Romans 1 doesn't say what you think it says...
Did no one teach them to delimit the pericope?
What’s going on in Rome?
This should be one of the first questions we ask when approaching the text from a reformed, hermeneutical approach. As Greidanus taught: determine the sitz im leben. It’s one of the first questions we need to ask in interpretation because we employ a technique of mirror reading to understand the Epistles.
We do that because the letters are only a part of a conversation. They are addressed to people. They address a context that is living and breathing and sometimes struggling. There are details and assumptions in Paul’s mind that are fuelling his train of thought and, with Divine inspiration, are a part of the words being written.
Paul’s intent matters.
If it doesn’t then all we have are words on a page lacking any way of discerning their meaning. The Bible becomes a series of quotes out of context, stripped down for parts, and reassembled into something useless and yet cynically used.
Case and point is Romans 1 and 2.
If you listened to the dudes that I don’t Abide with you’d think that these chapters were only two verses long and intended to condemn all LGBTQ+ intimacy for all times and in all places.
The problem, for Paul, was homosexual sex.
It wasn’t. He wasn’t writing about that. He had a different problem in mind.
What was going on in Rome?
Let’s set the stage. Paul is writing this letter sometime around 57 CE (give or take a year - this is the majority opinion of New Testament scholars).
Just over half a decade earlier Claudius expelled the Jewish people from Rome.
“Since the Jews were constantly rioting under the leadership of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” Seutonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, (Claudius 25.4) cited in Robert M. Grant, Second Century Christianity: A Collection of Fragments, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 7.
Acts 18:1-2, “After these things he [Paul] left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.”
Claudius dies in 54 CE. His edict is no longer in effect. The Jewish people and, by extension, Jewish Christians begin their return to the city to rebuild their lives there.
What do they find?
They find the house churches that they once hosted and led now being hosted and led by Gentile Christians.
Gentile Christians who were not culturally Jewish. Six years of forming the infant church without the chosen people supervising their efforts. A half decade of writing songs and sharing prayers. Interpreting ethics without their experts in Torah. Eating food that didn’t follow the restrictions. Fashioning holidays and celebrations with very little connection to those handed down through the generations of Israel’s faithful remnant.
Children in the faith orphaned in the streets of Rome until their adoptive parents returned to reclaim them, now grown, and to bring the household back the way it was before they left.
That must have gone well.
Obviously it didn’t. If it did then Paul wouldn’t have to write THIS letter. He’d write a letter citing them for their exemplary model of cross cultural ministry and restorative practices.
The Jewish Christians weren’t happy. They weren’t in charge and the Gentile Christians moved the furniture.
The Gentile Christians weren’t happy. They have sustained and grown the church in ways that fit their context and the Jewish Christians were trying to move the furniture back.
Paul was writing to get folks on the same page.
So what does he do? He employs a clever rhetorical trap. He convicts both sides for their polarization.
He starts with the Jewish Christians.
Whoa - you might think - vs 18-32 are describing the Gentiles. Describing, yes, addressing no.
What Paul is doing here is tapping into the prejudice of the Jewish Christians to make a point. Who are these Gentile Christians? It’s very likely that many of them are converts from the “Cult of Isis”.
How do we know this? It’s an educated guess. The clue is found in verses 21-22 and the description of the worship of “birds and animals and reptiles”. Animal worship wasn’t a part of typical Roman worship. It was part of the rituals of the Cult of Isis. Yes, that Isis, from Egypt.
The Cult of Isis’s practices are well explored: animal worship, parading in the streets in costume, ritual prostitution, and sex as a regular part of their goddess worship.
Why is all of this problematic for Jewish Christians? It’s because deep rooted religious taboo for them is porneia (verse 24). Whatever perspective the Jewish Christians had on sexual immorality is largely unimportant here because the issue here is prostitution as understood in the story of Balaam and Balak. Paul is describing the worship acts of the Isis Cult and condemning the worship of other gods.
Verse 25: They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Reading Romans 1 with this in mind and showing a little sympathy to the Jewish Christian perspective - Paul is describing the perception that they had of the Gentile Christians.
How could they possibly be in charge of the church? Take a look at their worship history. If they remain in charge they are going to lead us right back into an Egyptian temple.
Then we get to Romans 2. Here Paul is describing the Jewish Christians but addressing the Gentiles.
These are the teachers of little children who have returned to correct these wayward youth. They’ve come demanding circumcision, adherence to their interpretation of the Law, and the reconstitution of Jewish cultural feasts and festivals.
These Gentile Christians are looking at them just like teenagers observe their parents. These things you tell us not to do - you do them - why should we listen to you. Hypocrites! (As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”)
And here’s the place where it all comes together in chapter 2:1-3 (remembering that there is no chapter divide in the original letter).
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
Here Paul is addressing both Jewish and Gentile Christian in the midst of their prejudice of the other. None of you are worthy to judge. You are all liars and hypocrites and idolaters. All of you. None of you are better than anyone else and if you keep up this divisive mindset then God will have an easy task of sorting y’all out.
The rest of the Romans discourse follows from this. How do we understand the Law? God’s faithfulness? Wrestling with sin? The victory of Jesus? The nature of our adoption? How we might live and worship together in a way that witnesses Jesus to the world in unity?
It’s based on one simple premise: stop judging the other side. They might be different but they belong to Jesus.
“Now Dude,” you might say, “that’s all well and good but can’t we derive ethical teaching from these verses.”
“Yes.” I would reply. “Keep the Law as best you can and don’t worship other gods.”
As for LGBTQ+ folks: they don’t fit the description.
Verses 26 and 27 only tell part of the story. Verses 28-31 are also a part of it.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Now I have an advantage of knowing a lot of LGBTQ+ Christians (who should just be referred to as Christians because, as Paul reminds us, these divisions are unhelpful.)
They don’t look anything like this.
Instead their desire is to “retain the knowledge of” the one, true God. They have heard the good news of Jesus and repented of actual sin. They are not advocating for the cultic practices of Egypt or the worship of any other god. They haven’t fashioned an idol of the majestic Canada Goose.
They are filled with obedience, good, charity, and propriety. They are full of benevolence, image honouring, peacemaking, truth and kindness. They use their words for God, love God, are humble and receptive. They seek ways to follow God’s leading, honour their parents, are wise, faithful, loving and merciful.
So if they haven’t given themselves over to the worship of other Gods and haven’t been given over to a depraved mind then not only is it not yours to judge. If you are judging, you’re doing it wrong.
The Biblical hermeneutic you’re applying is not reformed. Your application of the text is incorrect.
The short-form: Paul’s letter to the Romans is not condemning homosexual sex. It is encouraging unity amid diversity in Christ.