Homosexuality and the Bible’s response

Turning to the New Testament, Romans 1 has much to say about the nature and character of homosexual behaviour. 

In Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul shows that the whole world is unrighteous in God’s sight, and therefore in need of salvation. Romans 1:18-32 zeroes in on the Gentile world, describing how it has turned away from God and embraced idolatry. The particular details in the passage may indicate that Paul is using the Greco-Roman culture surrounding his readers as a case in point. 

Gentile society faces God’s wrath because it has suppressed the truth that God has revealed about himself in creation (verses 18-20). Paul then illustrates how this has happened. He gives three examples of how what has been known about God has been exchanged for something else. They exchange the glory of God for images of creatures (verse 23). They exchange the truth of God for a lie, worshipping created things (verse 25). And they reject the knowledge of God (verse 28), exchanging ‘natural’ relations for ‘unnatural’ ones:

‘For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error’
Romans 1:26-27