there is only one right, just one, which is noted John 1:12—the right to be children of God, from which everything in the Christian covenant flows.
- The church must always be about REDEMPTION—of everyone. This is our mandate, our reason for existing. Everyone needs redemption (1 Corinthians 6:11). Redemption. Redemption. Redemption.
We can debate and question many things in the Bible or in life. But on some things God does not allow alternate opinions. God’s standard of holy, healthy sexuality throughout Scripture is one man and one woman committed to each other through marriage until death. He allows no other legitimate alternative.
If a person (including Christians) is, or struggles with, homosexuality in some way—or transgenderism, gender identity, fornication, adultery, or pornography—true Christians will love and treat them with respect, but true Christians will also not compromise on God’s standard of holiness. And Christians will apply the same approach to themselves as it applies to anyone else. Remember: redemption.
Those who oppose or decry this biblical position are rejecting the offer of redemption. This in turn is an implicit rejection of both the Bible and the God of the Bible.
Everyone needs redemption. And redemption happens when we practice unconditional love on the foundation of God’s eternal, biblical standards and values—and apply humility and honesty with the grace of God to overcome and to live as God designed.
Heterosexual Sin
Too often heterosexual sins like fornication and adultery, along with everything related to pornography and sexual aberrations, have been covered up or given a pass. This is partly because of cultural sin and partly because no one publicly politicizes these sins in effort to give them broad moral acceptance (except maybe in Las Vegas).
We are wise to remember that biblically, these sins will receive the same kinds of judgments as the LGBTQ sins. Biblically, they’re all in the same category.
We should also consider that, like an LGBTQ-aligned person, a heterosexual can say that God created them with a sexual appetite for members of the opposite sex, and therefore, they have an urge to have sex with whomever attracts them. Because God made them this way, it must be okay, even God’s will, and therefore society should accept them this way. This claim is equal to what LGBTQ people make. And biblically it is equally absurd.
Will We . . . ?
In a world that may misunderstand and hate us no matter what we say or do, will we still stand firm on God’s Word? Will we consistently love God first and our neighbor second? Will we decidedly love the sinner while hating the sin? Will we unapologetically live as vessels of God’s grace, modeling and extending God’s design for sexual, marital, and family identity and relations? Will we be loving, embracing, and patient with LGBTQ people who are willing to listen? Will we be brave in the face of those who will not? Will we boldly participate in God’s redemption of a fallen world?
I pray your answer to all those questions will be yes.
Part Two: Practical Considerations
The Two Great Commandments
The first Great Commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37, NIV). This is to put God first, to obey him above all else, to give one’s allegiance and love, heart and mind to God.
The second Great Commandment is to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (22:38). This is to care about any other person as much as you care about yourself.
Both commands use the word agape for love. Agape love is a deep, sacrificial love to intend and do what is best for another person. Do all Christians do this? We all know we don’t. But that is God’s directive and what a genuine believer upholds and aspires to. That is what we are redeemed to do.
Definitions of Love
People who identify with the left, woke ideology, and LGBTQ universally and consistently redefine love to mean accepting and affirming a person and their choices, whatever they may be. You must understand this. And you’ll see and hear it manifested everywhere.
This is a far cry from the love that God commands us and demonstrates in Christ. LGBTQ activists do not believe in “loving the sinner while hating the sin.” Love is all about acceptance and affirmation. And if you disagree with them, they call you hateful. By their definitions you are.
Inversion of the Two Great Commandments
What we see in the LGBTQ is the inversion of the two commandments. Loving others is put first, above loving God, and done in LGBTQ definition of accepting and affirming, including things that are unbiblical. So in practice, loving one’s neighbor (be accepting and affirming) becomes the primary commitment, and loving God becomes secondary.
How is this? Because loving God includes submitting to his Word as the absolute authority in our lives for faith and practice. And the LGBTQ ignores or reinterprets God’s Word to fit their interests (as it is with any group that has an agenda).
A Distinction
A person may identify as LGBTQ because they have a sexual aberration or gender dysphoria. In the way of Jesus, this person is to be loved and accepted as a human being, like anyone else. And this person needs God’s redemption, like anyone else.
It’s critical to recognize the vast difference between this person who may be gay or trans versus a person who is promoting and pushing an LGBTQ agenda. I say “an” LGBTQ agenda because they vary, they change, and they tend toward becoming more extreme. Some of what we are now seeing has moved far into the realm of intentional perversion, especially as relates to pushing ideology and/or perversions on children.
Viewpoints
Leftists, including LGBTQ, consistently see the world idealistically—the way they want to see it rather than the way it is.
Those who push the LGBTQ agenda will, by necessity, have a low view of the Bible, that it is not authoritative. If they had a high view of the Bible, they would not push this agenda. (I’m not saying they wouldn’t have homosexual feelings; I’m saying they wouldn’t push the agenda.)
With a lack of knowledge, or fidelity to Scripture, they conform to the changing social context. You start to believe what you continually hear, and it starts to seem right.
Thus, they do not adhere to Scripture but rather feel free to reinterpret it to conform to shifts in the surrounding society and in their ever-evolving ideology and demands.
Motives
Promoting LGBTQ feels good. Besides the endorphins, it feels good because being “loving,” accepting, and affirming feels good. It feels better than it does when going through the work to try to help or redeem people.
People also have the desire to be liked. Most people have a natural fear being disliked or hated or labeled or cancelled. They want to be seen as loving, good people. And as the society shifts, they ride that shift.
It gives a sense of righteousness and even moral superiority over others, who are considered judgmental, old-fashioned, or unloving. Because we’re “loving,” we’re more righteous than you who are not. It’s a kind of secular righteousness apart from God.
Nothing Happens in Isolation
For a Christian to go LGBTQ invariably necessitates accommodating shifts in theology—first to something that embraces what the Bible forbids. But it rarely stops there. Theological, moral, and praxis shifts like this do not happen in isolation. They will involve other issues embraced by LGBTQ, the left, or woke ideology that vary from degrees of liberalism to rejection of orthodox Christian beliefs.
Remember what happened with the Church of the Nazarene’s co-founder, J. P. Widney, who grew more concerned with opinions and respectability than the manifest work of God at the time. He left the church, went liberal, then universalist, and finally died an unbeliever.
At some point every believing Christian must take a stand on a given issue and say, “Enough.” Isaiah writes in 7:9, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”
See the Fruit
Watch, read, and listen to what they do and say. As nothing happens in isolation, their politics in other areas, their breadth and depth of sexual perversion, and their interpretation of other aspects of the Bible—including things as fundamental as salvation—will move away from the Bible in degrees that vary from mild to extreme. The lines are continually being redrawn and pushed further and further out.
Now even lesbians and gays themselves are disavowing, even opposing, the TQ+. Why? Many lesbians and gays are happy and content with their normalized status in Western society, and they see that the transgender/queer agendas are endlessly pushing too far. LGBTQIA+ parades and events flaunt nudity and debauchery. There’s an endless pushing of boundaries with the mindset that there should hardly be any boundaries. There’s an intolerant pushing of a political agenda that variously masquerades as science, love, care, or whatever is expedient. This is being pushed on children and teens—verifiably grooming them. It presumptuously rushes kids into gender change without truly diagnosing and caring for them—and then hides it all from parents. Ideologically, as part of leftism/wokeism, LGBTQIA+ thinking and behavior is unavoidably inimical and deeply opposed to biblical Christianity and even a monotheistic worldview. They are intentionally trying to remove traditional faith and culture and replace it with this ideology that manifests much like Sodom and Gomorrah. And wherever it takes a place of authority, it literally becomes totalitarian and utterly intolerant of any other view.
Understand: For some, enough will never be enough; they’ll move the boundary lines and keep moving them until hopefully enough people finally admit the insanity of it all and push back hard enough.
You will also likely see people embrace so-called Progressive Christianity, which by its own clearly stated beliefs and practices, is not Christianity at all but pseudo-Christian paganism.
Note the Terminology
Note how the LGBTQ continually changes terminology. A current example: Recently the term “gender minority” is being used—as opposed to “gender divergent” or “gender dysphoria,” which imply it’s not normal. They don’t like that anymore. As the LGBTQ has done from the beginning, they have studied and applied what the original Civil Rights Movement did in the 1950s and 60s. In our current societal context, the term gender minority is loaded with implication—especially in the bifurcated Marxist view that saturates all of Leftism. First, minority carries the implication that they are normal (and must therefore be accepted). Second, minority carries the implication that they are oppressed, therefore victimized, implicitly by people who are straight. Thus, they deserve all the acceptance we can give. And if we want to be loving Christians, we must accept them and affirm as they are. No talk of redemption.
Look Ahead
It’s very easy to see where Christians and churches that are “affirming,” as they like to say, eventually end up. In every case, you’ll see a shift away from Christ-centeredness and Bible-centeredness to politicized social justice and every form of Leftist agenda. On a broad scale, you’ll see it with the UMC, PCUSA, ELCA, and other denominations that have gone woke and then split. Among Nazarenes, simply look at the current ministries of pastors who have been defrocked. Look at social media posts. Look at the outright heresy coming from former Nazarene professors. You will see a jarring consistency to it all.
Always Remember
Jesus did not come to affirm us and make us feel good. He came to redeem us, and we all need redemption from something. The LGBTQ agenda does not prioritize redemption, and arguably opposes it. It’s all about affirmation, which is conflated with their definition of love.
We are to love all people. But we must not re-define love to falsely mean affirming what is unbiblical and out of God’s created order. And we are in no place to reinterpret Scripture when it doesn’t suit us. Nor are we about being a nice, religious version of cultural-moral shifts, regardless of what they are.
Jesus, and the apostles after him, never made all kinds of categories of people. He had—and still has—only two categories of people: those who need to be redeemed and those who have been redeemed. The problem has always been when redeemed (or supposedly-redeemed) people think and act in ways that are unredeemed.
True believers are about redemption of everyone. We’re about being set apart—the core definition of holy—then being purified, Christlike, and loving God and people. We’re about being Jesus’ followers who live for “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Responses
LGBTQ people who are willing need to be loved with true, Spirit-filled, redemptive love, not with superficial affirmations labeled as love.
When a leftist calls you “hateful” or “unloving,” ask, “By what standard?
Most of the time they’ll tell you something about feelings being hurt or that you’re not accepting and affirming what the LGBTQ person wants.
You might ask what gives them the authority to reorder ten thousand years of human history. Or ask what gives them the authority to redefine words in the English language.
Clarify that the Bible exhorts believers to warn others about false teaching or practices that God repeatedly warns he will judge severely.
To warn a person with the intention of saving them from disaster is, by biblical definitions, an act of love.
The Old Testament prophets, Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, Hebrews all do so. They must all be hateful.
The LGBTQ must either say that these many passages of the Bible are hateful—or they must change what the Bible says.
This is why they rarely talk about what the Bible says. Because it does not support their views. Therefore, It’s always about how they feel.
Biology is not bigotry. And loving people does not require the absence of boundaries.
