If we come to Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God’s, then indeed he will not speak to us and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God to confront us, disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
—John Stott
The Christian story proclaims that all the demands of Scripture are ultimately summons, calls, invitations—beckoning us to experience true, beautiful, and good humanness.
—Wesley Hill
I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
—Psalm 119:16
I’d been a Christian for three years, and the question of whether same-sex sexual expression was always sinful loomed. I had learned that grace, as Paul said, was not a license to sin. Okay. And I knew the attraction itself wasn’t sinful. But what about acting on it? I was still dating Thomas, so this wasn’t just a theoretical question.
I was insecure, uncertain, searching. I wanted to start by learning more about affirming theology.
Through my university, I met a new friend, Josh, who headed up a Christian media club. I admired his sharp intelligence. However, I also knew he was part of the denomination I grew up with at school, which sometimes made me defensive in our conversations.
Every week, Josh and I met at a café a few blocks from the university. As I ate my vegan nachos and he sipped his chai, we studied the Bible. Through our discussions, I gained a deeper understanding of the scandalous nature of God’s grace, and how the worst sinners and the most moral citizens both equally fall short of his glory. Only Jesus could lead us into glory and reconciliation.
“Hey, David, do you want to come to a Bible conference? I’m going,” Josh asked one day.
I shook my head and shifted in my chair, uncomfortable. “Not sure that’s my cup of tea. I assume they’re all against gay marriage. And is the worship any good?”
“I can’t guarantee about the worship,” Josh said. “But there’s a scholar and Bible teacher coming from Canada—Don Carson. He’s going to talk about the inspiration of the Bible. I think you’d find it helpful.” He paused. “Actually, I already asked my church if they would pay your way. So . . .” He smiled.
I sighed but was touched. “And they said yes?”
“Yup.”
What could I say?
The day of the conference came quickly. As I entered the huge hall, I spotted many old school friends in the crowd of thousands of young people. I had walked into the heart of evangelical Australian faith, and I was curious and nervous.
When Don Carson got up to preach about the Bible’s place in the Christian life, I hung on his words. “We must not put ourselves over Scripture,” he said, “but we must live under the Word of God.”
For the next forty-five minutes, he poured out his heart, imploring us to treasure the Bible, God’s greatest gift outside of himself. Thousands of saints, he explained, had lost their lives so we could hold it in our hands. How would we receive it?
As he spoke, the Holy Spirit convicted me that I needed to trust God’s authoritative words. Tears poured down my cheeks. I realized I had sat in judgment above Scripture, never really appreciating its preciousness. I had never been willing to submit to it. I could no longer claim to love Jesus without really knowing his words and choosing to live according to them.
Carson’s sermon sent me on a deeper journey of exploring the Bible, especially what it said about sexuality and holiness. This was not a flippant or trivial issue for me. Celibacy still wasn’t a serious option in my mind, but I felt a conviction, a tug in my heart. I sought to ignore it; I had so many friends in loving gay relationships.
How could I believe there was something wrong with seeking a monogamous, faithful, same-sex relationship that eventually led to marriage? But after hearing Don Carson, I needed to confirm whether Scripture actually supported—or at least allowed—my position. I desperately needed godly, mature believers who could face my questions and answer them using Scripture, reason, and tradition.
Now that I was uncertain about gay marriage, when I was in secular spaces that believed the church needed to affirm it, I remained quiet, feeling confused. For the first time, the secular world felt unsafe to me. I started to understand what it was like to be an orthodox Christian in a world that quickly judged people according to stereotypes and would not take the time to understand the real complexity of their situations. In a way, that was a familiar feeling, as you can imagine. But it was odd to experience it from this new vantage point.
While I saw that Scripture had lots to say about homosexuality and about marriage, my struggle was anything but simple. I wrestled with what to accept and what to reject, and it all was achingly personal. This was about my life, my real life. My choices. My living situation. My hopes. My parents’ hopes. All of it.
If I allowed my own biases to fade away so the text could speak for itself, what would I do if it said what I really didn’t want to hear?14 I knew I would be rejected by many friends I dearly loved for taking this incomprehensible position. And how could I blame them? By everything we’d ever held as true, I would be betraying them.
Yes, the cost just felt too high. And I didn’t really have to decide anyway just yet, right?
Right.