Biblical Analogies

Should Christians accept 
legal gay marriages?

Analogies compare two different things, in order to point out similarities.

Hebrew scroll & silver Torah pointer.

Analogies work when there are sufficient similarities between the qualities of two things that similarity of the outcome should logically follow.

In the Old Testament, polygamy: 1. was culturally accepted, 2. was legal in Israel and other ancient nations, 3. was only engaged in by a small percentage of the population, 4. was engaged in by saved followers of God, like Abraham and Sarah, Genesis 16:1-3 KJV, Jacob and his four wives, Gideon, Judges 8:30, King David, King Solomon and others.

Beyond those uncontested biblical facts, God also affirmed polygamy in Deuteronomy 21:15-17, 2 Samuel 12:7-8 and 2 Chronicles 24:2-3. Please read those verses several times and think about them until you understand them.

Gay marriage is analogous to OT polygamy

In modern times, gay marriage is analogous to Old Testament polygamy. 1. Gay marriage is culturally accepted. 2. Gay marriage is legal in all fifty US states and many foreign countries. 3. Gay marriage is only engaged in by a small percentage of the population. 4. Gay marriage is engaged in by saved followers of God, including pastors and Bible teachers.

Remember that God's followers in the Old Testament did not use political and religious campaigns to try to change the law of Moses to prohibit polygamy like some anti-gay Christians use the power of government to attempt to prohibit gay marriage today.

God and His saved followers accepted the cultural institution of polygamy in the OT time frame. The law of Moses, in Deuteronomy 21:15-17, even made special accommodation for inheritance rights in polygamous marriages.

Have you given this the serious consideration it deserves? God Himself chose the children of the four wives of polygamous Jacob to form the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel, God's elect and chosen people, Isaiah 45:4.

In the modern world, Christians under grace should be as culturally accommodating to gay and lesbian Christians as saved folks in the Old Testament were, and for the same reasons OT followers of God accommodated polygamy.

Saved and born again disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ should accept the cultural and legal institution of gay marriage, without attempting to use the power of government, to attack, villify and outlaw gay marriage.

Gay marriage is culturally accepted and is legal in many countries. Born again Christians are not under law but under grace, Romans 6:14, 7:4, 7:6, 2 Corinthians 3:11, 13, Galatians 3:24-25, 5:18.

Modern Christians should not attempt to place their gay brothers and lesbian sisters back under Old Testament law on the topic of gay marriage, while reserving God's amazing grace only for themselves. Balkanizing Christianity is not a good thing and is not a Spirit-filled endeavor.

Further, saved gays and lesbians are already part of the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12:13. We are already accepted in the beloved, Ephesians 1:6,  we are already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:6 and many are already in legal gay marriages.

Anti-gay Christians who keep picking fights with their saved gay brothers and saved lesbian sisters, are fighting other members of the body of Christ. They are the ones creating schism in the body. Brethren, these things ought not so to be.

A Gallup poll in 2015 found there were already 390,000 thousand legal gay marriages in the U.S.A. with another 1.2 million legally recognized same sex domestic partnerships. There were lots of legal polygamous marriages in the OT time frame and there are lots of legal gay marriages in modern times.

Applying this kind of reasoning to biblical issues allows us to draw principled conclusions based on God’s truth as revealed in scripture. On this page, we review four common uses of this kind of  reasoning for accepting homosexual relationships and gay marriage. These four uses illustrate how the church adapts to the surrounding culture over time.

Here, we offer five additional uses of biblical An@logy which strongly validate gay and lesbian relationships.

Why we wrote this
page about analogies

Dr. Robert Gagnon,

Houston Baptist University,
prolific anti-gay author/speaker.

Dr. Gagnon presented an interesting challenge to gay Christians, on an anti-gay DVD set he made with Lutheran psychologist, Dr. Merton Strommen, 1919-2019, for ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Dr. Gagnon made two DVDs dealing with the subject of Homosexuality entitled, Truth in Love, The Bible and Same Sex Behavior. On these DVDs, Dr. Gagnon is interviewed by Dr. Merton Strommen.

On his DVDs, Dr. Gagnon challenges gays to come up with biblical analogies which share enough correspondences to make them suitable to prove the case for gay partnerships.

Dr. Gagnon says:

"If you want non-gay Christians to accept you (gays)  as blood-bought members of the body of Christ, you must come up with strong biblical similitudes for gay partnerships or gay marriage, which correspond with relationships accepted and blessed in the Bible.

If gay Christians can provide strong biblical analogies for gay partnerships or gay marriage, then the church should accept gay and lesbian partnerships and marriages as blessed by God."

Here are the four criteria Dr. Gagnon reccommended for strong gay analogies.

• The analogy must involve lifelong, unrepentant sexual behavior.
• The analogy must include a marriage relationship not universally accepted in scripture.
• The analogy must include a relationship regarded with some degree of revulsion in scripture.
• The analogy must be drawn from a relationship which, nevertheless, was blessed by God.

Here is the list of strong five gay analogies I offer, to answer Dr. Gagnon.

1. The Gay Analogy of Abraham and Sarah.

2. The Gay Analogy of Amram and Jochebed.

3. The Gay Analogy Of Jacob, Leah and Rachel

4. The Gay Analogy Of Interracial Marriage

5. The Gay Analogy Of Polygamy

I have watched the DVDs and have read Dr. Gagnon's book and hold him in high esteem for his Christian life and his erudite scholarship. Although we have never met in person, we have talked by phone and I respect his views. The good Doctor challenged gay Christians.

According to Dr. Gagnon, the four similitudes presented on this page do not share sufficient similarities and are therefore, in Dr. Gagnon's opinion, too weak to be useful. Here is what a good strong analogy should do, according to Dr. Gagnon, as posted on his website.

Two reasons biblical analogies
support gay marriage

1. The OT Holiness Code does not cover every circumstance we face. Analogy allows us to draw principled conclusions based on God’s response to comparable situations.

2. Biblical analogy reflects the consensus of centuries of judgments by God, through His prophets, in His holy word, to His people.

When there are sufficient similarities
between the qualities of two things
then similarity of the outcome
must logically follow.

When the facts of other cases are similar to the case at issue today, Homosexual Relationships or gay marriage, application of the rule established in similar cases is justified.

When seeking to explain Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, pro-gay apologists use biblical analogy to validate their understanding that God can and does accept gay and lesbian relationships which are within the biblical moral framework. These uses of Analogy reflect the situation of believers two and three millenia past as they confronted the culture of their time.

The truth of scripture has not changed but the understanding of the church on these cultural issues has changed. Now we are dealing with the culture of our time. Therefore, biblical analogy encourages us to conclude that the church should change her mind on the issue of homosexual relationships and gay marriage and accept saved gays and lesbians as fully as she accepts saved heterosexuals.

Four Common Uses
Of Biblical Analogy

1. The Analogy of Gentile Inclusion

This analogy reasons that Jews did not include Gentiles in the household of faith until God pointed out to Peter in Acts 10, that Gentiles also had the gift of the Holy Spirit. Since the first century church changed her mind and accepted saved Gentiles as equal members in the body of Christ, this analogy concludes that the twenty-first century church should change her mind and accept saved homosexuals as equal members in the body of Christ.

It is objected that Gentiles are specifically welcomed into Christian fellowship in the New Testament but practicing homosexuals are not. The Eunuchs chapter in my ebook, Gay Christian 101, available on this website, makes clear that God does welcome believing eunuchs-homosexuals into the body of Christ, as did the early church, while also specifically excluding eunuchs from the Adam and Eve marriage paradigm.

2. The Analogy of Slavery

This analogy reasons that slavery was permitted in both Old and New Testaments yet, over time, the church came to regard slavery as abomination. Since the stance of the church toward slavery has changed, this analogy concludes that the twenty-first century church should change her mind about treating saved homosexuals as second-class citizens and accord them their rightful place in the body of Christ.

It is objected that passages supporting slavery are culturally limited in their application, therefore the church was right to change her mind on slavery but would be wrong to change her mind on homosexuality.

Based on the historical and scriptural evidence presented in our 378 page eBook, for a culturally limited interpretation of the alleged anti-gay passages, a consistent hermeneutic requires the church to re-examine her unscriptural anti-gay position.

3. The Analogy of Women In Ministry

This analogy reasons that women were regarded as property in Old Testament culture, Genesis 29:18-27, Ruth 4:10, and were less than equal to men in the New Testament cultural environment, I Cor 14:34.

Stack of Bibles.

Over time, the church came to place greater emphasis on Galatians 3:28.

In Christ Jesus “there is neither male nor female.”

The church now accords women more equal standing with men. Since the church changed her mind about women in church and ministry, this analogy concludes that the church should change her mind about saved homosexuals in church and ministry.

It is objected that there are scriptural examples in both testaments, of women in ministry, which constitute a growing acceptance over time, while the same situation does not exist for homosexuals.

This objection is answered by noting that the alleged anti-gay passages, understood in their cultural, doctrinal, historical and religious context, deal with pagan worship of the fertility goddess, not committed, faithful, same sex partnerships.

Many Christians understand the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:1-12 as affirmation and acknowledgment that homosexuals, referred to by Jesus as born eunuchs, did not make a personal choice to be gay.

Further, no scripture which mentions Sodom mentions homosexuality. Homosexuality was not the issue in scripture. Cultic sex worship of false gods was the issue. Therefore, the church should affirm faithful gay marriages which are not pagan or cultic.

4. The Analogy of Divorce
and Remarriage

This analogy reasons that the views of the first century church regarding divorce and remarriage have changed to such an extent that divorced persons are now allowed, in many churches, to pastor or teach Sunday School and serve in other areas not open to them in previous centuries.

Since the twenty-first century church has changed the way she deals with divorced and remarried persons (regardless of what scripture says), this analogy concludes that the church should also change the way she deals with gay and lesbian people of faith, because of (not in spite of) what scripture says.

Jesus and scripture are clearly against divorce and remarriage yet most of the modern church rejects homosexuals while accepting divorce and remarriage. Yet Jesus affirmed people who are born eunuchs, who through no choice of their own, are unable to fit the Adam and Eve marriage paradigm, Matthew 19:3-12.

Since Jesus affirmed born eunuchs yet exempted them from the Adam and Eve marriage paradigm, the church should affirm committed, faithful gay and lesbian partnerships, even though they are outside the Adam and Eve (male-female) paradigm.

It is objected that the church does not encourage serial divorce and remarriage whereas homosexual practice, even in a monogamous relationship, is regarded by traditionalists (against all logic), as serial sin.

This objection is answered by noting that Jesus and scripture regard remarriage by some divorced individuals as sin, Matthew 19:1-12, regardless of the rationalizations of modern Christians.

Really strange logic

Many heterosexual Christians, including Dr. Robert Gagnon, view re-marriage after divorce as one single sin, but each subsequent sexual act in the re-marriage, IS NOT considered serial sin.

But wait, there's more!

These Christians then add a novel twist by alleging the opposite argument about gays, that each individual sexual act in a monogamous gay marriage IS serial sin. Now isn't that slick? The divorced and remarried sinners in their churches have only committed one sin but those lust filled gays are constantly sinning!

My, how the brethren love to justify their own sins, while condemning the perceived sins of others. As scriptural teaching against heterosexual rape does not prohibit loving, heterosexual marriages, so, scriptural injunctions against shrine prostitutes who worship the Canaanite fertility goddess, do not prohibit non-cultic, gay marriages as we know them today in the modern world.

Our biblical conclusion - For the reasons listed on this page, Christians can
joyfully affirm gay marriages.

Helpful Links