Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're talking about a new book that is out, and we're asking the question, is the Bible wrong on sex? And this is prompted by an article that was in the Atlantic looking at historian Darmaid McCulloch's new book, which is coming out called lower than the angels, a history of sex and Christianity.

And McCulloch's argument is that the church has historically basically changed its mind a lot on sexuality. And as a result, its present views shouldn't be taken very seriously and certainly not very literally. Now McCulloch has a pretty low view of the Bible, calling it a library, not a source of moral authority. He is himself not a confessing Christian and, in fact, is gay. And that's only relevant because that's forming his perspective.

He's looking for a way of taking out the idea that the Bible is our source of moral authority as it relates to sex. And anytime a book like this comes out, it's gonna gain headlines because people who don't know much about the Bible are gonna find its arguments about the Bible to be compelling. Arguments like, hey. The church has been full of historical oddities as it relates to sex. The Bible is inconsistent in its approach to sex and so on and so forth.

So let's get ahead of the book and ask, is McCulloch right? Well, not only is he not right, let me just say this. He's not new. These arguments have been around for a long time. So as I deal with them, think about it less like me dealing with this particular book because I really don't wanna give this book that much weight.

As much to say, I'm dealing with these same arguments that come up about every ten years. First of all, let's make a really important protestant evangelical distinction. There's a huge difference between the tradition of the church and the authority of scripture. Now this is something on which Catholics and protestants don't agree. If you're Catholic, church tradition is almost maybe just as important as the Bible.

That's an inner inner squad squabble I'll let Catholics have. But from a Protestant perspective, I really couldn't care less what church leaders have done throughout history unless what they've done is squaring with the Bible. Because after all, in second Timothy three, the apostle Paul says that it's the word of God which is authoritative. Every line of scripture is from the mouth of God. If scripture is wrong, I have a theological problem.

If the people who teach the Bible are wrong, they have a problem. That's not the same thing as weakening the authority of scripture. And by the way, on this subject, the Bible unapologetically and unflinchingly presents itself as a moral authority because it comes from God. Not only second Timothy three, but Psalm 19, Psalm one nineteen. Even in second Peter, Peter refers to the apostle Paul's writings, both of them first century contemporaries, and calls Paul's writings scripture.

So not only does the Bible call itself the word of God, but the early church understood it to be the word of God. Now you can dismiss that. You can say that's not true. It's a lie, but that would make the Bible holy, w h o l l y, irrelevant. Not not not a library of wisdom literature.

The Bible claims to be the word of God and it isn't. It's an evil thing. We should throw it out. You have to deal with the claim the Bible is making. And let me just say this.

The Bible is very honest about the sinful sexual history of its own people and its own characters. After all, we have one chapter that goes from Adam and Eve eating from the tree to Lamech taking two wives. Now the Bible doesn't say in that moment, of course, polygamy is a sin, and he shouldn't have done that. You're expected to be a good reader. That may be too much of an expectation for people like McCulloch.

Just because the Bible shows characters with sinful and broken sexuality doesn't mean it validates those characters. It's assuming you've remembered what you've read previously when God says things like, let one man and one woman leave their families and be joined together. That is its version of sexuality. Whatever comes less and is less than that or more than that is inherently broken. Jesus, by the way, upheld the family orders.

Something McCulloch says in his book that family values aren't really biblical values because Jesus said things like, I've come to set father against son and mother against daughter, which, of course, is taking Jesus entirely out of context. Jesus doesn't mean that the family doesn't matter. Don't forget when Jesus is dying on the cross, he looks at the apostle John and says, take care of my mother. He doesn't say, I couldn't care less. His point in the passage McCulloch references is that our love for God needs to be so intense and such a high priority that even if it cost us our relationship with our family, we would pay that price.

But, of course, that requires an intellectual honesty that this book and books like it aren't trying to have. The Bible teaches timeless truth, not truth that shifts with culture. The Bible teaches one timeless truth that people are sinful, not just outside the church, but inside the church. Does the church have a checkered history with sexuality? Absolutely.

Have we been inconsistent? Yes. Hypocritical? Yes. Intolerant?

Absolutely. But that's the whole reason we need the gospel of Jesus. Showing me the sin of Christians doesn't invalidate the Bible. It drives me to the Bible. So when this book comes out, when the hype kicks in gear, don't let it weaken your your the influence the bible has and your confidence in it, but do maybe let it weaken your reasons to read that book.

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