The Bible Church of Little Rock affirms Scripture’s clear teaching that God approves sexual activity only within the confines of a lifelong marriage covenant and exclusively between one biological male and one biological female from birth. We believe that sexual complementarity between one biological male and one biological female is God’s revealed will for mankind and a chaste and faithful expression of this orientation, in singleness or marriage, is the ideal to which God calls all people. Acts of adultery and fornication, that is, sexual activity outside of God’s ordained marital union, is unambiguously condemned by God as sin (Ex. 20:14; Deut. 5:18; Matt. 15:19; 1 Cor. 6:19; Gal. 5:19; Heb. 13:4). Further, the Bible explicitly prohibits and unequivocally categorizes all same-sex activity as sin, even condemning all lustful homosexual thoughts and desires as ‘degrading passions’ (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10). We therefore affirm that individuals should seek biblical counsel in the battle against all improper sexual temptations and behaviors.
We believe that Scripture prescribes two life-enhancing options concerning human sexual behavior: 1) celibacy, that is, a chaste and faithful singleness in which there is an abstaining from sexual activity (Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:7); and 2) the conjugal ‘one flesh’ marital union of one biological male and one biological female from birth (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:18, 21-24; Matt. 19:4-6; Mk. 10:5-8). Both are good gifts from God, given as He wills for His glory and the good of those who receive and rejoice in His gift to them. For one to deny the reality of God’s created order and to live contrary to the expressed commands of Scripture is a suppression of the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
Scripture affirms and therefore we believe that through one man, Adam, sin has entered into this world (Gen. 2:17; 3:6; Rom. 5:12). Consequently, all of humanity is corrupted by sin. Sin, as our inherited spiritual condition, is universal and comprehensive (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 3:1-12; Gal. 3:22; Eph. 2:3). Moreover, all sin, including every form of sexual sin, is a consequence of idolatry, namely, a worshipping of the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25-27). Specifically, same-sex activity distorts what human beings were created to do, robbing God of proper worship and gratitude (Rom. 1:21). Furthermore, same sex relations are contrary to nature and violate God’s creational intent for men and women.
Such a biblical framework and understanding of mankind’s fallen nature is essential to any discussion of human sexuality and sexual orientation. By this, sexual orientation ideology is found to be completely antithetical to a Christian view of the human person. Both Denny Burk and Heath Lambert rightly assert, “sexual orientation, as an identity-defining element of the human condition, is foreign to Scripture—except as a feature of human sinfulness.” Burk and Lambert add:
God’s purposes for us are obscured if we make our sinful sexual attractions the touchstone of our being. God gives us a bodily identity that indicates his purposes for us sexually, and those purposes are unambiguously ordered to the opposite sex within the covenant of marriage. To embrace an identity that goes against God’s revealed purpose is by definition sinful.
This pervasive sin nature, however, does not mean that all people are prone to the same sinful desires and actions. Whether a person is born with a predisposition to a particular, defining sin, or whether the desire for that sin is the result of circumstances in which one’s character has developed, all specific sins, including same-sex activities, are indicative of one’s alienation from and enmity with God. By this, we do not believe that homosexuality is an inherited condition (genetically, biologically, environmentally, etc.), but a sinful deviation from the Creator’s plan for human sexuality. Sam Allberry, a pastor who has personally fought against same-sex attraction, helpfully explains, “my circumstances may be the occasion for my sin, but they are not the cause of it.” Hypothetically speaking, even if it were discovered at some point in the future that we are genetically inclined to certain sinful behaviors like drunkenness (alcoholism), anger, or homosexuality, such a discovery would not acquit us of the responsibility for our actions, nor would it suggest that these actions are not sinful in their nature. Quite to the contrary, Scripture insists that all humans are slaves to sin from birth (Rom. 6:6, 17), yet morally culpable for capitulating to the sin that serves as our master.
While Scripture is unequivocal in its testimony that sexual immorality is sin and therefore incurs the judgment of God, it likewise gives witness that such men and women can be reconciled to God in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:9-11; 2 Cor. 5:17-21). As the apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth, he states that those who engage in same-sex activity and sexual immorality are among those who cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Yet, by the grace of God, such individuals were delivered from the power and enslavement of sin. Such freedom comes through faith in Jesus Christ, by the transforming, life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. God freely offers redemption and restoration to all who would repent, confessing and forsaking their sin and seeking His mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ (Isa. 55:7; Jn. 5:14; 8:11; Rom. 6:12; 1 Cor. 15:34; Eph. 4:22; 1 Pet. 2:11).
As a church, we affirm that our members should speak truth in love to people ensnared by same-sex temptation and action as well as other forms of immoral sexual desires and behaviors, patiently counseling them in the Scriptures, never treating them with disdain. We believe that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God and should therefore be accorded human dignity. Though sin certainly mars and defiles this dignity, no sinner should be treated with contempt because of the nature of his or her defining sin. To this end, we repudiate hateful, harassing speech or action, and promote truthful, forthright reasoning of the Scripture concerning the immorality and accountability of such sexual behavior with these individuals. Irrespective of the nature of the sin to which an individual is prone, we maintain that no sinner is beyond the hope offered through the message of the Gospel. There is hope for all sinners, including those enslaved to all manners of sexual sin, because Jesus Christ offers freedom to know and experience one’s true identity in Him.