Today's question comes from Janice who asks,

I know a young lady who has come out in the past years being gay.

She claims to be a strong Christian and loves Jesus very much,

but she has come to the conclusion after her own research

that homosexuality is okay in God's eyes,

and I will quote for you one of her latest reasonings.

I learned that homosexuality wasn't even in the Bible until 1946 and bought myself a Bible from the 1800s as proof.

I learned and am still learning that accepting my queerness was truly a reconciliation of my full self to Christ. So then Janice asks, is this even true?

I've always understood that homosexuality is a sin, but the justification of many queer

Christians today is this claim that it wasn't in the Bible originally. How do I confront

this sister in love? Well, I want to say something as we start that I hope comes across as gracious as I mean it.

I think this kind of question really speaks to the massive confusion that's out there in the Christian community

and how powerfully we can be influenced by the surrounding world.

It's not just that the church has influenced the world.

The church is powerfully influenced by the culture, the morals,

the values of the world around us, and that can create lots of confusion.

This means that you never come to your study of scripture empty.

You always bring a set of desires, a set of thoughts, a set of influences.

And it's not just the scripture shapes the way you think.

You shape the way you read and understand scripture. It's very important

to understand that. Having said that, I have to say very honestly, I hope humbly, that I'm a bit

mystified that this question is so prominent in Christian culture right now,

...