1 Corinthians 6:9-11 "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?"

"Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed; you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NRSV).

Question:

My dear friend of over 40 years is an evangelical Christian, so we usually avoid discussing religion. However, we got onto the subject of gay marriage (her grandson, by the way, is gay and lives with his partner). I told her there's no reference in the Bible about homosexuality being sinful. She disagreed and sent me an article by Pastor Allen Kemp, "A Biblical Look at Gay Marriage." One of the quotes is the above-mentioned. Thank you.

Comment:

There is no question, I think—here and in his letter to the Romans—that Paul saw all homosexual behavior as equivalent to the sexual misconduct of prostitutes, adulterers and others. He also believed in the subjugation of women, and in the institution of slavery. He lived in a distant and different time, and it would be tragic indeed if we hadn't grown in spiritual awareness in the 2,000 years since he wrote his letter to the troublesome church in Corinth. The eternal spiritual power of his understanding lies, not in surface details, but in the underlying truth. You can't enter the kingdom—that is, achieve and express the Christ consciousness that Jesus demonstrated and taught—if anything else is more important to you. That's why the First Commandment to Moses is to "have no other Gods before me."   All these behaviors Paul itemizes—theft, drunkenness, greed, adultery—prevent us from inheriting the kingdom if we give them more importance than our personal relationship to God. If we truly put God first, these fear-based behaviors of excess would be impossible. If sex becomes a false God—if it becomes more important than anything on our spiritual path—then it will, indeed, be an impediment to the kingdom. This is true whether the sexual obsession is homosexual or heterosexual in nature. If sex—or alcohol or money or power or food or drugs—becomes a false idol to which we sacrifice everything good, noble and loving in our lives, then we are, through our choices, blocking our own access to the kingdom consciousness. This is especially true if we are achieving our own false goals at the expense of others—through lies, deceit or misuse of power.   So the question becomes, is it possible to live a sexually active life and still keep our spiritual priorities straight. Of course it is—for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. Sex as an expression and experience of divine love is a rich and important part of how we express our spiritual essence in these human forms. In a society in which the only visible homosexuals were those given to grievous excess, it would be easy for Paul—and others—to assume that that was the very nature of homosexuality. Which would mean that homosexuals by very definition would be excluded from the kingdom. We have grown in awareness. We know today that each of us is given a unique way to express and receive God's love through relationships with each other. Any relationship genuinely centered in divine love will bring more of God into expression in our world. And any sexual expression or relationship—heterosexual or homosexual—that becomes more important than our relationship to God will keep us out of the kingdom until we regain our true priorities.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed