Thank you for a great website and ministry. I also thank you for a place where we can come to get some help. So here is my question. I am talking to some homosexual men about gay theology. They are convinced that the relationship between Jonathon and David was a homosexual relationship.

Their basis for that is 1 Samuel 18:1-4, and 2 Samuel 1:26. I have tried appealing to context of these verses, the fact that both these men have wives and children, and the simple fact that even if this was true, it doesn’t change God’s law one iota. All to no avail. I have been attempting to do a word study on the word love, as it is used here, and in a heterosexual union, to see if there are any differences in usage, but my resources are limited, and I have not been able to pin anything down yet. I was wondering if you could help me at all in this area, and any other approach you think may be useful.

I am cognizant of the fact that no matter what I say, it may do no good, as it appears their minds are made up. However before I give up, I would like to cover as many of the bases as I can.

The burden of proof to make David and Jonathan’s relationship more than friendship is on your gay friends. There is nothing in the text to indicate there was anything more than a godly, committed friendship between two men who deeply loved each other. You aren’t missing anything by reading a translation because there’s nothing hidden in the Hebrew.

However, there is also nothing you can do to dissuade them from reading what they want to find into what’s not there. The heart’s capacity for deception is far greater than we give ourselves credit for. You CAN say, “You are reading a gay relationship into the text but it’s not there, and there’s nothing I can say to make you change your mind because you want it so badly to be true. We’ll both find out in the end, won’t we? In the meantime, I am praying that God will show you the truth.”

It’s frustrating, I know. But you’re right, and they’re not, because they are caught in spiritual deception and what author Joe Dallas calls in his book of the same name “A Strong Delusion.”

I hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

On your “answering email” web page “God Made Me Gay” I read this question:

“Thanks for your answer! I have prayed to the Lord to make me straight! Why does he not answer?”
Your answer was long, but this was the core of it:

“Well, God would say to him, ‘Dear one, that’s what I intended you to be all along, and I still do. But we’re going to have to undo the damage that sin has caused in your life. There are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating—we need to refashion your life into the pattern of My original intent.”

The problem that I see with this is scriptural. Let’s take a look at what Jesus said:

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14:13-14

I am sure that the person who asked you the question has made a prayer like this one:

“God, please make me heterosexual. I ask this in Jesus’s name so that my life may bring glory to you.”

I think this sounds like a fair thing to ask of God, don’t you? And, according to Jesus’s words, he should do it, as he said that we WILL DO ANYTHING that one asks in his name. As it happens for many gay Christians who hurt and struggle, God does not answer this prayer.

Your excuse for God’s failure is that “[t]here are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating” which, apparently, defy God’s omnipotent power and boundless love and mercy.

My question for you is, which chapter and verse in the Bible state that God will not give someone heterosexuality if they ask for it in Jesus’s name because there are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating?

Great question.

“God, please make me heterosexual. I ask this in Jesus’s name so that my life may bring glory to you.”

I think you left out an important word. Often, what people really mean when they pray this is, ‘”God, please make me heterosexual NOW.”

I think this sounds like a fair thing to ask of God, don’t you? And, according to Jesus’s words, he should do it, as he said that we WILL DO ANYTHING that one asks in his name. As it happens for many gay Christians who hurt and struggle, God does not answer this prayer.

Jesus didn’t say anything about His timetable, though. He DOES answer this prayer, and has for many people, but He doesn’t answer it overnight.

I think the “Please, please let me wake up straight” prayer (which I know has been prayed by so very many) is in the same category as prayers like, “Oh God, I am so afraid of this upcoming surgery/French test/job review. Please let me wake up and it will all be over and behind me.” Or, “Dear God, I hate being 10 and ugly. Please make me be 25 and all grown up and beautiful and happy.” There’s nothing wrong with the request, and God invites us to come to Him with every desire of our hearts, but He doesn’t promise to give us what we ask for within minutes or hours of the prayer.

Your excuse for God’s failure is that “[t]here are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating” which, apparently, defy God’s omnipotent power and boundless love and mercy.

I would suggest God is not failing. I would suggest that the issue is unrealistic expectations–that God should act like Tinkerbell and sprinkle magic pixie dust and make everything OK. But gender identity, sexual orientation, and a weakness for emotionally dependent relationships are complex issues that can’t be “fixed” overnight.

In fact, one of my dearest friends, a former gay activist, had a most unexpected experience with God. Within moments of trusting Christ, she heard the voice of God thunder in her spirit: “YOU ARE NOT GAY!” She did discover that she wasn’t drawn to women as sex objects like she had been before, but within a couple of months of her conversion she found herself in a short-lived lesbian relationship. She was now a Christian, she knew God had said she wasn’t gay, but she didn’t have anything to work with except her old ways of relating to people and her old ways of making life work on her own. She wasn’t attracted to her new girlfriend the way she would have been before, but she was so desperate for connection and to feel loved that she entered into the only kind of relationship she knew how to have: one that was mutually exploitative.

It’s been several years since that experience, and she has since learned how to have friendships with women in her new church that are about giving, not getting, that are holy and glorifying to God, but it’s been hard work to get to the place she’s at, and she’s still having to work through all the garbage from her life that she brought into the Kingdom with her. She’s known since the time she became a Christian that she wasn’t gay, because God told her she wasn’t gay, but she also didn’t know how NOT to be gay, and learning takes time.

Were God to do a miracle that made a struggler into a non-struggler, he or she wouldn’t know who they were or how they got there. It would be like waking up with amnesia and discovering one was married to a stranger, employed in a job they didn’t have the skills for, and living in a city they’d never been in before.

My friend complained one day to me that she wasn’t attracted to women anymore, but she sure wasn’t attracted to men and she SURE didn’t know how to relate to either women OR men now because she’d had this major emotional earthquake that really complicated things. (Interestingly, as she developed her relationship with Christ and He started doing some hard work in her soul, she started reporting an attraction to certain kinds of men. It’s been like doing junior high as a 35-year-old.)

My question for you is, which chapter and verse in the Bible state that God will not give someone heterosexuality if they ask for it in Jesus’s name because there are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating?

Two responses: first, if you literally mean this, then I’m afraid you don’t understand how to read the Bible. We look at principles in the Bible, in the context of everything else that it says, to figure out what God’ s intention is. Otherwise, you end up with questions like, “Which chapter and verse tell us not to have abortions?” and “Which chapter and verse prohibit child abuse?” There are no such chapters and verses, but we can still discern what God wants us to know.

Secondly, when someone asks for heterosexuality, God’s response would be, “I already made you heterosexual. ‘In the beginning, God created them male and female.’ The problem is that you believe lies about yourself. You have an incorrect understanding of your identity: you are not homosexual, you are My child who struggles with same-sex feelings and the legacy of sinful behavior. It takes time to unravel those lies and misunderstandings and the destruction of sin so that you OWN the truth about yourself. It takes time to develop new habits to replace the sinful old ones. Walk with Me, surrender to Me, and let Me tell you who you really are.”

I hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin

© 2005 Probe Ministries.

I came across your website when looking for articles on Edgar Cayce. I then noticed your feelings towards homosexuals and me being a homosexual took insult to that. Now you state the bible is in fact the holy word, meaning it’s the word of God. God is perfect therefore, the bible is without errors or fault. Now I am not going to able to quote verse from verse, but I do know some things about the bible. In fact I went to parochial school for thirteen years. I know that in the bible there is a verse which states, man shouldn’t lie with other men, that is immoral. But I also know, that in the bible the very same statements we use in heterosexual marriage today, to love one another through sickness and health until death due us part, is also, used between two women in the bible. I believe it was Ruth and someone else, if you want I could research the specific verse and names.

I also know, there is a paragraph in Samuel 2 I believe, regarding the love held between David and Saul’s son Paul? I don’t know the name. I do remember the verse stating, how David stripped in front of Paul, David kissing Paul and how the love David held for Paul was greater than any other love he could hold for a woman. Now you’re going to probably respond to these statements by saying, it’s all how we interpret what God is telling us. How nothing can be specified towards condoning homosexuality. You’re also probably going to say that those acts were the acts of David and Paul not of God himself. When God made the bible, don’t you think he made it so that generations could understand his underlying meaning that no matter who or what his words came into contact with, his underlying meaning would stand out bold over anything else and that no matter what corruption or falsification may have occurred throughout the time, during the creation of the printing press, in translations of verses to different languages and etc.

Don’t you feel that God himself being so against homosexuality as you say, would not include promoting verses in the bible of homosexuality? And if this sin was so immoral, don’t you think God would have condemned it in more than one or two verses? That considering possibly ten percent of the population of the world is homosexual and probably more due to society’s prejudices. Wouldn’t he have driven a stronger message than just one or two vague paragraphs condemning it? One or two paragraphs that could have been misinterpreted or mistranslated. I was wondering what you feel about those two stories?

I’m so glad you wrote; I hope I can clear up some misconceptions you might have about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality and same-sex love.

But I also know, that in the bible the very same statements we use in heterosexual marriage today, to love one another through sickness and health until death due us part, is also, used between two women in the bible. I believe it was Ruth and someone else, if you want I could research the specific verse and names.

Apparently, you’ve been listening at some weddings you’ve been to! <smile> You’re right, there is a verse from the book of Ruth that is often quoted at weddings, Ruth 1:16–“But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.’”

This is unfortunately a good example of people wrenching a great-sounding verse out of context and using it despite what it meant when Ruth said it. Probably not too many brides know that these words are the promise of a young widow to her mother-in-law! 🙂

But as you can see, this woman’s pledge of loyalty is not the same as the “for better or for worse” wedding vows we hear at weddings. The fact that it’s heard at weddings doesn’t mean that Ruth and her mother-in-law had a lesbian relationship. In fact, the book is about a love story between Ruth and her future husband Boaz. (Their son was Obed, whose son was Jesse, whose son was David, which brings us to your next question.)

I also know, there is a paragraph in Samuel 2 I believe. Regarding the love held between David and Saul’s son Paul? I don’t know the name. I do remember the verse stating, how David stripped in front of Paul, David kissing Paul and how the love David held for Paul was greater than any other love he could hold for a woman.

Good call on the location of the Samuel 2 passage; you’re very close. There are actually three passages you’re thinking of here.

In 2 Samuel 1:26, David is lamenting over the death of his best friend Jonathan: “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.” I am familiar with the assessment of this marvelous statement of inspiringly loyal friendship and love as a homosexual relationship, but the text doesn’t support it. There is nothing in the stories of David and Jonathan’s friendship that even hints at a homosexual relationship. But the friendships of men who have shared intense experiences can indeed be in a very different, very wonderful category than husband-wife relationships. Men who have fought together in battle, for example, often report a type of closeness with each other that some never experienced with their wives because it was a different kind of love and relationship.

In 1 Samuel 18:4, “Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt.” This was not a sexual disrobing; this was Jonathan’s (the king’s son) way of honoring his dear friend David by giving him his royal robe, his armor, his sword, his bow and his belt to show him that he believed David to be a greater warrior than he was. He probably also knew that David had been anointed the future king of Israel, and this was his way of saying “I’m on your side, David!”

Also, in 1 Samuel 20:41, it says, “When the lad was gone, David rose from the south side and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times. And they kissed each other and wept together, but David wept the more.” This is a very emotional farewell scene where Jonathan is sending David away because he found out that his father, King Saul, has determined to kill him. The fact that the men kissed each other is not indicative of an erotic kiss, but the way that men greeted each other and said goodbye in that eastern culture. It is still the same way today. Surely you have seen some of the recent video footage of Middle Eastern men greeting each other by kissing on the cheeks (or sometimes an “air kiss”).

If you read the story of David and Jonathan from start to finish, I think you will find that it is the story of a godly, warm friendship between two men, not a homosexual relationship. There just isn’t anything there in the text to warrant such a reading.

When God made the bible, don’t you think he made it so that generations could understand his underlying meaning that no matter who or what his words came into contact with, his underlying meaning would stand out bold over anything else and that no matter what corruption or falsification may have occurred throughout the time, during the creation of the printing press, in translations of verses to different languages and etc.

Well said, and yes I do believe that. However, to quote Paul Simon in “The Sound of Silence,” “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” This is particularly true of the Bible, I believe. It’s not that hard to figure out what God means; the Bible is not written in difficult, mystical language. When it’s poetry, it’s poetic, but the important doctrinal statements and commands are written in very clear terms.

Don’t you feel that God himself being so against homosexuality as you say, would not include promoting verses in the bible of homosexuality.

Yes, I do, and thus the burden is on those looking for verses condoning homosexuality to find them without twisting certain words out of context. Including cultural context, such as the eastern custom of men kissing.

And if this sin was so immoral, don’t you think God would have condemned it in more than one or two verses.

Well, actually, as a parent, when I told my children something was wrong, I meant it the first time. How many times does God have to say something to make it true? Just once, I would suggest.

However, He does condemn homosexual behavior in more than one or two verses:

Old Testament

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom–both young and old–surrounded the house. They called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them’ (Gen. 19:4-5).

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable (Lev. 18:22).

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads (Lev. 20:13).

New Testament

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. . . . For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. . . . Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. . . . Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion (Ro. 1:18-19, 21, 24, 26-27).

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral not idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders . . . will inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. 6:9-10).

… just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

… realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching… (1 Tim. 1:9-10)

One or two paragraphs that could have been misinterpreted or mistranslated.

I’m afraid the burden of proof would be on you to come up with the correct interpretation or translation. Hebrew and Greek are not extinct languages that make it difficult or impossible to check what the original was. The Bible is very internally consistent about homosexuality, in both Old and New Testaments. It is not God’s intent, which is holy heterosexuality. Jesus Himself even said in Matthew 19:5 that going back to the creation account, God’s intent was that “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

I am familiar with the argument that the passages against homosexuality have been misinterpreted or mistranslated, but it’s interesting that the proponents of this view don’t have any trouble accepting “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal.” Only the passages that they don’t like. Which is why I think we should keep in mind the insight of Paul Mooris who wrote in Shadow of Sodom, “But if I were a Christian homosexual, I think this one question would disturb me most: am I trying to interpret Scripture in the light of my proclivity, or should I interpret my proclivity in the light of Scripture?”

That considering possibly ten percent of the population of the world is homosexual and probably more due to society’s prejudices.

Population statistics are revealing that it’s more like 2-3 percent. Alfred Kinsey’s statistics are not reliable, but the 10% statistic has been repeated so often people believe it’s true. I would also suggest that someone’s self-identification as homosexual is not dependent on society’s prejudices. No one CHOOSES to be homosexual; erotic same-sex attraction is something they discover.

I’m glad you wrote, ______. I hope this gives you some food for thought. You might not be familiar with the fact that homosexuality is a condition that can be changed. Thousands of people are now former homosexuals. For a difference perspective, may I suggest you read my article “Can Homosexuals Change?”

The Lord Jesus loves you very much, and He accepts you just as you are. But He loves us too much to leave us there. He loves to change us into who He created us to be.

Warm blessings to you,

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries