If people don’t like what the Bible teaches, they may try one of a number of strategies designed to blunt its impact.

Applied to the thorny issue of same-sex behaviour, it can work like this:-

1. ‘The Bible has been misinterpreted’.  Sodom is not about homosexuality, but about inhospitality.  Romans 1 is not about committed, loving same-sex relationships but about exotic and exploitative sexual behaviour.
2. ‘The Bible is wrong’.  The Scriptures do indeed teach that homosexual behaviour is sinful, but we must work with the Bible’s underlying principles and values, re-applying them to changing times and situations.
3. ‘The Bible is irrelevant’.  Its world is not our world.  It does not, and it cannot, address our modern-day attitudes and practices with regard to sex.

Putting these thoughts together suggests that there is sufficient uncertainty about biblical teaching on this matter that we would be wise not to be dogmatic or judgemental.

Unless, of course, the Bible has not been misinterpreted, it is not wrong, and it is not irrelevant.

Prompted by this post by Randal Pelton