Subject: It is not a lie--homosexuality is wrong.
Question: If you know so much about the bible, then you would know that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says ,"What! Do YOU not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God’s kingdom." Kind of shoots down your line of crap, doesn't it?
John of AllFaith's Answer: Hi Alan,
Your post would shoot me down if it was biblically correct.
Here's the facts of the matter however:
The King James Version is the standard authority for such discussions, so I'll be using it.
I Corinthians 6:9 in the Authorized King James Version:
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind."
At issue here are two words: malakee (found only in 1 Corinthians) and arsenokeeteh. Some people assume a homosexual meaning of these words without finding out what the words actually mean as commanded by II Tim 2:15,16:
If we wish to "rightly divide the Word of Truth" as the Bible commands, we have to invest the time to consider the root meanings of significant terms, the cultures in which the passages were written and, most important, the biblical context in which they appear. How readily many Christians deride the "cults" for ignoring scriptural context only to do the same!
In its use here, malakee refers to a "morally weak" person. It specifically implies that this morally weak person seeks to live in luxury while refusing to do what is needful to maintain such luxuries. In other words, it bespeaks the idea of laziness and sloth, what we today might think of as a real 'couch potato.' The translation "effeminate" in the King James Version was an accurate one in 1611, however as with other archaic words, the word effeminate no longer conveys the same meaning it did in 1611, i.e. one who is morally weak.
In any case, malakee, in no way refers to homosexuality in the Greek, and modern paraphrases that so translate it are guilty of adding to the Scriptures and hence polluting the Word of God.
An example of such poor biblical scholarship may be found in the New Age NIV paraphrase. This paraphrase -- the NIV is not a translation like the KJV but the setting forth of its editor's personal beliefs, opinions and prejudices -- has removed scores of verses from its Bible versions and altered the meanings of several key verses it chose to retain. For reasons I can not fathom, otherwise loyal and intelligent Christians use this heretical book instead of the far superior and historically accepted King James Version.
I Corinthians 6:9 is a good case in point. The New International Version has this verse as follows:
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders..."
Compare this with the KJV:
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind."
Notice the blatant addition of "homosexual offenders" in this verse! There are words in Greek for "homosexual" but none of them are in the Bible. In one of countless acts of heresy, the Big Business publishers and copyright holders of the NIV added this word without ANY manuscript justification at all. Presumably they don't like gay people and since the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality they decided to add their own words to the Bible to support their bigotry! Were this the 1800's these heretics would have been publicly condemned, their altered versions rejected, as happened to the New World "translation" of the Watchtower Society! For the Laodecian end time Christians however, the wide acceptance of thus version is just par for the course! (Compare Rev. 3:14-19).
For solid evidence about the inferiority of the modern paraphrases, check out these sites:
And: Pure Words
(The views of these two resources do not always reflect my own, just so you know, but they do offer good information on the ongoing King James Only debate ;-)
Back to our study...
Arsenokeeteh is from arsen meaning to "seek strength as though to lift a burden" and koite, meaning to "share a couch or bed sexually" generally and more specifically it conveys the idea of utilizing the male seed while doing so, so as to conceive or attain something desirable (note that children are not conceived in homosexual relations).
Arsenokeeteh therefore refers to one who engages in sexual practices in order to receive power or strength in some area. The meaning is clear therefore that the prohibition is directed at those who seek strength, wealth, power etc. by engaging in sex rites with the idolatrous Pagan temple prostitutes, both heterosexually and homosexually. Such practices were common in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus and elsewhere in the Empire. The idea that the phrase could possibly refer to contemporary homosexuality is simply baseless, both textually and culturally.
The concern being addressed here is sex-based idolatry, which Paul adds in Romans 1 was resulting in a plethora of sexually transmitted diseases by those who made the truth of God into a lie (Rom 1:27).
It is nothing short of a heretical tragedy to find these new paraphrases like the NIV, the Living Bible, Good News for Modern Man, etc. yielding to bigoted political pressures from those with little or no knowledge of the New Testament languages and inserting words like "homosexual" or "sodomite" into their paraphrases and selling them as legitimate biblical scholarship! They are not. A simple glance into Strong's Dictionary or similar resources will make this point clear.
A more accurate translation of this part of I Corinthians would be as follows, though I still prefer the KJV:
6:9 Know ye not that those who violate God's laws shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither male prostitutes*, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the morally weak*, nor those who seek temple prostitutes*,
6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
6:12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
Notes: * pornos: male prostitutes
* malakee: morally weak
* arsenokeeteh: those who seek temple prostitutes
I invite your inquiries and comments,
-
~John of AllFaith
Follow-Up by Allan:
Question: By biblical standards, wouldn't the word you defined "morally weak" include homosexual acts? And also, considering the first human couple, and God's command to "be fruitful, fill the earth and subdue it." Homosexuality is a direct violation of this purpose for the "marriage" arrangement. I also would like to point out that the King James version is not the most accurate of translations, and this is widely known.
And what about those group of scriptures included in the Peter,Paul and Mary "Wedding Song"? "A man should leave his mother and a woman leave her home...the two shall be as one."--Clearly not mentioning or even hinting that God supports same sex arrangements--or he would've made mention of it.
John of AllFaith's reply
Hi Alan,
You asked: "By biblical standards, wouldn't the word you defined "morally weak" include homosexual acts?"
It depends. Casual sex, anonymous sex and so on would certainly be considered "morally weak" by biblical standards, whether homosexual or heterosexual. This is not what I'm defending.
Committed same-gendered monogamous marriages between two Christians is in no way morally weak nor prohibited by the Bible, assuming they observe the biblical requirements like any other couple.
As for your second question, had God created Adam and Steve instead of Adam and Eve the human race would have ended in the Garden. God created the world in such a way that its inhabitants could keep it populated. No one is suggesting that everyone should become homosexual, only that gays are part of the way God designed the world to work. Though I must say, I think the world is pretty much filled and subdued by now... ;-)
As for the Authorized King James Version, I suspect you may not really understand the issues here.
The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is an English language translation of the Textus Receptus, the 'received text'. It is not a perfect translation of those documents, though it is very good (some say its perfect, I don't). However western Christianity was established upon the Textus Receptus and upon the KJV and moving away from that foundation is not a good idea.
The NIV and other new paraphrases are not based on the Textus Receptus. The editors of those works gathered together as many different manuscripts, codices, etc. as they could find, the rarer the better, some from highly dubious sources such abandoned garbage cans in old Catholic monasteries where the texts had clearly been thrown away, and from this hodge-podge they pieced together what they thought the Bible should say. Look at this this way...
Say you have a preschooler and you want to share the story of Noah and the Ark. You're not going to read it from the Bible, its too long and confusing for a young child, plus it could be scary at parts, so you put the story into your own words and retell it, you "paraphrase" it for the child. That's fine to do for your kids.
The problem comes when non-Christian corporations like Zondervan piece together a book for money in which dozens of verses are dropped entirely and much of what remains is rewritten, changing accepted doctrine and watering down the Faith. This is what the NIV and other paraphrases have done.
These paraphrases and the KJV are not the same books.
Many of the most powerful passages are now either gone or rewritten into meaningless passages. Your choice then is to read the version of the Bible that Christians have used for as long as the English language has been around, or to accept this New Age hodge-podge. Your call. If you want to read the Holy Word of God in the English language, the Holy Bible, then read the KJV.
The English language has changed a bit over the years and certain words have somewhat different meanings now, these are rare and obvious enough when you come upon them. I mentioned for instance that "effeminate" no longer specially means what it did in 1611 and that when studying passages with this word one needs to take this change into account. A little research will clarify these with no problem (or use the Scofield King James where these words have been re-translated with the footnotes).
And for your last question, Personally, I don't accept Peter, Paul and Mary as spiritual authorities (though I do love Puff the Magic Dragon -- hehe ), but they were paraphrasing the KJV in "The Wedding Song."
Again, no one is denying that heterosexuality is a major part of God's design, only that God obviously loves and created diversity. There are not only roses, there are also daisies, trees, grasses of every sort... Homosexuality is part of nature. There are homosexual dogs, cats, goats etc. etc. and since 5-15% of humans say they are homosexual, natural sexual sexual orentation obviously exists among humans as well. As the Bible no where forbids it even though it was common in Rome etc., we can see that to God its a non-issue, and that when Jesus says: 'Whosoever will come unto me I will no wise cast out' that's what he meant.
In short, when God beheld the world He had created, He said, "It is good" and it was.
By the way, "the Wedding Song" is usually sung before the wedding rite. During the rite itself, the following biblical quotation is often recited by the minister:
Ruth 1:16: "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
Guess what Alan, Ruth said these oft repeated words to another woman, Naomi.
I'm just saying....
Peace, love and grits,
-
~Pastor John
For more information on the superiority of the King James Version over the new paraphrases see: Do We Still the Bible?
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