This is the fourth and final segment in my series on homosexuality and the Bible. The series is in response to questions raised by a letter writer in the Western Tribune.
Read part 1 (Leviticus) here Part 1
Read part 2 (Romans) here Part 2
Read part 3 (Jonathan and David)here. Part 3
This is the fourth in my series on homosexuality and the Bible.
In the New Testament Jesus himself affirms a same-sex relationship in the story of the centurion coming to Jesus and pleading for his servant’s healing, a familiar story.
Jesus offers to come to the centurion’s house but the soldier refuses, saying that all Jesus needed to do was to speak the word and his servant would be healed. The story is told in Matthew 8 and Luke 7.
The Greek word used in this story is pais, which could have three meanings depending on the context in which it was used. It could mean "son" or "boy", it could mean "servant", or it could mean a particular type of servant who was his "master’s male lover". Servants were often purchased to fulfill that role, and the term pais sometimes describes that type of servant.
Why would we think that pais has this meaning in this passage? Look at the passage in Luke. In Luke the one who was sick is described as an entimos duolos.
Duolos is a generic term for a slave, and was never used to describe a son or a boy, so we can rule that out.
Entimos means “honored,” so this was no ordinary slave, so we can rule that out.
That leaves only the “male lover” interpretation for the word pais used in Matthew.
Further, in Matthew, when speaking of his ordinary slaves, the centurion uses the word duolos, but when speaking of the sick person he uses pais, again leaving the only definition that fits, that is, the “master’s male lover”.
Jesus did not use the example of the centurion and his sick lover as an example of God’s judgment on their relationship, rather he healed the man’s lover and then held the centurion up as an example of a man of great faith, the type of faith we should all aspire to.
In writing this series, I realized that there would be some who would argue that I am merely misinterpreting the passages to fit my agenda and I admit that it is impossible for me or anyone else to know precisely the intent of each word in a 2000 year old manuscript that has gone through multiple translations. But as I combine biblical interpretation with history and science I see no other way to interpret it.