1 Corinthians 6:9-20
First Corinthians was a letter written by Paul to instruct the church how to correct itself from their sinful indulgences and potential false doctrine. It was a relatively new church set within a Greco-Roman city and the church began to experience conflicts in how they can live their lives while practicing what they understood what God wanted for them. The Christians of Corinth requested guidance on how a Christian is "suppose" to act versus how they used to act.
Through Paul's instructions on true wisdom, love, thanksgiving, the Holy Spirit, and immoral practices, we see a formation of what Paul wanted the Church at Corinth to follow and how this type of instruction separates the people of the Church in Corinth to those who still lived a Pagan lifestyle. Throughout these instructions Paul had written to the church, the passage in First Corinthians Chapter six gleans upon Paul's viewpoints of sexuality.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-20, Paul begins to state who is not allowed into the Kingdom of God. Many commentators today uses this passage to devalue, dehumanize, reject, and condemn any form of sexuality other than heterosexuality. My proposal is that Paul had no moral issues with homosexuality and his issues were the sexual exploitations and violence used against another human being. Poor interpretation of key words in this text had muddled the original meaning behind Paul's writings that created the aura of homophobia found today in many churches.
Annotated Bibliography
Hearon, Holly E. The Queer Bible Commentary.
1st and 2nd Corinthians. London: Canterbury Press, 1988. Print.
The Queer Bible Commentary is a commentary in which shows the side of the Bible that many do not want to see or cannot see. It tackles issues such as the arsenokoitai debate and sexuality within First Corinthians. She further explains that sacred prostitution was a man or a woman giving into another (the prostitute). Christians are supposed to have the Holy Spirit dwell in them. And not a Christian dwelling within a prostitute. Martin, Dale B.
Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Print.
Sex and the Single Savior takes historical and cultural purposes of sexuality and brings them to the surface of the Biblical texts and the nature of Jesus. He also tackles many current issues that Christians are faced with when it comes to homosexuality and the New Testament. Dale Martin goes into incredible detail between the two greek words of arsenokoitai and malakoi and explains why he believes these terms are not as Conservative Christians make them out to be.Ellens, Harold J.
Sex in the Bible. Westport: Praeger Press, 2006. Print.
Harold Ellens explains that homosexuality within the New Testament is not in itself a sin, rather, it is the practice of homosexuality outside of God's love and outside of a Christian lifestyle that is the sin. Ellens states that heterosexuality and homosexuality is viewed as common sexual practices under God but can be in danger of falling into an immoral pattern if they resorted back to their Pagan ways.Sampley, Paul J. The New Interpreter's Bible: Volume X.
First Corinthians. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002. Print.
Paul Sampley, in his final reflections of 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 discusses the fact that no one knows anything of the cultural practices of sexuality as well as the taboos or forbidden acts during Paul's time and it can become very easy for someone to make the assumption that arsenokoitai and malakoi means homosexuality. It is argued that these terms relates to male prostitution in which Paul discusses later in the chapter.Patai, Raphael.
Sex and Family in the Bible in the Middle East. Garden City: Double Day & Company, 1959. Print.
Raphael Patai explores sexuality in regards to the practices and customs of the Middle East and then compares current sexuality in the Middle East to examples that are described within the Bible and the culture of that time. He also cites many historical accounts of the people in the Middle East who practiced various aspects of sexuality and heterosexuality was just one of many forms. Thiselton, Anthony C.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A commentary on the Greek Text. Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000. Print.
Anthony Thiselton explains the "vice passage" of First Corinthians 6:9. He interprets such sexual forbidden practices as male prostitution, sacred male prostitution and "pederastic practices." He continues on by citing Scroggs in stating that Paul did not find homosexuality "morally reprehensible", rather it was male prostitution.
