There are countless books that seek to unpack the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. Many fall well short of what I would consider to be helpful.

There are revisionist books which seek to radically depart from millennia of tradition and teaching. These attempt to reframe the Bible’s teaching in a way that makes it palatable for a modern, liberal audience. They suggest ways in which texts have been misunderstood, and don’t really mean what they have been understood to teach for virtually all of Christian history.

Then there are the cultural conservative style of books. These seek to hold to traditional biblical interpretation, but often go a lot further than scripture requires in spelling out detailed application of theological truths. These are the kind of books that apply the Bible’s teaching in a way that sounds very much like 19th or 20th century cultural expectations on sex, marriage, and so forth. These, too, fall short, for they typically provide only a narrow lens for understanding and obeying scripture. It’s hard not to feel that their application would sound rather foreign and odd to most Christians throughout history.

And so, when a book promises to cut through all of the modern debates, and simply look at understanding how the key texts would have been understood in their original culture, my eyes light up. This is the kind of important work that is often missing (or at least substantially underplayed) in much modern writing.

Loader explores the contextual meaning of key passages in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6; the marriage and household teaching in Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Peter and Titus; the role of women in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 11-14; divorce and remarriage in Mark 10, Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7. He also briefly looks at other related passages and ideas through the New Testament.

Who wrote it

William Loader has been a uniting church ministry in Perth, and a lecturer and professor, primarily at Murdoch University.

Why I read it

It is surprisingly difficult to find a book that seeks to understand the key texts without offering a wild array of applications with far more authority that Scripture warrants. Discovering this book (I think through regular citation from several other books I read) was a joyful find.

What I liked

I really appreciated that Loader keeps the focus on the texts themselves. He does an excellent job at unpacking why there is, at times, such a divergence of interpretation on the key texts. He engages well with the key players in various debates, succinctly articulating their views, and, where necessary, offering adequate critiques.

It’s a relatively short book, which also aids in its accessibility. It does what it sets out to do, and no more.

What I didn’t

Towards the end of the book, Loader rearticulates that the goal of the book is to be clear on what the texts themselves say, not necessarily what they might mean for modern readers:

“This volume is not about how we might do this, but about what it is which we are interpreting and its right to be heard as far as possible in its own terms.”

While I appreciated the relative brevity of the book, there were a few occasions where I had wished he had gone into more detail and got very technical in his analysis. Sometimes this was rather frustrating, but perhaps it is a somewhat uniquely a ‘preachers dilemma’, rather than a flaw of the book. It may simply have been that I had wanted him to say more than Scripture permits us to authoritatively affirm.

Then again, I think that is what is a real strength of the book. My (fairly mild) frustrations were more a result of this book being a high quality analysis, and that I couldn’t easily find reliable alterative sources to get into those technical details. In fairness, Loader has written quite a lot on the subject over the years, and perhaps another of his works contains those particular detailed (nerdy?) explorations.

Major Takeaway

“It is clear that at least some readers, if not some authors, seek to validate their own hermeneutical stance by arguing that the Bible supports it and so, depending on their special interest, find condemnation of same-sex relations under every possible leaf of the biblical text or find them affirmed even in those texts which apparently prohibit them.”

I found this next quote particularly enlightening in understanding why the Bible often has women especially in its view when talking about sexual boundaries:

“Male heirs were in most places crucial for ensuring control of property and inheritance. Wives were expected at least to produce sons. An adulterous wife was a huge threat, since she might bring foreign heirs into the family, which could threaten its stability and survival. Securing a good wife was essential. That put a high premium on a woman’s virginity, both because it ensured she would not be carrying someone else’s child into the marriage, but also because it was a promising indicator that chasteness before marriage would continue as chasteness in marriage. These societal structures ensured that people generally gave much more attention to female sexual behaviour than to male sexual behaviour, except where it, too, could threaten another man’s household by adultery, understood as taking what belongs to another man.”

Who should read it

If you’re looking for a book that will cut to the chase and unpack these key Biblical texts, this is an excellent resource.