Gay Marriage is in the bible!
 

 

(Gen 2:24 NKJV) Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

The bible is clear in what marriage means, that is two separate persons by their own decisions are joined together in one flesh leaving their own families whence they come from. Reading Gen 2:24 again, it was the decision of the man (and not of the woman) to leave his family and be joined to his wife. In essence, it is the decision of the man as head of the household to form this family unit.

Gay marriage breaks down the "traditional" marriage based on the power structure of the man as the head and not from an equal perspective where the commitment is made by both parties. Our modern definition of traditional marriage is not blibical for in the bible it is about the man being the decision maker and the head with many wives and not just one man and one woman. What mattered was the power hierachy and not whether you were a male or female. That was why Saul in the bible brought David in to be married to Jonathan when he had liking for David, for David was subjugate to Jonathan as a wife would to the husband. As long as the power structure was maintained, there would be no issue for marriage.

The Jews did have a culture and it was a strongly Patriarchal and religious culture. Gays were regarded in the Jewish religious sense as natural Eunuchs and just like the man made Eunuchs were banned from the Holy of Holies. When Isaiah preached on the day of Jubilee, the day of the Lord of Host coming down to earth, it would be marked by grace, a grace that extended to the Kingdom of God which would now include gays when they were hitherto rejected by the Jewish faith as being unclean.

Gays were considered unclean not because of the same sex orientation but because it was the act in a religious abomination where the Jews have anal sex with the male temple priests so that we can join ourselves to the principalities. In sex as part of the faith worship, we are joined in marriage to the gods. Such associations with the strict Jewish codes against religious idols meant that gays even though natural and same sex orientated were lumped under the idol religious worshippers. Why were the man made Eunuchs banned? Because the temple priests usually castrate themselves as part of the faith worship. There is a shadow of demonic worship with same sex acts which were done not because they were gays. They were men having sex with men yet mostly straight.

Gays were condemned strictly by the law because the law doesn't account for the context, the purpose of the action. The law has no grace, and sets a clear bar between right and wrong for example healing on a Sunday!. Its role was to condemn without grace or mercy. Jesus Christ ushered in the year of the Jubilee where the first act of God's grace and mercy was to give gays a name in the Kingdom of God. ie they will no longer be judged simply because they were gays but because their worship of God was accounted to them as righteous. Jesus was God's grace and mercy for those unjustly persecuted and condemned under the law.

The story of David and Jonathan was not only an example of gay marriage, it went much further.

(1 Sam 18:1 NKJV) Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

(1 Sam 18:2 NKJV) Saul took him that day, and would not let him go home to his father's house anymore.

In order to understand 1 Sam 18:1,2, the Jewish power construction should be understood. Jonathan was so in-love with David, as if his soul and spirit was joined with David when they first met that the two flesh became one. That was why, Saul seeing that his son has become one with David, recognized their "marriage" relationship and as King ordered a poor shepherd boy to enter his household. David was essentially a male "concubine" to serve the needs of Jonathan even though Jonathan was already married for procreation and to continue his lineage.

Saul was so supportive of this marriage relationship that it was him who ordered David as a peasant to join the household as a servant to Jonathan. It was a master/slave relationship where Jonathan as the prince would reign over David. It was a marriage arrangement that was formulated by Saul.

The power structure begins to shift in 1 Sam 18:8, when David begins to be more popular than Saul, and King Saul no longer had the pre-imminence and was made second to a shepherd servant boy. Hence, the power construction was turned upside down with Saul deciding thereafter to get rid of David because the servant has become King in the eyes of many.

Possibly unknown to Saul, was that David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other which was not acceptable under the law. Jonathan was already married to David just like a man would marry a wife as a property. There was no need for a special covenant on equal terms as it was a master slave relationship in the power hierarchal structure.

This covenant was severely tested when Saul turned against David and tried to kill him. The arrangement of Saul for David to be married to his daughters as a political ploy of arranged marriage does not annul David’s relationship with Jonathan. He was a son-in law twice over.

 Without Jonathan there was no David, as he would have never entered to the royal household. Without David, there would be no Jesus, the Messiah. Hence, in the queerest of ironies, it was a gay marriage that God chose to bring His kingdom come on earth. It was the expression of the grace of God.

The covenant Jonathan made with David was a blood covenant that whatever belongs to Jonathan became David's and vice-versa. That was why Jonathan's child remained in the royal household after Jonathan's death because David acknowledged him as his own son even though a threat to his own throne.

Blood covenant are sealed and made by two equal parties, where both had something to offer. It was not meant for a crown prince to make this covenant with a shepherd boy like David because David had nothing to offer in return. 

For example, the Abrahamic Covenant was a blood covenant between God and Abraham which could only have taken place because of grace and looking into the future where Jesus was the Lamb of God. Abraham had nothing to offer God except for the bread and the blood which is Jesus Christ. The Covenant was made between God and Abraham not by the standing of Abraham but by the blood of the Lamb.

Hence, the relationship between Jonathan and David, went much beyond marriage, even better than the love with a woman, for they had entered into a bi-directional covenant as equals whereas in marriage the women looses all rights and join herself to the man as a procession. It was love at its purest not an arranged political marriage nor a marriage of fancy (such as Solomon with his 700 wives) but a marriage that surpasses all tests of faithfulness to break up when even their lives was threatened. The best example of marriage in the bible ironically is not a straight marriage but a gay one where love was not just sex but faithful commitment to each other and a joining and relationship knitted together at the Spirit, Soul and body that the two flesh became one.

In 1 Sam 20:41 when Jonathan met David the last time, they were extremely passionate, with sexual foreplay and passionate kissing for it was a pure eros love between the two. They were having a sexual relationship all this while because Jonathan as the Crown prince owned David just as a man would own the women. David belonged to Jonathan and that was why he came into the royal household to live with Jonathan just as a wife would.

What made the love between Jonathan and David so incredible was that the love far exceeds the eros love between a man and a women, because it was coupled by an Agape love that broke down the power structures until it was Jonathan and not David who in 1 Sam 18:3-4  who took his clothes and weapons to give it to David as a commitment of love.

Saul was angry with Jonathan because he supported David who was becoming a threat to the throne and Saul was further angered because Jonathan was choosing David over the chance of becoming King. And Saul in his anger blurted out the truth of the same sex relationship using the term "shame on your mothers nakedness" (1 Sam 20:30) for although Saul had allowed and encouraged this relationship in the first place, he knew not the depth of it for Jonathan had chosen David rather the family name.

The love between Jonathan and David was so pure, genuine and sacrificial that God honored their marriage and Jesus came out of the lineage of David. One day, Jesus would come and sacrifice Himself so that we could join ourselves to Him in a marriage covenant of love.

 

 

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