1 Corinthians 6:9 does NOT say that LGBTQ+ people cannot be Christians for a number of reasons:
Homosexuality as an orientation is a modern concept
This passage is about ethics not salvation.
The word Paul uses doesn’t imply a blanket prohibition of all same-sex intercourse for all time but HIS view of what it meant in HIS time.
Before we start, let’s look at the passage in question out of context as so many tend to do. Then we’ll add context as we go:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
— 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 ESV
homosexuality and modernity
First and foremost the term “homosexuality” is a modern term only really invented in the 1800s and baked into its definition is the understanding that people can be solely attracted to the same sex. This is a very modern idea that would have been foreign to Paul. In fact the word homosexual(ity) wasn’t added to the English Bible until 1946 in the RSV, then eventually removed in the NRSV as mistranslation. That’s not before other modern Bibles like the NLT and ESV used the RSV as a baseline and kept the word alive. In Paul’s day however, same-sex interactions meant something very different than they do today. The idea of a consenting monogamous gay or queer relationship wouldn’t have even crossed his mind.
So as a thought experiment, do I believe Paul would have supported gay marriage if he time-travelled as an adult to 21st century? No, probably not. But then again I also don’t think he’d support capitalism, mega-churches and lots of other modern ideas. However, I do believe that if Paul was born in today’s culture and had his conversation experience in modern times, he would have been affirming of monogamous same-sex relationships. They can, and often are, in line with Christ’s message of loving one another sacrificially, the same way monogamous heterosexual relationships can be, so there would be no reason not to.
salvation or ethics?
1 Corinthians 6:9 is not about salvation. Paul is not, at least primarily, talking about heaven here or who gets in, nor is he talking about behaviors that limit one’s ability to be a Christian. If he was, it would be in direct opposition to his primary thesis Romans and Galatians that we are saved through faith in Christ and not by works of the Law. This verse however, is set within the larger context of 1 Corinthians 6:1–11, which is all about the very practical matter of who can settle disputes among believers.
Paul had the idea that the kingdom of God was not some far off place, or even the afterlife, but it would come to earth, even in his lifetime, and that believers would meet Christ in the clouds to usher in the kingdom.
According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
— 1 Thessalonians 4:15–18
Notice how he uses the word “we” including himself among the those who are left until the second coming. He further thought that believers in Christ would have a special role in this new kingdom to execute judgments and even judge angels.
If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!
— 1 Corinthians 6:1–3
The idea he was trying to get across to the Corinthian church is that the ethics of the Kingdom of God is higher than that of the “ungodly” and if they can’t judge fairly between themselves, how are they going to do it in the Kingdom? So with that in mind 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 is a list of types of people who, to his audience, would obviously not share this kingdom ethic. But homosexuality stands out like a sore thumb in that list if we view it from our own lens. What was so wrong with it?
first century homosexuality
Paul uses two words here to talk about homosexuality: malakoi and arsenokoitai, literal translated “soft” and “male-bedders”. Top and bottom so to speak. Arsenokoitai is only used twice in the Bible, here and 1 Timothy 1:10, and only in lists of ungodly behavior so it’s hard to get an idea exactly what it means. It seems to have its roots in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the prohibition against male-male intercourse from the the Septuigint (Greek Old Testament): arsenos (male) and coites (bed).
It seems obvious he’s talking about male-male intercourse, but what kind of behavior would he have in mind that would prevent a person who engaged in this behavior from judging fairly? To see that, we need to look at two things:
What was prohibited in Leviticus? If Paul is referring to it, it must have something to do with Leviticus.
Why was this relevant to Paul’s day? His audience must have had some idea what he meant and it would have been relevant to them.
If we look at the larger context of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 we see that they are in a section of Torah called the Holiness Codes (ch. 17–26). Zooming in, we see both these sections are surrounded by both cultural taboos like incest and idolatry, like offering children to Molech or beastiality. While we can’t say for certain, it seems that the primary concern of the prohibition of same-sex behavior in Leviticus is more about idolatry than a taboo, though it was certainly that as well.
Side tangent: the word often translated to “abomination” is the word toevah, which was something that was taboo or unclean from a particular culture’s point of view.
They served him by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is toevah to Egyptians. — Genesis 43:32
We can see idolatry is probably the bigger concern here, not only because these passages are both in the same section as idol worship, but because idolatry is a central theme throughout the Old Testament both in the Torah and Prophets. There were many cultures surrounding ancient Israel and even that captured it that were known to have idolatrous cultic same sex practices, such as Babylonians, Assyrians and Hittites.
Guess what?
The same is true for Corinth, the target of the letter to the Corinthians.
Many cities in the ancient Hellenized world had protector gods. For the Corinthians, that was the goddess Aphrodite, of sexual love and beauty. Her cultic worshippers would frequently meet to engage in orgies that often involved same-sex prostitution.
According to Strabo a Greek philosopher and geographer:
The temple of Aphrodite [in Korinthos in the days of the tyrant Kypselos] was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, ‘Not for every man is the voyage to Korinthos.’ . . . Now the summit [of the Akrokorinthos] has a small temple of Aphrodite; and below the summit is the spring Peirene . . . At any rate, Euripides says, ‘I am come, having left Akrokorinthos that is washed on all sides, the sacred hill-city of Aphrodite.’ — Strabo, Geography 8. 6. 20 (trans. Jones)
These temple slaves, or prostitutes, would have included young men or boys. This may be why Martin Luther translated this word to die Knabenshänder (boy violator) in his 1534 translation to German. Even though he had his own biases toward homosexuals, he still chose this word for this passage as well as the passage it references in Leviticus.
Wisset ihr nicht, daß die Ungerechten das Reich Gottes nicht ererben werden? Lasset euch nicht verführen! Weder die Hurer noch die Abgöttischen noch die Ehebrecher noch die Weichlinge noch die Knabenschänder — 1 Corithians 6:9 (LUT)
Paul more than likely understood same-sex intercourse in his time and place as something that was intimately related to idolatry, prostitution and domination. Not exactly kingdom ethics or loving someone else as yourself. And therefore, and this is the point, not someone you’d want to have settling disputes between people who were part of the kingdom.
So can someone be a practicing LGBTQ+ Christian? In my opinion, absolutely. The same ethics of self-sacrificial, covenantal love apply to queer and cishet Christians alike. The only thing that determines someone’s standing before God is faith in Christ. As Paul says in Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. — Romans 10:9 NIV
There’s no condition of heterosexuality. Everything we read in the Bible must be read in historical and linguistic context, if we are to take the text seriously. It takes WISDOM to take an ancient letter like this one and apply its message to our lives today. We must try to understand its context and interpret what it is saying in light of Christ’s command to love one another as ourselves.
Sources and further reading:
“Bible, Gender, Sexuality” — James Brownson
“Changing our Minds ”— David P Gushee
“Unclobber” — Colby Martin