How Can We Be Biblical About Sexuality While Still Showing Love?
How should believers stay faithful to Scripture on sexuality while still showing love? Romans 1:26–27 clearly calls homosexual practices sin, yet many churches today argue that “love” is more important than truth. How do we stay faithful to Scripture without being labeled hateful, even by other Christians? Or should such labels be irrelevant? Should we be eager to be rejected by the fallen world for standing on principle?
It is true that some Christians have actually had a problem of hating people who are involved in sinful practices such as homosexuality. But to be honest, I think that’s rare. I think that for every accurate accusation of this, there are probably a hundred false accusations of it. That’s just part of the price you’re going to have to pay. If you stand for biblical Christianity, people in the culture will call you a person of hatred, and it’s really because you don’t run headlong into the same sinful excess and depravity as they do. Consider Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated just a few weeks ago. The script from the leftist bubble about Charlie Kirk is basically, “He deserved to die in this way because he was a hater, and he was a man filled with hatred.” I would challenge anybody to take a look at his life and what he said and how he lived and then see whether he should properly be characterized as a man full of hate for others.
It’s really disturbing how this accusation gets thrown against Christians today, but it’s not something new. From the earliest days of Christianity, Christians have been accused of hatred against humanity because they won’t share in and approve of the prevailing sins of their culture. But Christians will need to come to a place where they just say, “So what? I don’t care. I’m going to do the very best I can before God to keep my heart free of genuine hatred towards other people. But your accusation of it doesn’t make it true.”
The general world culture as a whole today lives by the sexual ethic, “If it feels good, do it.” And that is an indefensible sexual ethic. Sadly, many people in the church have bought into the same ethic, so they don’t look to the Bible to learn what it says about the practice of homosexuality. Their attitude is, “Hey, if it feels good, do it,” as if the pleasurable feeling produced by a sexual act can justify it. That’s their only justification for their behavior. It is a twisted, depraved, and immoral view of sexuality, and it’s beneath a Christian to hold such views. Do your best to speak the truth in love, and realize that there are times when you will be falsely accused of being a hater. That’s just how it is.