David a Sterchi

The Goodness of Gay Marriage David a Sterchi

Evangelicals passionately condemn all homosexual relationships and point to Romans 1. I believe this is a mistake-because it ignores Paul's broader message in Romans. To fully understand Paul's teaching in Romans, we need to look beyond the first chapter. Paul's letter to the Romans is the fullest explanation he gives for discerning God's moral will from Scripture. He teaches explicitly the crucial importance of discerning the inner spiritual truth that is in Christ from outer physical symbols that merely point toward it. And Paul repeatedly praises the superiority of this deeper spiritual truth over shallow physical symbols. Fixating on the physical signs of gender at the expense of the spiritual truth about sexuality is a huge blunder. This is the same error made by the pagan idolaters in Romans 1 and the shallow religious teacher in Romans 2. This error leaves Evangelicals stuck in an external, physical and therefore shallow understanding of sexuality in Scripture. This misunderstanding leaves them spiritually blinded to the possibility that God blesses gay marriage. Paul's method for discerning the moral will of God helps Christians grow from faith to faith by discovering an internal, spiritual and therefore deeper understanding of Scripture. Once Paul's method is applied to the Bible, the goodness of gay marriage becomes evident.