The models for male and female idols (male and female bodies) become entangled in themselves and lose each other in homosexual and lesbian acts. The way the apostle phrases this in Romans 1:26–27 makes it clear that he is not speaking generally about homosexuality as predisposition or inclination. Rather, he is addressing specific situations in which people exchange or abandon heterosexual relations for homosexual relations. In the Roman Empire this was as common as it is today. The apostle describes this as perversion when a person exchanges his or her own nature (which is indeed by nature directed towards the other gender) for homosexual or lesbian practices. In this reversal of the natural order, Paul perceives a characteristic punishment. With the transition to homosexual love, the self-made image, which is male or female, falls to pieces (Romans 1:26–27).
It is clear that Paul here judges homosexual and lesbian practices as generally negative.1 De Kruijf is of opinion that Paul was not familiar with the Hellenistic view of homo-friendship, but such an unfamiliarity is implausible for a cultured and well-travelled man like Paul. Paul was familiar with the world around him, knew what he was writing about, and, based on Genesis 1:1–3:24, he had a clear image of God’s original intention for creation. Katherine Grieb2 also acknowledges this, but does note that many Jews and Christians will disagree with Paul, because his notion of what is natural
is experienced differently today. With Paul, nature
is the world as created by God, whereas modern human beings emphasize one’s actual predisposition or inclination. However, the sentences in Romans 1:26–27 would become overcharged and would lose their specific function if read as a general treatment of homosexuality. What follows in the chapter also does not lend itself to a general discussion of the relationship between parents and children (Romans 1:30b), etc. Although this passage has ethical implications, Paul wrote it in the first place to show us the extreme situations into which human beings fall when God abandons them to themselves.3
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;