To function in life, we have to use things that we take for granted.  We have to breathe, so we take in oxygen in order to live.  We have to hydrate ourselves because our bodies need water, so we drink in order to live.  I could go on and on and on, listing all the things we do every day in order to live, things that (for the most part) we really don’t notice.  I am now using keystrokes on a laptop to create words on a screen that will eventually find their way on my blog called St. John Studies.  I have deposited words on this blog since 2014, to date 1069 blog posts.  Maybe my words have worked to communicate some of my ideas into understandable thought.  Words work like that.  We put them on a page for people to read, people who are not in our presence.  We are not there to explain them.  The words represent us.

Like breathing and water, we sometimes take them for granted.

Kevin DeYoung does not take all words for granted.  In fact, he devotes a whole chapter to words—two words.  The words in question are malakoi and arsenokoitai, Koine Greek words that are at the center of a discussion of the acceptance or rejection of homosexuality in the Bible.

DeYoung admits the difficulty of writing this chapter: “That makes this a daunting chapter, both for you to read and for me to write.”  Why does he do this?  He is boiling this extremely complicated and controversial topic down to the essentials—words.  He admits they are debatable words.  I would agree, they are.  Revisionist Biblical scholars are debating the meaning of the words today as culture changes and homosexuality becomes more mainstream.  Why should the church not accept homosexual members, perform homosexual marriages and allow homosexual pastors and other ordained leaders?  Would Jesus not do that?  Conservative Biblical scholars take the opposite position.  The Bible does not allow this.  The Bible condemns homosexual activity so how can we allow homosexuality to be accepted in the church?

DeYoung is one of those conservative Biblical scholars and his Chapter 5 entitled “A New Word From an Old Place”* addresses this issue from the point of view of two words, two debatable words.

First Corinthians 6: 9-10** says “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality [oute malakoi oute arsenokoitai] nor thieves, not the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God”

First Timothy 1: 8-11 says “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality [arsenokoitai] enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.”

Now revisionist Biblical scholars take these Scriptures to mean something other than men having sex with men.  Despite the use of the words malokoi and arsenokoitai and their more literal meaning, they prefer to define the words as pederasty and prostitution.  Others claim the words refer to any man who wants to be feminine or someone who prefers to be controlled by his passions.  In essence they argue that their interpretations tone down the idea of homosexuality and its consequent condemnation. 

Without getting too deep into the idea of the use of Greek language [I am not an expert] DeYoung states that most English translations “say the same thing.”  If nine teams of Biblical scholars translating nine different translations feel that those two words refer to homosexual behavior, others should not spend a lot of time arguing that they mean something else.  Also DeYoung refers to semantics, the idea that one word can mean various things to various people.  He uses as an example the word “fast.”  One can run fast, one can start a fast or a golfer can play fast.  Words can be used differently by different authors writing in different places and living in different centuries. We all know that words can change meaning as time passes.   To cut down on that type of confusion, the scholar can look at a word within its context.  DeYoung states “context is king.”  What do the words around a word mean? What argument is the author trying to make?  How does the author use the word elsewhere in the author’s writing? 

DeYoung really gets into an analysis of arsenokoitai and malakoi.  When one turns to the history of the words, there is no use before Paul’s use of the words in First  Corinthians and First Timothy.  Arsen means bed and  koite means bed and could be literally translated “bedders of men.”  “Most likely, Paul coined the term from the prohibitions against homosexual behavior in Leviticus 18 and 20” [DeYoung, 63].  In Leviticus it says “you shall not lie with a male as with a woman” and “whoever shall lie with a male as with a woman”(has done something detetestable) [18:22 and 20: 13].  Paul knew the Old Testament Scriptures better than any other writings.  One does not have to be an expert in Greek to see how he gets his word [meta arsenos ou koimethese koiten gynaikos and hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gynaikos.  He uses those words on purpose.  He could have used less shocking words paiderastes [men having sex with boys] but he used language pinpointing sex involving a man with a man which is forbidden in Mosaic law.  He was trying to make a point.  DeYoung is making the case that the Apostle Paul is condemning homosexual behavior.  He continues with a discussion of other possibilities: the idea of a long-term male to male relationship being acceptable, the idea that some men desire effeminate behavior and the idea that some men prefer fine clothing and female-style hair dressing.  Those may have been concepts that were real in Paul’s time but there is little support that Paul intended to put those on his list of vices that were sexual sins.  Instead in First Corinthians and First Timothy, Paul was referring of immoral sexual intimacy between men.

Certainly Paul is not alive today to explain himself, but his words are here as his representative thought.  Are we 100% percent sure of his meaning?  To be truthful, we cannot claim to be 100% sure.  DeYoung is stating that in our culture today it is hard to hear but “Paul is saying what the rest of the Bible supports and most of church history has assumed:  homosexual activity is not a blessing to be celebrated and solemnized but a sin to be repented of, forsaken and forgiven” [67].

*from his book What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

**from the English Standard Version of the Bible.  DeYoung states that all modern English versions of the Bible link the “two words” to homosexual behavior.  The King James Version uses euphemisms [abusers of themselves with mankind]  instead of direct links to homosexuality but the KJV is four hundred years old.