Perhaps you’ve heard of the new “Study New Testament for Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Transgender: With Extensive Notes on Greek Word Meaning and Context” by Dr. Ann Nyland. I don’t know why this stuff still amazes me, but it does. We should come to expect it as the homosexual community strives for legitimacy within the church.
Certainly, gays and lesbians should not be stigmatized; it’s not as if homosexuality is an unforgivable sin. I’m sure that the Jesus who was a “friend of sinners” would certainly befriend gays and lesbians too. However, he never befriended sinners to reinforce or legitimize their sinful lifestyle. He preached the gospel to them and called them to repentance: without malice, and they loved him for it, and they flocked to him.
But what we have in this publication is a sad attempt to embrace the love of God in Christ without forsaking the sin! Sadly, you’re deluded if you think you can have it both ways. You cannot know the God of love and mercy while persisting in unrepentant sin. It’s one thing to struggle with the sin that remains. That’s the normal experience of all Christians who strive to mortify their old sinful nature and grow in Christ. But here we have something different. Instead of struggling against sin, hating it, and pleading for God’s mercy and grace to overcome it, here we have a sad attempt to merely lable it something else.
It’s too hard to give up our sinful passions. So we’ll take the sin and call it by another name. “Maybe God doesn’t care about homosexuality. Maybe he doesn’t notice… maybe it’s not a sin after all!!! Yeah! That’s the ticket! Maybe it’s not a sin and I don’t have to give it up at all! Great idea! Now I just have to do something about all those crystal clear passages in the Scriptures that say that it’s an abomination to God…”
Here’s where Dr. Ann enters the picture. A bit of exegetical gymnastics, a little new testament greek acrobatics, and there you have it. A “Gay and Lesbian Bible” that won’t disturb the homosexual conscience. Good thing Dr. Ann came along and enlightened us all with her masterful greek skills. To think: every church scholar since the first century has been translating it wrong all this time. Nobody has ever really understood these texts! Until Dr. Ann came along of course and showed us all a better way.
What’s even more insidious about this project is the fact that this kind of thing will only serve to soothe the troubled conscience of one who is struggling with homosexuality. Instead of that inner dissonance ultimately driving a person to repentance and the grace of God found in Christ, this translation will justify the behavior to their destruction. “What’s there to repent of? Dr. Ann has taught me that homosexuality is just fine with God.”
Romans 1:24–28: Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.