One of the most notable shifts in American public life over the last decade was the 2015 Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. With that decision has come a widespread change in cultural perceptions—not only about gay marriage, but about homosexuality more broadly.
The debate around homosexuality has even been taken up within many churches.
Those who advocate for the inclusion and affirmation of homosexuality within the life of the church often make a particular argument: homosexuality is never mentioned by Jesus.
Jesus taught on many things. He spoke about wealth, ceremonial laws, divorce, and religious hypocrisy. Yet, absent from any of his explicit teachings in the Gospels are teachings about homosexuality.
But does Jesus’ silence on the issue actually present a problem for Christians who maintain the consistent testimony of Scripture and historic understanding of human sexuality?
The New Testament Speaks Clearly
It is important to concede the basic point: Jesus never explicitly spoke about homosexuality in any of his recorded teachings in the New Testament.
However, acknowledging that fact does not mean the New Testament itself is silent on the issue.
While Jesus does not directly address homosexuality in the Gospels, other New Testament authors do.
The apostle Paul mentions homosexuality in several of his letters, and the book of Jude also makes reference to it. When these New Testament authors speak about homosexuality, it is always described as sin. Moreover, it is often mentioned with grave consequences for those who refuse to seek forgiveness and transformation through Jesus.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Paul reminds the church in Corinth: “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
While many affirming Christians would say that issues of sexuality are secondary issues, Paul places the issue of unrepentant sin—including sexual sin and including homosexuality—as a matter of primary concern.
Paul even warns that it is easy to be deceived on these issues, but he makes clear that those who refuse to seek forgiveness and transformation through Jesus will not inherit the kingdom of God.
This means Paul does not view sexual ethics as an area where good-faith Christians can simply agree to disagree.
Yet Paul also offers hope. In the very next verse he writes: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
In Paul’s mind, a life of unrepentant sexual sin belongs to our former way of life as Christians. Believers may still struggle with many sins, but those sins are no longer meant to define their identity.
The Old Testament Witness Is Consistent
The testimony of the Old Testament is consistent with the New Testament’s teaching.
Homosexual acts are condemned implicitly in Genesis 19 in the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are also explicitly forbidden in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20.
Throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the testimony of Scripture is clear: homosexuality, like adultery and other forms of sexual deviation from God’s design, is sin and should not characterize the life of those who follow him.
Why Jesus’ Silence Is Not a Problem
So, what do we make of Jesus’ silence on the issue? Does his silence create a problem for Christians who want to maintain the consistent testimony of the rest of Scripture?
The answer is no for several important reasons.
Jesus Affirmed the Old Testament
First, Jesus was an avid affirmer of the continuing authority of the Old Testament’s moral teaching.
Many proponents of affirming Christianity argue that the commands in Leviticus are no longer binding. Yet Jesus frequently quoted from the Old Testament, including the book of Leviticus. In fact, the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is a direct quotation from Leviticus 19, part of the same holiness code where prohibitions against homosexuality appear.
Jesus also said that he did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Jesus Affirmed the Authority of Scripture
Second, during the time of Jesus, faithful Jews believed in the full inspiration and authority of Scripture. It was widely believed that the entire Bible was inspired by God and necessary for guiding people in their relationship with him.
Jesus clearly shared this view. He regularly quoted Scripture and treated it as the word of God. Because of this, Jesus would not have treated his own teaching as somehow replacing or contradicting the rest of Scripture.
Silence Does Not Equal Endorsement
Third, the absence of Jesus’ teaching on a subject does not mean endorsement.
While it may seem surprising to us that Jesus did not speak directly about homosexuality, it would not have been surprising to earlier Christians. Since the sexual revolution of the twentieth century, sexuality has become one of the most prominent cultural debates in our society. That makes Jesus’ silence feel unusual to us.
But throughout most of Jewish and Christian history, homosexuality was never considered something blessed by God. Because of that, no one in Jesus’ day would have expected him to address it as a controversial issue.
Furthermore, silence on a subject does not imply approval. For instance, Jesus never directly speaks about kidnapping or domestic abuse. Yet no one would conclude from that silence that Jesus endorsed those practices.
Jesus Spoke Positively About Marriage
Finally, Jesus did not need to explicitly condemn homosexuality because he clearly taught what God’s design for sex and marriage is.
When Jesus was asked about divorce, he quoted the opening chapters of Genesis: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:24–25).
In this exchange, Jesus affirms God’s design for marriage as a covenant union between one man and one woman.
Because Jesus affirmed this design, he also ruled out all other forms of sexual intimacy outside of it.
Why Jesus Didn’t Need to Say More
Because of this, it is not surprising that Jesus never spoke directly about homosexuality. He did not need to. By condemning sexual immorality broadly and affirming God’s design for marriage, Jesus already addressed the issue.
It is similar to how we speak in everyday life. If I tell my children not to throw a ball in the house, I do not need to specify that they should not throw a baseball, a basketball, a football, or a tennis ball. The general prohibition already covers all of those.
In the same way, Jesus’ general teaching about sexual immorality already includes homosexuality.
For that reason, Jesus’ silence on the issue should not be a problem for Christians who want to maintain the Bible’s historic teaching on sexuality.
