Romans 1, Paul and Homosexuality

Temiloluwa Adeniyi-Ipadeola
1 min readDec 5, 2020

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This course has been thoroughly enjoyable for me, this semester. The study of the life and writing of Paul of Tarsus from a secular perspective has only increased the innate value of the biblical text. This week, I read the provided texts of Romans and also the scholarly writing by secular non-Christian, or Jewish. individuals. There were a lot of hermeneutical gymnastics done by scholars like Heather R. White and Benjamin H. Dunning to try to unsay, distort, reinterpret Romans 1 just to make Homosexuality a moral and virtuous thing. To simplify, Paul either taught against Homosexuality and condemned the act of same-sex or not. The pretext to verse 26 of Romans 1 is verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. This verse blows away Whites argument That paul was speaking in regards to Honoring the social Norms of sexuality. Paul is appealing to The ultimate standard of morality, not just a social construct. It is God who set the norm for sexuality and to violate it is to be unrighteous by God's Holy standard and under God’s wrath and Judgement. The other interesting detail I read is on the interpretation of the text by protestants. The Issue of translation of sodomy can be solved by referring back to the Greek text of Romans 1. Overall I really enjoyed flushing out Paul’s understanding of what the idea of Righteousness meant in the Ultimate sense.

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