How can it be said that homosexuals and lesbians practicing sexual touching such as hand jobs is sinful?
Question:
I read your articles based on I Corinthians 7:1-2. I am left confused. First, how does 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 mean sexual touching? John MacArthur stated that it means actual physical sexual intercourse. I don't really agree with his interpretation due to the fact that the word touch seems to be sensitive. However, I am still confused about how it refers to sexual touching. So, could you please explain that to me? Also, what about homosexual people and lesbians? If I Corinthians 7:1-2 refers to hand jobs does it also refer to touching the breasts and vagina? How does this verse relate to homosexual people and lesbians? How can it be said that homosexuals and lesbians practicing sexual touching such as hand jobs is sinful?
Can you please explain?
Thank you very much! Much appreciated!
Answer:
It isn't that hard. The context in which touching is being discussed is in the realm of sex.
"Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband" (I Corinthians 7:1-3).
"For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress?" (Proverbs 5:20).
"Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent" (Proverbs 6:27-29).
These verses in context are addressing male-female relationships, but it doesn't mean that same-gender sexual acts are therefore approved. Homosexuality is primarily wrong because God said it is immoral. "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due" (Romans 1:27-27). "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). On a secondary level, it is also wrong because it is the arousing lust between people who are not and cannot marry. "For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles--when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries" (I Peter 4:3). If sexual touching is wrong for an unmarried man and woman to engage in because of the lust that it produces, it remains wrong for same-sex relationships because it too is generating lust.
