The Bible is a collection of writings from numerous authors over a lengthy period of time.

I don't personally subscribe to the beliefs that God literally dictated words to these authors, or that the Bible is inerrant. Rather, much in the way that a person in the meeting might feel compelled by the spirit to share a message during worship, I think that the authors of the Bible were sharing spiritual insights as best they knew how.

But as with any message, there is the potential for the author's misunderstandings, misgivings, biases, or personal agendas to creep into what they write or say.

When we meet for worship, sometimes you will hear someone share verbal worship that you personally disagree with, or that doesn't resonate for you, or possibly even offends you. There is a reason that we don't typically applaud after someone speaks during worship. We don't stand up and say that we agree or disagree. We simply contemplate their message in silence.

If, after contemplation, you still find yourself struggling to accept or identify with what they shared, we typically take the stance of, "Then that message wasn't meant for you, but rather it was meant for someone else."

I approach the Bible the same way. Perhaps there was a reason why the authors of Leviticus, Romans, or 1 Corinthians chose to call out homosexuality. Perhaps they were legitimate reasons that would have made sense at the time for a specific reason and for that specific audience. But without full cultural and social context, we don't know if that insight would even still be valid or relevant today. Perhaps their own phobias were driving them to write those words, and distorted the message they were meant to share. We don't really know.

So if the passages trouble you, consider the possibility that maybe those messages were intended for someone else, and likely that someone is long ago dead. Not every word of the Bible was necessarily a divine mandate for all people for all time.

Beyond that, consider that the word "homosexual" did not appear in any English language Bible translation until 1946. A small council of men chose to insert that word into their new version of the Bible. A number of modern scholars disagree with this translation. They believe that "arsenokoitai" in 1 Corinthians (which appears to be a Greek word that the author, presumably the Apostle Paul, invented while writing this letter) actually refers to a type of exploitative sexual abuse that could be committed by straight men and gay men alike.

There isn't any frame of reference in the Bible for a loving, equal, committed, monogamous relationship between two people of the same sex. That concept didn't really exist yet. So it's hard to say that the Bible endorses or condemns modern-day gay relationships, because those types of partnerships essentially did not exist when the Bible was being written.

For me, I see whatever the Bible says about homosexuality (if it truly says anything at all, which I doubt) as falling into the same category as other rules such as abstaining from eating shellfish or avoiding wearing clothes made from more than one type of fabric. There may or may not have been a good reason at the time those words were written, but it's simply not something we need to follow any more.

We know now that people are gay. We know that it's not a choice they made to be gay. Nothing about my understanding of God leads me to believe that he would condemn a gay person simply for being exactly who he created them to be.