I had intended to begin this series earlier in the week but got delayed by some more research and reading and thought it best to wait. So today I start looking at the issue of homosexuality.
This will be one of the most important topics for discussion the church will engage in over the next decade I believe. How will we minister to homosexuals? The question is not if we will minister to the homosexual community, the question is when and how. And that is much of what I want to address.
To understand how we can minister to them, however, we need to understand this community. To do that, I want to explore in the next post various views about how one becomes a homosexual. But first, I want to explore for a moment gender and sex in the Bible, specifically related to creation. We will begin in Genesis 1-2. The following is an adaptation from Scot McKnight‘s book The Blue Parakeet.
In Genesis 1, we have the first of two creation stories in Genesis, the other coming from Genesis 2. The pinnacle of God’s creation comes when he creates humanity in 1:26-27. Here he says, “Let us make humanity in our own image…” God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God he created them.
Then in chapter 2, God chose to split The Adam into two, into an Ish, man, and into an Ishah, woman.
The Adam was in union with God and itself and Eden (creation). But in another sense, The Adam stood alone. The Adam was without communion with someone who was an equal. This loneliness was not what God wants for The Adam. God wants The Adam to be two in order to experience the glories of the communion of love and mutuality that he experiences within the community of the Trinity.
So God creates Ishah – woman – from the man’s rib, from his side, as a symbol of companionship and mutuality. The Ishah – woman – is called an ezer kenego, a companion in Gen. 2:18.
Then after splitting The Adam into Ish and Ishah, God brings them back together to become “one flesh.” Marriage symbolizes the union of oneness in love. It restores The Adam, and reveals mutuality.
The creation story is a story of what we were made to be and do. We see that:
1. God is a Trinity, three equal persons in one(ness).
2. God designs Eikons (his likeness, his image) for oneness in love.
3. God makes The Adam, who isn’t one with an equal. So,
4. God splits The Adam into two so Adam and Eve can enjoy oneness.
So in creation, God provides for gender as a compliment to each other that brings completeness. This is a reflection of God who himself is “the same but different.” We are reflection of our creator.
Unfortunately, in Genesis 3, the image of God is distorted through sin. This distorted what it meant to be one, and created an “otherness” that is foreign to God, though not something he was unprepared for. The communion with God, with themselves, with the other, and with creation was broken. Then, all Hell began to break loose.