Why Gentile Inclusion Doesn’t Affirm Same-Sex Marriage
By Rebecca McLaughlin, TGC.
Last Tuesday, I met as usual with my church community group for Bible study, fellowship, and prayer. It’s a joyful, rowdy, diverse consortium, featuring people born on five continents and across five decades. Some are married; others are single. Several (like me) would identify as LGBT+ if we weren’t Christians, and several have a history of same-sex sexual relationships. One of our members came to Christ last year and has multiple tattoos of naked women on her body.
According to some who affirm same-sex marriage for Christians, believing that Scripture forbids same-sex sexual relationships means excluding people who identify as LGBT+ from God’s mercy. If we saw the big picture of Scripture, they suggest, we’d realize our mistake. Just as Gentiles were included in the early church, so we should include groups of people who were once outsiders.
I want to make the opposite case: rather than opening the door for same-sex marriage, Gentile inclusion is the reason we have multiple New Testament texts condemning same-sex sexual relationships. And far from placing anyone beyond God’s mercy, these texts help us see that every human is invited into Jesus’s kingdom on the same basis.
Here are four reasons Gentile inclusion does not justify same-sex marriage.
1. Gentile inclusion isn’t God changing his mind.
People sometimes suggest Jesus changed his mind about including Gentiles after witnessing a Gentile woman’s faith (Matt. 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30), which sets a precedent for God also changing his mind about including LGBT+ people. But this view is untenable on many fronts—not least because Jesus didn’t change his mind.
Not only do we see God’s plan to welcome Gentiles in his promise to Abraham (Gen. 12:3), but Jesus’s inclusion of Gentiles had already been established before he met this woman. Earlier in Matthew, he’d taught that the Jews are the first heirs of God’s kingdom but that any Jews who reject him will be thrown out—while any Gentiles who accept him will be welcomed in (Matt. 8:10–12). After his death and resurrection, Jesus proclaimed the rollout of God’s plan: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (28:18–19).
2. Gentile inclusion wasn’t just based on experience.
Advocates for same-sex marriage sometimes argue that since the apostle Peter changed his mind about Gentile inclusion after witnessing Gentile faith, we too can change our minds about LGBT+ inclusion after witnessing their faith. But Peter didn’t only have experience; he also had specific revelation from the Lord (Acts 10)—as did Paul, whom Jesus sent as an apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1–19).
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